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A Rising and Not a Setting Sun

The date was September 17, 1787—Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was the last day of the Constitutional Convention. After four grueling months of debate, contention, and compromise a document had finally been drafted that would create out of whole cloth, not only a new government for the United States of America, but a new form of government for the monarchical world to see.

The American Revolution had been won, and the United States had established a federal government under the Articles of Confederation, but the new government lacked the strength, vigor, and authority to adequately govern the states and form a union. The United States of America were not united and were on an imminent course of destruction. Something had to be done to save the Union.

Every state except one appointed delegates to attend a convention in Philadelphia. Seventy-four in all were appointed. The convention started slowly on May 14, 1787, and gained traction as more delegates arrived. The doors and windows of the hall were shut and delegates were forbidden to discuss the proceedings of the Convention outside the hall, lest the public be alarmed. And well the general public may have been panicked if they had known over the course of the summer how many times the Convention fell into deadlock and impasse over the various issues. At times it seemed that the Convention would fail outright and the grand experiment in American democracy would die before it was fairly begun. But brilliant compromises and well-timed wisdom saved the Convention. And now, at approximately 10:00 o’clock on the morning of September 17, 1787, Benjamin Franklin, 81 years-of age asked for the reading of a prepared speech. Suffering with gout and stones, he himself was in too much pain to stand and read it. James Wilson read it for him. Among other things he said,

“I consent, Sir, to this constitution because I expect no better and I am not sure that it is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die…. I hope therefore that for our own sakes as a part of the people, and for the sake of posterity, we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution wherever our influence may extend and turn our future thoughts and endeavors to the means of having it well administered.”

Discussion followed Dr. Franklin’s speech and other issues. Finally, the last votes were taken the delegates came forward to sign their names to the document. James Madison, who took the most careful notes of the proceedings of the Convention recorded the following,

“Whilst the last members were signing it, Doctor Franklin looking towards the President’s Chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. I have, said he, often, and often in the course of the Session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting Sun.”

The Constitution of the United States, in ways that Franklin and his fellow delegates could not have known, illuminated the way, like a rising sun, for the future fulfillment of the purposes of Almighty God.

Franklin also said in the speech above that the government formed under this Constitution would only fail when the people became so corrupted that only despotic governments could rule them.

Have we reached that point of civic corruption and political despotism that the sun is now setting over our constitutional republic? Forbid it, Almighty God! Awake and arise America!

Sources:

https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/benjamin-franklins-speech-federal-convention/

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_917.asp