Franklin & Washington
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65.Tench Coxe to James Madison, March 31, 1790, PJM, 13:132.
66.Farrand, August 8, 1787, 2:221–22.
67.Ibid., 2:220.
68.“John Adams’ Notes of Debate,” July 30, 1776, in Letters of the Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789, ed. Paul H. Smith (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1979), 4:568–69.
69.“The Pennsylvania Convention, Monday, 3 December 1787,” in DHRC, 2:463 (James Wilson).
70.Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964), 69n. (Being treated in a “harsh and tyrannical” manner as an indentured servant, Franklin wrote, “impress[ed] me with that Aversion to arbitrary Power that has stuck to me thro’ my whole Life.”)
71.Ibid., 43.
72.Benjamin Franklin to John Waring, December 17, 1763, PBF, 10:395. A decade later, Franklin wrote to a French philosopher about freed Blacks in America, “I think they are not deficient in natural Understanding, but they have not the Advantage of Education.” Benjamin Franklin to Marquis de Condorcet, March 20, 1774, ibid., 21:151.
73.See Benjamin Franklin, Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, &c (Boston: Kneeland, 1755), 7 (“The Whites who have slaves, not labouring, are enfeebled,” Franklin wrote, “the slaves being work’d too hard, and ill fed, there constitutions are broken”).
74.Among the early Philadelphia-area Quaker abolitionists whom Franklin published were four of the most influential: Ralph Sandiford, Benjamin Lay, John Woolman, and Anthony Benezet. In 1772, speaking about their shared opposition to the slave trade, Benezet called Franklin “a real friend and fellow traveller on a dangerous and heavy road.” Anthony Benezet to Benjamin Franklin, April 27, 1772, PBF, 19:113. Franklin’s experience as a young printer publishing ads for slaves is somewhat similar to Woolman’s experience as a young shopkeeper participating in the sale of slaves, about which Woolman wrote, “My Employer having a Negro Woman, sold her, and desired me to write a Bill of Sale, the Man being waiting who bought her: The Thing was sudden; and, though the Thoughts of writing an Instrument of Slavery for one of my Fellow-creatures felt uneasy, yet I remembered I was hired by the Year, that it was my Master who directed me to do it, and that it was an elderly Man, a Member of our Society, who bought her; so, through Weakness, I gave way.” John Woolman, The Journal and Other Writings (London: Dent, 1910), 27. As these comments suggest, the institution of slavery was so widely accepted among whites in Pennsylvania, including members of the Society of Friends (or Quakers), that Woolman and Franklin acquiesced.
75.Benjamin Franklin, “Apology for Printers,” Pennsylvania Gazette, June 10, 1731, in PBF, 1:195.
76.Benjamin Franklin to Deborah Franklin, June 10, 1758, ibid., 8:92.
77.In a representative assertion from the period, quoted in part in chapter 5, Franklin wrote to a longtime confidant in England about American independence, “I am too well acquainted with all the Springs and Levers of our Machine, not to see that our human means were unequal to our undertaking, and that if it had not been for the Justice of our Cause, and the consequent Interposition of Providence in which we had Faith we must have been ruined. If I had ever before been an Atheist I should now have been convinced of the Being and Government of a Deity.” Benjamin Franklin to William Strahan, August 19, 1784, ibid., 42:29.
78.Benjamin Franklin to John Lathrop, May 31, 1788, ibid., 47:---.
79.Richard Henry Lee to George Washington, April 6, 1789, PGW-PS, 2:29.
80.“Philadelphia, 20 April,” Federal Gazette, April 20, 1789, 2; “Philadelphia, April 29,” Freemans’s Journal, April 29, 1789, 3; “Philadelphia, 22 April,” New-York Daily Gazette, April 27, 1789, 410; William Spohn Baker, Washington after the Revolution (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1898), 124.
81.Annals of Congress (Senate), April 30, 1789, 1:28.
82.Virginia governor Thomas Jefferson estimated that thirty thousand slaves fled behind British lines during the 1781 invasion of Virginia. See Henry Wiencek, An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), 203.
83.Benjamin Franklin, Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, 4th ed. (1769), in PBF, 19:133n1. In the original 1751 privately circulated manuscript (first published in 1754), this passage read, “Almost every Slave by Nature a thief.” Benjamin Franklin, “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind” (1751), in PBF 4:229. Clearly Franklin had changed his view of slaves. Regarding Washington, in his Pulitzer Prize–winning biography, Ron Chernow called him “a tough master,” wrote of his punishing “difficult” slaves by selling them to their doom in the West Indies, and noted that “on his plantation, Washington demanded high performance and had little patience with sluggards and loafers.” Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (New York: Penguin Press, 2010), 640.
