19. Benjamin Rush to Richard Price, June 2, 1787, Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings 21.17 (May 1903): 361. For Pierce’s speech, see Farrand’s Records of the Convention, 3:91; Franklin speeches, June 30, June 11, Madison’s journal; Morris, The Forging of the Union, 272.
20. Bowen 18.
21. Madison journal, May 31, 1787.
22. Madison journal, June 11, 1787.
23. Madison journal, June 28, 1787.
24. “Motion For Prayers,” by BF, June 28, 1787; Madison’s journal, Farrand, 1:452; Papers CD 45:u77; Smyth Writings, 9:600.
25. Madison journal, June 30, 1787.
26. Manasseh Cutler journal, July 13, 1787, in Smyth Writings, 10:478; “Queries and Remarks Respecting Alterations in the Constitution of Pennsylvania,” Nov. 3, 1789, Smyth Writings, 10:57.
27. Madison journal, July 26, 20, June 5, 1787.
28. Madison journal, Aug. 7, 10, 1787.
29. Madison journal, June 2, 1787; BF to Benjamin Strahan, Feb. 16, Aug. 19, 1784; Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York: Random House, 1991), 199. See also chapter 5 n. 25; McCullough 400.
30. Farrand’s Records of Convention, 3:85; Samuel Eliot Morison, Oxford History of the American People (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), 1:398.
31. BF to la Rochefoucauld, Oct. 22, 1788; BF to Pierre Du Pont de Nemours, June 9, 1788.
32. Franklin closing speech, Sept. 17, 1787, Papers CD 45:ul61. There are a few versions of this speech, including a draft version, a copy, and Madison’s notes, each with minor variations. The one quoted here is that used by the Yale editors of Franklin’s papers.
33. Farrand’s Records of Convention, 3:85; see memory.loc.gov/ammem/ amlaw/lwfr.html.
34. Barbara Oberg, “Plain, Insinuating, Persuasive,” in Lemay Reappraising,176, 189; Rossiter, 1787: The Grand Convention, 234.
35. Roger Rosenblatt, Where We Stand (New York: Harcourt, 2002), 70, citing Henry May, The Enlightenment in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976). The only major founding document Franklin did not sign was the Articles of Confederation, as he was then in France. Roger Sherman signed the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution, as well as the Declaration of 1774, but he did not sign either of the treaties.
36. BF to JM, Nov. 4, 1787, Aug. 3, 1789.
37. BF to Noah Webster, Dec. 26, 1789.
38. BF to Benjamin Vaughan, Oct. 24, 1788; see also BF to Louis-Guillaume Le Veillard, Oct. 24, 1788.
39. BF to Benjamin Vaughan, June 3, Nov. 2, 1798; BF to Elizabeth Partridge, Nov. 25, 1788.
40. BF to Catherine Ray Greene, Mar. 2, 1789; BF to George Washington, Sept. 18, 1789.
41. BF to Jean Baptiste Le Roy, Nov. 13, 1789; BF to Louis-Guillaume le Veillard, Oct. 24, 1788.
42. “An Address to the Public,” Nov. 9, 1789, Smyth Writings, 10:66. Mason quote is in Farrand’s Records of the Convention, 2:370.
43. Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, Petition to Congress, by BF, Feb. 12, 1790.
44. “Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim on the Slave Trade,” BF to Federal Gazette, Mar. 23, 1790.
45. See chapter 11; BF to Richard Price, Mar. 18, 1785.
46. BF to William Strahan, Aug. 19, 1784.
47. BF to unknown recipient, July 3, 1786, Smyth Writings, 9:520; the same letter, dated Dec. 13, 1757, Papers 7:293; Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, first fully published in 1794, www.ushistory.org/paine/; libertyonline.hypermall.com/Paine/ AOR-Frame.html.
