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From today\u2019s vantage point, the Founding era often seems a time churning with decisive hopefulness. The 1789 Constitutional Convention certainly featured vehement debate, as Gary Schmitt and Joseph Bessette noted in our last episode. But optimism appeared to prevail: on the last day of the Convention, Benjamin Franklin concluded that a rising, rather than a setting, sun was the apt metaphor for the fledgling nation.

Yet many of our most revered Founders \u2013Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton \u2013 expressed deep concern for the new nation\u2019s prospects for success. The framers\u2019 worries, often overlooked in scholarship, is the subject of Syracuse University Political Science Professor Dennis Rasmussen\u2019s new book, Fears of a Setting Sun: The Disillusionment of America's Founders. Listen as Adam and Dennis discuss the Founders\u2019 fears \u2013 and one framer whose measured confidence was notable exception.