This is an important distinction that is lost in the liberal "semantic infiltration."
At the state level, people are part of a representative republic where they vote for district assemblymen to their state legislature. They also vote directly for their governor, the executive of the state.
The United States was structured differently: the people voted directly for representatives in the House of Representatives, but the states (as sovereign governments) appointed what were effectively ambassadors to the Senate. The President, the executive of the federation of states, was selected by the states via the Electoral College made up on non-government citizens of each state.
Each state has the power over how to select their Electors to the Electoral College. It is the Electors as state delegations who choose the President.
It is wrong to simply state that the United States is a representative republic and leave it there. At the state level it is (see Article IV), but at the federal level it is more like a United Nations, with the President as Secretary General, the Senate as the Security Council, and the House as the general delegation. Each general member is its own sovereignty, and the Secretary General's purpose is to administer the negotiations between the member states. The Security Council there as a backstop against runaway actions by the members.
That's what the United States is at the federal level.
-PJ
Absolutely correct ... and to stop a “tyranny of the majority” being imposed by too much Democracy, our citizens may just need to be reminded of thIs one day via an Article V Convention oh States in which (gasp) Iowa gets the same one vote as California.
The founders foresaw the dangers of Democracy, and wisely crafted ways for sovereign states to be a check on that, including the Article V Constitutional rewrite which no federal legislator or judge can do anything to stop - unless they and the military all betray their oath and start a civil war, in which case we have the ultimate check against Democratic Tyranny via the 2A reminder of our God given right to armed self defense.
Fine words ... But when we gave our Senators to the federal government and decided to let them educate our children we pretty much gave away anything that resembles "sovereignty".. I mean, we wouldn't let Russia educate our children would we.?? Oh, wait minute, I think we already have.. :(