—Anne Robert Jacques Turgot1

Life

Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in Boston, Massachusetts, the youngest son of Josiah Franklin and Abiah Folger Franklin. At age 24, he married Deborah Read in Philadelphia on September 1, 1730. They had two children, Francis Folger Franklin, who died of smallpox at age four, and Sarah Franklin. Franklin also had an illegitimate son, William, from an earlier liaison. Franklin died on April 17, 1790, and is buried in Christ Church burial ground in Philadelphia. He is often called “The First American” because of his tireless promotion of colonial unity.

Education

Franklin had almost no formal schooling. He was placed in grammar school and English school for two years (1714–1716) but was withdrawn because his family did not have the money to support his education. He was almost entirely self-taught.

Religion

Born a Puritan in Boston, he became “a thorough Deist” by age 15 and remained so for the rest of his life, although he attended Presbyterian services for a time in Philadelphia.

Political Affiliation

Franklin was a loyal monarchist for the first decades of his life but had become avidly pro-independence by the early 1770s. In the debates over ratification of the Constitution in the final years of his life, he supported the proposed Constitution (which he helped to write), although in some respects he was closer to the Anti-Federalist philosophy. Also in the final years of his life, Franklin became a strong voice against slavery.

Highlights and Accomplishments

There was a time not too long ago when every school child in America learned about Benjamin Franklin and his exploits; a great many read his brief Autobiography. Unfortunately, that time has passed as it seems regrettably to have passed for too many of America’s other Founders. In Franklin’s case, this is especially lamentable because Franklin addressed himself to the common man and to the young more than was generally the case with his colleagues. He directed his writing largely to the formation of popular character and had a salutary effect on that character for as long as he was widely read.

The Life of Benjamin Franklin

Born in Boston in 1706, Franklin was older by a generation than most of his fellow Founders. The youngest son of youngest sons for five generations back, as he said with pride, Franklin made his own way in the world. He tried several trades before settling on printing, the one mechanical trade that suited his bookish and searching mind. When only 16 and a printing apprentice to his brother James, he penned a series of essays under the pseudonym Silence Dogood that were devoted to chiding the faults and encouraging the virtues of his fellow Bostonians. It was a device to which he would return again and again. After he moved to Philadelphia, he wrote as the Busy-Body, a self-proclaimed censor morum, and at other times as Alice Addertongue, Obadiah Plainman, Homespun, and (of course) Poor Richard, whose pithy aphorisms (many gleaned from other sources) remain part of our heritage. Franklin considered newspapers and almanacs to be “another means of communicating Instruction” to the wider public and filled his out with small, edifying pieces.2 It was part of a larger educational project to which his Autobiography also belongs.

Franklin’s curiosity extended not only to politics, morality, and theology, but also to science. Over the course of his life, he investigated natural phenomena from weather patterns to the Gulf Stream to electricity. He helped to found the American Philosophical Society to advance the cause of science in the New World. His research in electricity led to the discovery of the polarity of electrical current. His invention of the lightning rod, and many other advances, brought him international renown. He was admitted to the Royal Society of London and other European learned societies. Franklin was the only one of the Founders with an international reputation before independence, and that reputation was scientific.

After he became wealthy enough to retire from business (in his early forties), Franklin often expressed the desire to devote himself wholly to science, but the public would not let him. His reputation for selfless and sure-handed public service resulted in continual calls for more. His principle was “I shall never ask, never refuse, nor ever resign an office,”3 and he was asked again and again. He was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly repeatedly beginning in 1750. He was appointed deputy postmaster for the colonies in 1753 and in 1754 was a delegate to an intercolonial congress in Albany that produced the first plan for colonial political unity—a plan that, although it was rejected, planted the seeds for what eventually became the Constitution of 1787.

In 1757, he was made colonial agent for Pennsylvania in London. He lived in England for all but two of the years from 1757 to 1775, representing one or more of the colonies. These were the years when differences between the Americans and the mother country widened into an open breach. Franklin strove mightily to prevent the rupture, but when it came anyway, he devoted himself wholeheartedly to the cause of American independence and nationhood. He returned to Philadelphia in 1775, only to be sent to Paris by the Continental Congress in 1776 as representative of the new United States to the French court. There he negotiated a treaty of commerce and a defensive alliance with France that proved vital to the success of the American Revolution. Franklin also was a negotiator of the final peace treaty with Great Britain, which was signed in Paris in 1783.

