Benjamin Rush, Signer of Declaration of Independence, 1798

from Essays, Literary, Moral, and Philosophical

"We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government, that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by the means of the Bible.  For this Divine book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and those sober and frugal virtues, which constitute the soul of republicanism."

Republicanism mentioned here is in the strict political sense, not the Party. Republicanism's description is more commonly known as a representative democracy, as was Rome; it restricts the term "democracy" to refer only to direct democracy, as seen in Greece.