So confused and blended did monarchy and republicanism become in the eighteenth century that people, especially in the English-speaking world, had trouble precisely defining them. Republicanism, in particular, assumed a wide range of meanings and, as Alexander Hamilton said, was “used in various senses.” By the early nineteenth century John Adams professed to believe that he had “never understood” what republicanism was and thought that “no other man ever did or ever will.” He concluded in frustration that republicanism “may signify any thing, every thing, or nothing.”
