After the 1787 Constitutional Convention, American socialite Elizabeth Willing Powell asked Benjamin Franklin whether the founding leaders had just created a monarchy or a republic. Franklin famously answered, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
As Americans celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary, those words provide us with an excellent reminder of how to think about American freedom on this important milestone.
America’s democratic experiment was a radical choice, and it is a privileged opportunity that we must work every day to preserve.
Our Founders rejected the idea of creating a new monarchy and instead chose a democratic form of government — a republic, which entitles citizens to vote and empowers representatives elected by those citizens to govern according to the laws of the nation. They also notably rejected “direct democracy,” which would allow citizens to vote on every decision, an unwieldy option they considered could result in “mob rule,” in which the powerful could take away the rights of the less powerful.
Liberty was only possible in an “empire of laws, and not of men,” as John Adams wrote in his April 1776 “Thoughts on Government.”
The Framers knew what a privilege it would be to live in a nation where power is given to the people, where the central principle is liberty, and where the national identity is our shared democratic values.
They understood that the freedoms of worship, speech and much more would be possible only under a system of laws that gave voice to the people and their representatives.
They knew that an undemocratic leader, unwilling to submit to the rule of law, could subject citizens to the whims of the few rather than protect the rights endowed by their creator — that a structure built on the unrestrained power of one individual or family could lead to tyranny.
Those who chose to come to America, fleeing religious or other persecutions, knew the importance of independence from such repression. For those who endured the wanton brutality of slavery, disenfranchisement or second-class citizenship, it would regrettably be decades or centuries until they would taste the goodness of freedom in this nation, but they, too, eventually came to experience living under a government the people selected, with a guarantee of rights, and with protection of the rule of law.
Our Founders knew that maintaining our democratic republic would be a challenge, that it wouldn’t be self-sustaining without vigilance and self-correcting mechanisms to protect our democracy. They gave citizens the power to choose leaders who would govern democratically. They gave courts, legislators and executives the authority to check and balance power to ensure none of them accumulated unduly outsized control. And they articulated the freedoms that all people should enjoy so that those denied rights had an original document to anchor their claims.
Over the past two and a half centuries, women and men have fought to shape our nation, correct its shortcomings and protect it from enemies — foreign and domestic — thus choosing liberty time and again. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to each of those who chose to defend our republic and its freedom over any other goal.
Sustaining a democratic republic requires citizens to understand, commit to and defend the principles of our nation every day. It requires us to put our nation before our diverse personal political, ideological or ethnic identities, recognizing that a strong democratic republic is exactly what will allow us to live in our diversity, protected from a state telling us what to believe, think or say.
Miraculously, we have maintained our democratic republic for centuries. And the challenge that Franklin foreshadowed remains. On the Fourth of July, we honor those throughout American history who have shaped and defended our republic and freedom.
And now it’s our turn. We must make the daily choice to live up to the democratic values that are foundational to our country. We must embrace the privilege of living in a free nation where all people are guaranteed equal rights under our Constitution. And we must accept the challenge of defending our nation’s democratic ideals against partisanship, corruption and self-serving rule.
Our Founders knew of the dangers facing our young democratic republic and what it would take to defend our freedom. Let us honor their courage by working to keep it.
Nicole Bibbins Sedaca is the Kelly and David Pheil Fellow at the George W. Bush Institute. She wrote this for InsideSources.com.
