Our friends at Real Clear Foundation have crafted an exceptional open letter — part of its new Liberty and Justice for All project — to push back against the enemies of e pluribus unum by reaffirming the principles and institutions of free speech, federalism, representative government, religion, the family, education, and market commerce. Signatories include Victor Davis Hanson, Robert Woodson, William Bennett, Rich Lowry, Harvey Mansfield, George Weigel, Daniel J. Mahoney, Charles Kesler, and many more voices of sanity. It begins:

We stand at the crossroads.

Over the next several years, the noble sentiments and ideas that gave birth to the United States will either be repudiated or reaffirmed. The fateful choice before us will result either in the death of a grand hope or a recommitment to an extraordinary political experiment whose full flowering we have yet to realize. The choice will involve either contempt and despair or gratitude and the self-respect worthy of a free people who know long labors lie before them and who proceed with hope toward a dignified future. In the name of justice and equality, those animated by contempt and despair seek to destroy longstanding but fragile American institutions through which justice and equality can be secured. Destruction of these imperfect but necessary institutions will not hasten the advent of justice and equality but rather accelerate our collapse into barbarism and degradation.

Read the open letter here. National Review will be publishing it in full too later on our website. Consider becoming a signer yourself — do that here.