Did the Founding Fathers REALLY Believe that We, The USA, Would Last Greater than 200 Years?
Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, November 28, 2005 at about 11pm CST
During the Constitutional Convention James Madison showed up with a hundred books on the subject of democracy. Let's take a minute to think about that. Do you have any idea how much wealth one hundred books represented in 1787? It means to me that Madison had come prepared to fight. He had armed himself with the knowledge to do the job. The Constitution was a subversive document, because the Constitutional Convention was supposed to revise the Articles of Confederation. By my standards, Madison scared the hell out of all the tough men in that hall in Philadelphia. Make no mistake, these were men who were both tough physically and mentally. They had walked through the fire of the Revolution and had survived with both their Honor and their lives intact. Such men are not easily scared. Yet I believe that Madison did that. He showed that democracies do not work. They stick around for about three generations on average and then fail for various reasons. The longest Democracy that Madison had found had lasted for 200 years. The Articles of Confederation was a document that embodied the ideals in the Declaration of Independence. The Articles could not work with real people for very long. In theory, yes, but in practice, no. These tough men were confronted with the possibility that all the suffering and sorrow they had experienced during the Revolution was for nothing. It had all been a waste of time. At least that is what these books showed.
So these guys struggled to find a solution to each fault in the concept of Democracy. But still they were frightened by the idea that no matter what they did, it was all going to be a waste of time. At one point they reached an impasse... over slavery. There was much disagreement and it looked like the Constitution would be stillborn.
Benjamin Franklin stood up and said, "I think we need to pray on this." And, thus, each morning they prayed before starting their proceedings. In that silence, these men did not hear the voice of God, they heard the voice of Benjamin Franklin. He was telling them that they needed to give it their best shot. He was pointing out that they could only do their best. That God does not require you to be perfect, only that you do your best. The United States might fail at some future date, but they, the men in that hall, could only do their best to make sure that future generations would prosper. To demand perfection was asking too much of mere mortals. So some rotten compromises like ‘the six-tenths of a man for Blacks' provision were put into the Constitution. because it was the best they could do at the time. Benjamin Franklin was the premier master craftsman of his age. He did not ask the kids in that hall to be perfect. Of course, they all looked like kids to him at his age. No, he was just reminding them that he was passing the torch and they better, by God, do their best.
I want to point out a little known fact. When Franklin died in 1790, he said in his will that he wanted 2000 pounds set aside in trust. He wanted his executors to distribute the interest for the betterment of Philadelphia and Boston. He assumed a 5% rate of return. At the end of the codicil, he said that 200 years after his death the executors were to support tradesmen as they started their careers. In the 1990's, they started giving scholarships to people to go to trade school. Franklin had the last laugh. He was the only one of the Founding Fathers who believed that United States would stick around for more than 200 years under the Constitution.
I tell this story as a way of saying that perfection is not possible. If we are to implement a plan of action in any so-called improvement in society, then the question of ‘How do you do that?' has to be answered. The inability to admit that some things cannot be fixed is the major stumbling block to a good outcome. If you do not learn from your failures, then you cannot become the best. I know, those thoughts do not seem to go together. As time goes by maybe your perception will change.
Do you really think that Madison scared the Founding Fathers with his presentation on the history of democracies? I like to believe that I am right, but I may be mistaken.
What of Benjamin Franklin? I perceive him to be the exemplar of what America is all about. Tradesman, inventor, writer, philosopher, philanthropist, statesman, diplomat and much more. He was not a warrior. We are not a warlike people, despite the way it may look to those silly enough to look at the surface. I would pose an interesting question: Who was more revered by his peers in that hall in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin or George Washington?
Even to the present day, we admire our warriors and politicians, but we aspire to be like Benjamin Franklin. Think about it and get back to me.
During the Constitutional Convention James Madison showed up with a hundred books on the subject of democracy. Let's take a minute to think about that. Do you have any idea how much wealth one hundred books represented in 1787? It means to me that Madison had come prepared to fight. He had armed himself with the knowledge to do the job. The Constitution was a subversive document, because the Constitutional Convention was supposed to revise the Articles of Confederation. By my standards, Madison scared the hell out of all the tough men in that hall in Philadelphia. Make no mistake, these were men who were both tough physically and mentally. They had walked through the fire of the Revolution and had survived with both their Honor and their lives intact. Such men are not easily scared. Yet I believe that Madison did that. He showed that democracies do not work. They stick around for about three generations on average and then fail for various reasons. The longest Democracy that Madison had found had lasted for 200 years. The Articles of Confederation was a document that embodied the ideals in the Declaration of Independence. The Articles could not work with real people for very long. In theory, yes, but in practice, no. These tough men were confronted with the possibility that all the suffering and sorrow they had experienced during the Revolution was for nothing. It had all been a waste of time. At least that is what these books showed.
So these guys struggled to find a solution to each fault in the concept of Democracy. But still they were frightened by the idea that no matter what they did, it was all going to be a waste of time. At one point they reached an impasse... over slavery. There was much disagreement and it looked like the Constitution would be stillborn.
Benjamin Franklin stood up and said, "I think we need to pray on this." And, thus, each morning they prayed before starting their proceedings. In that silence, these men did not hear the voice of God, they heard the voice of Benjamin Franklin. He was telling them that they needed to give it their best shot. He was pointing out that they could only do their best. That God does not require you to be perfect, only that you do your best. The United States might fail at some future date, but they, the men in that hall, could only do their best to make sure that future generations would prosper. To demand perfection was asking too much of mere mortals. So some rotten compromises like ‘the six-tenths of a man for Blacks' provision were put into the Constitution. because it was the best they could do at the time. Benjamin Franklin was the premier master craftsman of his age. He did not ask the kids in that hall to be perfect. Of course, they all looked like kids to him at his age. No, he was just reminding them that he was passing the torch and they better, by God, do their best.
I want to point out a little known fact. When Franklin died in 1790, he said in his will that he wanted 2000 pounds set aside in trust. He wanted his executors to distribute the interest for the betterment of Philadelphia and Boston. He assumed a 5% rate of return. At the end of the codicil, he said that 200 years after his death the executors were to support tradesmen as they started their careers. In the 1990's, they started giving scholarships to people to go to trade school. Franklin had the last laugh. He was the only one of the Founding Fathers who believed that United States would stick around for more than 200 years under the Constitution.
I tell this story as a way of saying that perfection is not possible. If we are to implement a plan of action in any so-called improvement in society, then the question of ‘How do you do that?' has to be answered. The inability to admit that some things cannot be fixed is the major stumbling block to a good outcome. If you do not learn from your failures, then you cannot become the best. I know, those thoughts do not seem to go together. As time goes by maybe your perception will change.
Do you really think that Madison scared the Founding Fathers with his presentation on the history of democracies? I like to believe that I am right, but I may be mistaken.
What of Benjamin Franklin? I perceive him to be the exemplar of what America is all about. Tradesman, inventor, writer, philosopher, philanthropist, statesman, diplomat and much more. He was not a warrior. We are not a warlike people, despite the way it may look to those silly enough to look at the surface. I would pose an interesting question: Who was more revered by his peers in that hall in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin or George Washington?
Even to the present day, we admire our warriors and politicians, but we aspire to be like Benjamin Franklin. Think about it and get back to me.
posted by aRandomTexan at
9:16 AM
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