Benjamin Franklin's Mulberry Tree

In this special edition of Mind Travel, we mark Constitution Day (September 17) here in the United States with a reflection on the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin, and his mulberry tree.

Ideas can be powerful, important, and inspirational.  They also can be rigid, divisive, and destructive.

People make the difference.

In 1787, the delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia were divided over ideas, specifically ideas about how the new government should be construed.  How should representation be allocated?  How much power should the president have?  Should there be a single president at all?

There were plenty of people involved--55 delegates in attendance, all told.  There was no lack of humans.  What was needed was the human element.

Enter Benjamin Franklin and his mulberry tree.

The Allure

We humans pay a lot of attention to specific ideas--that is, notions about politics, religion, child-rearing, batting orders, you name it--but most of us don't think at all about the idea of an idea.  What exactly is an idea, and why is it so powerful?  Why do we become fixated on some ideas, and why is it so hard to change our minds about them?  How much should we value ideas, especially in comparison to other things, such as relationships and results?

For the purposes of this discussion, I'm going to make a distinction between ideas and values.  When I refer to ideas, I'm thinking of opinions about, say, whether a government should control individuals' speech or Major League Baseball should have a designated hitter.  Values are forms of ideas, too, but I use that word for broad, underlying ideas that form our personalities: honesty, courage, tolerance, and the like.

I would not expect anyone to change his or her values, but ideas, as I'm using the word here, lie closer to the surface, so to speak.  They are--or ought to be--more susceptible to change.  I don't see how you could persuade me to become less honest or tolerant without giving me a personality transplant.  On the other hand, if you presented enough sound, convincing evidence, you just might change my opinion about the designated hitter.  (For the record, I haven't seen enough of this evidence, so, for now, I'm sticking by my opinion that MLB should not have a DH, even though it's pretty clear to me that it's here to stay.)

Many ideas are based largely on our values, but let's be honest: some have more to do with our habits, preferences, and allegiances.  Whatever impassioned arguments were made at the Constitutional Convention, it's worth mentioning that the more populous states favored proportional representation.  I don't think that was mere coincidence.

The Danger

Differences over many ideas don't have to be divisive.  After all, why should I care if you like the DH, avocados, and cold weather?  As the Romans said, "de gustibus non est disputandum," or, in English, "You can't argue taste."  Now, I know some people do care and do argue over such things.  Perhaps you know these people (and avoid them).  For my part, I'm pretty sure that, on the whole, I'm a lot happier with my live-and-let-live, eat-and-let-eat approach.

In some cases, however, differences can get in the way of progress, and that's what happened at the Constitutional Convention.  Franklin addressed this dangerous phenomenon head on in a speech he wrote for the convention.  In it, he observes that "when you assemble a Number of Men to have the Advantage of their joint Wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those Men all their Prejudices, their Passions, their Errors of Opinion, their local Interests, and their selfish Views. From such an Assembly can a perfect Production be expected?"  He concludes the speech with these powerful words:

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.

Before this speech was delivered, however, Franklin took another approach to getting past the disputes.

Let's Talk

Benjamin Franklin, like the rest of us, had ideas.  (I like to think he would have sided with me on the DH, but I guess we can't say for certain.)  One of the things that made Franklin so remarkable (and effective), though, is that he could get past ideas to get to results.

In his garden in Philadelphia, just a few blocks from the Statehouse (now known as Independence Hall), Franklin would sometimes sit beneath his mulberry tree and have conversations with other delegates.  A mural in Great Experiment Hall in the Capitol depicts this scene, showing Alexander Hamilton, James Wilson, James Madison, and Franklin under the mulberry tree.  There, apparently, in the casual atmosphere, people could talk like people, not like embodiments of ideas. 

Franklin would have been the ideal host for such a gathering.  Indeed, one of the delegates, William Pierce of Georgia, said of Franklin: "He is . . . a most extraordinary man, and tells a story in a style more engaging than anything I ever heard."  I have seen no account of the particular stories Franklin told in his garden, but I know some he shared in his autobiography.  One of my favorites tells of a man who wanted a shiny ax and took it to a sharpener, who agreed to do the sharpening if the man would turn the wheel.  In an age without power tools, turning that wheel was arduous.  Finally, the man was ready to quit.  The sharpener protested that the ax was not shiny yet.  The exhausted man replied that he preferred a speckled ax.

The presence of refreshments--specifically tea and beer--added to the convivial atmosphere there in Franklin's garden.  It was a setting familiar to all of us: a place where the guests could relax, perhaps tell stories of their own or share news about their families.  If the Phillies had been around back then, they could have talked pitching rotations.  They didn't have to be slaves to their ideas.  Instead, they could just be human.

When it came time to talk about the ideas contested in the convention, the delegates were accustomed to seeing the people around them not as parts of factions, but as human beings who shared a lot in common and probably agreed on other things.  As Walter Isaacson put it in his biography of Franklin, "His garden and shady mulberry tree . . . became a respite from the debates, a place where delegates could talk over tea, hear Franklin's tales, and be calmed into a mood of compromise."

In the end, after all the disagreements of the convention, 39 delegates signed the Constitution, and it became the foundation of the government we have today.

Would they have gotten there without Franklin and his mulberry tree?  It's impossible to say for certain, but I don't think we can dismiss the power of tea, some shade, and a well-told story to cool heads, warm hearts, and remind us that, ideas aside, we all share a common humanity and we can make great things happen if we are willing to work together.