FINAL SPEECH OF DR. FRANKLIN IN THE LATE FEDERAL CONVENTION[1].
MR. PRESIDENT,
I CONFESS that I do not entirely approve of this conſtitution at preſent: but, Sir, I am not ſure I ſhall never approve it; for having lived ſo 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 feels in religion, think themſelves in poſſeſſion of all truth, and that whenever others differ from them, it is ſo far error. Steele, a proteſtant, in a dedication, tells the pope, that "the only difference between our two churches, in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines, is, the Romiſh church is infallible, and the church of England never in the wrong." But, 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 little diſpute with her ſiſter, ſaid, I don't know how it happens, ſiſter, but I meet with nobody but myſelf that is always in the right. Il n'y a que moi qui a toujours raiſon. In theſe ſentiments, Sir, I agree to this conſtitution, with all
- ↑ Our reaſons for aſcribing this ſpeech to Dr. Franklin, are its internal evidence, and its having appeared with his name, during his life-time, uncontradicted, in an American periodical publication.
