The nation’s founders had no illusions as they assembled in Philadelphia 246 years ago. When they signed the Declaration of Independence, accusing King George III of egregious crimes against humanity, they knew it also might be their own death warrant.

The crucible of the American Revolution sharpened their pragmatism. When many of them assembled anew in Philadelphia in 1787 to try to devise a workable government, their first effort at self-governance already had fallen to sectional parochialism and economic self-interest.

Yet, after torturous negotiations produced the framework for the Constitution, and Philadelphia socialite Elizabeth Willing Powel asked Benjamin Franklin whether the delegates had produced a monarchy or a republic, Franklin replied: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

If you can keep it.

Franklin knew the vagaries not only of politics but of human nature. But over nearly 2 1/2 centuries since then, successive generations of Americans have managed to keep it, overcoming internal and external threats to keep alive the world-changing experiment in self-governance.

Current Americans must rise anew to meet Franklin’s challenge. Even though its work is not complete, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection has demonstrated that it was not a protest run amok but a planned effort to prevent a duly elected president of the United States, Joe Biden, from taking office and to replace him with the autocratic incumbent, Donald Trump.

Pennsylvanians, residents of the state where the United States of America was born, saw elected representatives from their state, including Republicans Dan Meuser and Fred Keller, vote to disenfranchise 6.8 million commonwealth voters.

There were many flaws in the structure that the founders devised, to the point that it inevitably led to the Civil War. But the fundamental principle of majority rule with respect for minority rights changed the course of human history.

Now it is the duty of patriotic Americans to keep the republic by rejecting attempts to impose permanent minority rule, with scant respect for others’ rights.

— The Citizens’ Voice, Wilkes-Barre via TNS