Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

During a tour of Independence Hall, Vowell sees the chair that George Washington sat in during the Constitutional Convention of 1787. There is a sun carved into the back. The delegates at the convention argued for months before approving the Constitution. Benjamin Franklin claimed to have looked at the back of Washington’s chair during the heated debates and wondered “whether it was rising or setting—which is to say, whether this was the beginning of a new republic or the end of a failed coalition” (13).

After the Constitution was ready to send to the states for ratification, Franklin said, “I have the happiness to know it is a rising, and not a setting sun” (13). Vowell’s viewpoint is more pessimistic than Franklin’s, however. Though the simple piece of furniture became an optimistic symbol, during tenuous periods, both past and present, she thinks of the chair and imagines it is a setting sun instead. Thus, the chair is truly a symbol of the opposite perspectives people can have, even when examining the same object or idea.