Franklin returned home in 1785 and participated in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Public knowledge that he and George Washington supported the proposed Constitution was a critical factor in securing its ultimate ratification. One of his last public acts was to sign a petition to Congress as president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery urging emancipation and the end of the slave trade. He died in April 1790, not long after the Constitution’s ratification.

Although he was at the center of some of the most momentous episodes of the American Founding, Franklin’s thoughts and writings were devoted more to matters of culture and popular morality than to laws and institutions. In the end, he held that institutions matter less than the character of the people who sustain them. Thus his famous response to Elizabeth Willing Powel when she inquired what kind of government the Framers had given the Americans, a republic or a monarchy: “A republic, if you can keep it.”4 Only a populace with the proper temper and virtues can support a free government; the task of a Founder is therefore to shape not only institutions, but popular character as well.

Democratic Virtues

A free, egalitarian, and democratic society requires certain virtues in its citizens that are different from those that sustained the feudal and aristocratic societies of Europe. These are the virtues that Franklin aimed to identify and cultivate. Compared to feudal virtue—or the classical virtues of Aristotle or Cicero—Franklin’s virtues appear so humble as to invite ridicule. The two he praised most, industry and frugality, would scarcely be regarded as virtues by aristocratic traditions, but Franklin’s morality was designed for a new common man who must be self-reliant, a lover of liberty, and responsible in its exercise. The question that Franklin pondered—and we still must ponder—was what virtues did this common man need? In his Autobiography, he gave us a list of 13 virtues along with a brief gloss on each:

1. Temperance Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. Silence Speak not but what may benefit others or your-self; avoid trifling conversation.
3. Order Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. Resolution Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality Make no expence but to do good to others or your-self: i.e., waste nothing.
6. Industry Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. Sincerity Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. Justice Wrong none, by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. Moderation Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness Tolerate no uncleanness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
11. Tranquility Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. Chastity Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
13. Humility Imitate Jesus and Socrates.5

This is a homely list, to be sure, but it is also remarkably similar to the curriculum urged today by some of those who want to revive basic moral instruction in schools. Franklin shared with them the project of laying a solid foundation for democratic citizenship. The first building blocks of that foundation are not less important for being so humble. It is important to bear in mind that Franklin’s audience was the common folk of America, not its elite. These were the people on whose virtues a prosperous democracy would be built or on whose vices it would founder.

Franklin recognized two distinctive features of American society: Americans began life with little and needed to make their own way, and America provided sufficient opportunity that prosperity was within the reach of almost anyone who was willing to work for it. This was a recipe for tremendous economic development and social happiness, but only if the human soil were properly prepared. Our contemporaries have rediscovered the truth that even capitalism depends on certain virtues that do not appear spontaneously. Curiously, the incentive of personal prosperity—the “profit motive”—is insufficient by itself. Not only work and postponed gratification, but trust and trustworthiness are necessary to commerce, and these traits do not come into being on their own.

Franklin emphasized both the importance of these virtues and the obstacles to their development. In his 1758 Almanack, he strung together many of Poor Richard’s proverbs on economy as a disquisition on “The Way to Wealth” delivered by one Father Abraham. Poor Richard listens to the speech and then observes that “[t]he People heard it, and approved the Doctrine, and immediately practised the contrary.”6 A premature taste for luxury, the allure of “get-rich-quick” schemes (Philadelphians were digging up the riverbanks on rumors of pirate treasure), and idle or self-destructive amusements may seduce people from the straight and narrow (if not short) path to prosperity. In so doing, they may even derail general economic health.

Franklin could be quite strict toward those who turned their back on his exhortations. Despite his affinity with the common man, he had little patience for the folly that led people astray. His reflections on the English poor laws, based on his years in London, are remarkably harsh by today’s standards. Poor laws, he thought, risked falling into that species of misdirected charity that “tends to flatter our natural indolence, to encourage idleness and prodigality, and thereby to promote and increase poverty, the very evil it was intended to cure.”7 Legitimate relief is one thing, but in excess, “may it not be found fighting against the order of God and Nature, which perhaps has appointed Want and Misery as the proper Punishments for, and Cautions against as well as necessary consequences of Idleness and Extravagancy.”8 Franklin earnestly wished for the well-being of the common man but was firm in his insistence that it be earned. Only in this way would the social, as well as the individual, good be served.

