A Republic, If You Can Keep It

In the early United States, Americans confronted a pressing issue: how can democratic debate and the brutish English law of libel coexist?

It was once said of Elizabeth Willing Powel that “her Patriotism causes too much Anxiety.”

This is the third installment in an ongoing multi-part series On Freedom Of Press In The United States; each installment can stand alone.

#1: The Attack on N.Y. Times v. Sullivan

#2: Justice Thomas and the First Fake News Statute

#3: A Republic, If You Can Keep It

#4: William Blackstone Is The Most Powerful Person You’ve Never Heard Of

#5: Originalism and a Constitutional Right to Your Opinions

#6: Actual Malice: The Bit That Justice Thomas Left Out

Out with the old, in with the new. The year is 1787 and the delegates to the Philadelphia Convention had just agreed to a new Constitution establishing a new form of government. Elizabeth Willing Powel, a Philadelphia patriot, asked after Ben Franklin, “Well, doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?” And, the apocryphal story goes, he responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

So there we were on the precipice, about to begin an experiment as a republic. But we were not tearing everything down to start…