Compromise

When the delegates to the convention that produced the United States Constitution arrived, many of them didn't want a new constitution at all. In fact, some of the states' delegations had orders from their state legislatures to oppose a new constitution and support only amending the Articles of Confederation.

Of those who did want a new constitution, many came with their own ideas of what sort of constitution we ought to have, and what ought to be in it.

I've been doing a lot of reading about that time period in history, and several of the men who attended the convention. Unless I've missed something, as far as I can tell, no delegate got everything they wanted in the new constitution. Far from believing they had produced one of the seminal documents of democratic history, most, if not all, of the delegates left the convention greatly, but privately, displeased about the final product. Many harbored great reservations about whether a republic based on the new constitution had any chance of success. Many of their private letters expose this pretty intense level of dissatisfaction.

Yet, they all signed it, at least all of them who remained at the convention to the end.

As far as I can tell, none of the ideas Benjamin Franklin proposed at the convention actually made it into the final version, though I may have missed something. None the less, Dr. Franklin wrote this about the new constitution:

"I confess that I do not entirely approve 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 judgement and pay more respect to the judgement 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 opinion 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: 'I don't know how it happens, sister, 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. ... 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 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."

"[O]ur enemies are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded ... ."

Friends, we must once again adopt Ben Franklin's spirit of humble compromise if we expect our republic to continue. Really, we must.