Coastal voices: 'A republic if you can keep it'

“A republic, madam, if you can keep it.” So warned Bejamin Franklin outside Independence Hall, upon departing the Constitutional Convention of 1787, in responding to a Mrs. Elsie Powel of Philadelphia who had just asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”

Like Mrs. Powel, I look around me these recent years and wonder, indeed worry, sometimes about the state of things. I watch as events unfold in Iran and the picture of a young girl named Neda brings back vivid memories of another young girl dying under her own military’s fire at a place called Kent State.

I watch as people in that country demonstrate against an election they believe was hijacked by those in power and sanctioned by their legal system and I need only turn back our national page to the year 2000.

I look with abhorrence at the barbarism and deprivation of human rights exhibited in places, some subtly, some not, like the Sudan, Darfur and China  ... and then to Guantanamo Bay.

I look at corrupt third world nations in Africa and Latin America where the rich control and horde the distribution of wealth, growing fat on the labor and toil of their working class citizenry and then to elected eunichs like Mr. Reid, Mr. Boehner and Ms. Pelosi staying “in session” late on a weekend evening to bail out the Gordon Geckos who raped and pillaged Main Steet, USA, then having the shameless temerity to congratulate themselves after years of being lost in inaction as if they had done anything but let the strongest economy in the world devolve to a “China Syndrome’s” edge.

I look at all these things and more and realize what we are capable of, recalling Milton’s Creator’s summation of our human condition in “Paradise Lost,” “I made him sufficient to stand, yet free to fall.”

But then I look around me to this small town I now call home, tucked between the redwoods and sea in California’s northernmost county and take pause, and cause, for hope.

This past Monday, I watched as a courtroom in which I work daily swelled to standing room only as over 100 citizens took time from their daily lives to honor a precious right men 200 years ago bestowed upon us — the 6th Amendment right to a fair trial by an impartial jury. That same courtroom where I delight in bringing doughnuts to our regular poll watchers who monitor and bear witness to over 200 years of uninterrupted, free democratic elections.

Later that day I walked to our county jail and was granted immediate access and legal representation of men charged with crimes, yet still deemed innocent, that might have found them in shallow, unmarked graves in less egalitarian societies. I watched a man in a judicial robe not only dispense justice, but stay after his appointed hours and attempt to impart some life experience and wisdom upon a lost, homeless boy.

And then I drove down past the S curve area and slowed to briefly honor a local hero who gave the ultimate sacrifice, as have 4,321 this day in a place called Iraq, their heroism born not of  the propriety of the engagement they found themselves called to, but their sense of loyalty, honor and duty to fight for this country and protect her despite the popularity of the conflict, which only adds to their heroism.

So I sit here, once again, at night in my office, looking down at the courthouse and out  to the channel marker and barking sea buoy beyond, but then back to the bare flag pole in front of our courthouse. I stop to wonder of what another lawyer felt in 1812, looking across the Chesapeake Bay to Fort McHenry, which had just sustained 25 hours of continuous British cannon bombardment. And then, in astonishment upon first light, to see those broad stripes and bright stars still waving, which moved him to pen and paper. 

 And I return to Dr. Franklin and his compatriots’ gift to us over two centuries ago and his admonishment to Mrs. Powel. Yes, I still possess concerns, because holding onto a republic demands the vigilance of concern, for if this country perishes, it most surely will not result from onslaught abroad, but from our own apathy and complacency.

But as for alarm, I believe I will pass on that this evening, after another day in this small corner of America which  has given me not just hope, but the faith and belief, that I will once again see Mr. Key’s Stars and Stripes from my widow at tomorrow’s dawn.  

Jon M. Alexander is a Crescent City attorney.