George Kennedy, Marc Plattner, and Paul Rahe discuss the importance to both popular and academic audiences of republican forms of government, from antiquity to contemporary deliberations about concepts and practice. In response to a question about what kind of government had emerged from the American constitutional convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin is reported to have said, “A republic–if you can keep it.” Franklin’s remark underscores the fragile but durable nature of republican forms of political administration.
At the time of this discussion, Kennedy was professor of classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Marc Plattner, a Fellow at the Center (1983-84), was adviser on economic and social affairs at the United States Mission to the United Nations. Rahe, also a Fellow at the Center (1983-84), was professor of classics at Franklin and Marshall College.
This edition of Soundings was conducted by Wayne J. Pond.
