With his deft and self-deprecating use of double negatives—“I am not sure I shall never approve it,” “I am not sure that it is not the best”—he emphasized the humility and appreciation for human fallibility that was necessary to form a nation. Opponents attacked Franklin’s compromising approach as lacking in principle, yet that was the point of his message. “A stand for compromise,” Oberg points out, “is not the stuff of heroism, virtue, or moral certainty. But it is the essence of the democratic process.”34
