"I can say little or nothing new," said he in a letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, "in consequence of the repetition of your opinion on the expediency there will be, for my accepting the office to which you refer. Your sentiments indeed coincide much more nearly with those of my ether friends, than with my own feelings. In truth, my difficulties increase and magnify as I draw towards the period, when, according to the common belief, it will be necessary for me to give a definitive answer in one way or other. Should circumstances render it, in a manner, inevitably necessary to be in the affirmative, be assured, my dear sir, I shall assume the task with the most unfeigned reluctance, and with a real diffidence, for which I shall probably receive no credit from the world. If I know my own heart, nothing short of a conviction of duty will induce me again to take an active part in public affairs. And in that case, if I can form a plan for my own conduct, my endeavours shall be unremittingly exerted (even at the hazard of former fame or present popularity) to extricate my country from the embarrassments in which it is entangled through want of credit; and to establish a general system of policy, which, if pursued, will ensure permanent felicity to the commonwealth. I think I see a path, as clear and as direct as a ray of light, which leads to the attainment of that object. Nothing but harmony, honesty, industry, and frugality, are necessary to make us a great and happy people. Happily, the present posture of affairs, and the prevailing disposition of my countrymen, promise to co-operate in establishing those four great and essential pillars of public felicity." [Illustration: The Room in Which the First Constitutional Convention Met in Philadelphia _Delegates from twelve of the thirteen States (Rhode Island alone being unrepresented) assembled at Philadelphia, where the opening sessions of the first Constitutional Convention were held in this room in Independence Hall, May 14, 1787. George Washington presided during the four months taken to draft the Constitution of the United States. When it was completed on September 17th, it is said that many of the delegates seemed awe-struck and that Washington himself sat with his head bowed in deep meditation. As the Convention adjourned, Franklin, who was then over eighty-one years of age, arose and pointing to the President's quaint armchair on the back of which was emblazoned a half sun, brilliant with gilded rays, observed: "As I have been sitting here all these weeks, I have often wondered whether yonder sun is rising or setting, but now I know that it is a rising sun."_] [Sidenote: He is unanimously elected president.]