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THE Speech

The Speech 1.0

As we celebrate Constitution Week, it's wise to avoid overly romanticizing the Constitutional Convention.

Without question, the United States Constitution is the most remarkable charter of self-government that has yet been conceived by man. It is the product of some of the most brilliant political scholars, philosophers, and strategists that have walked the planet.

That deserves our undying gratitude and praise.

But no matter the brilliance of the men who produced it, it is still a political instrument.

Politics can be grimy, and at times the rhetoric inside what would become known the world over as Independence Hall was as heated and intense as the weather outside during that sweltering Philadelphia summer of 1787.

Despite the best intentions and stated aims of the Founding Fathers, partisanship predated the Constitution and shaped the competing conceptions and shifting coalitions of the Federalists and Antifederalists during the debates over its ratification and the Bill of Rights.

Compromises had to be made between states large and small on everything from representation in Congress to the dastardly institution of slavery.

Even George Mason, who could well be called the patron saint of Article V, refused to sign the Constitution for several reasons: its lack of a Bill of Rights, his belief that the final version gave too much power to the federal government, and his disappointment that it did not more strenuously deal with the Atlantic slave trade, which he called “this infernal traffic.” His adamant refusal to sign came at great personal cost.

Once the compromises had been made, a proper summation of what had been wrought, how it had been compiled, and what it meant seemed appropriate. Who better than the man whom Christopher Hitchens called “the cleverest Founding Father” to do so?

In the grand history of American oration, “The Speech” is most often associated with Ronald Reagan's 1964 masterpiece “A Time for Choosing”, delivered on behalf of the presidential candidacy of Sen. Barry Goldwater:

But perhaps Benjamin Franklin's address on September 17, 1787, deserves the moniker “THE Speech” for its honest and poignant encapsulation of what the great men who had gathered had done, and for the style characterized by humor, probity, and wisdom that was uniquely Franklin's.

Franklin was in form and function the elder statesman in Philadelphia. As Maryland delegate James McHenry told it, once the final version of the Constitution had been read and engrossed, Franklin handed a piece of parchment to his friend and fellow Pennsylvanian James Wilson, who read to the delegates Franklin's words, formally addressed to the one man who remained above the partisan fray, president of the convention and presiding officer George Washington:

“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 ever 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's always in the right – Il n'y a que moi qui a toujours rainson. '

“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 farther 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 continuation. 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 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 had had to it, and endeavor to gain partisans in support of them, we might prevent 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 the government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its governors. I hope therefore that for our own sakes as a part of the people, and for the sake of posterity, we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this constitution (if approved by Congress and confirmed by the conventions) wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts and endeavors to the means of having it well administered.

“On the whole, 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.”

Such an oration is worthy of remembrance as we celebrate Constitution Week and the men – fallible though they were – who created the great charter of self-governance envied the world over.

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Created:	2025-07-22 14:41 GMT
Updated:	2025-09-30 07:00 GMT
Published:	2025-09-23 13:18 GMT
Converted:	2025-11-11 12:06 GMT
Change Author:	Matt May
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