OPINION — 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.
