September 17th, 2024.

In 17th, 55 yearyear-old Benjamin Franklin attended the coronation of King George

the 3rd and later wrote that he expected the young monarch's reign would be happy and

truly glorious. 15 years later in 1776 he helped to draft and

then signed the Declaration of Independence. An 81-year-old man in 1787, he urged his

colleagues at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia to rally behind the

new plan of government they had written.

I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve.

But I am not sure I shall never approve them he said for having lived long I have

experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller

consideration to change opinions even on important subjects

which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

The framers of the new Constitution hoped it would fix the problems of the first attempt to create a new nation.

During the Revolutionary War, the Second Continental Congress had hammered out a plan for a confederation of states, but with fears of government tyranny still uppermost in lawmakers' minds, they centered power in the states rather than in a national government. The result, the Articles of

Confederation, was a firm League of Friendship among the 13 new states overseen by a Congress of men chosen by the state legislatures

and in which each state had one vote.

The new pact gave the federal government few duties and even fewer ways to meet them,

indicating their inclinations. In the first substantive paragraph,

the authors of the agreement said,

each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence,

and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to

the United States in Congress assembled. Within a decade the states were

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