The Making of the Constitution: Convention and Franklin

In these discussions the Convention had passed on the nineteen resolutions. On the 23rd of July it was determined that its proceedings "for the establishment of a national government," excepting the executive, should be referred to a committee, for the purpose of reporting the draft of a constitution conformably to them; and the next day, when five members were reported as this committee, the propositions submitted by Pinckney and Patterson were also referred to it. On the 6th of August the committee reported; when another month of debate followed, during which the clauses relative to the slave-trade and the rendition of slaves were agreed to,--on which hung mighty issues. They are of the past now. They were the price that was paid for republican government, an instrument of vast good in the present and for the future. On the 8th of September a committee of five was appointed "to revise the style of and arrange the articles agreed to by the House." This work was intrusted to Gouverneur Morris, and to him belongs the credit of the simple style and clear arrangement of the Constitution. The committee reported on the twelfth, when the printing of the Constitution was ordered. Three days were occupied in revising it, when it was ordered to be engrossed. It was then read, when Franklin rose with a speech in his hand, which was read by James Wilson.

"I confess," it begins, "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. .

"In these sentiments, sir, I agree to that 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 be so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other."

Franklin concluded by moving a form in which the Constitution should be signed by the members.

At this point Mr. Gorham, of Massachusetts, proposed to reduce the basis of representation from forty thousand to thirty thousand persons. This was sustained by Washington, in the only speech made by him during the Convention.

When he rose to put the question on the motion of Mr. Gorham, he said,--

"That although his situation had hitherto restrained him from offering his sentiments on questions depending in the House, and, it might be thought, ought now to impose silence upon him, yet he could not forbear expressing his wish that the alteration proposed might take place. It was much to be desired that the objections to the plan recommended might be made as few as possible. The smallness of the proportion of representatives had been considered, by many members of the Convention, an insufficient security for the rights and interests of the people. He acknowledged that it had always appeared to himself among the exceptionable parts of the plan; and, late as the present moment was for admitting amendments, he thought this of so much consequence that it would give him much satisfaction to see it adopted."

This impressive appeal was followed by a unanimous vote in favor of the motion. There was then a vote on the question whether the Constitution should be agreed to as engrossed in order to be signed, and all the States answered aye. There was then a debate on signing. Hamilton now entered upon the course that reflects high honor on him as a patriot. He was anxious that every member should sign, saying, "No man's ideas were more remote from the plan than his own were known to be; but is it possible to deliberate between anarchy and convulsion on one side, and the chance of good to be expected from the plan on the other?"

All the members signed the Constitution, excepting Edmund Randolph and George Mason, of Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts. While the last members were signing, Franklin, the Nestor of the assembly, looking towards the President's chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him that painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. "I have," said he, "often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now, at length, I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun." The instrument was attested in the form submitted by him: "Done in Convention, by the unanimous consent of the States present, the 17th day of September, in the year of our Lord 1787, and of the Independence of the United States of America the twelfth."