Ultimately, the American founders had something really different in mind

The founders of the American system of governance have been romanticized in many different ways over the years, but yet to be told in any kind of important manner is the story of ancient freemasonry that was the foundation, or cornerstone, of the emergent system.  Unfortunately, because of the repression by religious interests of anything not pertaining to a belief in, primarily, Christianity, all other endeavors of a scholastic nature or scientific endeavor were deemed heretical.  "Heresy", after all, is derived from the Greek "hairesis', which meant "choice', and any choice of belief other than the churchianic dogma was forbidden at the threat of torture and death.   From the fourth century A.D., the beginning of the "Dark Ages" when collected works of wisdom and thought were systematically destroyed by the Roman Church until the Reformation and Rennaissance when those works were beginning to reemerge, every effort was made by the Church to maintain itself in a dominant position.  The Prostestant faiths which broke from the Roman Church were hardly more forthcoming in support of anything intellectual or scientific.  Freemasonry, thus, was labeled as being "satanic" and diabolical, and many of those labels are evident still.  The Royal Society of England which emerged in the 17th century and became the world standard for the pursuit of scientific knowledge, was initially regarded as a "secret" society for those reasons.