“A Republic, if you can keep it.”

**********************************************
 “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
**********************************************

The response is attributed to Benjamin Franklin—at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, when queried as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation—in the notes of Dr. James McHenry, one of Maryland’s delegates to the Convention.

McHenry’s notes were first published in The American Historical Review, vol. 11, 1906, and the anecdote reads: “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.”

But, are we gradually losing it in favor of an Oligarchy?