[toor2]

I was mainly referring to the civil rights practices of the United States in the past (i.e. Slavery, segregation, lack of suffrage for women, etc).

The United States functioned just fine as a democracy when well over half of it's population was lacking basic rights. Civil rights aren't required in a democracy as long as a portion of the population (classically white males in the US) has the right to vote.

[grzm]

Gotcha. There's nuance in this answer that wasn't obvious to me in your first comment. Thanks for expanding.