” I wonder if everyone is actually taught this anymore.”
Not since the Pledge of Allegiance has been silenced in schools so students don’t learn “and to the Republic for which it stands”.
Look at a dollar bill
We are a constitutional republic, and a representative democracy. The founders knew that direct democracies are unstable and given to transitory whims, fashions, and passions. The Constitution is meant as a buffer.
If a majority of the people decided they wanted to enslave the other, IDK, say 16%, would “democracy” mean they were entitled to do so? What if the Supreme Court said that such a law were permitted by emanations and penumbrae in the 13th Amendment, these special, wicked-smaht, justices having superman like x-ray vision, not available to mere subjects of the realm?
The framers were all much brighter than any modern politician or journalist. They absolutely understood the full meaning of democracy and they took explicit steps to avoid implementing one. They deliberately avoided using the word democracy in any of the founding documents. Those who claim a democracy is a republic can be dismissed as uninformed nitwits.
The Left believes there is no limit to what humans can do.
The Left believes they shape human nature to what they want.
It is a principal false assumption about reality.
Read Federalist 68.
Our Electoral College has a noble purpose that has nothing to do with spreading out votes to rural areas.
It is a shame that Prager puts out this nonsense.
BTTT
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
If we could ask Socrates, i am sure he would testify to how much a democracy sucks. Nothing good ever comes from democrat, democratic, democracy.
Democracy has a different name; it’s called Mob Rule.
They’re both wrong as can be.
America today is Ochlocracy.
So, did Franklin actually say that? Well, maybe.
Probably.
With some changes.
The quote doesn’t appear in any of Franklin’s writings, nor in the transcripts of the convention debate, nor in any contemporaneous newspaper accounts.
According to quote trackers Bartleby and the Yale Book of Quotations, it first appeared in 1906 in the American Historical Review. But that doesn’t mean it comes from the 20th century; the Review was publishing for the first time the notes of James McHenry, a Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention.
This is what he wrote: “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.”
The notes are both more and less specific than the legend. It was a “lady” who asked him, not just “someone.” But the location of the alleged exchange, outside Independence Hall, does not appear here.
Zara Anishanslin, a history professor at the University of Delaware, recently wrote in The Washington Post that even more details are known than that. In fact, in McHenry’s original notes, he included the footnote, “The lady here alluded to was Mrs. Powel of Philad[elphi]a.”
Mrs. Powel is Elizabeth Willing Powel, a prominent society figure and the wife of Philadelphia Mayor Samuel Powel. Like Franklin, Powel was known for her wit and knowledge. She often hosted convention delegates and their wives in her home, and later became a close friend of George and Martha Washington, who spent most of Washington’s presidency in the temporary capital of Philadelphia.
In fact, McHenry published his story much earlier than its 1906 appearance, Anishanslin wrote, in an anti-Jeffersonian newspaper in 1803, and in later pamphlets and essays. In one of these versions, he describes Franklin as “entering the room” to speak with Powel, implying this happened in her home and not on the streets of Philadelphia.
Though the anecdote didn’t become well-known until the 20th century, it must have gotten at least a modicum of attention in the 19th century. In 1814, Powel wrote to a relative that she had heard the story about her conversation with Franklin but couldn’t remember it herself.
Franklin’s witticisms often carry an ominous tinge — and were often edited. Another of his famous quotes from that era comes just after Washington had been elected the first president.
“The first man put at the helm will be a good one. Nobody knows what sort may come afterwards,” he said.
But that isn’t the full quote. He continued, “The executive will be always increasing here, as elsewhere, till it ends in a monarchy.”
There’s an extended version of “A republic, if you can keep it,” too. In McHenry’s 1803 account, Powel immediately shoots back, “And why not keep it?”
Franklin responds, “Because the people, on tasting the dish, are always disposed to eat more of it than does them good.”
Members of Congress, interpret that at your peril.