The Yale editors of the Franklin Papers note, “Both the date and the addressee of this letter have been subjects of much difference of opinion. Each of the three surviving manuscript versions bears a different date line. That on the draft, in Franklin’s hand, has been heavily scratched out, probably long after the letter was written, by someone other than Franklin.” That draft, now at the Library of Congress, has a note by Franklin calling it “Rough of letter dissuading———from publishing his piece.” Jared Sparks, one of the earliest editors and biographers, deciphered the blacked-out line as “Phila., July 3, 1786,” and he published it as addressed to Thomas Paine (Sparks 10:281). Sparks writes, “When a skeptical writer, who is supposed to have been Thomas Paine, showed him in manuscript a work written against religion, he urged him earnestly not to publish it, but to burn it; objecting to his arguments as fallacious, and to his principles as poisoned with the seeds of vice, without tending to any imaginable good.” John Bigelow in The Works of Benjamin Franklin (New York: Putnam’s, 1904) and Smyth Writings, 9:520, also use that date. For a contrary assessment written by a student of Sparks’s, see Mon-cure Conway, The Life of Thomas Paine (New York: Putnam’s, 1892), vii–viii.
The Yale editors (Papers 7:293n, published in 1963) called that dating “plausible” but give six other possible years, ranging from 1751 to 1787. They tentatively use the 1757 date based on a transcription in French that appears to have been written and dated by the clerk Franklin used while living in Passy. In their note, however, they say, “The editors have not been able to identify any particular ‘infidel’ who might have sent Franklin a manuscript in 1757, nor have they located any particular tract which might be evidence that his advice against publication was disregarded.” The Yale editors, when I asked them in 2002, said that they remain uncertain about the date. In a letter to me commenting on some draft sections of this book, Dec. 2, 2002, Edmund Morgan wrote, “Your suggestion that it was written in 1786 to Paine makes more sense to me than the reasons offered by the former editors for placing it in 1757.”
My belief that the 1786 date is likely and that it was sent to Paine is based on the following. As early as 1776, Paine had expressed his “contempt” for the Bible and told John Adams, “I have some thoughts of publishing my thoughts on religion, but I believe it will be best to postpone it to the latter part of my life” (John Keane, Tom Paine [Boston: Little, Brown, 1995], 390). By 1786, Paine was writing frequently to Franklin (Sept. 23, Dec. 31, 1785, Mar. 31, June 6, 14, 1786) and even using the courtyard in front of Franklin’s house to display a bridge design Paine had made. In The Age of Reason, Paine favorably mentions Franklin five times (“The Proverbs which are said to be of Solomon’s…[are] not more wise and economical than those of the American Franklin”). He echoes the more general aspects of Franklin’s deist creed by saying that he believes in God and that the “moral duty of man” is to practice God’s beneficence “toward each other.” But he also engages in many heretical attacks on organized religion that would have elicited Franklin’s cautious response. He says that churches “appear to me to be no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind and monopolize power and profit.” He also says that “the theory of what is called the Christian church sprung out of the tale of heathen mythology” and decries Christian theology for its “absurdity.” And he begins his book by indicating that he had considered publishing his thoughts earlier but was dissuaded: “It has been my intention, for several years past, to publish my thoughts upon religion. I am well aware of the difficulties that attend the subject, and from that consideration had reserved it to a more advanced period of life.”
48. Archives of Congregation Mikveh Israel, Apr. 30, 1788 (Franklin’s gift is one of the three largest of forty-four, and he is on top of the subscriber list), www.mikvehisrael.org/gifs/frank2.jpg ; BF to John Calder, Aug. 21, 1784.
49. BF to Ezra Stiles, Mar. 9, 1790.
50. BF to Thomas Jefferson, Apr. 8, 1790.
51. Reports of Dr. John Jones and Benjamin Rush, in Sparks and elsewhere; Pa. Gazette, Apr. 21, 1790; Benjamin Bache to Margaret Markoe, May 2, 1790.
52. Epitaph, 1728; this is the version Temple Franklin published. See Papers CD 41:u539. Franklin also produced slightly edited versions, including one that ends “Corrected and amended/By the author” (Papers 1:109a).
