Democracy

Democracy is a novel about political power, its acquisition, use and abuse. It is set at the beginning of a new administration, with the election campaign just over and the new President of the United States just having been elected. However, all the characters depicted are entirely fictitious. The new president's Christian name is Jacob, while his full name is never revealed. In a 1961 foreword to the novel, Henry D. Aiken states that the U.S. president of the novel "bears some resemblance to Andrew Johnson, to Garfield, and to Grant". Dates are never mentioned either, but internal evidence (at one point a 25-year-old woman says that she was "almost an infant" during the Civil War) suggests it is set in the late 1870s.