Social Entrepreneurship

The economic virtues are so prominent in Franklin’s writing because of their importance to his audience, but they are the foundation or beginning of his moral teaching, not the whole of it. He did not consider prosperity to be either the only purpose in life or the only requisite of personal happiness or a healthy republic. Economic self-reliance is but one aspect of the sturdy individualism that democracy requires. It is only a precondition of the other-regarding virtues of citizenship proper. For Franklin, the heart of morality is doing good to one’s fellow man. The core principle of his theology was that “the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man.”9

In Franklin’s own life, this service took many forms. His legendary ingenuity was an inexhaustible source of ideas for public benefit. His scientific observations produced the lightning rod and the Franklin stove. He conceived the American Philosophical Society as an instrument for the spread of “Useful Knowledge” to the benefit of mankind. His Autobiography presents for our imitation his efforts to improve night watches, streetlights and street cleaning, and his organizing of fire and civil defense brigades. He mustered support for the first public library, hospital, and school in Philadelphia.

In relating these episodes, Franklin wished not to impress us with his own greatness, but to lay out a model of public-spirited social entrepreneurship. Franklin was firmly of the opinion that “one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes” for the good if he forms a plan and pursues it diligently.10 Not exceptional ability, but a devotion to the public good and the discipline to pursue it were the qualities upon which Franklin relied. These are qualities that many may share, and Franklin wished as many as possible to share them. He was not against government taking over many of the tasks he described, but he saw that the health of a democratic society rests on individuals’ willingness to devote time to the public good. Poor Richard once counseled, “The first Mistake in publick Business, is the going into it,”11 but there are many opportunities for public-spirited action outside of politics, and as Tocqueville was to argue later, a successful democracy must have citizens able and willing to seize those opportunities.12 Poor Richard, like Silence Dogood and the Busy-Body before him, insistently, if gently, pushed his readers to good citizenship. Franklin’s Autobiography does the same while showing the way to higher forms of public service—even politics—for those with the talent and the time for them.

The Role of Religion

One striking aspect of Franklin’s list of virtues is that it contains no specifically religious element. Jesus is mentioned but only as an example, along with Socrates, of “Humility.” Franklin outlined the evolution of his religious thinking in the Autobiography. While still in Boston, he read books of “polemic Divinity,”13 mostly attacks on Deism that he found in his father’s library. As a result, Franklin tells us, he became “a thorough Deist” by the time he was 15.14 His unconventional religious beliefs, together with his fondness for disputation, eventually led the Puritans of Boston to view him with “horror” as an “Infidel or Atheist.”15 This was one reason he left Boston for Philadelphia.

Deism is a theology based on rationality rather than revelation. It holds that observation and contemplation of nature provide enough proof of God’s existence—the exquisite order and beauty of the heavens and of the natural world in general must be the product of a good and wise god. Many educated Europeans and Americans during this period were Deists, including some of the principal American Founders such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Deists are not Christians because they do not believe in the divinity of Jesus. The story of Jesus comes from revelation, which rationalist Deism does not recognize. Many Deists, like Franklin, regarded Jesus as a great moral teacher but not divine. In a letter to the Puritan divine Ezra Stiles in the final weeks of his life, Franklin said the divinity of Jesus is “a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble.”16

Franklin also requested that Stiles not divulge the contents of this communication to others, fearing that it might lead people to believe that he disapproved of their religious beliefs. In his Autobiography, Franklin wrote that his early Deism had the effect of corrupting some of his friends, who then wronged Franklin “without the least compunction.”17 As a result, he said, he altered his theology to better support morality. The minimalist version of Deism posits a “watchmaker god” who puts together the cosmic mechanism, sets it in motion, and then walks away, so to speak, leaving the mechanism to run on its own. Such a god never intervenes to keep things running properly, not even in the human realm. We’re on our own, without Divine Providence to right wrongs or correct our errors. The later Franklin, like many other Deists, postulated instead a providential god who desires our happiness and dispenses rewards and punishments here and in an afterlife.

