The small progress we have made after four or five 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.
Beck reflects on the challenges faced by the Constitutional Convention, emphasizing human fallibility in political discourse.
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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 speaks well for the honour of the delegates that although their differences became so acute as to lead at times to bitter expressions, neither side divulged them to the outside public.
Again the words of Washington suggest themselves: "If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work?
I do so, because it has a direct bearing on the decay of the spirit of constitutionalism both in America and elsewhere.
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