Benjamin Franklin was 81 years old when, on September 17, 1787, he delivered his final address before the Constitutional Convention. Franklin expressed confidence in the United States Constitution while acknowledging the humanity behind the historic document: “I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution: For when you assemble a Number of Men to have the Advantage of their joint Wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those Men all their Prejudices, their Passions, their Errors of Opinion, their local Interests, and their selfish Views.”
“From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does,” Franklin continued. “Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution, because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.”
After the Constitutional Convention came to a close, a group of citizens asked Franklin about the type of government that the delegates had adopted. Franklin famously responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
The promise of the Republic was reiterated in Article 4, Section 4, which historians agree ensured every state would operate as a representative democracy. Article 4, Section 4 states:
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
Under this section, Congress also has the power to protect states from invasion and other forms of violence. “It authorizes the legislature of each state (or the executive, if the legislature cannot be assembled in time) to request federal help with riots or other violence,” the Annenberg Guide to the United States Constitution explains.
