S&R asked:

What country started out as a democracy?

I don't know which country(s) started out as democracies (and I doubt that any modern states did), but I know that the United States emphatically did not.   The United States was and is a federation of republics, run as a sort of uber-republic. A democracy would have to be tiny, like the ancient Greek City-States, or town-meeting towns, in order to have the whole citizen body participate in government.

Dave Oesterreich