In practice what happens is that some boondoggle results in a catastrophic too big to brush aside and the part of the executive branch in question decides that just not doing that thing going forward is better than the scrutiny from the legislative branch and change their policy. Nobody is ever meaningfully held accountable. Sometimes there's a token scapegoat. The above pattern holds both at the federal and state level.
That wasn't the people. That was the oligarchs disagreeing as to who got to own the slaves and reap the spoils of genocide.
Oh come on, quit with the BS talking points. War on your territory is NEVER good for business and overall wealth and they knew that back in the 18th century too. They would have been far, far, far, richer throwing their lot in with the status quo. Many of the prominent individuals who played key roles the revolution lost their wealth and in many cases their lives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United...
So they fought and expended resources because they disagreed on which land stealing genocidal slavers got to be on top of the pile...
If it was for the good of the people, 'the people' would have included people and not just the elite men.