84.George Washington to Tobias Lear, April 12, 1791, PGW-PS, 8:85.
85.George S. Brookes, Friend Anthony Benezet (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1937), 162.
86.Benjamin Franklin to John Langdon, October 25, 1788, PBF, 47:---. In his response to Franklin’s letter, Randolph wrote “merely as a private man,” and not in an official capacity, “that whensoever an opportunity shall present itself, which shall warrant me, as a citizen, to emancipate the slaves, possessed of me,” he would do so “regardless of the loss of property.” Edmund Randolph to Benjamin Franklin, August 2, 1788, ibid., 47:---. Randolph argued against the slave trade at the Constitutional Convention but never freed his own slaves.
87.Josiah Wedgwood to Benjamin Franklin, February 29, 1788, ibid., 47:---.
88.Benjamin Franklin to Marquis de Lafayette, July 7, 1788, ibid., 47:---.
89.Granville Sharp to Pennsylvania Abolition Society, July 30, 1788, ibid., 47:---.
90.Benjamin Franklin to the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, February 3, 1790, ibid., 48:---.
91.One critical congressman noted that the petitions were signed only by persons calling themselves a clerk. Lloyd’s Notes, February 12, 1790, in DHFFC, 12:297 (William Smith). Another warned, “There never was a [religious] society of any considerable extent which did not interfere with the concerns of other people, and this interference has at one time or other deluged the world in blood.” Gazette of the United States, February 17, 1790, in ibid., 12:305 (Michael Stone).
92.Annals of Congress (House), February 12, 1790, 1:1240 (Tucker), 1:1242 (Baldwin); ibid., February 11, 1790, 1:1231 (Gerry), 1:1229 (Jackson). Addressing opponents’ argument about religious establishment, Thomas Scott of Pennsylvania stated, “I look upon the slave-trade to be one of the most abominable things on earth; and if there was neither God nor devil, I should oppose it upon the principles of humanity.” Ibid., February 12, 1790, 1:1241. Many critical members spoke of the economic imperative of slaves. E.g., Lloyd’s Notes, February 12, 1790, in DHFFC, 12:296 (James Jackson: “rice cannot be brought to market without these people”); Gazette of the United States, February 17, 1790, in ibid., 12:303–4 (William Smith: “if there were no slaves in the southern States they would be entirely depopulated—for from the nature of the country it could not be cultivated without them”).
93.New-York Daily Gazette, February 15, 1790, in DHFFC, 12:302.
94.Gazette of the United States, February 17, 1790, in ibid.
95.Ibid., 12:304. As an example of how Congress could constitutionally undermine slavery despite the bar on banning the slave trade until 1808, Madison observed that it might make some regulations “in relation to the introduction of [slaves] into the new States to be formed out of the Western Territory.” Annals of Congress (House), February 12, 1790, 1:1246.
96.Benjamin Franklin to George Washington, September 16, 1789, PGW-PS, 4:47–48.
97.George Washington to Benjamin Franklin, September 23, 1789, ibid., 4:66.
98.Benjamin Franklin to Louis-Guillaume Le Veillard, September 5, 1789, PBF, 46:---.
99.Benjamin Franklin to Benjamin Vaughan, November 2, 17
89, in Jared Sparks, ed., The Works of Benjamin Franklin (Philadelphia: Childs & Peterson, 1840), 10:397.
100.For “much emaciated,” see Thomas Jefferson to Ferdinand Grand, April 4, 1790, PTJ, 16:298; for “almost too much,” see Thomas Jefferson, “Autobiography,” January 6, 1821, in PTJ-RS, --:---. Reflecting his mental sharpness, in response to a question by Jefferson (as secretary of state) about an obscure point in the peace treaty with Britain, Franklin (as the main architect of that treaty) sent Jefferson a detailed answer on April 8, closing with the words, “I have the Honor to be with the greatest Esteem & Respect Sir, Your most obedient & most hble Servant.” It was Franklin’s last letter. Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Jefferson, April 8, 1790, PTJ, 16:326.
101.New-York Daily Gazette, March 17, 1790, in DHFFC, 12:723.
102.Lloyd’s Notes, March 15, 1790, in ibid., 12:719; Daily Advertiser, March 18, 1790, in ibid., 12:732. About race mixing, Jackson declared, “However fond the Quakers may be of this mixture and of giving their daughters to negro sons, and receiving the negro daughters for their sons, there will be those who do not approve of the breed, and a motley breed it will be.” Daily Advertiser, March 18, 1790, in ibid., 12:728.
