A republic is a commonwealth; a state in which the exercise of the sovereign power is lodged in representatives elected by the people. It differs from a democracy in which the people exercise the powers of sovereignty in person through a vote. With a Constitutional Republic, we are ruled by a ballot vote and representation, ensuring the voices of the majority and minority are heard and respected, while Democracy rules without regard for the voices of the minority. At the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin made an observation about the chair General George Washington had been sitting in as he presided over the Convention. The chair had an emblem of half of a sun. “I have often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: but now at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising and not a setting sun.”. He was then asked what kind of government we, the new American people, now had. Franklin replied, “a republic, if you can keep it.” The actions of our Founding Fathers to stand against tyranny and to create a Constitutional Republic are grounded in protecting the inalienable rights, and inherent value, of the Individual. Not to promote one’s happiness over another’s, not to promote one’s rights over another’s, but to recognize and honor the Creator