September 13 the printed copies of the report of the Committee on Style were ready, and three more days were spent by the convention in carefully comparing each article and section of this final draft.
On September 15 the work of drafting the Constitution was regarded as ended, and it was adopted and ordered to be engrossed for signing.
It may be interesting at this point to give the result of their labours as measured in words, and if the framers of the Constitution deserve the plaudits of posterity in no other respect they do in the remarkable self-restraint which those results revealed.
The convention had been in session for 81 continuous days. Probably they had consumed over 300 hours in debate. If their debates had been fully reported, they would probably have filled at least fifty volumes, and yet the net result of their labours consisted of about 4,000 words, 89 sentences, and about 140 distinct provisions. As the late Lord Bryce, speaking in this age of unbridled expression, both oral and printed, so well has said:
"The Constitution of the United States, including the amendments, may be read aloud in twenty-three minutes. It is about half as long as Saint Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians, and one-fourth as long as the Irish Land Act of 1881. History knows few instruments which in so few words lay down equally momentous rules on a vast range of matters of the highest importance and complexity."
Even including the nineteen amendments, the Constitution, after one hundred and thirty-five years of development, does not exceed 7,000 words. What admirable self-restraint! Possibly single opinions of the Supreme Court could be cited which are as long as the whole document of which they are interpreting a single phrase. This does not argue that the Constitution is an obscure document, for it would be difficult to cite any political document in the annals of mankind that was so simple and lucid in expression. There is nothing Johnsonese about its style. Every word is a word of plain speech, the ordinary meaning of which even the man in the street knows. No tautology is to be found and no attempt at ornate expression. It is a model of simplicity, and as it flows through the reaches of history it will always excite the admiration of those who love clarity and not rhetorical excesses. One can say of it as Horace said of his favourite Spring:
O, fons Bandusiae, splendidior vitro. Dulce digne mero, non sine floribus.
If I be asked why, if this be true, it has required many lengthy opinions of the Supreme Court in the 256 volumes of its Reports to interpret its meaning, the answer is that, as with the simple sayings of the great Galilean, whose words have likewise been the subject of unending commentary, the question is not one of clarity but of adaptation of the meaning to the ever-changing conditions of human life. Moreover, as with the sayings of the Master or the unequalled verse of Shakespeare, questions of construction are more due to the commentators than to the text itself.
On September 17 the convention met for the last time. The document was engrossed and laid before the members for signature. Of the fifty-five members who had attended, only thirty-nine remained. Of those, a number were unwilling to sign as individuals. While the members had not been unconscious of the magnitude of their labours, they were quite insensible of the magnitude of their achievement. Few there were of the convention who were enthusiastic about this result. Indeed, as the document was ready for signature, it became a grave question whether the remnant which remained had sufficient faith in their own work to subscribe their names, and if they failed to do so its adoption by the people would have been impossible. It was then that Doctor Franklin rendered one of the last and greatest services of his life. With ingratiating wit and with all the impressiveness that his distinguished career inspired, Franklin thus spoke:
"I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never 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 raison.