In a pure republic or a democracy, governors derive their authority solely from the consent of the majority of the governed. Benjamin Franklin called the groundling structure proposed by the Constitutional Convention “… a republic, if you can keep it.” He realized the fragility of such a framework from knowledge of other failed republican structures of past history in Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Europe, and from apprehension of divisive forces already swirling around him. Despite George Washington’s admonishment against factionalism, political parties—so-called Federalist and Democratic-Republican— immediately sprang out of divergent interests in the new political society.Noticeably, Dr. Franklin did not ...