User:Robbie/Franklin here: Difference between revisions
mNo edit summary Tag: Manual revert |
mNo edit summary |
||
| Line 11: | Line 11: | ||
<p>This anecdote gets quoted often, especially in recent months. Here on this substack, we take it as a hint and wonder why Franklin might have added "if you can keep it" to the statement of fact that the new Constitution would establish a republic, not a monarchy. What was on his mind? Why did he think the people might someday loose their republic that they had just founded? We ask such questions, not expecting Franklin to answer, giving us knowledge about his thinking, which we cannot know.<p> | <p>This anecdote gets quoted often, especially in recent months. Here on this substack, we take it as a hint and wonder why Franklin might have added "if you can keep it" to the statement of fact that the new Constitution would establish a republic, not a monarchy. What was on his mind? Why did he think the people might someday loose their republic that they had just founded? We ask such questions, not expecting Franklin to answer, giving us knowledge about his thinking, which we cannot know.<p> | ||
We ask such questions wanting to construct in our own ideas about what Franklin might have had in mind, thereby wanting to achieve some insight or comprehension that will help us hone and expand what we actually think about our own present situations. Can we, informed and imaginative, a part of the American people circa 2025, better understand how to keep our republic by speculating about why Benjamin Franklin, just after he and his colleagues signed the draft Constitution, said that it established a republic, if you the people could keep it? | |||
< | <p>We ask such questions wanting to construct in our own ideas about what Franklin might have had in mind, thereby wanting to achieve some insight or comprehension that will help us hone and expand what we actually think about our own present situations. Can we, informed and imaginative, a part of the American people circa 2025, better understand how to keep our republic by speculating about why Benjamin Franklin, just after he and his colleagues signed the draft Constitution, said that it established a republic, if you the people could keep it?</p> | ||
<p>Of course, one brief anecdote will not sustain our speculative efforts. Franklin had a well-documented role in the actual signing of the draft Constitution on September 17th. The record of it may give us insight into how Franklin viewed the prospects for the government to be instituted by the new Constitution. Next to George Washington, a delegate from Virginia who presided over the Convention deliberations, Franklin, a delegate from Pennsylvania, had the most gravitas in public opinion. He was 81, suffering from the gout and the stone. Nevertheless, he participated in the deliberations with attentive reserve, an elder statesman who spoke up as needed to keep unity among the delegates, promoting compromises when serious deadlocks were arising. At the start the concluding session, Franklin gave a short speech to initiate the signing of the Constitution by the assembled delegates.</p> | <p>Of course, one brief anecdote will not sustain our speculative efforts. Franklin had a well-documented role in the actual signing of the draft Constitution on September 17th. The record of it may give us insight into how Franklin viewed the prospects for the government to be instituted by the new Constitution. Next to George Washington, a delegate from Virginia who presided over the Convention deliberations, Franklin, a delegate from Pennsylvania, had the most gravitas in public opinion. He was 81, suffering from the gout and the stone. Nevertheless, he participated in the deliberations with attentive reserve, an elder statesman who spoke up as needed to keep unity among the delegates, promoting compromises when serious deadlocks were arising. At the start the concluding session, Franklin gave a short speech to initiate the signing of the Constitution by the assembled delegates.</p> | ||