[Footnote i-321: London, April 20, 1771; unpublished MS letter in W. S. Mason Collection. Compare with Abbé Raynal's opinion that "society is essentially good; government, as is well known, may be, and is but too often evil" (_The Revolution of America_, Dublin, 1781, 45).] [Footnote i-322: M. Eiselen (_Franklin's Political Theories_, Garden City, N. Y., 1928) observes that Franklin as presiding officer had actually little to do with casting the instrument. From his later paper on the Constitution it is possible, however, to see that he accepted most of its major ideas (pp. 57-8). See S. B. Harding, "Party Struggles over the First Pennsylvania Constitution," _Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1894_, 371-402.] [Footnote i-323: That Franklin "had more to do with the phraseology of the Declaration of Independence than has been recognized up to now" (J. C. Fitzpatrick, _Spirit of the Revolution_, Boston, 1924, 11) has been shown by Becker, _op. cit._] [Footnote i-324: See text in S. E. Morison, _Sources and Documents Illustrating the American Revolution, 1764-1788, and the Formation of the Federal Constitution_ (Oxford, 1923, 162-76).] [Footnote i-325: C. H. Lincoln, _The Revolutionary Movement in Pennsylvania, 1760-1776_, 277.] [Footnote i-326: Cited in N. G. Goodman, _Benjamin Rush_ (Philadelphia, 1934), 62. Another wrote that the unicameral form is good "if men were wise and virtuous as angels" (Lincoln, _op. cit._, 282; see also 283). The American Philosophical Society, of which Franklin was president, declared against it.] [Footnote i-327: T. F. Moran, _The Rise and Development of the Bicameral System in America_ (Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, 13th ser., V [Baltimore, 1895]), 42. The legislative Council (upper chamber) had been destroyed by the 1701 constitution. See B. A. Konkle, _George Bryan and the Constitution of Pennsylvania_ (Philadelphia, 1922), 114. P. L. Ford ("The Adoption of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776," _Political Science Quarterly_, X, Sept., 1895, 426-59) observes: "The one-chamber legislature and the annual election were hardly the work of the Convention, for they were merely transferred from the Penn Charter; having yielded such admirable results in the past, it is not strange that they were grafted into the new instrument" (p. 454).] [Footnote i-328: Defending (in 1789) the Pennsylvania constitution, Franklin wrote, "Have we not experienced in this Colony, when a Province under the Government of the Proprietors, the Mischiefs of a second Branch existing in the Proprietary Family, countenanced and aided by an Aristocratic Council?" (_Writings_, X, 56.)]