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I was going to start in a strange place.

This is Holly Brewer.

Hi, I'm Holly Brewer.

I'm a professor of history at the University of Maryland College Park, and I work on early

modern debates about justice and power.

I called Holly up a couple of weeks ago because I've been thinking a lot about this principle

that we have tended to agree on here in the United States.

We're a republic.

We have no kings.

We have no kings.

And I wanted to know how that started.

I mean, I know we had a declaration of independence.

I know we fought a long and brutal revolutionary war to secure that started. I mean, I know we had a declaration of independence. I know we fought a long and brutal

revolutionary war to secure that independence, those blessings of liberty. And I know that we wrote

and then rewrote a constitution that cemented that principle. But when and how did that become

something that we ostensibly agreed on?

All right?

So let's start in a strange place.

It's with an image that we think was written by Benjamin Franklin's grandmother.

...