ABSTRACT
The Founders would be amazed by many things in contemporary society, but perhaps none more than the continued existence of the Constitution. When he emerged from the Constitutional Convention and was asked by the waiting crowd what kind of government they had, Ben Franklin famously responded, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” The fragility of our system—or of any system grounded in a faith in the common people to govern wisely—was foremost in the minds of the Founders. They feared that any free society had to contend with two possible ends: tyranny and anarchy. On the one hand, the people had to withstand the constant pressure toward state oppression, leading to the rebirth of the monarchy or another form of dictatorship; on the other hand, the people had to resist the continual lure of individual freedom without boundaries or responsibilities, leading to social decline and collapse. Franklin was serious when he suggested that it was unlikely that the system would survive. For that reason the Constitution is designed foremost for the preservation of the constitutional order. It is meant to avoid state tyranny more than to create positive liberty, more to avoid the excesses of mob rule and unrestrained individual freedom than to establish a libertarian world of personal choice.
