A Republic If You Can Keep It
Allison Silberberg's Plain Talk
A Republic If You Can Keep It
By Allison Silberberg
July 22, 2025
As I wrote a week ago, our Founding Fathers prevailed to form a more perfect union, but the struggle for freedom was truly against the greatest odds.
They put everything on the line so that we could become a country. Our founding reminds us that we can never take it for granted, especially during the times in which we live.
The Founding Fathers convened the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia, where it was steamy hot, just as the Eastern Seaboard is today. They debated and ratified the Constitution and ironed out their differences in order to create a republic, eventually becoming a democratic republic.
After the convention, Benjamin Franklin, who was a recognizable figure in Philadelphia, was approached by Elizabeth Willing Powel, who was a prominent Philadelphian committed to the cause of a new country. She asked Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin famously replied, “A republic if you can keep it.”
He did not say if the elected officials can keep it, nor did he say if others can keep it. He said if you can keep it, meaning if “we the people” of our country can keep it.
He meant that our form of government would require public involvement and participation as well as transparency and accountability. It would be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It would be a republic with a Constitution not ruled by a king but rather one that would have three equal branches of government that would be a check on each other. A republic if you can keep it.
By its nature, democracy is fragile, and it is being tested now, as never before. At times, we have been threatened by wars abroad, but this time the struggle is from within.
At the end of Steven Spielberg’s World War II film, “Saving Private Ryan,” the mortally wounded Tom Hanks' character tells a young Private Ryan played by Matt Damon, “Earn this.” It always chokes me up, even as I type this.
I wonder at times if we are earning this, if we are doing all we can to earn this and justify their remarkable sacrifices and the untold sacrifices of our parents and their parents and the generations before them. So many gave their lives or put themselves at risk so that we could have freedom, so that all of us could live without the cloak of tyranny hanging over us. Have we earned this?
I visited the beaches of Normandy in late November of 2022. As I stood there, the beaches were completely empty and silent except for the waves hitting the shore. I could see all the way up the coast from where our men hit the beaches at Utah Beach and Omaha Beach and much of the way up to where the Canadians and the British hit their locations at Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches.
The day I was there, the weather changed rapidly every few minutes at most. It was brisk and then rainy and then sunny and then cold. No wonder General Dwight D. Eisenhower had an impossible task deciding when it would be best to begin the invasion.
I knew my view of the melodic waves along the beaches was the exact opposite of how the beaches looked on D-Day in 1944: the massive bloodshed that turned the sand red, the bodies that lay everywhere, the bullets and bombs that were deafening, the men who were screaming, suffering, dying, or diving for cover and praying. I knew.
Looking out toward the endless ocean, I envisioned boats that filled the sea and approached the shore full of men, the airplanes that covered the sky and dropped parachuters, the noise from all the weaponry – a cacophony. And yet, as I stood there, it was actually silent and empty except for the waves coming and going. It was like any other beachfront except it wasn’t any other beachfront. It is hallowed ground.
The land spoke a language of raw bravery and incalculable sacrifice of our men and all those lives of our allies on D-Day. Have we as Americans forgotten? Or can we continue to bear all of this in mind as we look to the future? What would those men say to us today if they could?
Those beaches and the battlefields beyond and all the battles of the Pacific involved so much sacrifice to conquer totalitarianism, hate, and white supremacy. Lest we forget.
It is as if Benjamin Franklin knew so long ago that someday our republic would be challenged by a tyrant far away or would be challenged by a movement within our country. When he said “a republic if you can keep it,” it was as if he was warning us all, speaking to future generations of Americans that he would not live to see. His words were prescient.
There is a direct tie between the work of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Mr. Franklin’s cautionary words, the beaches of Normandy, and the times today. It is not a great leap of faith to connect those dots. But not to do so is dangerous.
Honor, courage, truth, service above self, freedom from tyranny. These are far more than words or mere concepts. They are a moral compass, a guidepost that must transcend the times in which we live. Our country must be bigger than the current themes of the day so that our democracy may endure.
Each generation must remember or relearn this, for it is only a republic if we the people can keep it. And the Constitution is our north star. Let’s earn this.
Allison Silberberg is a writer and public affairs/public policy consultant. She served as mayor of Alexandria, Virginia, 2016-2019. Her work includes working on staff on Capitol Hill for Senator Lloyd M. Bentsen (D-TX). She is the author of “Visionaries In Our Midst: Ordinary People who are Changing our World,” which hit #1 on Amazon’s List for Philanthropy & Charity. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Dallas Morning News, on PBS.org. To learn more, please visit: www.allisonsilberberg.com
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