Note 44 — Chapter III · (continued 5)

Optimist and thorough-going democrat as Franklin was, Shays' Rebellion and the heated conflict of opposing principles, concomitant with the adoption of the Federal Constitution, set up a slight current of reaction in his sanguine nature. On May 25, 1789, he wrote to Charles Carroll of Carrollton: "We have been guarding against an evil that old States are most liable to, excess of power, in the rulers; but our present danger seems to be defect of obedience in the subjects." Some six months later, in his Queries and Remarks respecting Alterations in the Constitution of Pennsylvania, he quoted the advice of the prophet, "Stand in the old ways, view the ancient Paths, consider them well, and be not among those that are given to Change." But in this instance Franklin was really invoking the spirit of conservatism in aid of liberalism; for the occasion for the Biblical reference was the suggestion that the Pennsylvania Assembly should no longer consist of a single chamber but of an Upper House based on property and a Lower House based on population.