<P> The American Revolution led to the creation of a new Constitution of the United States in 1787, with a national legislature based partly on direct elections of representatives every two years, and thus responsible to the electorate for continuance in office . Senators were not directly elected by the people until the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913 . Women, men who owned no property, and blacks, and others not originally given voting rights in most states eventually gained the vote through changes in state and federal law in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries . Until it was repealed by the Fourteenth Amendment following the Civil War, the Three - Fifths Compromise gave a disproportionate representation of slave states in the House of Representatives relative to the voters in free states . </P> <P> In 1789, Revolutionary France adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and, although short - lived, the National Convention was elected by all males in 1792 . Universal male suffrage was re-established in France in the wake of the French Revolution of 1848 . </P> <P> Representative democracy came into particular general favour in post-industrial revolution nation states where large numbers of citizens evinced interest in politics, but where technology and population figures remained unsuited to direct democracy . As noted above, Edmund Burke in his speech to the electors of Bristol classically analysed their operation in Britain and the rights and duties of an elected representative . </P> <P> Globally, a majority of the world's people live in representative democracies including constitutional monarchies and republics with strong representative branches . </P>

How does representative democracy allows individuals to gain power