53. Last will and testament, plus codicil, June 23, 1789, Papers CD 46:u20.
Chapter 17
1. Las
t will and testament, plus codicil, June 23, 1789, Papers CD 46:u20; Skemp William, 275. The will and codicil are at www.sln.fi.edu/franklin/family/ lastwill.html.
2. WF to TF, July 3, 1789; Skemp William, 275; Lopez Private, 309. A full and authorized English edition of Franklin’s autobiography was not published until 1868.
3. The two great books on Benjamin Bache and his paper are Jeffery A. Smith, Franklin and Bache: Envisioning the Enlightened Republic (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), and Richard Rosenfeld, American Aurora (New York: St. Martin’s, 1997). See also Bernard Faÿ, The Two Franklins (Boston: Little, Brown, 1933).
4. Patricia Nealon, “Ben Franklin Trust to Go to State, City,” Boston Globe, Dec. 7, 1993, A22; Clark DeLeon, “Divvying Up Ben,” Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 7, 1993, B2; Tom Ferrick Jr., “Ben Franklin’s Gift Keeps Giving,” Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 27, 2002, B1; Tour de Sol Web site, www.nesea.org/transportation/ tour ; The Franklin Gazette, printed by the Friends of Franklin Inc., www.benfranklin2006.org (spring 2002); Philadelphia Academies Annual Report 2001 and Web site, www.academiesinc.org. Web sites on Franklin’s bequest include www.philanthropyroundtable.org/magazines/2000-01/lastpage.html ; www.cs.app state.edu/˜sjg/class/1010/wc/finance/benfranklin.html ; www.lehighvalleyfounda tion.org/support.html#BenFranklin.
Chapter 18
1. The Nation, July 9, 1868, reprinted in Norton Autobiography 270. See also Nian-Sheng Huang, Benjamin Franklin in American Thought and Culture, 1790–1990 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1994).
2. The Provost Smith papers, Pennsylvania Gazette, Apr. 1997, www.upenn.edu/gazette/0497/.
3. John Adams, Boston Patriot, May 15, 1811.
4. Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York: Vintage, 1991), 347; John Adams to TF, May 5, 1817; Francis, Lord Jeffrey, Edinburgh Review 8 (1806), in Norton Autobiography 253. Jeffrey was reviewing an earlier unauthorized edition of the writings and autobiography.
5. Robert Spiller, “Franklin and the Art of Being Human,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 100.4 (Aug. 1956): 304.
6. John Keats to George and Georgiana Keats, Oct. 31, 1818; Leigh Hunt, Autobiography (New York: Harper, 1850), 1:130–32; both reprinted in Norton Autobiography 257, 266.
7. Herman Melville, Israel Potter (1855; New York: Library of America, 1985), chapter 8, http://www.melville.org/hmisrael.htm ; Autobiography 45.
8. Emerson’s Journals 1:375, quoted in Campbell 35; Nathaniel Hawthorne, Works, 12:189, cited in Yale Autobiography 13.
9. David Brooks, “Among the Bourgeoisophobes,” The Weekly Standard, Apr. 15, 2002.
10. Mark Twain, “The Late Benjamin Franklin,” The Galaxy, July 1870.
11. Jim Powell, “How Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography inspired all kinds of people to help themselves,” www.libertystory.net/LSCONNFRAN.htm.
12. Frederick Jackson Turner, essay in The Dial, May 1887; William Dean Howells, “Editor’s Study,” Harper’s, Apr. 1888; reprinted in Norton Autobiography.
13. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, first published (in German) in 1904 and revised in 1920 (New York: Harper Collins, 1930), 52–53; Van Wyck Brooks, America’s Coming of Age, originally published in 1915 as an essay (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1934); William Carlos Williams, In the Grain (New York: New Directions, 1925), 153; Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, first published in 1922, chapter 16, section 3, see www.bartleby.com/162/16.html.
14. D. H. Lawrence, “Benjamin Franklin,” Studies in Classic American Literature(New York: Viking, 1923), 10–16, xroads.virginia.edu/˜HYPER/LAWRENCE/ dhlch02.htm ; Cervantes, Don Quixote, part 2, chapter 33; Aesop, “The Milkmaid and the Pail.” Franklin did cite the maxim “Honesty is the best policy” in a letter to Edward Bridgen, Oct. 2, 1779, but it was part of a list of maxims that could be on coins, and he did not claim it as his own.
