at last a compromise was reached which practically satisfied them all. A copy of the Constitution was now printed and submitted to the convention for reconsideration and amendment. That consumed another month, and on Monday, September 17, the completed work was ready to be signed. Franklin had prepared the following speech for the occasion, but he was too feeble to deliver it, and it was read for him. He said :

"MR. PRESIDENT:

"I 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, in'deed, 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. 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.'

"1

....

Still many hesitated to sign. Some thought the convention would have to break up without finishing their

defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this CONSTITUTION for the United States of America."

1 For the whole speech see Bigelow's edition of Franklin's Works.

work. One member, says McMaster, "feared a civil war." Washington was the first to come forward to the table and affix his name to the Constitution. Then, one by one, the others did likewise. As the last were signing, Franklin, looking at the President's seat, back of which a sun was painted, said: "I have often and often in the course of the session . . . looked at that sun 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."1 Thus was formed that Constitution of government which, in the words of an eminent English historian,2 has for more than a hundred years secured to the people of the United States "a greater amount of combined peace and freedom than was ever before enjoyed by so large a portion of the earth's inhabitants."

§ 20. "The Last of Earth."

1787-April 17, 1790.

Franklin continued in public life for about a year longer, during which time he kept up his correspondence with his friends in England and France, as well as at home. To one of them he wrote in 1788, that he intended employing the remnant of his days in completing his autobiography, which he believed would be of especial "use to young readers, exemplifying strongly the effects of prudent and

1 The same year in which the convention framed the Constitution, the copper coin commonly called " the Franklin penny was issued. It had upon its face a sun rising above a sun-dial, and beneath, the words "MIND YOUR BUSINESS." On the other side was an endless chain of thirteen links, and in the centre, "WE ARE ONE."

2 Edward Freeman, The History of Federal Government.

imprudent conduct in the commencement of a life of business."

To another, he wrote, the same year: "We have no philosophical news here at present, except that a boat moved by a steam-engine rows itself against tide in our river, and it is apprehended the construction may be so simplified and improved as to become generally useful." 1 Franklin soon after this withdrew from public affairs, though he continued to take an interest in both politics and science, and had the Philosophical Society meet at his house.

He often suffered long-continued pain, which unfitted him for any work, but consoled himself with the thought that "as we draw near the conclusion of life, nature furnishes us with more helps to wean us from it." He declared that the hardest cross old age imposed upon him was his loss of the friends he had outlived; that, said he, "is the tax we pay for long living; and it is indeed a heavy one." His last public act was to sign a memorial to Congress, praying for the abolition of slavery in the United States; and the last paper which he wrote, which was finished the day before his death, was on the same subject. Not long before this he rose and had his bed made, so that, as he said, "he might die in a decent manner." On April 17th the end came. He left a will which began with these characteristic words :

"I, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, of Philadelphia, printer, late

1 This was John Fitch's steamboat, the first ever launched in America. Poor Fitch struggled hard to make it a success, but failed to get sufficient money to carry out his plans. He became utterly disheartened at last, and in 1798 committed suicide. In his journal he had written: "The day will come when some more powerful man will get fame and riches from my invention." Not long after, Fulton accomplished what Fitch had begun.

Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States of America to the Court of France, now President of the State of Pennsylvania, do make and declare my last will and testament, as follows."

In his will he says, "I was born in Boston, New England, and owe my first instructions in literature to the free grammar schools established there. I therefore give one hundred pounds sterling to my executors to be by them . . . paid over to the manager or directors of the free schools ... to be... put out to interest . . . which interest, annually, shall be laid out in silver medals, and given as honorary rewards annually, . . . for the encouragement of scholarship in the said schools.'

These medals are now distributed among the boys of the English High and Latin Schools of Boston at the yearly examination. Among his private bequests the following is of interest. He says:

"The King of France's picture, set with four hundred and eight diamonds, I give to my daughter, Sarah Bache, requesting, however, that she would not form any of those diamonds into ornaments, either for herself or daughters, and thereby introduce or countenance the expensive, vain, and useless fashion of wearing jewels in this country; and that those immediately connected with the picture may be preserved with the same.'

Franklin further gave to "the town of Boston" and to the city of Philadelphia the sum of one thousand pounds sterling each, on condition that the money be loaned to young married artisans until at the end of a hundred years the principal should have increased to a hundred and thirtyone thousand pounds, when the greater part was to be laid

out in improving each of the cities and the remainder again invested for another century for the same purpose.

The Franklin fund of the city of Boston now amounts to about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which will be expended on a public park, to be known as the Franklin Park. The Philadelphia fund, which now amounts to about seventy-seven thousand dollars, will, when the century expires (1891), probably be used for the advantage of that city.

Thus Franklin is even now carrying out the resolution he had taken of being useful after his death — illustrating the truth of the Hindoo saying that "our works live on when we have passed away." Of the four greatest men that this country has produced he stands first in order of time - Franklin, Washington, Webster, Lincoln. Of those who have reached advanced age he was one of the few who could truthfully say that he "was willing to live his life over again." Did that mean that his had been a perfect life? His confession of his "errata" answers that question. What it did mean was this that on the whole, the spirit of his life was steadily tending onward and upward, so that though he stumbled as he ran yet he recovered himself, and, in the end, won the race.

At his funeral twenty thousand people gathered to take part, and when the news of his death reached France the National Assembly put on mourning for the man of whom Turgot1 had said, "He snatched the thunderbolt from the sky and the scepter from the hands of tyrants.' He was buried in the graveyard of Christ Church, Philadelphia, by the side of his wife, who died while he was in England in 1774. The plain marble slab over the two graves bears, 1 Turgot (Tur'go): "Eripuit cælo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis."