Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin ...H. Colburn, 1818 - Statesmen |
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Page 419 - The Body Of Benjamin Franklin, Printer, (Like the cover of an old book, Its contents torn out, And stript of its lettering and gilding,) Lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not be lost, For it will, as he believed, appear once more, In a new and more elegant edition, Revised and corrected By THE AUTHOR.
Page 72 - Here will I hold. If there's a power above us (And that there is, all Nature cries aloud Through all her works), he must delight in virtue ; And that which he delights in must be happy.
Page lxxiii - Individuals entering into society must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest. The magnitude of the sacrifice must depend as well on situation and circumstance, as on the object to be obtained. It is at all times difficult to draw with precision the line between those .rights which must be surrendered and those which may be reserved ; and on the present occasion this difficulty was increased by a difference among the several states as to their situation, extent, habits, and particular interests.
Page 296 - Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And, for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor. The foregoing Declaration was, by order of Congress, engrossed, and signed by the following members...
Page 392 - 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.
Page 294 - He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
Page 88 - I happened, soon after, to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which, I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold ; as he proceeded, I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper.
Page lxviii - The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes ; which day shall be the same throughout the United States.
Page lxxii - That it is the opinion of this Convention, that as soon as the Conventions of nine states shall have ratified this Constitution, the United States in Congress assembled should fix a day on which electors should be appointed by the states which shall have ratified the same...
Page 73 - I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined; but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish. To avoid the trouble of renewing now and then my little book, which, by scraping out the marks on the paper of old faults to make room for new ones in a new course, became full of holes...