love how we collectively revolted against the idea of monarchy, ridding ourselves of the tyranny of various inbred lunatics with no business ruling, only to build a much more convoluted system that led to the exact same material result
The founding fathers were a direct result of the Enlightenment and a worldwide push for rationality, philosophy and the real advance of science, but the vast majority of them were in some ways already arisitocrats of a sort, in that they held lands, inherited wealth, inherited positions and were groomed for that success. Even an alleged outsider, like Alexander Hamilton was descended directly from Scottish aristocracy, and his "whore" mother was the daughter of a wealthy landowner and gentleman farmer who was only a "whore" in that she had a scndalous affair with... Alexander Hamilton's mildly aristocratic but ne'er do well father. And Hamilton is one of the most
common ones. Even as a bastard, no small matter at the time, he's much more Jon Snow than Oliver Twist. Raised in and around society and wealth and sponsored by wealthy men.
He would never have been permitted to marry his wealthy wife without the slight sheen of respectability that even his bastard hybrid status brought to the table and he'd never have gotten that far in the first plkace without it.
American independence was of course driven by resentment of the crown, but all of those founding fathers had some outrageous built in assumptions about wealth and status that wouldn't fly today. And they also contained many deseprate for the elevation in status that they couldn't have through English aristiocracy in this colony, so in some ways decided to make their own.
They talk about meritocracy and enlightened thought, but there was no shortage of built in aristoicratic tendency, systems and families. And they didn't want the hoi polloi voting at all. Much as Greek democracy actually only included the wealthy and aristocratic.