September 17th, 1787. The parchment is on the table, and 81-year-old Benjamin Franklin has written out the last great speech of the summer — read aloud by James Wilson because the doctor can barely stand: “the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment... I consent, Sir, to this Constitution, because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.” This is the finale: Gouverneur Morris’s ambiguous signing formula, placed in Franklin’s hands to catch the dissenters; Washington’s only speech of the entire convention — asking for a bigger House — and the erasure it left on the first page of the parchment; Hamilton, who liked the plan less than almost anyone, pleading with the three refusers between anarchy and the chance of good; Mason, Randolph, and Gerry keeping their seats as 38 men sign; Hamilton’s lone signature under New-York. And, as the last members sign, Franklin at the president’s chair, on the sun some painter set there: rising, and not setting. Then the City Tavern, a question at the door about a republic, and Washington alone with the papers of the secret summer — retired to meditate on the momentous work.
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