From then on, Franklin was friendly to all religious sects but with a caveat. He supported all that came to him for financial contributions, believing that all the religions in the colonies performed the principal task of religion, which is to support individual and communal morality. The caveat was that his support was more or less enthusiastic depending on how well individual sects performed that task. Franklin ranked the different sects depending on how well they served it or how much they detracted from it. But this was in the privacy of his thoughts—he never disparaged anyone’s religion publicly. Thus his request to Stiles not to share his private thoughts on religion.

Intolerance is a large strike against any sect in Franklin’s way of thinking. Intolerance pits citizen against citizen, damaging the moral community of the whole. It is also premised on a false idea of God. God wants us to love and assist each other, not persecute each other on the basis of what Franklin and Franklin’s god regarded as mere theological quibbles. In his Autobiography, Franklin tells us that he stopped attending Presbyterian services when he saw the minister focused more on dogma than on moral teaching, the aim “seeming to be rather to make us Presbyterians than good Citizens.”18 He was dismayed when the Quakers, who dominated Pennsylvania politics, made it difficult to fund the military defense of the colony because of their religiously based pacifism. When the danger became great enough, however, they swept their pacifism under the rug. Franklin’s conclusion was that “common sense aided by present danger will sometimes be too strong for whimsical opinions.”19 Franklin supported both the Presbyterians and the Quakers, but these examples show his dissatisfaction with the way many Christian sects embraced extraneous and even harmful doctrines that detracted from the true purpose of religion.

Education for Liberty

Economic self-reliance and public-spirited citizenship presuppose the political liberty that is necessary for both to flourish. Political liberty, in turn, requires free institutions and a public character that will sustain them. Franklin’s attempt to secure this character is seen in a set of proposals he penned for a public school in Philadelphia. “Genius without Education is like Silver in the Mine,”20 wrote Poor Richard, and Franklin proposed to “mine” this genius with a new approach to education. Rejecting the European model, which emphasized classical learning and catered to the needs and tastes of a privileged class, Franklin wished his students to learn principally what they would need to be efficient tradesmen and vigilant democratic citizens. For trade, his pupils learned basic mathematics and accounting, clear writing, and living rather than dead languages.

Franklin’s education for democratic citizenship was more complex. He conveyed this education principally through the study of history. To Franklin, the vividness of historical example drives home the advantages of virtue and the disadvantages of vice, illustrates the importance of public religion, and reveals the superiority of Christianity in this role. History also teaches the great advantages of society, how it serves the security and property of men as well as the advancement of arts and human comforts. Finally, it makes students sensible of “The Advantages of Liberty, Mischiefs of Licentiousness, Benefits arising from good Laws and a due Execution of Justice, &c. Thus may the first Principles of sound Politicks be fix’d in the Minds of Youth.”21 Franklin educated his pupils to a sage and vigilant citizenship. Thomas Jefferson reflected the same aspiration in his educational writings. Democratic citizens must cultivate certain personal virtues, but they must also become aware of the social preconditions of liberty and learn to recognize the threats to it. This requires a fairly sophisticated political education. In his Autobiography, Franklin suggested that the spread of public libraries in the colonies, a trend he began in Philadelphia, played a role in the vigilance of the colonists on behalf of their liberties and their willingness to stand “in defence of their privileges.”22

The sturdy individualism that begins with economic self-reliance culminates for Franklin in an enlightened jealousy for political liberty. His political curriculum aimed to foster this vigilance and pugnacity in the American character.

Democracy and Leadership

Though Franklin’s primary goal was the diffusion of enlightenment and democratic virtues throughout the populace, he was also concerned with cultivating leadership. Many in the “neo-classical” 18th century were inspired by ancient models of leadership, such as Cato or Brutus or Publius, but Franklin undertook the project of devising a new type of leadership appropriate for the coming democratic age. To be sure, leadership is a less pressing need in a healthy democratic society in which the public-spirited virtues Franklin describes have wide currency. In a sense, these virtues spread leadership in the form of citizen initiative across the population, but that does not eliminate entirely the need for great leadership from the best citizens.

The democratic and egalitarian milieu creates some obstacles to leadership, especially leadership above the norm. Aristocratic societies embody a principle of deference—an acknowledgment of superiority in some and a presumption of their right to lead. In an egalitarian society, the reverse is almost true: Pretensions to superiority are resented, and leadership itself may be called into question. This is a direct consequence of democracy’s insistence on the equality of men, individualism, and self-reliance.

