Benjamin Franklin:The First American

Michael Sletcher sings the praises of one of America's founding fathers

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WHEN THE FRENCH immigrant J.Hector St. John de Crevecoeurwrote Letters from an AmericanFarmer in 1782, he asked the salientquestion, "What then is the Ameri-can, this new man?" Crevecoeurattempted to answer the questionhimself:

He is an American, who leaving behindall his ancient prejudices and manners,receives new ones from the new mode oflife he has embraced, the new govern-ment he obeys, and the new rank heholds... The American is a new man,who acts upon new principles.

Crevecoeur might haveshortened his answer by sim-ply stating that BenjaminFranklin was this new Ameri-can. Was it not Franklin, afterall, who acted upon new prin-ciples and forged a new iden-tity for himself, defying theancient prejudices and man-ners of the old world? Franklin,more than any other foundingfather, embodied the character ofthe new nation. He had overcomepoverty and the prejudices of thetime, while at the same time defin-ing the future course of Americanhistory. In short, he was theembodiment of America's future,and as the tercentenary year of hisbirth draws to an end, it isworth reconsidering justhow important he was tothe founding of the UnitedStates.

The Making of a PoliticianOn 1 January 1748, Franklinhad acquired a small for-tune as a printer, enough toretire at the young age of 42and pursue his interests inscience and politics. He hadserved as the clerk of thePennsylvania Assemblysince 1736, as postmaster ofPhiladelphia since 1737, andhad helped to form the firstPennsylvania militia adecade later to defend the

province against Spanish, Frenchand Indian incursions. But it wasonly after retirement, when he hadmore free time, that he devotedhimself endlessly to public life. InOctober 1748, for example, he wasselected councilman, and justice ofthe peace for Philadelphia the fol-lowing year. In 1751, the same year

Franklin's famous snake cartoon which he published inthe Pennsylvania Gazette in May 1754. It was the first

political cartoon in an American newspaper andfirst symbol of colonial unification.

Franklin formed the PhiladelphiaContributionship (the first insur-ance company in America), he waselected to the PennsylvaniaAssembly and successfully peti-tioned the Assembly for a charterto establish the first hospital in

America. By 1753, he wasappointed joint deputy post-master-general of NorthAmerica, and successfullyreformed the postal serviceso that mail was deliveredmore frequently and, for thefirst time, the post officemade a profit.

With the French incur-sions into the Ohio Valleyand along the western bor-

ders of Virginia and Pennsyl-vania, Franklin soon shifted his

attention from provincial tointercolonial politics. In early

May 1754, he wrote and publishedan editorial in the PennsylvaniaGazette promoting the idea of colo-nial unification, in which heinserted a political cartoon of asnake cut into pieces with the cap-tion, "JOIN, OR DIE." A monthlater, after the British governmenthad called for an intercolonial con-ference with the objective of reaf-firming Britain's alliance with the

Six Nations and arranging a •common defense of thefrontier, Franklin, as one ofthe delegates, drafted hisplan of union while enroute to Albany, New York.

According to the detailsof that plan, the colonieswould be united under"one General Government",with the colonial assemblies -sending representatives tothe "Grand Council" andthe Crown appointing a"President General".Together they would over-see the general defense of ,British North America andpay for it by drawing on taxmoney, which, according to

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the individual wealth of eachcolony, would be paid into the"General Treasury". After somerevisions, the delegates at Albanypassed Franklin's plan, but it wasdefeated by the colonial assembliesbecause they feared it gave toomuch power to Britain.

In London, British officials alsorejected the plan, but because theyfeared it gave to much power tothe colonies and might result incolonial independence. By Decem-ber, Governor William Shirley ofMassachusetts informed Franklinof the British counterproposal of acolonial union, which Franklinrejected on the grounds that it didnot give the colonists the right tochoose their own representatives,and also because Parliament didnot have the right to tax thecolonies without representation. Ina letter of 4 December1754, long before theStamp Act crisis,Franklin informedShirley: "That it issuppos'd anundoubted Right ofEnglishmen not to betaxed but by theirown Consent giventhro' their Representa-tives."

