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In the midst of our America 250 festivities, we must pause and reflect on an important date just years after our Independence. On June 28th, 1787, the Constitutional Convention was in crisis. After more than a month of deadlocked debate over how the states would be represented in the new government, tempers had flared so bitterly that some delegates had actually walked out. The grand experiment in self-governance appeared to be collapsing before it had even begun.
It was in that moment that eighty-one-year-old Benjamin Franklin rose to speak. He was the oldest delegate in the room, and he commanded the respect of every man present. What he said that day is one of the most remarkable addresses in American history — and one of the least remembered.
He began by acknowledging the failure of human wisdom alone:
"The small progress we have made after 4 or 5 weeks close attendance and continual reasonings with each other — our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ayes, is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the Human Understanding."
Then he asked the question that cut to the heart of it:
"In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understanding?"
And then this — perhaps the most quotable moment in the entire founding era:
"I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?"
Franklin closed by moving that every session of the Convention open with prayer — reminding the delegates that without God's help, their work would fare no better than the builders of Babel.
This anniversary is worth marking. The Constitution did not emerge from human brilliance alone. It emerged from men who, at their moment of greatest need, chose to ask for help from above. That is a lesson for every generation.
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