Benjamin Franklin's Message

After months of incessant wrangling and spirited debate the members of the Constitutional Convention met on a Friday on what was to be the last day of the Convention. The document had been created but no one wanted to sign it. The suggestion was made that Washington go back to the Continental Congress and suggest they find a whole new group to do what needed to be done. Washington counseled them to take the weekend to think about it and come back on Monday for any final decisions. It is surmised that both he and Franklin were busy on that weekend. When all gathered on Monday Franklin was brought into the meeting on a litter and announced he had a message but was to ill to give it himself and would have someone read it. This is the message:

“I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men indeed as well as most sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far error. Though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain French lady, who in a dispute with her sister, said ‘I don’t know how it happens, Sister but I meet with no body but myself, that’s always in the right.’

In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults. I doubt whether any other Convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution. For 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? It therefore astonishes me, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another’s throats. Thus I consent, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die. I hope that we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts and endeavors to the means of having it well administered.

I can not 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.”

The motion was called and approved “Done in Convention by the unanimous consent of the States present the 17th of September 1787. In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names.

Don't be:
Contentious;
Litigious
or
Always in the right