It is reported that when Ben Franklin was asked after the Constitutional Convention in 1787, if America was a republic or a monarchy he replied, "A republic...If you can keep it."
Evidently there was some doubt as to whether a government who derived it's powers from "We, the People" would actually survive.
Republic, Democracy...I won't quibble over words or descriptions. I will leave that waste of time to those who miss the point or want to convolute our founders words for some other agenda.
This isn't much of a diary, more like a reminder I guess to any others like me who might be ruminating today on exactly where the Union is in this 21st century. When I look at our government today it sometimes resembles a shopping bazzare where anyone with 30 pieces of silver can buy themselves a piece instead of a government of "We The People."
Our founders, our original men and women who did the dying and heavy lifting in hammering out a vision and version of a country much different than the ones they had come from,that were ruled by royalty or religion, knew all the pitfalls from personal experience. They had seen time after time what damage comes from entrenched royalty and elite circles, intrigues, personal agendas and favored classes of the throne.
But the price for this Republic really is eternal vigilance.
So maybe we could think a bit about two of the basic rules they set for keeping the Republic.
And the warnings they gave us because they forsaw the age old dangers that would inevitably arise to threaten the Union.
Equality
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The Union
George Washington Farewell Address 1779
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad;.... But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed,......it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and
associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to
direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of
the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle,
and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an
artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated
will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and
enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate
triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror
of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the
organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and
modified by mutual interests.
However combinations or associations of the above description may now and
then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."
*http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp
So can we keep the Republic? Are our politicans keeping the Republic?
Are we still a Union? Are we still one from many? Despite everything.