Foreigners doubted that it could exist.

They doubted that Democracy could ever govern a nation.

They knew despots, like the Prussian King, Frederic, who walked about the streets of Berlin and used his walking-stick on the cringing persons whom he passed on the sidewalk and did not like the looks of.

They remembered the crazy Czar, Peter, and they knew about the insane tendencies of the British sovereign, George.

The world argued from these and other examples that monarchy was safe; it could not doubt that the supply of monarchs would never give out; but it had no hope of a Republic governed by a President.