Maybe, just maybe, democracy can and does work. The question before us -- which you ignore -- is whether it would better work without the 17th amendment than with it, and not whether or not the Republic died in 1861, or 1912 or 1913.
Not to be subtle or anything, but there's a bit more to the workings of federalism than the direct election of the Senate.
Democracy has not been served by the 17th amendment precisely for opposite reasons than DiLorenzo suggests. The 17th amendment has negated democracy in destroying the constituents' relationship to both the state legislature and the Senators, who are further removed from the voter by the severe dilution of the direct election over the State legislature's more direct relation to the constituent.
x, I know you feel that the 17th didn't change much. Indeed, in the makeup of the Senate post-17th, little changed. (Go Boies Penrose!). Still, it failed in its purposes. I see no gains in it other than a transfer of corruption. In the diluted role of the citzen in transfering the Senate selection from local/representative to state-wide referendum, I see far more lost than gained. I still hope to convince you of this. Thanks, btw, for your good post.
A fact is a fact. Post-17th, the States DO NOT have representation at the federal level.
The U.S. system of checks and balances, carefully designed by our founging fathers, is no more. Due to our piss-poor public schools, most Americans understand "checks and balances" as the relationship between the three branches of federal government. However, it was also designed to allow for peripheral government, i.e. the States, to check Federal Power.
THIS SYSTEM IS NOW GONE.
Probably it was the second senator to do that -- John F. Kennedy -- who really started the flood, but prior to 1914 people recognized that being elected or serving as a senator wasn't especially good practice for being president. Afterwards, senatorial races were recognized as run-ups to presidential campaigns. And Senators earn their reputation from statesmanship or orator as Webster and Clay did, but from personal magnetism, vote-winning power, and getting their name on legislation that might be unnecessary or harmful.
And over time, it meant that senators came to look at things more from the point of view as potential presidents, rather than as local representatives. It didn't happen all at once, though. Through much of the 20th century, senators were still concerned mostly with local issues (segregation and military bases for Southerners, water projects for Westerners, housing and labor legislation for Easterners). Kennedy and TV had a lot to do with the change, but whether direct election was the cause of government becoming more centralized in Washington, or a result of it is something to argue about.
People are right in pointing out that direct election didn't do one important thing it was supposed to do -- eliminate corruption. But then they seem to argue that it created greater corruption and that going back would clean up the Senate. As you say, the 17th amendment transfered corruption from one sphere to another, and going back would likely simply shift it back to the state legislatures.