Franklin learned early in life that anyone who presents himself too much as a leader risks creating resistance, and he sought to develop a style of leadership capable of guiding free people without offending them. In an egalitarian society, an authoritative or domineering style is self-defeating. Rather than persuading men, it offends their pride and accomplishes nothing. When dealing with pugnacious egalitarians, a humble presentation is more effective and creates more pleasant social relations in the bargain.

Franklin discovered that even a “useful project, that might be suppos’d to raise one’s reputation in the smallest degree above that of one’s neighbors” stirs resentment that may derail the project. No matter how beneficial the project might be, some would refuse to follow if they thought it would elevate the leader above the rest. Franklin therefore began to present his projects as the initiative of “a number of friends” or “publick-spirited Gentlemen,” even if the initiative was wholly his.23 This greatly smoothed the way by removing the issue of personal credit or honor. Besides, Franklin wryly noted, if someone else tried to take credit for the project, envy itself would unmask the pretender and return the credit to him.

He who would lead in an egalitarian society must disguise his leadership or lead by stealth, as it were. This was one of Franklin’s most important lessons for those who would advance the public good in a democratic milieu. He applied it systematically. He formed one group, the Junto, as a private forum for discussion and surreptitious instrument for leading public opinion. One of the functions of the group was to brainstorm publicly beneficial ideas. If the group found and embraced one, its members were to drum up wider support without revealing their cabal as the source. We find in Franklin’s writings more than one blueprint for such secret societies of virtuous men who would use their collective but hidden influence to move public affairs toward the good. He similarly exerted leadership through alter egos—Silence Dogood, the Busy-Body, Poor Richard—who were disarming in their ordinariness and allowed him to remain in the background.

It was not that Franklin was secretive or conspiratorial by nature or that he had a fundamental distrust of the democratic public. He did not chafe at these restrictions on his leadership, for they are rooted in the very virtues that he wished to cultivate. In the aristocratic societies of Europe, leadership and honor were limited largely to the aristocrats; in egalitarian America, they were the province of all. Franklin’s moral education depended on allowing ordinary people equal status, equal pride of ownership, and equal right to self-advancement. Resentment of pretensions to superiority is one consequence of this and has the salutary effect of rousing the people to resist any encroachments on their liberties or privileges. This prickly republican pride is one of the political bulwarks of democracy, but it does make leadership more difficult. Franklin’s advice for those who aspire to higher leadership was to accommodate this pride rather than resent it, given the greater good it causes.

Besides, in the long run, reputation always accrues to a trustworthy leader. In Philadelphia, this reputation became so great that people became reluctant to support any proposed project unless it was known that Franklin supported it.

American Sage

Franklin was more interested in democratic culture and its health than many others in the Founding generation were, and his thoughts on the subject are still timely today. When we wonder afresh at the underpinnings of a healthy democratic culture and whether we still possess them, Franklin offers us guidance. His work, written at a time when American democracy was just maturing from its colonial roots, had much the same perspective. It led him to a concern for certain key virtues that his countrymen needed to develop or solidify. First were economic virtues like industry and frugality. These are the virtues Poor Richard emphasizes most, the virtues with which Franklin is typically identified. The reason is that economic independence, honestly achieved, is the precondition of all else in a nation where inherited wealth is a rarity and self-reliance is a trait with more than economic implications. The sturdy individualism it fosters is the backbone of the American political system.

But this individualism must be wedded to a love of liberty; pride is here its ally. It must also be informed and tempered by an understanding of the social preconditions of liberty with a clear eye to liberty’s beneficial effects and the threats to it. Finally, our self-reliant individualists must become public-spirited citizens. Democracy requires a concern for the common good and a willingness to exert oneself to advance it, to be diffused throughout the populace. Some of Franklin’s most vigorous efforts were devoted to cultivating this in his fellow citizens. His greatest monument is an Autobiography that shows us how a life dedicated to all these virtues—public-spiritedness above all—can be supremely happy and supremely enviable.

