In the twelve months leading up to next year’s American semiquincentennial, the tale will frequently be told of Benjamin Franklin’s encounter with Philadelphia matron Elizabeth Willing Powel, who asked, as Franklin left the Constitutional Convention: “Well, Doctor, what have we got — a republic or a monarchy?” To which the 81-year-old sage replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” That caveat remains as true today as when Franklin engraved it in the national memory on September 17, 1787.
“Keeping it” is, indeed, a task for “We, the People,” the phrase that begins the Preamble of the Constitution Franklin helped write. For “We, the People” were the progenitors of the United States. John Adams put this succinctly in an 1818 letter, written as the country approached its golden jubilee: “But what do We mean by the American Revolution? Do We mean the American War? The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the Minds and Hearts of the People.”
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