The Grand Convention - An Assembly of Demigods

American Political History · Sep 24, 2026 · 29m

4 prisoners from the Walnut Street jail carried Benjamin Franklin to the Constitutional Convention in a sedan chair — the oldest delegate, 81, riding above the cobblestones to sit with the youngest, a 26-year-old former army captain. Jefferson, reading the delegate list in Paris, called them “an assembly of demigods.” William Pierce of Georgia, sitting among them, wrote down what they actually looked like — and his private sketches of every man in the room are the heart of this episode: Madison, whose greatness “every Person seems to acknowledge”; Hamilton, brilliant and vain, caged by the…