Steven Forde

Selected Primary Writings

“The Busy-Body, No. 1” (February 4, 1728)24

Mr. Andrew Bradford,

I design this to acquaint you, that I, who have long been one of your Courteous Readers, have lately entertain’d some Thoughts of setting up for an Author my Self; not out of the least Vanity, I assure you, or Desire of showing my Parts, but purely for the Good of my Country.

I have often observ’d with Concern, that your Mercury is not always equally entertaining. The Delay of Ships expected in, and want of fresh Advices from Europe, make it frequently very Dull; and I find the Freezing of our River has the same Effect on News as on Trade. With more Concern have I continually observ’d the growing Vices and Follies of my Country-folk. And tho’ Reformation is properly the concern of every Man; that is, Every one ought to mend One; yet ’tis too true in this Case, that what is every Body’s Business is no Body’s Business, and the Business is done accordingly. I, therefore, upon mature Deliberation, think fit to take no Body’s Business wholly into my own Hands; and, out of Zeal for the Publick Good, design to erect my Self into a Kind of Censor Morum; proposing with your Allowance, to make Use of the Weekly Mercury as a Vehicle in which my Remonstrances shall be convey’d to the World.

I am sensible I have, in this Particular, undertaken a very unthankful Office, and expect little besides my Labour for my Pains. Nay, ’tis probable I may displease a great Number of your Readers, who will not very well like to pay 10s. a Year for being told of their Faults. But as most People delight in Censure when they themselves are not the Objects of it, if any are offended at my publickly exposing their private Vices, I promise they shall have the Satisfaction, in a very little Time, of seeing their good Friends and Neighbours in the same Circumstances.

However, let the Fair Sex be assur’d, that I shall always treat them and their Affairs with the utmost Decency and Respect. I intend now and then to dedicate a Chapter wholly to their Service; and if my Lectures any Way contribute to the Embellishment of their Minds, and Brightning of their Understandings, without offending their Modesty, I doubt not of having their Favour and Encouragement.

’Tis certain, that no Country in the World produces naturally finer Spirits than ours, Men of Genius for every kind of Science, and capable of acquiring to Perfection every Qualification that is in Esteem among Mankind. But as few here have the Advantage of good Books, for want of which, good Conversation is still more scarce, it would doubtless have been very acceptable to your Readers, if, instead of an old out-of-date Article from Muscovy or Hungary, you had entertained them with some well-chosen Extract from a good Author. This I shall sometimes do, when I happen to have nothing of my own to say that I think of more Consequence. Sometimes, I propose to deliver Lectures of Morality or Philosophy, and (because I am naturally enclin’d to be meddling with Things that don’t concern me) perhaps I may sometimes talk Politicks. And if I can by any means furnish out a Weekly Entertainment for the Publick, that will give a rational Diversion, and at the same Time be instructive to the Readers, I shall think my Leisure Hours well employ’d: And if you publish this I hereby invite all ingenious Gentlemen and others, (that approve of such an Undertaking) to my Assistance and Correspondence.

’Tis like by this Time you have a Curiosity to be acquainted with my Name and Character. As I do not aim at publick Praise I design to remain concealed; and there are such Numbers of our Family and Relations at this Time in the Country, that tho’ I’ve sign’d my Name at full Length, I am not under the least Apprehension of being distinguish’d and discover’d by it. My Character indeed I would favour you with, but that I am cautious of praising my Self, lest I should be told my Trumpeter’s dead: And I cannot find in my Heart, at present, to say any Thing to my own Disadvantage.

It is very common with Authors in their first Performances to talk to their Readers thus, If this meets with a suitable Reception; Or, If this should meet with due Encouragement, I shall hereafter publish, &c. This only manifests the Value they put on their own Writings, since they think to frighten the Publick into their Applause, by threatning, that unless you approve what they have already wrote, they intend never to write again; when perhaps, it mayn’t be a Pin Matter whether they ever do or no. As I have not observ’d the Criticks to be more favourable on this Account, I shall always avoid saying any Thing of the Kind; and conclude with telling you, that if you send me a Bottle of Ink and a Quire of Paper by the Bearer, you may depend on hearing further from Sir, Your most humble Servant[.]

“Standing Queries for the Junto” (1732)25

Previous question, to be answer’d at every meeting.

Have you read over these queries this morning, in order to consider what you might have to offer the Junto [touching] any one of them? viz.

