“A republic …if you can keep it.” We’ve all heard Benjamin Franklin’s famous “constitution day” line. But he wasn’t warning about government, or even the Constitution itself. He was warning us – about us. In his final speech at the Philadelphia Convention, Franklin also issued another warning – a dire prediction of how it would all end. In this episode, we dig into those warnings to understand what “keeping it” really meant to Franklin, Madison, Adams, Dickinson, and so many others who knew that words on paper would never be enough.

Path to Liberty: September 17, 2025

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Show Archives

Benjamin Franklin – Philadelphia Convention (17 Sept 1787)

Thomas Paine – Rights of Man, Part the Second (1792)

James Madison – Federalist 48 (1 Feb 1788)

John Dickinson – Fabius IV (19 Apr 1788)

John Jay – Address to the People of the State of New York (1788)

James Otis, Jr – Freeborn American (27 Apr 1767)

Samuel Adams – Candidus, Boston Gazette (14 Oct 1771)

Machiavelli – Discourses on Livy (1513)

Thomas Jefferson – Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIX (1784)

Benjamin Franklin – Letter To The Abbés Chalet And Arnaud (17 Apr 1787)

Papers of Dr. James McHenry on the Federal Convention of 1787

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