October 2006

Walter Isaacson Discusses Benjamin Franklin’s ‘Common Ground’

Walter Isaacson spoke to members of the GW community Sept. 19 to celebrate Constitution Day.

By Zak M. Salih

As part of GW’s Constitution Day celebration, author and CEO Walter Isaacson praised Benjamin Franklin, one of the document’s key composers, for his fervent belief in compromise and the “virtues and values of the shop-keeping middle class.”

His lecture, held Sept. 19 in the Marvin Center Grand Ballroom, explored the development of Franklin’s values and their impact not only on the Constitutional Convention in 1787 but also on America today.

Isaacson, president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, former chairman of CNN, and author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, called Franklin a “classic American” whose devotion to common ground formed the backbone of America’s new democracy.

“Compromisers do not make great heroes, but they make great democracies,” Isaacson said. “Franklin would be quite happy that we have a middle-class democracy.”

According to Isaacson, Franklin championed a form of government that relied on rationality and common values. For Franklin, described as an “exemplar of the enlightenment,” the blooming American democracy needed to support a balance of faith and reason instead of bitter partisanship.

Even today, 219 years after the composition of the U.S. Constitution, Isaacson finds the struggle between compromise and confrontation continuing in our nation’s political climate. He urged the audience to make compromises to strengthen the essence of the Constitution, much as Franklin himself did when he urged the convention to part with specific demands for the sake of the new nation. Isaacson referred to this moment as “a quintessential speech” in American history.
“I suspect as an American democracy, we will right ourselves because we’ll look to politicians like Franklin instead of those who polarize,” he said. “That’s the toughest thing we have to do: [learn] when to hold true to [our] principles and when to find some common ground.”

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