The 250th Anniversary of “A Republic, Madam, If You Can Keep It.”

Those were the words of Benjamin Franklin, in answer to a lady’s query of “What kind of government have you given us, Mr. Franklin.”

The date was 1787 and the place, the Grand Convention at Philadelphia. Most delegates did not arrive intending to draft a new constitution. Many assumed that the convention’s purpose was to discuss and draft improvements to the existing Articles of Confederation, and would not have agreed to participate otherwise.

You see, those Founders we are so fond of quoting did not give us a nation where all men are created equal. Slaveowners at the time, they gave us the promise of such a nation, and it has been a battle every step of the way since, to keep that promise alive.

We will keep it, Mr. Franklin, because it is too valuable to lose.

Yet, in all my 91 years of observation, I have never seen us so politically torn, so set against one another in what seems to be an existential confrontation. The last hundred of those 250 years have not been easy

The Great Depres…