The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin

by Gordon S. Wood

  FRANKLIN’S DIPLOMATIC ACHIEVEMENT

  All this American carping about overweening French influence could have eroded the Franco-American alliance. Indeed, without Franklin’s presence it is hard to see how the alliance could have held together as it did, and without the alliance it is hard to see how the Americans could have sustained their revolution. By the early 1780s Vergennes had become virtual first minister of the French government and the chief supporter of aiding the Americans. He retained the confidence of Louis XVI, and Franklin alone among the American commissioners retained Vergennes’s confidence.”104 Probably only Franklin could have persuaded Vergennes to keep on supporting the American cause, and probably only Franklin could have negotiated so many loans from an increasingly impoverished French government. Certainly no one else could have represented America abroad as Franklin did. He was the greatest diplomat America has ever had.

  Not only did Franklin hold the Franco-American alliance together, but he also oversaw the initial stages of the successful peace negotiations with Britain. And he did all this with a multitude of demands placed on him. In addition to his duties as minister plenipotentiary, which included dealing with countless persons offering advice, seeking favors, and asking for information, he effectively acted as consul general, director of naval affairs, and judge of admiralty. He handled mercantile matters, commissioned privateers, and served as judge in the condemnation and sale of the prizes captured by the privateersmen; at one point he was even called upon to help plan a prospective French invasion of England.

  All the while countless Europeans continually pestered him for letters of recommendation that they hoped would be passports to prosperity in America. Many of these would-be emigrants, said Franklin, had very little money but often had “such romantic Schemes and Expectations as must end in Disappointment and Poverty.” He tried to dissuade all who had no “useful Trade or Art by which they may get a living.” But many were fools and would not listen. They “hope for Offices and Public Employments” and “value themselves and expect to be valued by us for their Birth or Quality, though I tell them those things bear no Price in our Markets.”105 Finally, to keep from having to repeat himself over and over to these prospective settlers, Franklin in February 1784 published a short piece, Information to Those Who Would Remove to America.

  In it he laid out a description of the New World that contributed mightily to the emerging myth of American exceptionalism. America, said Franklin, was “the Land of Labour” where land was cheap and labor was dear and where hard work could lead to a moderate prosperity. Birth counted for nothing in America. There “People do not enquire concerning a Stranger, What IS he? but What can he DO? ” Those who hoped for some lucrative political office in America would be greatly disappointed, for there were few civil offices there and no superfluous ones, as in Europe. Indeed, he said, emphasizing a point of utmost importance to him, some of the states had established a rule “that no Office should be so profitable as to make it desirable.”106

  But these difficulties in France with supplicants and would-be emigrants were nothing compared with the problems Franklin faced having to raise and spend money for the United States abroad. He had to request loan after loan from France, and time after time Vergennes came through for him. At times it seemed as if it was Vergennes’s trust in Franklin alone that made the many French loans and subsidies possible. By 1783 France had granted more than twenty-five million livres in loans and subsidies to the United States in a war that eventually cost France over one billion livres.107 Without this French financial aid the Americans could scarcely have continued their fight.

  Franklin was increasingly embarrassed to keep asking Vergennes for money. His fellow Americans back home seemed to think “that France has Money enough for all her Occasions and all ours besides; and that if she does not supply us, it is owing to her Want of Will, or to my Negligence.” It was especially mortifying that the American states could not even agree on “a most reasonable proposition” of granting the Confederation the power to levy a 5 percent impost on imported goods. “Our People certainly ought to do more for themselves,” he complained. “It is absurd the Pretending to be Lovers of Liberty while they grudge Paying for the Defence of it.”108

  Not only did Franklin have to apply continually to France for loans, but he also had to ensure that Congress did not overdraw on them. In fact, Congress had the habit of drawing on European loans that had not yet been negotiated, and it was up to Franklin to manage somehow to pay them. “The Storm of Bills which I found coming upon us both,” he wrote to John Jay in Spain in October 1780, “has terrified and vexed me to such a Degree that I have been deprived of Sleep, and so much indisposed by continual Anxiety as to be render’d almost incapable of Writing.”109 Franklin lived in dread that congressional bills would arrive that could not be met, with the “Consequences of Ruin to our Public Credit both in America and Europe.”110

  Despite his feeling for France, Franklin did not object when the American delegation decided to go ahead, in violation of Congress’s instructions, and make a separate peace with Britain. By hinting at the possibility of weakening the Franco-American alliance, the commissioners persuaded Britain in the provisional treaty signed on November 30, 1782, to recognize the independence of the United States and to agree to much more generous boundaries for the new country than anyone could have expected.

