A Quote by Benjamin Franklin
A Republic, if you can keep it.
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After the signing of the Constitution, Benjamin Franklin was asked by a woman on the street, "What have you given us, sir?" Franklin Responded, "A Republic, if you can keep it." A critical moment in history has come; our Republic is in jeopardy. Can we keep it? If the answer to that question, as I fear, is "no," then we have no one to blame but ourselves.
A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy - "A republic," replied the Doctor, "if you can keep it."
Outside Independence Hall when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."
All of us are citizens in a republic much larger than the Republic of America. It is the Republic of Letters, a realm of the mind that extends everywhere, without police, national boundaries, or disciplinary frontiers.
You may ask what kind of a republic I dream of. Let me reply: I dream of a republic independent, free, and democratic, of a republic economically prosperous and yet socially just; in short, of a humane republic which serves the individual and which therefore holds the hope that the individual will serve it in turn. Of a republic of well-rounded people, because without such it is impossible to solve any of our problems, human, economic, ecological, social, or political.
If Aristotle, Livy, and Harrington knew what a republic was, the British constitution is much more like a republic than an empire. They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. If this definition is just, the British constitution is nothing more or less than a republic, in which the king is first magistrate. This office being hereditary, and being possessed of such ample and splendid prerogatives, is no objection to the government's being a republic, as long as it is bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend.
We still have our people working in the cane fields in the Dominican Republic. People are still repatriated all the time from the Dominican Republic to Haiti. Some tell of being taken off buses because they looked Haitian, and their families have been in the Dominican Republic for generations. Haitian children born in the Dominican Republic still can't go to school and are forced to work in the sugarcane fields.
Absolute virtue is impossible and the republic of forgiveness leads, with implacable logic, to the republic of the guillotine.
It is a reality attested by all history that if a republic assumes imperial functions it will not remain a republic.
The typical American corporation is a shareholders' republic the same way that China is a peoples' republic.
I have established the republic. But today it is not clear whether the form of government is a republic, a dictatorship, or personal rule.
The Republic is one and can't be divided: That's the Constitution! It means the Republic can't ground its action on local community criteria. Can't accept it.
Every Arab 'republic' has been a republic of fear, but only Saddam Hussein's Iraq surpassed the Assads' Syria in number of victims.
A republic - if you can keep it - is about limitation, and for good reason, because we are mortal and our actions are imperfect.
The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic.
The republic I fell in love with, the republic I risked my life to defend, the values I hold dear, the integrity that we all share - these do not know prejudice and they do not accept partiality.
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