My “60-Second Question” posts offer a quotation you can read in 60 seconds or less on an issue or topic of contemporary interest.
For the 4th of July, our quote comes from Benjamin Franklin’s final speech to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, immediately before the delegates voted to ratify our US Constitution. (from Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson, p. 457-58; I just finished reading it and highly recommend it.)
I confess that I do not entirely approve this Constitution at present; but sir, I am not sure that 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.
But, though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility, as 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.”
I agree to this Constitution with all its faults–if they are such…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?
Thus I consent, sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure that is is not the best.
Your 60-second question: Our nation began in patriotic humility and willingness to compromise (as expressed so eloquently by Franklin).
How can these founding principles be restored in our nation, which sorely needs them today? How can private citizens like you and me stand for civil humility and respect those on other side, rather than demonizing them through fear-mongering? How can we demand more leaders like Franklin at the local, state and national levels?
Please share your thoughts in a comment.
