“But over time, the executive branch grew exceedingly powerful. Two world wars emphasized the president’s commander in chief role and removed constraints on its power. By the second half of the 20th century, the republic was routinely fighting wars without its legislative branch, Congress, declaring war, as the Constitution required. With Congress often paralyzed by political conflict, presidents increasingly governed by edicts.”
Are you grading on a curve? Where was there a more functional democracy in the mid-19th century?
The United States in the mid 1800’s is famously known as a place and time of peace and harmony where gentlemen-scholars voted in free and fair elections.