I gotta' rant . . .

[bucolic_frolic]

7. Why should they believe that a second try would be perfect for eternity?

They believed in the Age of Reason, and were astute students of history. Many studied Ancient Rome. Many were Deists. The Enlightenment was an age of clockwork-like reason; science, logic, government, religion were all being metered. You read, you knew. The Constitution's balance of powers is essentially a series of time counts to fracture power so it could never be concentrated too much. Despite the challenges we face today, that aspect of the Constitution is unexamined and very underappreciated.

Some Founders were pompous. They argued it out with each other. They had not the distractions we have today, they had the luzury of wisdom, there was nothing else to do. They read all the classics on government. Read David McCullough's John Adams. Adams knew it all and felt he knew it all. Probably originated the imperial presidency, more so than any other president of the Revolutionary era.