1. Have you met with any thing in the author you last read, remarkable, or suitable to be communicated to the Junto? particularly in history, morality, poetry, physic, travels, mechanic arts, or other parts of knowledge.

2. What new story have you lately heard agreeable for telling in conversation?

3. Hath any citizen in your knowledge failed in his business lately, and what have you heard of the cause?

4. Have you lately heard of any citizen’s thriving well, and by what means?

5. Have you lately heard how any present rich man, here or elsewhere, got his estate?

6. Do you know of any fellow citizen, who has lately done a worthy action, deserving praise and imitation? or who has committed an error proper for us to be warned against and avoid?

7. What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately observed or heard? of imprudence? of passion? or of any other vice or folly?

8. What happy effects of temperance? of prudence? of moderation? or of any other virtue?

9. Have you or any of your acquaintance been lately sick or wounded? If so, what remedies were used, and what were their effects?

10. Who do you know that are shortly going voyages or journies, if one should have occasion to send by them?

11. Do you think of any thing at present, in which the Junto may be serviceable to mankind? to their country, to their friends, or to themselves?

12. Hath any deserving stranger arrived in town since last meeting, that you heard of? and what have you heard or observed of his character or merits? and whether think you, it lies in the power of the Junto to oblige him, or encourage him as he deserves?

13. Do you know of any deserving young beginner lately set up, whom it lies in the power of the Junto any way to encourage?

14. Have you lately observed any defect in the laws of your country, [of] which it would be proper to move the legislature for an amendment? Or do you know of any beneficial law that is wanting?

15. Have you lately observed any encroachment on the just liberties of the people?

16. Hath any body attacked your reputation lately? and what can the Junto do towards securing it?

17. Is there any man whose friendship you want, and which the Junto or any of them, can procure for you?

18. Have you lately heard any member’s character attacked, and how have you defended it?

19. Hath any man injured you, from whom it is in the power of the Junto to procure redress?

20. In what manner can the Junto, or any of them, assist you in any of your honourable designs?

21. Have you any weighty affair in hand, in which you think the advice of the Junto may be of service?

22. What benefits have you lately received from any man not present?

23. Is there any difficulty in matters of opinion, of justice, and injustice, which you would gladly have discussed at this time?

24. Do you see any thing amiss in the present customs or proceedings of the Junto, which might be amended?

Any person to be qualified, to stand up, and lay his hand on his breast, and be asked these questions; viz.

1. Have you any particular disrespect to any present members? Answer. I have not.

2. Do you sincerely declare that you love mankind in general; of what profession or religion soever? Answ. I do.

3. Do you think any person ought to be harmed in his body, name or goods, for mere speculative opinions, or his external way of worship? Ans. No.

4. Do you love truth’s sake, and will you endeavour impartially to find and receive it yourself and communicate it to others? Answ. Yes.

“Self-Denial Not the Essence of Virtue” (February 18, 1735)26

To the Printer of the Gazette.

That Self-Denial is not the Essence of Virtue.

It is commonly asserted, that without Self-Denial there is no Virtue, and that the greater the Self-Denial the greater the Virtue.

If it were said, that he who cannot deny himself in any Thing he inclines to, tho’ he knows it will be to his Hurt, has not the Virtue of Resolution or Fortitude, it would be intelligible enough; but as it stands it seems obscure or erroneous.

Let us consider some of the Virtues singly.

If a Man has no inclination to wrong People in his Dealings, if he feels no Temptation to it, and therefore never does it; can it be said that he is not a just Man? If he is a just Man, has he not the Virtue of Justice?

If to a certain Man, idle Diversions have nothing in them that is tempting, and therefore he never relaxes his Application to Business for their Sake; is he not an Industrious Man? Or has he not the Virtue of Industry?

I might in like manner instance in all the rest of the Virtues: But to make the Thing short, As it is certain, that the more we strive against the Temptation to any Vice, and practise the contrary Virtue, the weaker will that Temptation be, and the stronger will be that Habit; ’till at length the Temptation has no Force, or entirely vanishes: Does it follow from thence, that in our Endeavours to overcome Vice, we grow continually less and less Virtuous; till at length we have no Virtue at all?

