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Franklin, Benjamin

In his many careers as printer,
moralist,
essayist,
civic leader,
scientist,
inventor,
statesman,
diplomat,
and philosopher,
Benjamin Franklin became
for later generations of Americans both a spokesman and a model
for the national character.

He was born in Boston on Jan. 17, 1706,
into a pious Puritan household (see PURITANISM).

His father,
Josiah,
was a candlemaker and a skillful mechanic,
but Benjamin said that his father's "great Excellence lay in a sound understanding,
and solid Judgment."

He described his mother,
originally named Abiah Folger and born on the island of Nantucket,
as "a discreet and virtuous Woman."

His parents raised a family of 13 children.

In honoring them and in a lifelong affection
for New England ways,
Franklin demonstrated the lasting impact of his Puritan heritage.

The Bookman
After less than two years of formal schooling,
Franklin was pressed in
to his father's trade,
but his more profound talents proved
to be intellectual.

He devoured books by John Bunyan,
Plutarch,
Daniel Defoe,
and Cotton Mather at home,
and,
after being apprenticed
to his brother James,
printer of The New England Courant,
he read virtually every book that came
to the shop.

He generally absorbed the values and philosophy of the English Enlightenment.

Like his favorite author,
Joseph ADDISON,
whose essays in the Spectator he virtually memorized,
Franklin added the good sense,
tolerance,
and urbanity of the neoclassic age
to his family's Puritan earnestness.

He rejected his father's Calvinist theology,
however,
and soon espoused what became a lifelong belief in rational Christianity.

At the age of 16,
Franklin wrote some pieces
for the Courant signed "Silence Dogood," in which he satirized the Boston authorities and society.

In one essay he argued that "hypocritical Pretenders
to Religion" more injured the commonwealth than those "openly Profane."

At one point James Franklin was imprisoned
for similar statements,
and Benjamin carried on the paper himself.

Having thus learned
to resist oppression,
Benjamin refused
to suffer his brother's own domineering qualities and in 1723 ran away
to Philadelphia.


Though penniless and unknown,
Franklin soon found a job as a printer.

After a year he went
to England,
where he became a master printer,
sowed some wild oats,
astonished Londoners
with his swimming feats,
and lived among the aspiring writers of London.

Returning
to Philadelphia in 1726,
he soon owned his own newspaper,
the Pennsylvania Gazette,
and began
to print Poor Richard's Almanack (1732).

His business expanded further when he contracted
to do the public printing of the province,
and established partnerships
with printers in other colonies.

He also operated a book shop and became clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly and postmaster of Philadelphia.

In 1748,
Franklin,
aged 42,
retired
to live comfortably off the income from his business,
managed by others,

for 20 years.


In the sayings of "Poor Richard" like "Early
to bed and early
to rise make a man healthy,
wealthy,
and wise" and in his scheme
for moral virtue later set out in his famous Autobiography,
Franklin summarized his view of how the poor man may improve himself by hard work,
thrift,
and honesty.

Poor Richard's Almanack sold widely in North America,
and a summarized version known as The Way
to Wealth was translated in
to many languages.

The Civic Leader and Scientist
In 1727,
Franklin began his career as a civic leader by organizing a club of aspiring tradesmen called the Junto,
which met each week
for discussion and planning.

They aspired
to build their own businesses,
insure the growth of Philadelphia,
and improve the quality of its life.

Franklin thus led the Jun
to in founding a library (1731),
a fire company (1736),
a learned society (1743),
a college (later the University of Pennsylvania,
1749),
and an insurance company and a hospital (1751).

The group also carried out plans
for paving,
cleaning,
and lighting the streets and
for making them safe by organizing an efficient nightwatch.

They even formed a voluntary militia.

Franklin began yet another career when in 1740 he invented the Pennsylvania fireplace,
later called the Franklin stove,
which soon heated buildings all over Europe and North America.

He also read treatises on electricity and began a series of experiments
with his friends in Philadelphia.

Experiments he proposed,
first tried in France in 1752,
showed that LIGHTNING was in fact a form of ELECTRICITY.

Later that year his famous kite experiment,
in which he flew a kite
with the wire attached
to a key during a thunderstorm,
further established that laboratory-produced static electricity was akin
to a previously mysterious and terrifying natural phenomenon.