  It was left to Franklin, however, to apologize to Vergennes for the Americans’ negotiating a separate peace with Britain. He did so in a beautifully wrought diplomatic letter. He admitted to Vergennes that the American commissioners had neglected a point of propriety. He hoped, however, that this “single Indiscretion of ours” would be excused

  Treaty of Paris, unfinished, by Benjamin West, 1783

  Left to right: John Jay, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Laurens, Temple Franklin

  and would not endanger the great work that Louis XVI had accomplished. He stressed that he and his countrymen loved and honored the king as much as the French themselves. Then he added, in a brilliant stroke, that he had just learned that the English “flatter themselves they have already divided us.” Which, of course, was true. But, said Franklin, he hoped that “this little Misunderstanding will be kept a perfect Secret,” and that the English “will find themselves totally mistaken.” When he read this, Vergennes must have smiled at the wiliness of the American diplomat.

  At the same time, of course, Franklin made still another request for money. He pointed out to Vergennes that “the whole Edifice” of the alliance “falls to the ground immediately” if France should refuse “to give us any farther Assistance.” A month later he was still asking for more money. “Considering the enormous Expence this extensive War must occasion to his Majesty,” he had hoped to avoid coming back to Vergennes. He had tried to procure money elsewhere, but nothing had worked out. “As Peace will diminish both the King’s Expence and ours,” he told the French minister with a straight face, “I hope this Request may be granted, and that it may be sufficient for our Occasions.”111

  Franklin was able to get away with these kinds of diplomatic shenanigans because he always maintained the overwhelming support of Vergennes and the French public, or at least the aristocratic part of that public that counted. And that support, indeed that adulation by the French public, enabled him to weather every storm and every difficulty during these turbulent years. His reputation with the French was the greatest source of his political support in the Continental Congress. Without the repeated insistence of the French government that it preferred to deal with Franklin and Franklin alone, it is quite possible that the Congress would have recalled him; certainly his enemies thought so. But his extraordinary reputation in France, in fact in all of Europe, not only helped to maintain his political support back home; it was also a principal source of whatever strength America had in international politics. When Franklin told Congress that America’s connection with France was what gave the United States weight w
ith England and the respect of Europe, he might well have added that he, Franklin, was the person who stood for America, and it was his personal connection to France that really counted in the Franco-American relationship. If Washington was indispensable to the success of the Revolution in America, Franklin was indispensable to the success of the Revolution abroad.

  FIVE

  BECOMING AN AMERICAN

  THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY, ONCE AGAIN

  The nearly eight years that Franklin spent in France were the happiest of his life. He did what he had long yearned to do—shape events on a world stage. The French alliance and the peace treaty with Great Britain recognizing American independence were vindications of all that he had believed about the ability of a few men of reason and common sense—indeed, perhaps, as he said, “even one Man of tolerable Abilities”—to make a difference in world affairs.1 He had always hoped that he could manipulate world events in the way he manipulated chessmen on a board. “Life,” he wrote sometime during his mission in France, “is a kind of chess, in which we have often points to gain, & competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree, the effects of prudence or the want of it.”2 The British Empire had come apart because the British officials had not approached the political situation in the 1760s and 1770s with the prudence, foresight, circumspection, caution, and patience that good chess players have. But he and the other American diplomats had known how to approach their tasks as good chess players. As the principal American diplomat abroad he especially had realized that there were points to gain and adversaries to contend with, and he had discreetly brought about good effects by approaching his negotiations with the French and British with his chess-instilled habits in mind. He had demonstrated that reason and prudence could indeed “work great Changes, and accomplish great Affairs among Mankind.”3

  That success and that confidence in reason were expressed in the second part of his Autobiography, which he resumed writing in 1784. With the peace treaty signed and the press of business eased, Franklin, still residing in Passy, had more leisure to take up his pen. But he probably would not have resumed writing his Autobiography without some prodding from friends.

  Before leaving America for France in the fall of 1776, Franklin had turned over all his papers, including the only copy of the first part of the Autobiography, for safekeeping to Joseph Galloway, his former close friend, whom he made one of his executors. Instead of remaining neutral as Franklin expected, Galloway had fled to the British army in New York in December 1776, at the same time that Franklin arrived in France. Two years later Galloway sailed for England, leaving behind his wife and his estate, neither of which he ever saw again. When Galloway’s wife died in America in 1782, Franklin’s papers, including the Autobiography, apparently came into the hands of Abel James, who was one of her executors.

  Sometime late that year or early in 1783, Franklin received a letter from James, who was an old Quaker friend. James had read the fragment of the Autobiography that Franklin had written in 1771, and he now urged Franklin to resume his memoir. This work, James said, “would be useful & entertaining not only to a few, but to millions.” It would have an especially strong influence on America’s youth. Indeed, James told Franklin that he knew of “no Character living nor many of them put together, who has so much in his Power as Thyself to promote a greater Spirit of Industry and early Attention to Business, frugality and Temperance with the American Youth.” Not that the work would not have other uses, but James believed its potential influence on young people was “of such vast Importance” that he knew “nothing that can equal it.” Despite all his enthusiasm, James could scarcely have foreseen just how influential Franklin’s Autobiography would become for young people.

