A Republic If We Can Keep It

Floor Speech

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Mr. TRAN. Mr. Speaker, in 1787, after the Second Continental Congress, Benjamin Franklin was asked: Do we have a monarchy or a republic?

He solemnly replied: a republic, if you can keep it.

For nearly 250 years, those immortal words have lived at the heart of our Republic. Representative democracy is not just something that appears, it doesn't happen by accident, and it isn't maintained by sheer inertia. We have to fight each and every day to maintain it.

I am the child of refugees. My parents came to this country from Communist Vietnam in search of the very freedoms that had been ripped away from them in the country of their birth. I joined the Army when I was 18 years old because I wanted to protect the freedoms that have given me so much.

I fear that this President does not share this same commitment to our Republic. He seems not to care whether we keep it or not, as long as his personal political desires are met. This is a trying time for our Republic, and I invite my Republican colleagues and the rest of America to join me in fighting to keep our Republic.

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