Franklin

by Thomas Fleming

  On September 13, 1785, Franklin awoke to find the Cape May lighthouse in full view. Soon they were in Delaware Bay, with “water smooth, air cool, day fair and fine.” They worked their way up the Delaware for the rest of the day, anchoring off Red Bank, near sunset. In the morning a light breeze carried them above Gloucester Point, and there in full view was, as Franklin called it in his diary, “dear Philadelphia.” The health officer arrived to clear them through quarantine, and soon after him came Richard Bache, with a boat for the whole Franklin party. Another ship had outrun Franklin’s vessel with the news that he was on his way, and all of Philadelphia was ready for him. As they landed at the Market Street wharf, an enormous crowd of people lined the streets, roaring a joyous welcome for the only man who equaled George Washington in the hearts of his countrymen. Tears ran down Temple Franklin’s cheeks and the young man “was not the only one thus moved.” The huge crowd watched with delight while Franklin’s daughter Sally embraced him at his street door. No one could possibly have wished for a more triumphant homecoming, and the patriarch closed his travel diary with a moving “God be praised and thanked for all His mercies.”

  He had come home, he had vowed to his friends in Europe, to spend his few remaining days in leisure, to work on his autobiography, to amuse himself with scientific investigations. But within twenty-four hours, he found that there was no hope of his escaping from politics. Pennsylvania was torn by factions fighting for control of the state, and they all rushed to enlist Franklin. He was wary at first. “My principal merit, if I may claim any, in publick affairs,” he told them, “is that of having been always ready and willing to receive and follow good advice.” Espousing once more his favorite role, that of the peacemaker, Franklin accepted the nomination to the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania from each of the three factions contending for control. Within a month of his arrival from Europe, he was elected to the Council and promptly chosen Council president. The Assembly then elected him president of the state, the office which corresponds to some extent with the present, day governorship.

  Franklin pretended, with some friends, to rebel against this return to public service. He complained that his fellow citizens had “eaten my flesh, and seem resolved now to pick my bones.” But he was obviously proud of the honor, which reassured him once and for all, that his reputation had survived the attacks of the Lees, the Izards, and the Adamses. He made a point of telling his politically minded European friends that he had been “plac’d at the head of my country by its unanimous voice.”

  Another reason why he accepted the burden was to refute the rumors that were rampant throughout Europe about the imminent collapse of the United States. The British were telling everyone that the leaders of the Revolution were being repudiated by the people, and intimated that anarchy was only a step away. Franklin knew that the sight of him at the head of the state of Pennsylvania would do much to demolish these lies. He added some facts of his own in letters to friends such as David Hartley. “Your newspapers are filled with accounts of distresses and miseries that these states are plunged into since their separation from Britain. You may believe me when I tell you, that there is no truth in those accounts. I find all property and lands and houses augmented vastly in value; that of houses in towns at least fourfold. The crops have been plentiful, and yet the produce sells high, to the great profit of the farmer. Working people have plenty of employ, and high pay for their labour.”

  This may have been true in Pennsylvania, but in some other states there was serious unrest. An ex-Revolutionary officer named Daniel Shays led an uprising of farmers in western Massachusetts that for a few weeks threatened to grow into a full-scale revolution. Relations between the states had deteriorated alarmingly, too. There was a tendency to ignore Congress almost completely and pursue independent economic and political paths. It became more and more obvious to Franklin and all thinking men that the Articles of Confederation were almost as bad as no federal government at all. Disgustedly Franklin told one American friend that Congress had not been able to assemble delegates from more than seven or eight states during the whole winter. To Edward Bancroft, Franklin admitted, “We discover, indeed, some errors in our general and particular constitution; which is no wonder they should have, the time in which they were formed being considered. But these we shall mend.” A few months later he was writing to his successor in France, Thomas Jefferson, “Our federal constitution is generally thought defective, and a convention, first proposed by Virginia, and since recommended by Congress, is to assemble here next month, to revise it and propose amendments. The delegates generally appointed, as far as I have heard of them, are men of character for prudence and ability, so that I hope good from their meeting.”

  To those he trusted Franklin did not hesitate to admit the crucial nature of the Constitutional Convention which met in Philadelphia in May of 1787. “Indeed if it does not do good, it must do harm,” he told Jefferson, “as it will show that we have not wisdom enough among us to govern ourselves; and will strengthen the opinion of some political writers, that popular governments cannot long support themselves.” Franklin himself rallied all his strength in a last expression of commitment to the cause for which he had already sacrificed so much. At the age of eighty-two, for four consecutive months he trudged almost daily from his house to the Pennsylvania State House, and spent hours wrangling and debating over how to reconcile poor states and rich states, large states and small states, slave states and free states, and the hundred and one other questions confronted by the men who made the Constitution.

