But did not the fathers create modernity’s first democracy?
No. They created “a republic, if you can keep it,” as Ben Franklin said, when asked in Philadelphia what kind of government they had given us. A constitutional republic, to protect and defend God-given rights that antedated the establishment of that government.
We used to know that. Growing up, we daily pledged allegiance “to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands,” not some democracy. As Walter Williams writes, Julia Ward Howe did not write the “Battle Hymn of the Democracy.”
Today, we are taught to worship what our fathers abhorred to such an extent that politicians and ideologues believe America was put on Earth to advance a worldwide revolution to ensure that all nations are democratic.
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