In September 1787, as Benjamin Franklin was leaving the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, a woman reportedly asked him what kind of government the delegates had created. His answer was brief, but perhaps more prophetic than he could have imagined. “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Franklin didn’t say when you keep it. He said if. And therein lies a warning Americans would do well to remember. Our Founding Fathers understood something we seem increasingly inclined to forget: The greatest threat to the American republic will come from Americans themselves.
George Washington warned against political factions that placed party loyalty above country. John Adams feared democracy could destroy itself, while James Madison worried that factions would sacrifice the rights of others to advance their own interests. And in 1838, a young Abraham Lincoln delivered perhaps the most chilling warning of all:
“If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time or die by suicide.”
Now consider America in 2026.
We have become a country where political opponents are increasingly treated as enemies, and in the case of the presidency, preference has been replaced by hatred. Compromise is regarded as surrender, while we complain about government spending and simultaneously demand more government benefits.
We denounce deficits while electing politicians who promise programs and tax advantages without explaining how we’ll pay for them. And increasingly, we judge government not by how well it protects our freedoms, but by how much it promises to give us.
Consider the current obsession with affordability.
No question that housing, groceries, insurance, and medical care impose genuine financial burdens on millions of Americans. But somewhere along the way, we’ve blurred the distinction between necessities and luxuries.
Food delivered to our doorstep, multiple streaming subscriptions, expensive smartphones, new cars loaded with options, and vacations previous generations might have considered once-in-a-lifetime experiences have become ordinary expectations.
A recent article in American Thinker described a woman who paid $32 to have an Arby’s double roast beef sandwich delivered to her home. The sandwich cost $13.28. Uber Eats added delivery charges, taxes, and a tip, bringing the total to $32. And of course, she then complained about the price.
Thirty-two dollars for a sandwich!
It seems when our income cannot support the lifestyle we’ve come to expect, we increasingly blame the economy, politicians, or someone else rather than question our own choices.
It’s a small example of a much larger cultural problem: We’ve become increasingly focused on what we believe America owes us and less concerned about what we owe America. And that brings us to socialism.
Socialism of every stripe has failed everywhere it’s been attempted because it replaces individual responsibility with government dependency, private initiative with state control, and individual liberty with collective authority. And now we have elected at least nine self-described democratic socialists or DSA-backed lawmakers to serve in the next Congress. And these are people who will write the laws that govern our lives.
Their political philosophy raises a question the Founders would surely have recognized: At what point does expanding government’s responsibility for our lives diminish our responsibility for ourselves?
The Founders understood that a republic required more than a Constitution. It required citizens capable of exercising restraint, accepting responsibility, respecting opposing views, and recognizing that individual freedom carries individual obligations.
No constitutional document, irrespective of how brilliantly conceived, can protect a nation from citizens who no longer respect its principles. Nearly 250 years ago, Franklin gave us a republic and warned that its survival was not guaranteed. “A republic, if you can keep it,” seems prophetic now.
The question is whether we still have the character, discipline, and willingness to accept the personal responsibility necessary to do so.