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September 17, 1787: "A Republic, If You Can Keep It"

Part of a series of articles titled The Constitutional Convention: A Day by Day Account for September 1787. Previous: September 16, 1787: A Final Recess Article “A republic, if you can keep it.” --Benjamin Franklin's response to Elizabeth Willing Powel's question: "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" The day began with a prepared speech from Franklin (PA) who, eighty-one years old and painfully afflicted with gout and kidney stone, was unable to read it himself and delegated that task to Wilson (PA).

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. “On the whole, Sir, I cannot help expressing a wish that every member of the Convention, who may still have objections to it, would with me, on this occasion, doubt a little of his own infallibility, and to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument.” Franklin then moved for the form of the signing to be such: “Done in Convention by the unanimous consent of the States present, the seventeenth of September, &c. In witness whereof, we have hereunto subscribed our names.”

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