Who's in Charge of Keeping a Good Republic?
If the ongoing struggle for individual freedom teaches us anything, it is that the security of our rights depends on ourselves. When one considers what we hold self-evident—that government doesn't possess the power to grant or deny our inherent and unalienable natural rights—we find that all we got from Benjamin Franklin and his colleagues was a federal government that has rarely upheld the terms of our social contract and poses the greatest threat to our freedom and prosperity. The 'good republic' of Mr. Helprin's dreams is exactly that: an aspirational republic the Founders challenged us to establish.
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