Franklin's visionof colonial unificationeventually found itsexpression in the"Articles of Confeder-ation" and the Consti-tution of 1787, but inthe meantime, heturned his attention to the defenseof the frontier and the outcome ofthe French and Indian War. After ashort stint as colonel in the Penn-sylvania militia, the Assembly senthim to England, where he peti-tioned Parliament and the king totax the proprietary lands of thePenn family.

At first Franklin had little suc-cess fulfilling his commission, but,shortly after he arrived in 1757, henoticed that the British people andgovernment were ill-informed •about the colonies. And so hewrote "A Defense of the Ameri-cans", in which he defended thecharacter and manners of Ameri-can colonials, and The Interest of

Great Britain Considered, in whichhe promoted the economic andstrategic advantages of Canadaand influenced the British decisionto claim Canada instead of Guade-loupe at the conclusion of theFrench and Indian War.

Franklin returned to Philadel-phia in the summer of1762, but he was soonback in England after thePennsylvania Assemblycommissioned him topetition the king aboutchanging Pennsylvania'sform of government froma proprietorship to royalprovince.

Immediately upon hisarrival on 10 December1764, Franklin was forcedto devote much of histime to opposing Lord

then sent to Thomas Cushing,Speaker of the MassachusettsAssembly. The Assembly immedi-ately petitioned King George III forHutchinson's and Oliver'sremoval, and with Franklin's sub-sequent confession that he hadbeen the one to send the letters to

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Grenville's stamp tax. Parliamenteventually repealed the Stamp Act,but for the next decade, Franklinfound himself embroiled in onepolitical crisis after another. Witheach successive attempt by Parlia-ment to tax the colonies, Franklindefended the right of Americans totax themselves and was conse-quently appointed an agent forGeorgia, New Jersey and Massa-chusetts.

As colonial agent, Franklin, inlate 1772, obtained the private let-ters of Massachusetts GovernorThomas Hutchinson and Lieu-tenant-Governor Andrew Oliverwith the British Undersecretary ofState Thomas Whatley, which he

Above; Newspaper arti-cle c. 1772 announcingthat Franklin had beenappointed as a colonialagent to Georgia inBritain, see circled.Left; Benjamin Franklinbeing arraigned in 1774by a committee ofLords for disloyalty tothe Crown. Withindays, he was dismissedas deputy postmaster-general of the Colonies.

Cushing, it was simply a matter oftime before the British authoritiesqueried him on the Hutchinsonaffair.

IndependenceIn what might be described as thedenning moment when Franklinfirst considered the possibility ofbecoming a revolutionary, thePrivy Council summoned theAmerican agent to the Cockpit inWhitehall on 29 January 1774. Foran hour, Solicitor-General Alexan-der Wedderbum castigatedFranklin as a rogue and criminalwhile high British officials, manyof whom Franklin knew quitewell, sniggered and jeered. During

History Magazine • December/January 2007 17

PERSONALITIES

the session, Franklin, wearing aManchester velvet suit, stood therestone-faced and silent, leaving noexpression for what was the greatpublic humiliation of his life.

For the next year, Franklin,who had been dismissed as deputypostmaster-general for NorthAmerica, sought reconciliationwith the mother country, but noth-ing came of it. On 20 March 1775,he sailed home with his grandsonTemple, the illegitimate child of hisson William who was the royalgovernor of New Jersey. He wasimmediately chosen a Pennsylva-nia delegate to the Second Conti-nental Congress and joined theranks of the radical faction. Heparticipated in various committeesand drafted his articles for confed-eration, which placed moreemphasis on a central governmentthan the "Articles of Confedera-tion" and the Constitution of1787, though most members ofCongress did not supportAmerican independence andthought the articles too radicalat the time.

