avocations that he made the discoveries in electricity which have placed him among the most eminent of natural philosophers. In 1754, when a war with France was impending, Franklin, who, by this time, had become the most important man in Pennsylvania, was sent to a Congress of Commissioners from the different colonies, ordered by the Lords of Trade to convene at Albany and to devise a plan for their common defence. In the following year Franklin was appointed the agent of Pennsylvania in England, where he sojourned some five years. He returned to America in 1762, but two years later he was again sent to the mother country as the special agent of Pennsylvania, and he was in London at the time of the repeal of the Stamp Act, a step which he powerfully furthered. Subsequently, while continuing to represent Pennsylvania, he was commissioned to act as agent for Massachusetts, New Jersey and Georgia, and for some years exercised an influence such as probably has never been possessed by any other American representative at the English Court. In 1775, when he saw that a conflict between the mother country and the colonies was almost inevitable, he again set sail for Philadelphia, and on the very morning of his arrival was elected by the Assembly a delegate to the Continental Congress which placed George Washington at the head of the colonial armies. By this Congress Franklin, who eighteen months before had been dismissed from the office of Deputy Postmaster, which he had held under the Crown, was made Postmaster-General of the united colonies. In 1776 he was one of the Committee of Five which drew up the "Declaration of Independence." In the same year he was chosen president of the convention called to frame a constitution for the State of Pennsylvania. He was selected by Congress to discuss terms of peace with Admiral Lord Howe in July, 1776, and in the following September he was deputed with John Adams and Arthur Lee to solicit assistance from the Court of Louis XVI. On his arrival in Paris he found himself already one of the most talked of men in the world. He was a member of every important learned society in Europe; one of the managers of the Royal Society, and one of the eight foreign members of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris. The story of Franklin's mission to Versailles has no parallel in the history of diplomacy. He became at once an object of greater popular interest than any other man in France, an interest which during his eight years' sojourn in that country seemed always on the increase. Streets in several cities and several societies were named after him; the French Academy paid him its highest honors, and he conferred more distinction upon any salon he frequented than it could reciprocate. He animated French society with a boundless enthusiasm for the cause of the rebel colonists, persuaded the government that the interests of France required her to aid them, and finally, at a crisis in their fortunes, obtained a treaty of alliance in the winter of 177778. In the six following years he secured advances in money amounting to 26,000,000 francs, a sum that may well astonish us when we consider that at the time France was practically bankrupt. After signing the treaty of peace with Great Britain in 1783, Franklin, now seventy-seven years of age, requested to be relieved from duty, but it was not until 1785 that Congress

permitted him to return to America. Soon after his arrival in Philadelphia, he was made chairman of the Municipal Council, and subsequently President of the State by an almost unanimous vote. To that office he was twice unanimously reëlected, and was also chosen a member of the Convention which convened in 1787 to frame a Federal Constitution. During the last two years of Franklin's life he helped to organize the first society formed on the American Continent for the abolition of slavery, and as its president signed the first remonstrance against slavery addressed to the American Congress. He died in Philadelphia in 1790. Though he had never derived any pecuniary advantage from his services to his country as a statesman and diplomatist, he left at the time of his death a fortune valued at about £30,000 sterling.

THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION

DELIVERED IN THE CONVENTION FOR FORMING THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, PHILADELPHIA, 1787

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 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 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 two churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrine is, the Romish Church 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 little dispute with her sister, said: “But I meet with nobody but myself that is always in the right."

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 I 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 counsels 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, sir, 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. If every one of us, in returning to our constituents, were to report the objections he has had to it, and endeavor to gain partisans in support of them, we might pre

vent its being generally received, and thereby lose all the salutary effects and great advantages resulting naturally in our favor among foreign nations, as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity. Much of the strength and efficiency of any government, in procuring and securing happiness to the people, depends on opinion, on the general opinion of the goodness of that government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its governors. I hope, therefore, for our own sakes, as a part of the people, and for the sake of our posterity, 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.

On the whole, sir, I cannot 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.

I

DANGERS OF A SALARIED BUREAUCRACY

DELIVERED IN THE CONVENTION FOR FORMING THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, PHILADELPHIA, 1787

T IS with reluctance that I rise to express a disapproba

tion of any one article of the plan for which we are so

much obliged to the honorable gentlemen who laid it before us. From its first reading I have borne a good will to it, and, in general, wished it success. In this particular of salaries to the executive branch, I happen to differ;

and, as my opinion may appear new and chimerical, it is only from a persuasion that it is right, and from a sense of duty, that I hazard it. The committee will judge of my reasons when they have heard them, and their judgment may possibly change mine. I think I see inconveniences in the appointment of salaries; I see none in refusing them, but, on the contrary, great advantages.

Sir, there are two passions which have a powerful influence in the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice; the love of power and the love of money. Separately, each of these has great force in prompting men to action; but, when united in view of the same object, they have, in many minds, the most violent effects. Place be fore the eyes of such men a post of honor, that shall, at the same time, be a place of profit, and they will move heaven and earth to obtain it. The vast number of such places it is that renders the British Government so tempestuous. struggles for them are the true source of all those factions which are perpetually dividing the nation, distracting its councils, hurrying it sometimes into fruitless and mischie vous wars, and often compelling a submission to dishonorable terms of peace.

The

And of what kind are the men that will strive for this profitable pre-eminence, through all the bustle of cabal, the heat of contention, the infinite mutual abuse of parties, tearing to pieces the best of characters? It will not be the wise and moderate, the lovers of peace and good order, the men fittest for the trust. It will be the bold and the violent, the men of strong passions and indefatigable activity in their selfish pursuits. These will thrust themselves into your government, and be your rulers. And these, too, will be mistaken in the expected happiness of