Benjamin Franklin's Last Brave Stand for Liberty

The summer of 1787 pressed down on Philadelphia like a wool blanket soaked in heat. Inside the Pennsylvania State House, eighty-one-year-old Benjamin Franklin shifted painfully in his chair. His back ached. His legs, swollen from gout, throbbed with every heartbeat. Yet here he sat, day after day, because the fate of a fragile new nation demanded it. For four months, the delegates had argued. Loud men with sharp opinions had filled that room with pride and stubbornness. Now the Constitution lay on the table — imperfect, compromised, stitched together from a hundred disagreements. Several delegates refused to sign. They said it wasn't good enough. Franklin asked a colleague to read his words aloud, because his voice was too weak to carry across the hall. The room fell quiet. I confess, his words began, that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve. But I am not sure I shall never approve them. For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged to change opinions which I once thought right. He paused. The delegates leaned in. I doubt, the letter continued, whether any other Convention we could summon would be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men, you inevitably bring together all their prejudices and passions. It therefore astonishes me to find this system approaching so near to perfection. Franklin then rose — slowly, gripping the table — and signed his name. One by one, thirty-eight other delegates followed. Outside, the summer evening had finally cooled. A breeze moved through the elm trees, carrying the smell of rain. Franklin looked up at a carved wooden sun on the president's chair and smiled quietly. Now at last, he whispered, I know that is a rising sun.