Hello everyone I'm Clay Jenkinson and welcome to this introduction to our

podcast edition of this week's program. It's on the question are we a

republic? Were we ever a republic? Could we be a republic again? My guest is Dr.

Joseph Ellis, my dear old friend, old meaning many decades. He's in the hills of Virginia now in retirement but still

writing books and still doing op-ed pieces and still widely consulted for his genius.

I've read his books, all of them, at one time or another, some of them many times, including

my favorite passionate sage about John Adams and my second favorite, his excellency, about George Washington and my second favorite his excellency

about George Washington and my third favorite although you know who's counting his book American Sphinx the character of Thomas Jefferson

but all of his books are worth reading and if you want to

understand the early national period in books written by someone with a

superb prose style and wit and someone who doesn't get bogged down in the

weeds but nevertheless is an outstanding research historian,

your man is Joseph Ellis.

So today we talked about a republic and the question is what did the founding

fathers mean by that you know that when the constitutional convention ended on

September 1787 Dr. Franklin who's 81 comes, he's about to be carried in a sedan chair back to his home, and he frankly did not play a very important role in the Constitutional Convention, but his stature his being there his wit his wisdom

You know the fact that he was a world historical

Celebrity in his own time more of a celebrity than George Washington,

certainly more than Thomas Jefferson.

A woman comes towards him and says,

Dr Franklin, what have you given us?

And he says, of course, a republic republic if you can keep it.

...