Essays on the Founders: Benjamin Franklin

Posted by Eric F. Langborgh on April 24, 2007

This essay was published in the November 2001 issue (Volume II, Issue 3) of the “Bill of Rights Institute eNewsletter” and at www.BillofRightsInstitute.org. It is no longer available online, so is republished here by the author.

 

“Our Constitution is in actual operation; everything appears to promise that it will last; but in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.”
~Benjamin Franklin, Letter to M. Leroy, 1789

Although he was the indispensable old sage of the American Revolution and the Founding generation, Benjamin Franklin’s considerable work in the areas of journalism, science, and invention often obscure his many contributions to the creation of the Constitution and protection of American freedoms. His stature was second only to George Washington in lending credibility to the new federal government, while his wisdom helped ensure the structural stability of what is now the oldest written constitution still in force in the world.

 

A Public Servant

Many scholars call Franklin, a very successful businessman, the first American capitalist, but he worked to make money to better serve the common good. For instance, he refused patent protection on his famous stove, saying, “That as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.”

Franklin worked to improve the lives of those in his community in setting up the city’s fire department, through scientific experimentation and invention, and through a myriad of other activities. He played a major role in many “firsts” in America, including the building of the first public library and the first hospital in Philadelphia.

Franklin bought his first printing press in Philadelphia in 1730. Through his many writings, and in particular through his Poor Richard’s Almanack, Franklin sought to promote public virtues. His cardinal teaching was that “the most acceptable Service of God is doing Good to Man.” Franklin formed a secret society, the Junto, to brainstorm and disseminate publicly beneficial ideas. In 1743, he proposed the creation of the American Philosophical Association to advance the cause of science in the New World, and became the organization’s first secretary.

Franklin’s reputation for selfless public service resulted in his fellow citizens repeatedly calling upon him to serve in office on the continent or as an agent overseas. His stated philosophy was, “I shall never ask, never refuse, nor ever resign an office.” Among his many offices, Franklin served as deputy postmaster of Philadelphia (1737-53) and deputy postmaster general of the colonies (1753-74), greatly reforming the institution. Upon American independence, he established the U.S. Post Office. He also served as a clerk for (1736-51) and then as member (1751-64) of the Pennsylvania Assembly.

 

A “Proto-Federalist”

In 1754, the prospect of war with the French on the colonial frontier led several of the royal governors to call for a congress of all the colonies, to be held in Albany, New York. The primary purpose of the meeting was to ensure alliances with many of the Iroquois tribes, and to plan war operations against the French. The secondary purpose was to prepare some plan of confederation that all the colonies might be persuaded to adopt in order to facilitate inter-colonial trade and mutual defense. Only the four New England colonies, with New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, however, sent commissioners to this congress. Reception among the American colonists and the colonial newspapers was generally unfavorable, except for Franklin’s own Pennsylvania Gazette, which ran a political cartoon with the motto, “Join, or Die!”

At the Albany Congress, Franklin drafted and introduced the first coherent scheme proposed for securing a permanent Federal union of the thirteen colonies. His plan anticipated the system of federalism that would later emerge under the Constitution. Franklin advocated the union of the colonies under a single central government, though each colony would preserve its local independence. The legislative assembly of each colony would choose representatives once every three years to attend a federal grand council. The representatives would be numbered in proportion to each colony’s contributions to the continental military service, the minimum number being two, and the maximum seven. The council would meet every year in Philadelphia, the city most accessible for the colonies to the north and the south.

Under the plan, the grand council would have power to make treaties and regulate trade with the Indians; and legislate on all matters concerning the colonies as a whole. To these ends it could levy taxes, enlist soldiers, build forts, and nominate civil officers. Its laws were to be submitted to the king for approval; and the royal veto, in order to be effective, would have to be exercised within three years.

The supreme executive power was to be vested in a president or governor general, appointed and paid by the crown. He was to have a veto on all the acts of the grand council, and was to nominate all military officers, subject to its approval. No money could be issued except by joint order of the governor general and council.

In all but these enumerated powers, each colony would retain its own powers of legislation. In an emergency, any colony might singly defend itself against foreign attack, and the Federal government was prohibited from conscripting soldiers or seamen without the consent of the local legislature.

Public opinion, however, was not yet ripe for a centralized colonial government. While the Albany Congress did adopt Franklin’s federalist scheme (becoming known as the Albany Plan), the colonial assemblies rejected it because it encroached on their powers, thus foreshadowing anti-federalist arguments during the ratification debate over the Constitution thirty-three years later. Ultimately, the British crown, which had called on the governor to ally with the Iroqois, denied it. The crown feared it would give the colonies too much independence.

 

Defender of ‘American’ Rights

Although his original intention in proposing the Albany Plan was not to encourage colonial independence, Franklin became progressively more “American” and less “British” during the next twenty years. For all but one year from 1757 to 1775, as colonial unrest grew, Franklin resided in England, originally as an agent for Pennsylvania and later for Georgia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. The Stamp Act crisis of the 1765 served to complete Franklin’s transition from a loyal British subject to a celebrated spokesman at London for American rights. As an agent for Pennsylvania, he initially viewed passage of the Stamp Act unavoidable and preferred to submit to it while working for its repeal. Eventually, though, he gave a wholehearted defense of the American position in the House of Commons.

