<span>Certainly not. The United States has never, since its founding, consisted of a small number of citizens, still less of citizens that could practically assemble in one place at one time and debate their actions. A pure democracy in this classical Greek city-state sense was never practical, and was not seriously considered.
What the Framers created was a constitutional representative republic. Sovereignty is vested in the people, like a democracy (and unlike a constitutional monarchy), but the people do not rule directly. Instead, they elect representatives, at regular intervals, and these rule in the peoples' stead. Their powers are limited, first, by the fact that they are elected for only short terms, and must be re-elected if they wish to continue in power, and secondly, and much more importantly, by the Constitution itself, which puts express written limits on their powers even between elections.</span>
The Continental System was a decree by the Emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte which was made to limit British trade and bankrupt the country.
At his mightiest, Napoleon controlled almost every powerful country in Europe, except for Britain and Russia. He found it difficult to directly attack Britain and instead wanted to bankrupt it.
However, this eventually backfired and left France in a very bad economic conditions and Britain took advantage of this.
Many smaller countries that France had annexed, took up arms against Napoleon and began to fight. With a weakened economic position, Napoleon eventually lost the Empire.
