Are you referring to the Articles Of Confederation? Why do you consider that not to have been a "republic"? It had a constitution, there were no titles of nobility, and it had a representative government... sort of. Delegates to Congress were chosen by the states. It was also considered a "perpetual union". That's stated in several places such as
XIII.
Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.
But it should be noted that the amendment formula in the Articles was absurd... requiring unanimous consent of all the state legislatures. But now our System has essentially become equally absurd. States with just 4% of the US population can block any amendment... that is if an amendment can even make it out of Congress.
What we call the Constitutional Convention is a misnomer... where we're rewriting our own history to make it sound as if a new constitution was the intent. It wasn't. The Delegates were charged with fixing the unfixable Articles. The old Congress went along with the sending the new draft constitution to the states, but this was somewhat of an unauthorized "coup".
= new reply since forum marked as read
