An imagined gathering
1787 · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Franklin hosts Washington, Madison, and Hamilton between sessions of the Constitutional Convention and argues for compromise.
The Convention has been meeting for weeks behind closed doors, and the delegates are tired, hot, and divided over representation. Franklin, at eighty-one the oldest man in the room, keeps a plain table near the State House and invites the younger architects of the new government to eat with him.
Washington is grave and says little; Madison has the whole plan in his head and sketches it out between courses; Hamilton argues for a stronger executive than the others will accept. Franklin listens, tells a story, and repeats his conviction that the framers must doubt a little of their own infallibility. They eat pepper pot and scrapple, a stuffed turkey, pumpkin pie, and drink madeira punch, and return to the hall no closer to agreement but still talking.
Host: Benjamin Franklin
George Washington — Presiding over the Convention and impatient for a settlement.
James Madison — Keeper of the fullest notes and author of the Virginia Plan.
Alexander Hamilton — Pressing for a far more powerful national government than the Convention will grant.
a period dish
Drink
a period dish
Benjamin Franklin
Franklin's habit of founding the institutions a city needs — a library, a fire company, a college — and his conviction that the public good is built by association.
Benjamin Franklin
The kite, the key, and the theory that lightning is an electrical discharge — and the practical lightning rod that followed.
Benjamin Franklin
Franklin's years in Paris, where his fame and charm turned a cautious monarchy into America's decisive ally.
George Washington
Washington's leadership of the Continental Army, and the example of a general who gave up power when the war ended.
James Madison
Madison's argument that liberty is safest when the branches of government check one another, and that ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
This gathering is an editorial recreation grounded in the biographies of those present; it did not necessarily take place as described.