By the following February,Franklin, now 70 years old,was appointed by Congress toaccompany a small delegationto Canada and convince theFrench-Canadians to supportthe English colonies. Franklinmade the long journey, suffer-ing large boils, swelling of thelegs, bouts of dizziness andthe gout, but the mission wasdoomed from the outset withthe American army's treat-ment of French-Canadiansafter the sieges of Montreal

and Quebec in 1775, and the Eng-lish colonists' bigotry towardsCatholicism after the Quebec Actof 1774. Franklin, nonetheless,made the hazardous journey andreturned by the beginning of June,seriously ill. Soon he was servingon the committee for drafting adeclaration of independence.

Although Thomas Jefferson isbetter known as the foundingfather who drafted the Declaration,it was Franklin and John Adamswho edited and revised Jefferson'sdraft of the document before it wassubmitted to Congress. After Con-gress adopted the Declaration on 4July 1776, Franklin was appointedpresident of the Pennsylvania StateConvention and oversaw the fram-ing of the state Constitution of1776, the most democratic of all thestate constitutions. Shortly there-after, he received a congressional

commission, together with SilasDeane and Arthur Lee, to tiavel toFrance and obtain French aid forthe revolutionary war.

Franklin arrived in France on 3December 1776, and proceeded toParis, where he met secretly withCharles Gravier, Count de Ver-gennes, the French foreign minis-ter. The French welcomed him asan international celebrity. His sim-ple dress and tastes, whichFranklin knew the Frenchphilosophies had associated withPennsylvania and Quakerism,appealed to the French, anddespite the fact that he had comefrom the most metropolitan area inNorth America, Franklin playedthe role of the simple man, the rus-tic philosopher who wore no pow-dered wigs but rather his thin greyhair under a fur cap "which comesdown my Forehead almost to my

Spectacles."For much of 1777, Franklin

was patient about receivingFrench support. He knew thatthe French would refrain fromopenly supporting the Ameri-cans and thereby offending theBritish. At the same time, heknew that the French had aninterest in reclaiming theirpossessions lost in the lateFrench and- Indian War, whichhad stripped Canada andparts of the West Indies fromFrance and left Britain thedominant power in NorthAmerica.

While the French refrainedfrom openly supporting Amer-ican independence, they dis-creetly opened their ports to

Franklin signs the Declaration of Independence, shown above, which Congress adopted on 4 July 1776, as peers look on.

18 History Magazine • December/January 2006 .

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American ships and providedsmall suras of financial aid to therevolutionary cause. Franklin con-tinued to negotiate with Ver-gennes, but it was only after newsof the American victory atSaratoga reached France on 4December 1777, that the Frenchwere willing to sign a treaty of"Alliance" and a treaty of "Amityand Commerce". In an act ofrevenge for his public humiliationbefore the Privy Council, Franklinsigned the treaties on 6 February1778, wearing the same Manches-ter velvet suit he had worn onthe day he appeared in theCockpit at Whitehall. TheFrench, shortly thereafter, senta minister plenipotentiary tothe United States, and Con-gress responded by appointingFranklin as American plenipo-tentiary to France.

As minister plenipoten-tiary, Franklin performed avariety of duties, whichincluded borrowing money forCongress and the states, issu-ing passports, promissorynotes, loan office certificatesand letters of marque forAmerican privateers. At thesame time, he oversaw Ameri-can propaganda, the affairs ofthe Continental Navy, the pur-chase of arms and supplies forthe Continental Army, Ameri-can intelligence in Europe andthe humane treatment andexchange of American prison-ers.

