Whatever Happened To Truth, Justice & the American Way

7. A Democracy or a Republic?

As Benjamin Franklin departed from Independence

Hall that September in 1887, after having completed the

task of drafting then signing the Constitution, he was

asked that very thing.

What form ofgovernment are

you giving us/"

the spectator asked. Mr. Franklin

replied, 'l1

Republic

ifyou can keep it."

The newly agreed upon Constitution incorporated

the idea of

''people's"

government, a democracy with

that of representation, a republic with frequent

elections, making representatives responsible to the

people. There were to be carefully enumerated and

separated government powers, ·. along with built-in

checks and balances.

Samuel Adams had warned,

"Remember, democ–

racy never lasts long. It soon wastes/ exhausts and

murders itself! There never was a democracy that did

not commit suicide. Keeping that in mind, the Founding

Fathers gave us what we could today call a

representative democracy, or a democratic republic.

So, our Constitutional Republic originally consisted

of the 13 sovereign states and a subservient central

federal government consisting of the Executive, the

Legislative, and the Judicial divisions, with no one

division having absolute power to govern. Further, the

first 10 Amendments passed by Congress in its session

became a Bill of Rights, declaring that,

the power

is not delegated to the Federal government by the

Constitution nor prohibited by it to the states, or

reserved to the states

respective/~

or to the people.

Of course, today, the word

"democracy"

is used

extensively among the people. But

''democracy"

cannot

be found in the Constitution. Why were the Founding