September 17 was Constitution Day, a day set aside for American patriots to commemorate the moment 237 years ago, when delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed that document. It’s all the day when a prominent Philadelphia matron, Elizabeth Willing Powel, ambushed Benjamin Franklin as he left Constitution Hall. Spying Franklin, she pounced with the interrogatory, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” This is the famous question to which Franklin uttered his famous response: “A republic, if you can keep it!”Today’s patriots commemorate this brief colloquy precisely because of the chilling fact that we haven’t “kept”...