Speeches

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 ... astonishes me to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does... Thus I consent to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best. The opinions I have of its errors I sacrifice to the public good.

-Benjamin Franklin, to the Delegates of the United States Constitutional Convention, 1787