But they couldn’t read because they were poor immigrants to a country that at the time led the world in literacy. The literacy rate in New England for adult men was 90% in 1776. It’s not a surprise that New England probably remains the best governed part of the country.

And there are instances of democracy working well. Alexis de Tocqueville described a healthy democracy existing in the midwest in 1831. Tammany Hall was particularly bad and corrupt even by the standards of the time.