Founders said people were sheep

Ferdinand Bardamu writes:

America began life not as a democracy, but as an “aristocratic” republic. Under this model of elite governance, also known as federalism, civic participation was restricted to propertied White males. The basis for this particular exclusion was traditional English jurisprudence, which maintained autonomous agency was not possible without ownership of property. John Adams, a prominent Federalist, spoke for the majority of American Founding Fathers when he wrote:

“Such is the frailty of the human heart that very few men who have no property, have any judgment of their own. They talk and vote as they are directed by some man of property, who has attached their minds to his interest …. [They are] to all intents and purposes as much dependent upon others, who will please to feed, clothe, and employ them, as women are upon their husbands, or children on their parents.”[i]

I did not know that the Founders had such a dim view of the agency of ordinary citizens.

I am not sure it is much different today. Most people are sheep. Politicians don't say this, except maybe Joe Biden implying that black voters do as they are told.

We must look to human biology to understand why diversity always fails. The separate evolutionary histories of each human race, which inhabited different ecological niches for thousands of years, entails average differences in intelligence and temperament between populations. This makes conflict inevitable when racial groups must live together under a single roof. As far as human relations are concerned, the greater the diversity, the greater the severity of the ensuing conflict. If group differences are too wide, the prospect for internal stability is diminished considerably.

In America, immigration policy has increased the potential for race conflict.

Even if all the races had the same intelligence and temperament, we would still see big conflicts between ethnic groups. That is what we see in all parts of the world.