"A republic, if you can keep it..."

“We get the government we deserve.”
Alexis de Tocqueville

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
Winston Churchill

At the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 18, 1787, a Mrs. Powel anxiously awaited the results and as Benjamin Franklin emerged from the long task now finished asked him directly, `Well, Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?' `A republic, if you can keep it,' responded Franklin.