  Franklin’s English friend Benjamin Vaughan read and wholeheartedly endorsed James’s letter—even though he had not read a page of the Autobiography, but knew “only the character who lived it.” Franklin had to tell the story of his life for a number of reasons, Vaughan told his friend in a letter written at the end of January 1783. First of all, he wrote, “your life is so remarkable, that if you do not give it, somebody else will certainly give it; and perhaps so as nearly to do as much harm, as your own management of the thing might do good.” Moreover, Franklin’s life would present such a view of America as to invite “settlers of virtuous and manly minds” to migrate there. All that had happened to Franklin, Vaughan said, “is also connected with the detail of the manner and situation of a rising people” Even the writings of Caesar and Tacitus could not be more revealing of human nature and society. But even more important, said Vaughan, was the opportunity that “your life will give for the forming of future great men; and in conjunction with your Art of Virtue, (which you design to publish) of improving the features of private character, and consequently of aiding all happiness both public and domestic.”

  These works will “give a noble rule and example of self-education,” especially for youth, in whom “the private and public character is determined.” “But,” said Vaughan, “your Biography will not merely teach self-education, but the education of a wise man." Human beings have been blundering on in the dark from the beginning of time. “Shew then, Sir, how much is to be done, both to sons and fathers; and invite all wise men to become like yourself; and other men to become wise.” Franklin could show people how it is possible “to be both great and domestic; enviable and good-humoured.” He could especially teach people the “rules of prudence in ordinary affairs.” Franklin’s life, Vaughan told the American, would show people that he was not ashamed of his humble beginnings. He would “prove how little necessary all origin is to happiness, virtue, or greatness.” He could also teach people patience and timing, so “that man should arrange his conduct so as to suit the whole of a life.” James’s letter, said Vaughan, was fine in praising “your frugality, diligence, and temperance,” but James forgot to mention “your modesty, and your disinterestedness.”

  Because people will be interested in the sources of the “immense revolution of the present period,” said Vaughan, they will want to know the motivations of the revolutionaries and whether they were virtuous. “As your own character will be the principal one to receive a scrutiny, it is proper (even for its effects upon your vast and rising country, as well as upon England and Europe), that it should stand respectable and eternal.” Franklin’s life could establish the central point of this enlightened age—that men were not born to obscurity and viciousness but through their own efforts could rise and do good work. Vaughan ended his letter by appealing to Franklin to write his life in order to get Americans and Englishmen thinking well of each other again. But not just Americans and Englishmen needed to learn about his life. “Extend your views even further: do not stop at those who speak the English tongue, but after having settled so many points in nature and politics, think of bettering the whole race of men.”4

  Franklin could hardly have resisted these exhortations to become an exemplar for a rising people. In 1784 he thus resumed writing his Autobiography—the second part of it, which, like a game of chess, presumes man’s control over his life. Obviously influenced by Vaughan’s letter, Franklin laid out in this section of his memoir his method for achieving happiness. All of the intellectuals in the age of Enlightenment—from Francis Hutcheson to Claude-Adrien Helvétius—were preoccupied with discovering the moral forces in the human world that were comparable to the physical forces in the natural world uncovered by Newton and other scientists. Franklin was no different. In the 1750s he had revealed the workings of electricity in the natural world, but he had longed to make an equally important contribution to the moral or social sciences. He had been thinking about writing a book on the “Art of Virtue” for decades.5 But now he realized that he might not have time to write it. So instead he decided to describe in his Autobiography his “bold and arduous Project of arriving at moral Perfection.”6

  THE PROJECT FOR ACHIEVING MORAL
PERFECTION

  In his Autobiography Franklin set forth a series of moral injunctions for living a good life, including reading, practicing modesty, and avoiding “Taverns, Games, and Frolicks of any kind.” He praised religion for whatever moral effects it had, but for little else. He believed that simply exhorting people to be good would not be enough; he wanted to present them with the means and manner of obtaining virtue—without relying on organized religion, which Franklin found often tended to divide people from one another rather than inspiring and promoting morality.

  He listed thirteen virtues (temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquillity, chastity, and humility) with descriptions of each; for example, frugality— “Waste not”; industry—“Lose no time”; chastity—“Rarely use Venery but for Health or Offspring”; and humility—“Imitate Jesus and Socrates.” These were not utopian virtues, requiring a complete change of heart; instead, they were realistic, down-to-earth virtues, capable of being managed by ordinary people and not just a saintly few.7 By creating an elaborate “Plan for Self-Examination”—a daily checklist for each virtue— Franklin tells us how he worked diligently to eliminate faults and promote his thirteen virtues—all with the aim not only of pleasing God but, more important, of getting along in life. This is the project that D. H. Lawrence and other imaginative writers have so much detested.8

  Franklin took his project to achieve moral perfection quite seriously, more seriously perhaps than many commentators have admitted. The Enlightenment promise of being able to make oneself over culturally seemed to be exemplified in Franklin’s life. The seriousness with which he took his project to become morally perfect is revealed in the wonderful but complicated anecdote of the speckled ax. He had told the story many times to French friends, and now he incorporated it into this second section of his Autobiography.