With the British defeat atYorktown (October 1781) bythe Americans and Frenchexpeditionary force under the com-mand of Rochambeau, and thesubsequent rise of the Rockinghamministry in Parliament, the Britishand Americans were ready to •negotiate. A master diplomat,Franklin possessed the ability ofpresenting contrasting views todifferent audiences. When talkingto the French, for example, hehoped to receive continuing finan-cial support and reassured Ver-gennes that America would notnegotiate a separate treaty withBritain. When talking to theBritish, from whom he hoped toobtain concessions, he left the

impression that he might sign atreaty without French consent.Franklin, who had congressionalinstructions to communicate anyAnglo-American negotiations tothe French, ignored Congress andtold the British representative on19 April 1782, that they must cedeall of Canada to the United Statesbefore negotiations could takeplace. On July 10, while still ignor-ing congressional instructions, herevised his demand of surrender-ing Canada to an "Advisable" arti-cle and put forward the four

A mezzotint of Benjamin Franklin by Germanprintmaker J.L. Rugendas, c. 1780.

articles he considered "necessaryto be granted", which included (1)an acknowledgment of Americanindependence, (2) a settlement ofBritish-American colonial bound-aries, (3) a confinement of Canadato its old borders, and (4) Ameri-can access to the Newfoundlandfisheries. Lord Shelburne, now theprime minister df Britain, acceptedFranklin's necessary articles andnegotiations began in earnest.

In the final draft of the peacetreaty, now known as the Treaty ofParis (1783), Britain acceptedFranklin's four articles, recogniz-ing American independence, grant-

ing the US fishing rights in theGrand Banks and in the Gulf of theSt. Lawrence, and retaining theborders of its loyal colonies (viz.Quebec). The United States, for itspart, agreed to "earnestly recom-mend" to the state legislatures thatthey "provide for the restitution ofall estates, rights, and properties"of Loyalists, and prevent any"future loss or damage" to them,either in "person, liberty, or prop-erty". The United States was nowan independent country, whichFranklin had helped to create

while excluding France andother European powers whoseinfluence might have affectedthe direction and stability ofthe new nation in the firstyears of independence.

RetirementShortly before Franklin leftFrance in July 1785, he wrotethat he would "now be free ofPoliticks for the Rest of myLife. Welcome again my dearPhilosophical Amusements."He was now 79 and arrived inPhiladelphia the followingSeptember, but the adoringpublic would not let himretire. Within a month, his"Fellow Citizens having in aconsiderable Body express'dtheir Desire" that he would"take a Post in their publickCouncils", believing that hemight be able to reconcile thecontending parties, he "hadnot sufficient Firmness torefuse their Request." OnOctober 11, he won his seat inthe Council and was subse-

quently chosen by a near unani-mous vote, except his own and oneother, president of the SupremeExecutive Council (i.e. governor ofPennsylvania), a position he wouldhold annually for the next threeyears. As president, Franklin'smain accomplishments wererestoring the charter of the Bank ofNorth America, reforming thepenal code — thereby making onlytreason and murder a capitaloffense — and removing an addi-tion to the 1776 Pennsylvania Con-stitution, which had required allvoters to swear an oath of alle-giance to the state constitution.

History Magazine • December/January 2007 19

While president, Franklin alsocontributed to the framing of thefederal Constitution. On 28 March1787, he was chosen as a Pennsyl-vania delegate to the Constitu-tional Convention and put forwardthe "Great Compromise", callingfor a bicameral legislature bywhich the House of Representa-tives was represented by popula-tion, and the Senate by each, stateequally. Franklin also argued,though unsuccessfully, for a moreinclusive franchise and nonpay-ment of officers. On September 17,he concluded the Convention witha pro-ratification speech: "I agreeto this Constitution, with all itsfaults... I consent, Sir, to this Con-stitution, because I expect no bet-ter, and because I am not sure that.it is not the best."

He then put forward themotion that the delegates sign theConstitution. As the last memberswere signing, Franklin lookedtowards the president's chair at theback of which was painted a risingsun and observed that paintershad found it difficult to distin-guish in their work a rising from asetting sun. "I have often andoften, in the course of the session,"he said to a few members nearhim, "and the vicissitudes of myhopes and fears as to its issue,looked at that behind the Presi-dent, without being able to tellwhether it was rising or setting; •but now, at length, I have the hap-piness to know that it is a rising,and not a setting, sun."

