PRINTING PRESS AT WHICH FRANKLIN WORKED WHEN A BOY IN BOSTON
Now exhibited in the rooms of the Mechanics’ Institute, Boston, Mass.
After all, Franklin’s chief service abroad was not so much the obtaining of favorable terms as the maintaining of American character. Who could deny the right to be a nation to a people whose best aspirations were typified by this shrewd, hard-headed, kindly man, a gallant among the fashionables, a philosopher among scientists, a statesman among ministers, a man among men?
Franklin in the Federal Convention
At seventy-nine years of age most men expect retirement, and it was very grateful to Franklin that, on his return to America in 1785, he should almost immediately be chosen by Pennsylvania to be the president of the commonwealth. His universal popularity was shown by the people of western North Carolina (now east Tennessee), who, in 1784, set up a short-lived frontier commonwealth, to which by way of compliment they gave the name of Franklin. In 1787, Franklin readily accepted membership in the Federal Convention, as one of the Pennsylvania delegation. He was somewhat out of touch with the real difficulties of the time, and most of his suggestions were overruled, but his influence throughout was in favor of a well organized, strong central government; and he was almost the only member to introduce an element of humanity and good humor.
MRS. SARAH BACHE
Daughter of Franklin
On the last day of the convention he rose to urge a spirit of compromise, a willingness to yield something of one’s own opinion; to avoid the spirit of “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 is always in the right.’” When at the end, signatures of the members were appended, numerous enough to make it likely that the Constitution would be accepted by the people, Franklin looked at the sun painted behind the President’s chair, and made a comment which is as applicable to his own reputation as it was to the new Federal Constitution. “I have often and often in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, 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.”