Cameron Brown: Franklin’s challenge
He was 81 years old. His body was ailing but his mental acuity was sharp and his remarks to the convention were compelling. His physical infirmities required another to read his statement in support of what we hail today as a “miracle.” The labored proceedings in the old Pennsylvania State House had come to a climactic moment of decision.
Who better than the “Sage of Philadelphia” to bring it all into sharp focus for the assembled delegates to consider, and for us to ponder today. Here is what was said: “I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government, but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered; and believe further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government.”
Upon exiting the building, Franklin was asked, “... what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" Without hesitation, Franklin quipped, “A republic, if you can keep it.” And that response remains the great challenge of the American people today.
George Washington presided over the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention. Unlike Franklin he said little, but one can imagine his mind was deeply affected by the determination of the delegates to uniquely fashion a government worthy of the sacrifice of the brave souls he led in battle just a few short years before. This would be evident in the wording of his first inaugural address: “... the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained: And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”
Our Founders wisely entrusted our national government to the people, not to a ruling party or ruling class or ruling executive, but the people. Borrowing from Daniel Webster, Lincoln put a fine point on it as a government of, by and for the people. For emphasis, he used the word “people” three times in his famous address, and government only once.
The oath of office for the president and legislature is to defend the Constitution established by the people. It is not to obstruct the will of the people, but to protect, support and defend that which the people have advanced as the ruling law of the land in order to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” From Franklin to Washington to President Lincoln, the underlying assent is to do no harm, to be a blessing not a bane, yet the great imperative of our day resounds with Franklin’s challenge. And that imperative is to save the sovereignty of our nation by ensuring the integrity of our borders. Civil life rests on civil law and civil order, yet we have chaos on our southern border that transgresses the “rules of order and right” President Washington claimed are ordained by heaven.
A generation ago, Longfellow’s poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” was often required to be memorized by school children as was the “Gettysburg Address.” Has the echo of Lexington Green so dimmed in our hearing that we have become inured to the sacrifice and gift of our liberty, and most importantly, our stewardship of that liberty that President Washington said is “entrusted to all”? Heaven forbid! “For, borne on the night-wind of the past, through all our history, to the last, in the hour of darkness and peril and need, the people will waken and listen to hear the hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, and the midnight message of Paul Revere.”
— Cameron S. Brown is president of the Kalamazoo Abraham Lincoln Institute and a former Michigan State Senator. Follow him at HistoryFrontiers.blog.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Cameron Brown: Franklin’s challenge