Franklin was still in England following the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773, when American colonists protested the tax on tea. As a result, he faced the full brunt of British criticism. Franklin was publicly ridiculed by the House of Lords, and was even branded a traitor. Franklin escaped probable imprisonment by returning to Philadelphia in May 1775. He was received as a hero to the American cause, and was immediately nominated to be a distinguished member of the Second Continental Congress. Thirteen months later, he served on the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence. He then served as president of Pennsylvania’s constitutional convention.

But, within less than a year and a half after his return, the aged statesman set sail once again for Europe as a diplomat for the newly established United States of America. In the years 1776-79, Franklin gained foreign support for the American Revolution by directing the negotiations that led to treaties of commerce and alliance with France. As commissioner to France from 1779-85, he, along with John Jay and John Adams, negotiated the Treaty of Paris (1783) that ended the War for Independence.

 

Sage of the Constitutional Convention

Franklin arrived back in the United States in 1785. Even though the existing Articles of Confederation governing the United States was based upon his own “Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union,” which he proposed in July of 1775, Franklin recognized the Articles as inadequate and joined in the call for a Constitutional Convention. He always had preferred a stronger Union and a federalist system reminiscent of his 1754 Albany Plan.

At 81 years old and crippled by gout, Franklin was nominated to represent the State of Pennsylvania at the Constitutional Convention that met in the summer of 1787. He was the oldest member of the convention, but his national prestige and wisdom helped lend needed credibility to the proceedings and the eventual completed U.S. Constitution. He attended almost every session of the convention, though his age and illness sometimes necessitated that others speak for him.

Franklin’s presence served mostly to promote moderation in the proceedings. With the oratory often degenerating into threats and accusations, he appealed for daily prayers as a means to promote unity. Among his substantive contributions, Franklin supported a provision that allowed for easy naturalization of foreign immigrants, while he opposed property limitations on suffrage and financial tests for holders of federal office. These proposals passed.

Franklin was less persuasive regarding the executive branch of the proposed government. He believed the president should be limited to only one term in office, because he feared the development of monarch-like “placemen.” He thus suggested that those in the executive should receive no salary. Franklin seconded Virginian George Mason’s call for an advisory council (cabinet) to the president, and even argued for that council to exist without a chief executive. He opposed giving the executive absolute veto power over the Congress. These last two proposals were partly successful, as a cabinet was established and Congress was given the power to override presidential vetoes on a two-thirds vote.

Furthermore, Franklin successfully argued that appropriations and tax power should originate in the lower house of Congress, where the “public spirit of our common people” would be represented. He also supported federal power for the building of canals, though that power would not finally be among the national government’s enumerated powers. Franklin believed that the enumerated powers of the federal government must be made clear, to promote peace and order in society and to avoid tyranny and political harassment.

On September 17, the convention met for the last time. Fellow Pennsylvanian James Wilson delivered a speech on behalf of Franklin, appealing for unanimous support for what Franklin thought was a very good, if imperfect, Constitution. He declared, “I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another’s throats.” The new Constitution was ratified into law by the states on June 21, 1788, giving Franklin and the federalists victory over the anti-federalist impulses that had thirty-three years earlier successfully opposed his Albany Plan.

Franklin was concerned, however, that the coming national turmoil over slavery might eventually result in the states “cutting one another’s throats.” At the convention, he did support the three-fifths compromise, but only after making the case that all free black men be counted as citizens because it would have the “excellent effect of inducing the colonies to discourage slavery and to encourage the increase of their free inhabitants.” In 1787 he was elected as first president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery — a cause to which he had committed himself as early as the 1730s. His final public act was signing a petition to Congress recommending dissolution of the slavery system.

The slavery issue and other disagreements with particulars of the Constitution notwithstanding, Franklin was an optimist about America’s future. As the convention delegates signed the Constitution, Franklin pointed to the sun etched into the president’s chair, and reflected: “I have 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.” As the only American to sign all four of the principal Founding documents — the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Treaty of Alliance, Amity, and Commerce with France (1778), the Treaty of Paris establishing peace between England, France, and the United States (1782), and the Constitution (1787) — Franklin not only watched, but helped guide, that “sun” as it emerged over the horizon of American independence and into a stable Union.

 

Principal Sources:

Bradford, M.E., Founding Fathers: Brief Lives of the Framers of the United States Constitution. University Press of Kansas, 1994

Brands, H.W. The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin. New York, New York: Doubleday, 2000

Spalding, Matthew. The Founders’ Almanac: A Practical Guide to the Notable Events, Greatest Leaders & Most Eloquent Words of the American Founding. Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation, 2001

Wilhelm, Dan. “Benjamin Franklin: Signer of the Declaration of Independence.” Virtualology, 2000. 10/16/01