If Self-Denial be the Essence of Virtue, then it follows, that the Man who is naturally temperate, just, &c. is not virtuous; but that in order to be virtuous, he must, in spight of his natural Inclinations, wrong his Neighbours, and eat and drink, &c. to excess.

But perhaps it may be said, that by the Word Virtue in the above Assertion, is meant, Merit; and so it should stand thus; Without Self-Denial there is no Merit; and the greater the Self-Denial the greater the Merit.

The Self-denial here meant, must be when our Inclinations are towards Vice, or else it would still be Nonsense.

By Merit is understood, Desert; and when we say a Man merits, we mean that he deserves Praise or Reward.

We do not pretend to merit any thing of God, for he is above our Services; and the Benefits he confers on us, are the Effects of his Goodness and Bounty.

All our Merit then is with regard to one another, and from one to another.

Taking then the Assertion as it last stands,

If a Man does me a Service from a natural benevolent Inclination, does he deserve less of me than another who does me the like Kindness against his Inclination?

If I have two Journeymen, one naturally industrious, the other idle, but both perform a Days Work equally good, ought I to give the latter the most Wages?

Indeed, lazy Workmen are commonly observ’d to be more extravagant in their Demands than the Industrious; for if they have not more for their Work, they cannot live so well: But tho’ it be true to a Proverb, That Lazy Folks take the most Pains, does it follow that they deserve the most Money?

If you were to employ Servants in Affairs of Trust, would you not bid more for one you knew was naturally honest, than for one naturally roguish, but who had lately acted honestly? For Currents whose natural Channel is damm’d up, (till the new Course is by Time worn sufficiently deep and become natural,) are apt to break their Banks. If one Servant is more valuable than another, has he not more Merit than the other? And yet this is not on Account of Superior Self-denial.

Is a Patriot not praise-worthy, if Publick Spirit is natural to him?

Is a Pacing-Horse less valuable for being a natural Pacer?

Nor in my Opinion has any Man less Merit for having in general natural virtuous Inclinations.

The Truth is, that Temperance, Justice, Charity, &c. are Virtues, whether practis’d with or against our Inclinations; and the Man who practises them, merits our Love and Esteem: And Self-denial is neither good nor bad, but as ’tis apply’d: He that denies a Vicious Inclination is Virtuous in proportion to his Resolution, but the most perfect Virtue is above all Temptation, such as the Virtue of the Saints in Heaven: And he who does a foolish, indecent or wicked Thing, meerly because ’tis contrary to his Inclination, (like some mad Enthusiasts I have read of, who ran about naked, under the Notion of taking up the Cross) is not practising the reasonable Science of Virtue, but is lunatick.

Speech at the End of the Constitutional Convention (September 17, 1787)27

Mr President

I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many Instances of being oblig’d, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men indeed as well as most Sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever [sic] others differ from them it is so far error. Steele, a Protestant in a Dedication tells the Pope, that the only Difference between our Churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines is, the Church of Rome is infallible, and the Church of England is never in the wrong. But though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility, as of that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain french lady, who in a dispute with her sister, said “I don’t know how it happens, Sister, but I meet with no body but myself that’s always in the right.” — Il n’y a que moi qui a toujours raison.”

In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other. I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution: For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an Assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this System approaching so near to Perfection as it does; and 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. 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 endeavor to gain partizans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and thereby lose all the salutary effects & great advantages resulting naturally in our favor among foreign Nations as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity. Much of the strength & efficiency of any Government in procuring and securing happiness to the people, depends on opinion, on the general opinion of the goodness of that Government…as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its Governors. I hope therefore that for our own sakes as a part of the people, and for the sake of posterity, we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution (if approved by Congress & confirmed by the Conventions) wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts & Endeavors 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….

Recommended Readings

• Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004).
• Edmund S. Morgan, Benjamin Franklin (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002).
• Richard Munson, Ingenious: A Biography of Benjamin Franklin (New York: W. W. Norton, 2024).
• Lorraine Smith Pangle, The Political Philosophy of Benjamin Franklin (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).
• Kevin Slack, Benjamin Franklin, Natural Right, and the Art of Virtue (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2017).
• David Waldstreicher, Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery, and the American Revolution (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004).
• Jerry Weinberger, Benjamin Franklin Unmasked: On the Unity of His Moral, Religious, and Political Thought (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2005).

Notes