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Benjamin Franklin’s Challenge
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
By Professor Robert E. Calvert
The nation faces policy challenges in the twenty-first century that will be unrivaled in both number and scope. Nonetheless, governments both national and subnational seem unable to muster the will, resources, and administrative capacity to address many of these problems with the proper perspective and determination necessary to cope with them adequately. Those cognizant of this condition, and of the warning it seems to be posing for the future vitality of the political system, might well be reminded of Dr. Benjamin Franklin's challenge to the nation following the adjournment of the Constitutional Convention in September 1787. When asked by a certain Mrs. Powell of Philadelphia what kind of government had been bestowed on the country as a result of the Convention's four-month effort, Dr. Franklin was reported to have said: "A republic, madam, if you can keep it." In all probability, in Franklin's opinion, the ability of the young nation to "keep the republic" was open to question. Although government has survived the social, economic, and political challenges confronting it for more than two centuries, the ability of the nation to "keep the republic" while responding logically to policy challenges that are growing increasingly complex is open to question.
William L. Morrow, A Republic, If You Can Keep It: Constitutional Politics and Public Policy (Prentice Hall, 2000), pp. 1-2. (William L. Morrow, of the College of William and Mary, is a former member of DePauw’s Faculty.)
. . . He [Frederick Douglass] was a giant in the great American tradition, using the idealistic legacy of the founders to enrich democracy as it is actually lived in the land, and in so doing, employing another of the great legacies of the founding: active citizenship. It is that inheritance of democratic agency that enabled the young republic to survive and, more important, to evolve. The point is made in the story told about Benjamin Franklin. After participating in the secret deliberations during which the Constitution was drafted, Franklin is said to have encountered an inquisitive woman in Philadelphia and to have had the following exchange with her:
“What have you made for us, Dr. Franklin?”
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
If you can keep it. Franklin understood that democracy was not forever assured to the United States, and that active citizenship was required to keep and enhance it. The contentious debates over the terms of the Constitution had confirmed what the founders already knew, that democracy was hard work, and they left us a heroic example of how to do that work.
Roger Wilkins, Jefferson’s Pillow: The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism (Beacon Press, 2001), pp. 139-140. Roger Wilkins will be speaking at 2:45 PM on Friday, April 11.
Recall Benjamin Franklin’s answer to a large crowd asking the Constitution’s authors what they had “given” to the American public: “A republic, if you can keep it.” Franklin’s answer was an expression of hope, but it was also a challenge, a reminder of a continuing obligation, even a dare. His suggestion was that any document committed to republican self government depends on its effectiveness not on the decisions of the founders, and much less on the worship of texts and authorities and ancestors, but instead on the actions and commitments of its citizenry over time. . . .
My most general topic here has been the preconditions for maintaining a republic. . . .
Cass R. Sunstein, Republic.com (Princeton University Press, 2001), pp. 200-201. Cass Sunstein will be speaking at 7:30 PM on Tuesday, April 8.
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