2.  The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

* * * * *

FRANKLIN’S SPEECH ON THE LAST DAY OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION [24]

[Footnote 24:  From Madison’s Journal, in Eliot’s Debates, vol. v. p. 554.]

MONDAY, September 17. In Convention—­The engrossed Constitution being read, Doctor Franklin rose with a speech in his hand, which he had reduced to writing for his own convenience, and which Mr. Wilson read in the words following: 

MR. PRESIDENT:  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.  Steele, a Protestant, in a dedication tells the Pope that the only difference between our churches, in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines, is, ’the Church of Rome is infallible, and the Church of England is 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 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 its faults, if they are such, because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered; and believe further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.  I doubt, too, 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, sir, 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