Article I: The Legislative Branch

NARRATOR: In May of 1787, delegates from all the former colonies began converging again on Philadelphia. The Articles of Confederation that had been drawn up after the Declaration of Independence had proved inadequate for the new nation during the revolution.

COMMENTATOR: When the Constitutional Convention is called, it's really a last chance for America to get its act together. The Articles of Confederation really did not do what Franklin had asked for, which is unite the colonies into one nation.

NARRATOR: When George Washington arrived in Philadelphia, his first stop was to pay Franklin a visit.

WILLIAM E. LEUCHTENBURG, Historian: At the Constitutional Convention, he was one of the two great figures. There's George Washington and there was Benjamin Franklin, and nobody else came third.

COMMENTATOR: Up until the end of the war, if you were trying to rate American leaders, Washington would be behind him, and Franklin would be at the head. Franklin's the great man. By the end of the war, Washington has gone ahead, and in his will, Franklin says, "I leave him my crab tree walking stick for his stroll towards destiny."

NARRATOR: On May 25th, 1787, when the convention gathered for its first day, Washington was unanimously elected to preside.

COMMENTATOR: Benjamin Franklin's health is starting to fade. Prisoners from the Walnut Street jail, they have to carry him from his home on Market Street for the two or three blocks to get to what is now called Independence Hall.

NARRATOR: Franklin was 81, nearly crippled by gout and kidney stones. Still, he would attend every session but one.

From the start, it was clear that the 55 delegates did not agree on the details of how to fix the Articles of Confederation. Franklin favored a single-body Congress and a three-member executive council instead of a president. Virginians proposed two legislative bodies, a House of Representatives that would select the members of an upper body to be called the Senate, and also name the President and judiciary. Alexander Hamilton of New York thought the President should be elected for life.

Fierce debates on all the issues raged for days during a sweltering Philadelphia summer.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (re-enactment): "We must not expect that a new government may be formed as a game of chess may be played by a skillful hand, without a fault. We are making experiments and politics. The players of our game are so many, their ideas so different, their prejudices so strong and so various that not a move can be made that is not contested."

NARRATOR: The convention adopted many provisions that Franklin did not initially support, a two-body legislature, a single executive who could veto laws, and others that he did, a four-year presidential term, the legislature's power of impeachment and no requirement of property ownership for voting or holding office.

One of the thorniest issues was how Congress would be apportioned. Under the Articles of Confederation, each state had an equal vote, and delegates from smaller states demanded that it stay that way. Larger states, which would be contributing more in taxes, wanted Congress to be based on population. Franklin was placed on a committee to find a workable compromise.

COMMENTATOR: And finally Franklin gets up and he says, 'When we were young tradesmen here in Philadelphia and we had a joint of wood that didn't quite fit, we'd take a little from one side and shave from the other until we had a joint that would hold together for centuries.” And his point was that compromises may not make great heroes, but they do make great democracies.

NARRATOR: As the impasse over apportionment threatened to derail the convention, Franklin began inviting important delegates to his home where they could socialize in the late afternoon under the branches of his mulberry tree and try to find common ground.

COMMENTATOR: They discuss science, they discuss the things they're talking about that they have to compromise on, and he helps cool the passions of that hot summer under the shade of his mulberry tree.

NARRATOR: In the end, a compromise was reached. Each state would have the same number of senators, two, chosen by their legislatures. The members of the House of Representatives would be elected by voters, white men only, and each state's share would be based on its population. To mollify the Southern states, their populations would include their number of enslaved people, but each of those human beings would be counted as only three-fifths of a person.

COMMENTATOR: They can't talk about slavery directly, and the word “slavery” is never mentioned in the document itself. The difficult fact to accept is that the union is only possible if it includes the South, and the states south of the Chesapeake are committed to slavery, especially Virginia and South Carolina. If you did the moral thing in the summer of 1787 and took a clear stand and insisted on it, the Constitution would've never passed.

JOYCE CHAPLIN, Historian: It was a tragic compromise, obviously, for many populations in the United States who had no party to this agreement. They had never agreed that they would be represented in this way. And so, the compromise looks especially compromised in those terms.

COMMENTATOR: This is America's original sin, and they know it. Nobody in the convention or at that moment talks about slavery as anything other than a necessary evil.

COMMENTATOR: The original sin of slavery was more than just simply compromising. The original sin of slavery began, at least for these colonists, years before. For Franklin, unity and compromise was the only thing that could make this new nation move forward. Without it, it would be a failed journey. American democracy would not develop without it. And for that reason, Franklin, as well as others, sidestepped the issue of slavery.

NARRATOR: On September 17th, 1787, the delegates gathered to vote on the proposed Constitution. Benjamin Franklin made the motion for its adoption.