  From the first day, Franklin personified the spirit of compromise that was essential, if the convention was to succeed. Only he could have challenged George Washington for the chairmanship of the conclave. Franklin deliberately stepped aside and, on the opening day, was prepared to personally nominate Washington for the job. Unfortunately, he was ill and could not attend, but another member of the Pennsylvania delegation nominated Washington, thus making it clear that Franklin was not in competition.

  The wrangling between the small states and large states soon grew so intense that it looked as if the convention might break up. Franklin rose and reminded the assembled politicians that in this same room, when the Continental Congress met, prayers were offered daily, prayers that were “graciously answered.” He urged the revival of the practice, now. The motion did not carry, largely because men like Alexander Hamilton feared that it would be taken by the public as a sign of “embarrassments and dissensions within the Convention,” which indeed it was. But the suggestion did inject a note of profound faith into the bellicose wrangling and enabled Franklin to warn the delegates that if they allowed themselves to be “divided by our little partial local interests,” they would become “a reproach and a bye-word down to future ages.”

  How to reconcile the interests of the large states and the small states was the rock on which the Articles of Confederation had foundered, and if Franklin’s resolution did nothing else, it reminded the delegates that the time had come to act as statesmen, rather than partisan horse traders. Unable to solve the problem in the committee of the whole, Congress elected a “Grand Committee,” consisting of one delegate from each state, to ponder the dilemma. Franklin had already urged that “both sides must part with some of their demands” and now he made a motion in this Grand Committee, recommending that one house in Congress have equal representation, and the second house be represented in proportion to population. The second house would have control of passing all money bills, so that each state would pay in proportion to its power, the sine qua non which Franklin had urged again and again in the Continental Congress. The two-house arrangement was not original with Franklin. Several delegates from Connecticut had suggested it, and his old foe, John Dickinson, representing Deleware, had supported it in earlier debates. But no one had the weight to persuade the large-state delegates, except Franklin, who was one of them. The crucial importance of Franklin’s influence was evident in the sque
aky margin of victory by which the foundation stone of American federalism won approval, 5 to 4, with one state (Massachusetts) divided.

  This was the turning point in the Federal Convention. Once the small states felt their interests were protected, they swiftly became moderate nationalists, and the Convention moved ahead with a minimum of acrimony.

  One of Franklin’s finer but lesser known moments at the Convention occurred during the debate over whether the Constitution should set property owning qualifications for service in the new government. This was strenuously endorsed by many of the southern nabobs. Among the most outspoken was Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, who was inordinately proud not only of his wealth, but of his youth, and even lied about his age, pretending to be twenty-four so that he could pose as the youngest man in Congress. Pinckney declared that no one should be elected President who was not worth at least $100,000 and judges and legislators should possess half of that sum. Franklin calmly rose to express his dislike “of everything that tended to debase the spirit of the common people.” Pinckney’s motion was voted down in a negative roar, so ferocious that Chairman Washington did not even bother to poll the states.

  Throughout the Convention, Franklin consistently fought measures that tended to limit freedom and implant a spirit of distrust between different groups of Americans. He opposed the suggestion that immigrants be barred from holding public office for fourteen years. Franklin suggested four. He was even more opposed to the idea of limiting the right to vote to “freeholders,” men who owned property. He heartily approved an amendment which specified that conviction for treason required the testimony of two witnesses “to the same overt act.” He also earnestly defended the clause which gave Congress the power to impeach the President. Again, his stand was part of his intense desire to see Americans use the freedom that they had achieved with responsibility and discretion. He pointed out that in the past, when the “chief magistrate rendered himself obnoxious,” the people had any recourse but “assassination, in which he was not only deprived of his life but of the opportunity of vindicating his character.” He used a similar reason in calling for two witnesses in treason trials. “Prosecutions for treason were generally virulent and perjury too easily made use of against innocence.” Elsewhere, the delegates largely ignored Franklin’s opinions on specific points. He favored a one-house legislature and a Presidency limited to a single seven-year term without the right of reelection. He thought that the Chief of State should be supplemented by a council who would serve as a check on a bad President and be a source of support for a good one. These ideas were either voted down or discarded in the days of hectic debate and discussion.