When the Royal Society in London published these discoveries,
and the lightning rods he soon invented appeared on buildings all over America and Europe,
Franklin became world famous.

He was elected
to the Royal Society in 1756 and
to the French Academy of Sciences in 1772.

His later achievements included formulating a theory of heat absorption,
measuring the Gulf Stream,
designing ships,
tracking storm paths,
and inventing bifocal lenses.

The Politician and Provincial Agent
In 1751,
Franklin was elected
to the Pennsylvania Assembly,
thus beginning nearly 40 years as a public official.

He intended at first merely
to enlist political support
for his various civic enterprises,
but partisan politics soon engulfed him.

He opposed the Proprietary party that sought
to preserve the power of the Penn family in Pennsylvania affairs,
and as the legislative strategist and penman
for the so-called Quaker party,
he defended the powers of the elected representatives of the people.

Franklin thus knew the virtues of self-government a generation before the Declaration of Independence.

Franklin did not at first,
however,
contemplate separation from Britain,
which he regarded as having the freest,
best government in the world.

In the Plan of Union,
which he presented (1754)
to the ALBANY CONGRESS,
he proposed partial self-government
for the American colonies.

A year later Franklin supported the ill-fated expedition of Gen.

Edward BRADDOCK
to recapture Fort Duquesne,
and he persuaded the Quaker-dominated Pennsylvania Assembly
to pass the colony's first militia law.

He himself led a military expedition
to the Lehigh Valley,
where he established forts
to protect frontiersmen from French and Indian raiders.

As Franklin helped the empire fight
for its life,
however,
he saw that colonial and ministerial ideas of governing the colonies were far apart.

When he went
to England in 1757 as agent of the Pennsylvania Assembly,
he was alarmed
to hear Lord Granville,
president of the Privy Council,
declare that
for the colonies,
the king's instructions were "the Law of the Land:
for the King is the Legislator of the Colonies."

In England from 1757
to 1762,
Franklin worked
to persuade British officials
to limit proprietary power in Pennsylvania.

He also immensely enjoyed English social and intellectual life.

He attended meetings of the Royal Society,
visited David Hume in Scotland,
heard great orchestras play the works of Handel,
made grand tours of the continent,
and received honorary doctor's degrees from the universities of St.

Andrews (1759) and Oxford (1762).

He created a pleasant family-style life at his Craven Street boarding house in London,
and began a long friendship and scientific-humorous correspondence
with his landlady's daughter,
Mary Stevenson.

Their letters reveal his gifts
for lively friendship,

for brilliant letter writing,
and
for humane understanding.

At home from 1762
to 1764,
Franklin traveled throughout the colonies,
reorganizing the American postal system.

He also built a new house on Market Street in Philadelphia--now reconstructed and open
to visitors--and otherwise provided
for his family,
which included the former Deborah Read,
his wife since 1730;
their daughter Sally,
who married Richard Bache and had a large family of her own;
and his illegitimate son,
William.

Though he was appointed governor of New Jersey in 1762,
William became a Loyalist during the American Revolution,
completely estranged from his father.

As an influential politician,
Franklin opposed the bloody revenges of frontier people against innocent Indians after PONTIAC'S REBELLION (1763) and helped
to defend Philadelphia when the angry pioneers threatened its peace.

In 1764 he lost his seat in the assembly in an especially scurrilous campaign.

However,
his party sent him
to England in 1764
to petition that Pennsylvania be taken over as a royal colony.


The Defender of American Rights
The crisis precipitated by the STAMP ACT (1765) pushed that effort in
to the background and propelled Franklin in
to a new role as chief defender of American rights in Britain.

At first he advised obedience
to the act until it could be repealed,
but news of violent protest against it in America stiffened his own opposition.

After repeal of the Stamp Act,
Franklin reaffirmed his love
for the British Empire and his desire
to see the union of mother country and colonies "secured and established," but he also warned that "the seeds of liberty are universally found and nothing can eradicate them."

He opposed the TOWNSHEND ACTS (1767) because such "acts of oppression" would "sour American tempers" and perhaps even "hasten their final revolt."