103.“Report of the Special Committee” and “Report of the Committee of the Whole House,” Annals of Congress (House), March 23, 1790, 1:1523–25.
104.Annals of Congress (House), March 23, 1790, 1:1523.
105.“The final decision” on the petitions, Washington wrote in a letter to his in-law and confidant David Stuart, “was as favourable as the proprietors of that species of property could well have expected considering the great dereliction to Slavery in a large part of this Union.” George Washington to David Stuart, June 15, 1790, PGW-PS, 5:525. Washington, of course, was a proprietor of that species of property.
106.David Stuart to George Washington, March 15, 1790, ibid., 5:236.
107.George Washington to David Stuart, March 28, 1790, ibid., 5:286–88 (the bracketed word is unintelligible in the original—“likely” fits in context, but it could be a stronger term, such as “possible”).
108.Historicus [Benjamin Franklin] to the Editor of Federal Gazette, March 23, 1790, PBF, 48:---.
109.Ibid.
110.Ibid.
111.G. Washington to B. Franklin, September 23, 1789, 4:66.
112.Benjamin Franklin to William Vaughan, December 9, 1788, PBF, 47:---.
113.Benjamin Franklin to Jane Mecom, October 19, 1789, ibid., 48:---.
114.Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, October 4, 1803, PTJ, 41:471. In particular, Jefferson singled out John Adams (“whom he certainly did not love”) as one person whom Washington would not want so honored.
115.G. Washington to Stuart, June 15, 1790, 5:525.
116.National Assembly of France to George Washington, June 20, 1790, PGW-PS, 5:541.
117.George Washington to President of the National Assembly of France, January 27, 1791, ibid., 7:292.
Epilogue: The Walking Stick
1.Henry Hill to George Washington, May 7, 1790, PGW-PS, 5:388 (quoting from the codicil to Franklin’s will). In the original French, which Franklin employed in writing the 1789 codicil, the actual phrase was “le baton de Pommier savage,” or “wild apple tree,” rather than the “fine Crab tree” translation provided by his executor in the transmittal letter to Washington. But “mon ami” and “un sceptre” were there as translated from Franklin’s original codicil. Benjamin Franklin, Codicil to Will, June 23, 1789, in PBF, 47:---.
2.Hill to G. Washington, May 7, 1790, 5:389n1 (quoting from cover letter to Franklin accompanying the original gift); Franklin, Codicil, June 23, 1789, 47:---.
3.George Washington to Henry Hill, June 3, 1790, PGW-PS, 5:389n1.
4.For Adams’s proposed titles, see “Diary of William Maclay,” April 24 and May 8, 1789, in DHFFC, 9:4–5, 28–29; James H. Hutson, “John Adams’ Title Campaign,” New England Quarterly 41 (1968): 31–34. These proposed titles appear in private letters but at least one senator noted that Adams also suggested titles in a speech to the Senate. “Diary of Maclay,” May 8, 1789, 9:28.
5.George Washington, “To the PEOPLE of the United States,” Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser, September 19, 1796, 2.
6.Tobias Lear, “Narrative Accounts of the Death of George Washington: Diary Account,” December 14–15, 1799, in PGW-RS, 4:542.
7.Ibid., 4:545. Fearing that they might kill her to gain their freedom, Martha Washington freed her husband’s slaves one year after his death.
8.“Boston, December 28, 1799,” Columbian Centinel, December 28, 1799, 2.
9.Robert Pleasants to George Washington, December 11, 1784, PGW-CfS, 3:449.
10.Jennifer Schuessler, “History and Memory Are Not Set in Stone,” New York Times, August 15, 2017, A12. In 2019, the San Francisco Board of Education voted to paint over a federally funded New Deal Era Works Progress Administration mural painted by radical artist Victor Arnautoff that critically depicted Washington’s westward expansion policy. The mural was painted in 1936 for the board’s George Washington High School and includes the image of Franklin in a group of four founders, with Washington dispatching settlers westward over the corpse of a Native American. Franklin appears skeptical about the operation. Derrick Bryson Taylor, “School Will Cover Up W.P.A.-Era Murals,” New York Times, June 29, 2019, A15.
11.Pleasants to G. Washington, December 11, 1784, 3:450.
12.[Benjamin Franklin], Poor Richard, 1735, in PBF, 2:9; [Benjamin Franklin], Poor Richard, 1736, in ibid., 2:142.
13.See Paul K. Longmore, The Invention of George Washington (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 181.
