hich also were most
of his associates, disapproving certain parts, but thinking adoption of
the whole far better than rejection. He was wise enough and singular
enough to admit that he was not infallibly right. "Nothing in human
affairs and schemes is perfect," he said, "and perhaps that is the case
of our opinions." He made an excellent speech,[100] urging that at the
close of their deliberations all should harmonize, sink their small
differences of opinion, and send the document before the people with the
prestige of their unanimous approbation. While the last members were
signing, relates Madison, "Dr. Franklin, looking toward the president's
chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted,
observed to a few members near him that painters had found it difficult
to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. 'I have,' he
said, 'often and often in the course of the session, and the
vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that
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.'"

[Note 100: Franklin's _Works_, ix. 431.]

He did what he could to secure the adoption of the instrument by the
people; and when that end was happily achieved he joined his voice to
the unanimous cry with which the American nation nominated George
Washington as the only possible candidate for the presidency. He said:
"General Washington is the man whom all our eyes are fixed on for
President, and what little influence I may have is devoted to him."

It was about the time of the election that he himself took his farewell
of public life. The third year of his incumbency in the office of
president of Pennsylvania expired in the autumn of 1788, and his
physical condition precluded all idea of further official labors. Nature
could not have committed such an incongruity, such a sin against
aesthetic justice, as not to preserve Benjamin Franklin's life long
enough to enable him to see the United States fairly launched as a real
nation, with an established government and a sound constitution giving
promise of a vigorous career. But evidently with this boon the patience
of nature was exhausted; for Franklin's infirmities now increased upon
him terribly. He endured extreme pain during periods steadily increasing
in length and recurring at ever-shortening intervals. He bore his
suffering