When the British Parliament passed the Tea Act (1773),
which hurt the colonial merchants,
Franklin protested in a series of finely honed political essays,
including "An Edict by the King of Prussia" and "Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced
to a Small One."

As these satires circulated in England,
Franklin wrote his sister:

"I have held up a Looking-Glass in which some of the Ministers may see their ugly faces,
and the Nation its Injustice."

In 1773,
Franklin's friends in Massachusetts,
against his instructions,
published letters by Gov.

Thomas HUTCHINSON that Franklin had obtained in confidence.

Apparently exposed as a dishonest schemer,
Franklin was denounced before the Privy Council in January 1774 and stripped of his postmaster general's office.

Although he continued
to work
for conciliation,
the Boston Tea Party and Britain's oppressive response
to it soon doomed such efforts.

In March 1775,
Franklin sailed
for home,
sure "the extream corruption . . .

in this old rotten State" would ensure "more Mischief than Benefit from a closer Union" between Britain and its colonies.

From April 1775
to October 1776,
Franklin served on the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety and in the Continental Congress,
submitted articles of confederation
for the united colonies,
proposed a new constitution
for Pennsylvania,
and helped draft the Declaration of Independence.

He readily signed the declaration,
thus becoming a revolutionist at the age of 70.

The Diplomat
In October 1776,
Franklin and his two grandsons sailed
for France,
where he achieved an amazing personal triumph and gained critical French aid
for the Revolutionary War.

Parisian literary and scientific circles hailed him as a living embodiment of Enlightenment virtues.

Wigless and dressed in plain brown clothes,
he was called le Bonhomme Richard.

Franklin was at his best creating the legend of his life among the ladies of Paris,
writing witty letters,
printing bagatelles,
and telling anecdotes.

He moved slowly at first in his diplomacy.

France wanted
to injure Britain but could not afford
to help the American rebels unless eventual success seemed assured.

Franklin thus worked behind the scenes
to send war supplies across the Atlantic,
thwart British diplomacy,
and make friends
with influential French officials.

He overcame his own doubts about the possibly dishonest dealings of his fellow commissioner Silas DEANE in channeling war materials
to American armies,
but the third commissioner,
Arthur Lee (1740-92),
bitterly condemned both Deane and Franklin.

Despite these quarrels,
in February 1778,
following news of the American victory at Saratoga,
the three commissioners were able
to sign the vital French alliance.

Franklin then became the first American minister
to France.

for seven years he acted as diplomat,
purchasing agent,
recruiting officer,
loan negotiator,
admiralty court,
and intelligence chief and was generally the main representative of the new United States in Europe.

Though nearly 80 years old,
he oversaw the dispatch of French armies and navies
to North America,
supplied American armies
with French munitions,
outfitted John Paul JONES--whose famous ship the Bonhomme Richard was named in Franklin's honor--and secured a succession of loans from the nearly bankrupt French treasury.

After the loss at Yorktown (1781) finally persuaded British leaders that they could not win the war,
Franklin made secret contact
with peace negotiators sent from London.

In these delicate negotiations he proposed treaty articles close
to those finally agreed to:

complete American independence,
access
to the Newfoundland fishing grounds,
evacuation of British forces from all occupied areas,
and a western boundary on the Mississippi.

Together
with John JAY,
Franklin represented the United States in signing the Treaty of Paris (Sept. 3, 1783),
by which the world's foremost military power recognized the independence of the new nation.

Franklin traveled home in 1785.

Though in his 80th year and suffering from painful bladder stones,
he nonetheless accepted election
for three years as president of Pennsylvania and resumed active roles in the Pennsylvania Society
for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery,
the American Philosophical Society,
and the University of Pennsylvania.

At the CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION of 1787,
although he was too weak
to stand,
Franklin's good humor and gift
for compromise often helped
to prevent bitter disputes.

Franklin's final public pronouncements urged ratification of the Constitution and approved the inauguration of the new federal government under his admired friend George Washington.

He wrote friends in France that "we are making Experiments in Politicks," but that American "affairs mend daily and are getting in
to good order very fast."

Thus,
cheerful and optimistic as always,
Benjamin Franklin died in Philadelphia on Apr. 17, 1790.