14.John Adams to Benjamin Rush, March 19, 1812, in The Spur of Fame: Dialogues of John Adams and Benjamin Rush, 1805–1813, eds. John A. Schultz and Douglas Adair (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington, 1966), 211–12.
15.In this role Washington played the part of a Virginia gentleman and, as the proud New Englander John Adams added when writing about it, “Virginian geese are all swans.” John Adams to Benjamin Rush, November 11, 1807, in Old Family Letters, ed. Alexander Biddle (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1892), 169.
16.Farrand, June 2, 1787, 1:83.
17.Edward R. Murrow, “A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy,” See It Now, CBS, March 9, 1954.
18.Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1941 State of the Union Address, 87 Cong. Rec.—House, pt. 1, p. 45 (January 6, 1941).
Index
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abolitionism, viii, 191, 238–43, 248–59, 270
Acts of Union, 82
Adams, Abigail, 103–4, 195
Adams, John, x, 14, 74, 93, 143, 147, 165, 264; and Franklin, 6, 10, 110, 137, 145–46, 195, 260; as president, 267–69; in Revolutionary War, 89, 119, 122–23, 151–53; vice presidency of, 246; and Washington, 6, 99, 130, 137, 272, 320n114
Adams, Samuel, 64, 85, 89, 147, 228
African Americans, 54, 113–14, 210, 237, 243–44. See also slavery Albany Congress, 37–38
Albany Plan of Union, 37–38, 59, 110, 138, 163, 177
Alexandria (Virginia), 87, 236–37
Alien and Sedition Acts, 268
Allegheny Mountains, 21, 31, 39–44, 169 American Crisis, The, 129
American Philosophical Society, 174, 185, 261
American Revolution, 93–94, 98–150; Franklin’s role in, x, 97–150; Washington’s role in, x, 97–150
Annapolis (Maryland), 161, 172
Annapolis Convention, 172–73, 177
antebellum America, 270–71
antifederalists, 232; arguments of, 219–20, 225–30, 233–35, 238, 242, 308n119; in first federal election, 246; during Washington administration, 265–66. See also Republican Party
Apotheosis of Washington, The, 5
Appalachian Mountains, 62, 152
army, American, 93, 116, 126�
�30, 141, 148; payment of, 129, 142, 144, 153–56; structure of, 111–14, 140–44, 159; unrest in, 137–38, 144–45, 154–58
Arnold, Benedict, 141–42, 149
Articles of Confederation, 110–11, 125, 138–39, 200, 211; need for reform of, 147, 153–55, 162–64, 168, 171–73, 177
Assunpink Creek, 129
Aurora, 266
Bache, Benjamin Franklin (Benny), 126, 160, 266
Bache, Sarah Franklin (Sally), 10, 260
Bailyn, Bernard, 128
Baldwin, Abraham, 252
Baltimore (Maryland), 128
Bank of the United States, 248, 265
Barré, Isaac, 67
Bedford, Gunning, Jr., 203–4
Beeman, Richard, 192–93, 195–96
Benezet, Anthony, 250
Bermuda, 110
Berwick (Maine), 231
Bible, 252, 255, 259, 263–64
Bill of Rights, 219–20, 226, 230–31, 235, 264
Blue Ridge, 16
Board of Trade, 37
Boston (Massachusetts), 7–8, 52, 55, 87, 114, 185, 229–32, 245; during American Revolution, 91–93, 99–102, 106–11, 135; revolutionary agitation in, 67–69, 78–89
Boston Massacre, 83–84
Boston Tea Party, 84–85
Botetourt, Baron de, 80
Bowdoin, James, 189–90
Bowen, Catherine Drinker, 196
boycotts of British goods, 70–71, 74–84, 89–90, 110
Braddock, Edward, 29, 39–48
Braddock’s Defeat, 45–46, 53, 59, 93
Braddock’s Road, x, 30, 34, 39, 168
Brands, H. W., 5
Brandywine, Battle of, 131
Britain, 18, 97, 273; American attitudes toward, 62–86, 101; claims in America of, 19–20, 27, 29; in Ohio country, 7, 20–39, 57–58, 152, 169; peace treaty with, 151–53, 161, 166; in Revolutionary War, 92–93, 98, 107–27, 135, 140, 149–50; U.S. relations with, 164, 169, 266–67
Brooklyn Heights, 122
Brumidi, Constantino, 5
Bunker Hill, Battle of, 107–9, 135
Burgoyne, John, 107, 130–32
Burke, Edmund, 80, 92
Butler, Pierce, 199, 208, 215