15. Charles Angoff, A Literary History of the American People (New York: Knopf, 1931), 296–308.
16. Herbert Schneider, The Puritan Mind (New York: Henry Holt, 1930); Van Doren 782; I. Bernard Cohen, Benjamin Franklin’s Experiments (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1941), 73.
17. For more on Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People (1937; New York: Pocket Books, 1994), see ch. 4 n. 6, above; E. Digby Baltzell, Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia (New York: Free Press, 1979), 55.
18. FranklinCovey Web site, www.franklincovey.com ; Grady McAllister, “An Unhurried Look at Time Management,” vasthead.com/Time/tm_papl.html. Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster, In Search of America (New York: Hyperion, 2002), chapter 3, reports on an interesting class discussion by Baylor professor Blaine Mc-Cormick about Franklin as the founding father of business books.
19. Brands 715; Morgan Franklin, 314.
20. Alan Taylor, “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” The New Republic, Mar. 19, 2001, 39. The play 1776, by Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone, opened at Broadway’s 46th Street Theater on Mar. 16, 1969, ran for 1,217 performances, and was made into a film in 1972; Howard Da Silva played Franklin on both stage and screen. Ben Franklin in Paris, by Mark Sandrich Jr. and Sidney Michaels, opened at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater on Oct. 27, 1964, and ran for 215 performances with Robert Preston playing Franklin.
21. David Brooks, “Our Founding Yuppie,” The Weekly Standard, Oct. 23, 2000, 32, 35.
22. BF to JM, July 17, 1771.
23. Taylor, “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” 39.
24. Vernon Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought (New York: Harcourt, 1930), 1:178.
25. Taylor, “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” 39.
26. Poor Richard’s, 1750; BF to Louis Le Veillard, Mar. 6, 1786; Autobiography 107 (all use the “empty sack” line).
27. Brooks, “Our Founding Yuppie,” 35.
28. Autobiography 139.
29. Angoff, A Literary History of the American People, 306; Garry Wills, Under God (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), 380.
30. Henry Steele Commager, The American Mind (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950), 26; John Updike, “Many Bens,” New Yorker, Feb. 22, 1988, 115.
31. David Hume to BF, May 10, 1762; Campbell 356.
Index
abolition
abortion issue
Adams, Abigail
BF described by
Madame Helvétius described by
Adams, John
BF reassessed by
BF’s relationship with
Great Seal and
in Paris mission
in peace negotiations
in Staten Island summit
Vergennes and
and writing of Declaration of Independence
Adams, John Quincy
Adams, Samuel
Addison, Joseph
“Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress” (Franklin)
“Advice to a Young Tradesman Written by an Old One” (Franklin)
Aesop
Age of Reason
Age of Reason, The (Paine)
Albany Plan,
federalism concept and
Indians and
unified colonies idea and
Aldridge, Alfred Owen
Alger, Horatio
Allen, William
Alliance
almanacs
alphabet, phonetic
Alsop, Susan Mary
American Aurora
American Magazine
American Mind, The (Commager)
American Philosophical Society
American Revolution
Albany Plan and
battles of, see specific battles
Canada invaded in
financial problems in
independence question and
Olive Branch Petition in
onset of
Philadelphia captured in
Staten Island summit in
treaty ending
American Weekly Mercury
analytic truths
André, John
Andrews, Jedediah
Anglican Church,
Anglo-American peace negotiations of 1782:
Adams-BF rift and
Adams in
“advisable” points in
American delegation to
assessment of diplomacy in
BF’s peace proposal in
British back-door overtures in
compensation for loyalists in
fishing rights in
French protest of
Hartley’s ten-year truce proposal in
independence debate in
Jay in
“necessary” points in
official opening of
Oswald-BF talks in
prewar debts in
reparations issue in
separate peace as issue in
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Page 67
