“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.

“In these sentiments, sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered, and I believe further that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.  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?  It therefore astonishes me, sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does....  Thus, I consent, sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best.  The opinions I have had of its errors I sacrifice to the public good, I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad.  Within these walls they were born and here they shall die.  If every one of us in returning to our constituents were to report the objections he has had to it and endeavour to gain partisans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and thereby lost all the salutary effects and great advantages resulting naturally in our favour among foreign nations as well as among ourselves from our real or apparent unanimity.

“On the whole, sir, I cannot help