{"id":288011,"date":"2026-09-17T08:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T08:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/288011\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T08:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T08:48:08","slug":"perry-world-house-panel-celebrates-benjamin-franklins-role-at-constitutional-convention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/288011\/","title":{"rendered":"Perry World House panel celebrates Benjamin Franklin\u2019s role at Constitutional Convention"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perry World House highlighted Penn founder Benjamin Franklin\u2019s key role in the drafting of the Constitution at a Tuesday panel.<\/p>\n

Vice Provost of Global Initiatives Ezekiel Emanuel moderated the Sept. 15 event, which featured Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Stacy Schiff and Yale Law School professor Akhil Reed Amar. The panel \u2014 hosted on National Voter Registration Day \u2014 was part of the University\u2019s ongoing America 250 speaker series.<\/p>\n

During the event, titled \u201c\u2018A Republic, If You Can Keep It\u2019: The Constitution & Civic Participation,\u201d Emanuel steered the conversation toward why the Constitution was written in the first place. Amar attributed the decision to develop a new framework to the failures of the Articles of Confederation, which governed from 1781-89.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He pointed to the document\u2019s requirement that all 13 states agree on every amendment as a major downfall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRhode Island\u2019s not even showing up, so you can\u2019t actually revise the Articles within the scope of that,\u201d Amar said, adding that the Connecticut Compromise of 1787 \u2014 which the Constitutional Convention later adopted \u2014 also helped establish certain voting rules that made the final document possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Schiff offered a different explanation for how delegates with \u201clittle in common\u201d managed to agree upon the Constitution \u2014 noting that they were \u201cin a crisis\u201d and knew they could not \u201cleave that room without some sort of solution.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both scholars expressed that Franklin played a pivotal role in the convention.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Schiff credited his \u201chomespun wisdom\u201d and willingness to admit \u201chis own fallibility,\u201d which helped quell arguments among delegates.<\/p>\n

Emanuel also highlighted Franklin\u2019s closing speech<\/a> to the convention, which he claimed \u201cshould be a requirement for every Penn student to read.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schiff similarly referred to the speech as a \u201cwork of genius,\u201d pointing to Franklin\u2019s argument that democracy rests on people believing their government is good and its officials are \u201cwise and have integrity.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The conversation ended with a Franklin impersonator reciting the speech, followed by a question and answer session and ice cream \u2014 which Emanuel called a deliberate choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a celebration, and one has to truly celebrate, not just talk in very academic and intellectual ways,\u201d he said in an interview.<\/p>\n

Fels Institute of Government graduate student Abe Baker-Butler said that he attended the event to learn how the founding fathers\u2019 lessons apply to today\u2019s political climate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re at such a difficult time, so much division, and our Founding Fathers were somehow able to make something unprecedented out of similar conditions,\u201d he added. \u201cI want to know how we can do the same.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an interview, Amar said that the biggest takeaway from the panel was the importance of civic virtue \u2014 especially among young people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYour generation will decide whether the republic lives or dies. It\u2019s all up to you,\u201d Amar added. \u201cThe other generations are moving off the stage. Your time is coming.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perry World House highlighted Penn founder Benjamin Franklin\u2019s key role in the drafting of the Constitution at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-288011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}