In 1787, following the secretive deliberations at the Constitutional Convention, a local Philadelphia resident Mrs. Powel asked Benjamin Franklin what sort of government had been drafted. Franklin looked at her and resolutely responded, "A republic, if you can keep it." Eroded by neglect and attacked by those deliberately seeking to usurp it, our ability to keep the Republic has become more and more vulnerable. Click here to read an article by John F. McManus, President of the John Birch Society, on the importance of the Constitution and about those who have sought to undermine it.