Franklin's retirement as Penn-sylvania's governor in October1788 ended his political career,allowing him to pursue otherinterests. When he could not reachbooks on the high shelves in hislibrary, he invented an instrument.to take them down. He alsoinvented a chair with a seat thatunfolded to become a ladder, achairjvvith a writing arm on oneside (later adopted in grammarschools) and a rocking chair withan automatic fan.

He also became an outspokenabolitionist. Although he had onceowned domestic slaves, he hadcome to the conclusion thatAfrican-Americans were intellec-tual equals after he visited a Negro

school in Philadelphia during theearly 1760s and took a more activerole in the abolition movementafter the revolutionary war. InApril 1787, he was chosen presi-dent of the Pennsylvania Societyfor Promoting the Abolition ofSlavery, and, a year before he died,he appealed to the public for fundsand support for the abolitionmovement, while presenting Con-gress with the first remonstranceagainst slavery, though nothingcame of it.

On 23 March 1790, less than amonth before his death, Franklinwrote his last hoax, a parody onslavery which he published in theFederal Gazette two days later \r the pseudonym of Histori-

cus. In the hoax, a prominentAlgerian Muslim defends the prac-tice of the Barbary pirates enslav-ing Christians by answering thepetition of an Algerian sect whooppose the enslavement of Chris-tians. Who is going to "cultivateour lands", "perform the commonlabours of our city, and in our fam-ilies", asks the Algerian, if notthose "Christian dogs?" The par-ody compares the Algerian's -speech with a recent defense ofslavery in Congress by James Jack-son, a representative from Georgia,and plays on the American abhor-rence of Algerian pirates and theirtaking of Christian slaves.

The slavery hoax wasFranklin's last publication duringhis lifetime. He died at home ofpleurisy on April 17, surroundedby his friends and family (exceptWilliam, his son who had takenthe side of the Loyalists in the latewar and was now an exile in Lon-don). He was buried at ChristChurch, next to his wife who haddied while her husband was anagent in England. An estimated20,000 people in a city of about30,000 followed or witnessed thefuneral procession, the bells weremuffled and tolled, eulogies weredelivered at home and abroad, andlegislatures wore the badge ofmourning, including the FrenchNational Assembly. Franklin, the"first American", was now living 'among the dead, an apotheosis ofAmerican republicanism and itsbright future. Even William Smith,

Franklin's old enemy, had toacknowledge his greatness, butJohn Adams, always jealous of hiscolleague, complained to his friendBenjamin Rush after hearing ofFranklin's death:

Tlie history of our revolution will lie onecontinued lie from one end to the other.The essence of the whole will lie that Dr.Franklin's electrical rod smote the earthand out sprang General Washington.That Franklin electrified him with hisrod and thence forward these two con-ducted all the policy, negotiations, legis-latures, and war.

Adams' prediction, howevervindictive, was foretelling. BothWashington and Franklin now sitmajestically, next to none, in thepantheon of the founding fathers.Yet, perhaps it is worth notingthat, without the Revolution,Washington would be forgotten,whereas Franklin, as world-famous scientist, philosopher andwit, would be as well known as heis today. Even if we avoid counter-factual statements and narrow thelens of history to Washington'srole in the Revolution, most of usdo not acknowledge that it was defacto French aid — troops, navy,artillery, and money — secured byFranklin that defeated the Britishat Yorktown. As one British news-paper summed up the AmericanRevolution on the eve of the finalpeace treaty, "It is hoped the philo-sophical world will once moreprofit by the abilities and genius ofDr. Franklin. The eminence he dis-played as a natural philosopher,will long outlive his other actions,although in the heat of the presentliberty influenza, he be consideredas the saviour of America — Forwhat would he, Washington, or allput together, have done withoutthe interference of the French?"But the image of an Americanambassador or that of a foreignpower, especially the French, doesnot conjure up the best image ofAmerican heroism; in the end, it isthe general, not Rochambeau norLafayette, but an American one,wearing a military uniform andriding a horse that conjures up thebest image of the American revolu-tionary hero.

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