  As the Convention neared a close it became apparent to most of the delegates that the real danger now lay in the possibility that the Constitution would be repudiated by the states. So many of the com-promises had passed by thin majorities, and many of the advocates on both sides of the numerous arguments were still disgruntled and unreconciled. A formula was needed, to create at least a façade of unanimity. George Washington, as the presiding officer, could hardly make the plea without implying that he had a low opinion of the final document. So inevitably the leaders of the Convention turned to Franklin.

  On September 17, 1787, the delegates assembled for the last time and the secretary of the Convention, William Jackson, read the final version of the Constitution which they were now called upon to sign. Then Franklin rose with a speech in his hand. Because his bladder stone made it difficult for him to stand without pain, he simply asked for permission to speak and then handed the paper to James Wilson of Pennsylvania to read. Wilson, who had been among the most intransigent large-staters, was a shrewd choice as a mouthpiece. But the words he read were the important thing.

  Mr. President,

  I confess, that I do not entirely approve of this Constitution at present; but, sir, I am not sure I shall never approve it; for, having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being oblig’d, by better information or fuller consideration, to change my opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. . . Thus I consent, sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors I sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die. If every one of us, in returning to our constituents, were to report the objections he has had to it, and endeavour to gain partisans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and thereby lose all the salutary effects and great advantages resulting naturally in our favour among foreign nations, as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity. Much of the strength and efficiency of any government, in procuring and securing happiness to the people, depends on opinion, on a general opinion of the goodness of that government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its governors. I hope, therefore, for our own sakes, as a part of the people, and for the sake of our posterity, that we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution, wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts and endeavours to the means of having it well administered.

  On the whole, sir, I cannot help expressing a wish, that every member of the Convention who may still have objections to it, would with me on this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility, and to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument.”

  Franklin then made a motion, which had been suggested to him by Gouverneur Morris, of New York, that all the delegates should sign as witnesses to “the unanimous consent of the states.” After some last minute wrangling from dissidents, the motion carried too, and the illusion of unanimity was achieved.

  One by one, the delegates walked to the president’s table to sign the historic document. Franklin, watching them, turned to those who were sitting near him, and pointed to the president’s chair where a sun happened to be painted. “I have,” he said, “often and often in the course of this session . . . looked at that . . . without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: but now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.”

  Franklin now threw all his influence into the fight for the Constitution’s ratification. His closing speech, by the tacit consent of the other delegates, was widely reprinted, violating the strict secrecy rule of the Convention. In Pennsylvania, Franklin lent his unique prestige by appearing, in person before the General Assembly to present a copy of the Constitution to that body, calling upon them to take the necessary steps to ratify it as soon as possible. Washington’s support of the Constitution was a crucial influence in persuading many reluctant states, especially his own Virginia, to ratify it. Not so many historians have recalled that his name was regularly linked with Franklin’s in newspaper arguments in its behalf.

  Nine months after the Convention ended, Franklin was able to tell one of his French friends proudly: “Eight states have now agreed to the proposed new Constitution, . . . one more agreeing, it will be carried into execution.” But he would not be “taking a share in the management of it.” His “age and infirmities render him as unfit for the business, as the business would be for him. . . . General Washington is the man that all eyes are fixed on for President, and what little influence I might have, is devoted to him.”

  Franklin continued to watch with fascination while the first national elections were held. In this same period he accepted a third term as president of Pennsylvania. He admitted to Jane Mecom that he should have turned the job down. Humorously, he noted that his old friend Dr. Cooper, when Franklin complained that the electorate was resolved to pick his bones, replied that he approved their taste because, “the nearer the bone, the sweeter the meat.” To someone he trusted so intimately as Jane, Franklin could not resist admitting the pride he felt in this third election. “It is no small pleasure to me, and I suppose it will give my sister pleasure, that after such a
long trial of me, I should be elected a third time by my fellow citizens, without a dissenting vote but my own, to fill the most honourable post in their power to bestow. This universal and unbounded confidence of a whole people flatters my vanity much more than a peerage could do.”

  But Franklin was able to give little time to the job. His health deteriorated rapidly after the last great effort of the Constitutional Convention. The bladder stone gave him more and more pain, and he was forced to take opium, which made it difficult for him to concentrate on reading or writing. He managed to finish a few more pages of the autobiography, but he stopped at his arrival in England in 1757, when his really significant public career began. He bore his bouts of pain with amazing fortitude, even preferring it to the opium because he wanted to keep his mind clear.