“Ben Franklin’s Speech Saved Our Constitution”

Ben Franklin’s Speech Saved Our Constitution 1


© 2026 Don Pinson (To download, right-click on the gray play bar and select “Save Audio As”)

The many educational elitists in our land would have us believe that our Founding Fathers were people who had no faith in God; or, at best, were skeptics.  They often point to Ben Franklin as proof of that, quoting some wrong things that Franklin said in his early life.  However, they will almost never quote from his speech at the Constitutional Convention in May of 1787 when he was eighty-one years of age.  But I want to quote, at length, from his speech that most surely saved that Convention from breaking up from selfish interests, and thus brought about the writing of our Constitution; which has produced the greatest amount of liberty for the greatest number of people in all of world history.  Consider Franklin’s faith in God when he stated:

“Mr. President:

“The small progress we have made after 4 or 5 weeks…is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the Human Understanding.

“We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it.  We have gone back to ancient history for models of Government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which, having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution, now no longer exist.  And we have viewed Modern States all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our circumstances.

“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?

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“Revival Produced Our Founder’s Thinking”

© 2026 Don Pinson (To download, right-click on the gray play bar and select “Save Audio As”)

By the late 1600s the fervency of the church in America had died down to just embers compared to their Pilgrim forefathers.  The Pilgrims’ grandchildren and great-grandchildren had lost the fire their ancestors had known.  But God was hearing the prayers of His remnant in America who knew the true purpose God had for them and this nation.   And in 1734 the Spirit of God touched down in Northampton, Massachusetts in such a notable way it would change the course of this nation, and set the tone for the birthing of the American Republic.

Jonathan Edwards was Pastor of the Northampton Church, and one of the greatest and Godliest Pastors America ever knew.  He recorded what this move of God was like.  He wrote,

“And then it was, in the latter part of December, that the Spirit of God began extraordinarily to…work amongst us.  There were, very suddenly, one after another, five or six persons who were, to all appearance, savingly converted, and some of them wrought upon in a very remarkable manner.

“Particularly I was surprised with…a young woman, who had been one of the greatest company-keepers in the whole town.  When she came to me, I had never heard that she was become in any ways serious [about God], but by the conversation I had with her, it appeared to me that what she gave an account of was a glorious work of God’s infinite power and…grace, and that God had given her a new heart, truly broken and sanctified….

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“The Courage Of America’s Founders”

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© 2026 Don Pinson / (To download, right-click on the gray play bar and select “Save Audio As”)

Delegates from the American colonies had begun the Continental Congresses on their knees, crying to the God of heaven for help. They had knelt signifying that their rights came from God and that they were appealing to Him to show that their cause was just.  Now, in July of 1776, they were again declaring their dependence on Him as they considered declaring their independence from England.  It was in this spirit that Virginia delegate, Richard Henry Lee, would propose the resolution on June 7th that,

“…these colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states.”

(John Adams and the American Revolution, Catherine Bowen, Little Brown and Co., Boston, 1950, p. 583)

A committee was appointed to draft a Declaration of Independence.  Thomas Jefferson would do most of the writing of that Declaration, in which he would declare the reason that caused the separation:

“…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;  that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government…” (emphasis added)

The Declaration was presented to the Continental Congress on Monday, July 1st. Still, they hesitated to make the break.  The next day, Dickinson from Pennsylvania spoke against independence in his very eloquent way.  A long silence ensued after he sat down.  The destiny of future generations hung in the balance.  Slowly, John Adams of Massachusetts arose to his feet to speak.  He spoke quietly, but with great conviction and emotion:

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