A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."
So the "we're a republic, not a democracy" line from people who want to argue for not letting people vote makes absolutely no sense.
The old distinction between a republic and a democracy was elected representatives passing laws versus the citizens voting directly on laws themselves.
The U.S. is of course, a hybrid and has some republican elements and some democratic elements, but in the classical sense, at the Federal level, it is more of a republic than a democracy.
Citizens voted. The question is who gets to be a citizen, but once you are acknowledged as a member of the citizenry then you were entitled to have a say in the governance.
>The old distinction between a republic and a democracy was elected representatives passing laws versus the citizens voting directly on laws themselves.
This is straight up wrong. Read any of the classics from Aristotle's Constitution of Athens to Plato's Republic. Republicanism is representation of the popular will by a gentry or elite and democracy is literally rule by the people through drawing of lots.
It's just so transparent when people make these tenuous arguments to justify disenfranchizing people who will be impacted by laws from having a say in those laws. This is the last refuge of people who want to enable tyranny and oppression.