Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

by Walter Isaacson

  He composed it in these words, “John Thompson, hatter, makes and sells hats for ready money,” with a figure of a hat subjoined. But he thought he would submit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to thought the word “Hatter” tautologous, because followed by the words “makes hats,” which showed he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word “makes” might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats…He struck it out. A third said he thought the words “for ready money” were useless, as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit. Everyone who purchased expected to pay. They were parted with; and the inscription now stood, “John Thompson sells hats.” “Sells hats!” says his next friend; “why, nobody will expect you to give them away. What then is the use of that word?” It was stricken out, and “hats” followed, the rather as there was one painted on the board. So his inscription was reduced ultimately to “John Thompson,” with the figure of a hat subjoined.”37

  At the official signing of the parchment copy on August 2, John Hancock, the president of the Congress, penned his name with his famous flourish. “There must be no pulling different ways,” he declared. “We must all hang together.” According to the early American historian Jared Sparks, Franklin replied: “Yes, we must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Their lives, as well as their sacred honor, had been put on the line.38

  Constitutional Ideas

  Having declared the collective colonies a new nation, the Second Continental Congress now needed to create, from scratch, a new system of government. So it began work on what would become the Articles of Confederation. The document was not completed until late 1777, and it would take another four years before all the colonies ratified it, but the basic principles were decided during the weeks following the declaration of independence.

  In the Articles of Confederation plan he had submitted a year earlier, Franklin proposed a strong central government run by a popularly elected congress based on proportional representation. By temperament and upbringing, he was among the most democratic of the colonial leaders. Most of his ideas did not prevail in the new Articles, but the arguments he made in the debate—and in the concurrent meetings at which the Pennsylvania Assembly wrote a new constitution for that state—were eventually to prove influential.

  One of the core issues, then and throughout American history, was whether they were creating a confederacy of sovereign states or a single unified nation. More specifically: Should each state have one vote in Congress, or should representation be in proportion to population? Franklin, not surprisingly, favored the latter, not merely because he was from a big state, but also because he felt that the power of the national congress should come from the people and not from the states. In addition, giving small states the same representation as large ones would be unfair. “A confederation upon such iniquitous principles will never last long,” he correctly predicted.

  As the argument got heated, Franklin attempted to add some levity. The smaller states had argued that they would be overwhelmed by the larger ones if there was proportional representation. Franklin replied that some Scots had said, at the time of the union with England, that they would meet Jonah’s fate of being swallowed by a whale, but so many Scots ended up being part of the government “that it was found, in the event, that Jonah had swallowed the whale.” Jefferson noted that the Congress laughed heartily enough to regain its humor. Nevertheless, it voted to keep the system of one vote per state. Franklin initially threatened to persuade Pennsylvania not to join the confederation, but he eventually backed down.

  Another issue was whether slaves should be counted as part of a state’s population for the purpose of assessing its tax liability. No, argued one South Carolina delegate, slaves were not population but property, more akin to sheep than to people. This drew a rebuke from Franklin: “There is some difference between them and sheep: Sheep will never make any insurrections.”39

  At the same time the Congress was debating the new Articles, Pennsylvania was holding its own state constitutional convention, conveniently in the same building. Franklin was unanimously chosen as its president, and his main contribution was to push for a legislature composed of only one house. The idea of balancing the power of a directly elected legislature with an indirectly chosen “upper” house, he contended, was a vestige of the aristocratic and elitist system against which America was rebelling. Franklin likened a legislature with two branches to “the fabled” snake with two heads: “She was going to a brook to drink, and in her way was to pass through a hedge, a twig of which opposed her direct course; one head chose to go on the right side of the twig, the other on the left; so that time was spent in the contest, and, before the decision was completed, the poor snake died with thirst.” His fingerprints were also visible in the list of qualifications that Pennsylvania’s officeholders must meet: unlike in other states, they did not have to own property, but they should have a “firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, industry and frugality.”

  Franklin’s preference for a unicameral legislature would eventually be discarded both by Pennsylvania and the United States, but it was greeted with great acclaim in France, which implemented it (with dubious results) after its own revolution. Another ultrademocratic proposal Franklin made to the Pennsylvania convention was that the state’s Declaration of Rights discourage large holdings of property or concentrations of wealth as “a danger to the happiness of mankind.” That also ended up being too radical for the convention.

  In his spare time, Franklin served on a variety of congressional committees. He helped design, for example, the Great Seal of the new nation, working once again with Jefferson and Adams. Jefferson proposed a scene of the children of Israel being led through the wilderness, and Adams suggested a depiction of Hercules. Franklin’s proposal was to have the motto E Pluribus Unum on the front and an ornate scene on the reverse of Pharaoh being engulfed by the Red Sea with the phrase “Rebellion to Tyrants is obedience to God.” Jefferson then embraced Franklin’s plan, and much of it was adopted by the Congress.40

  Meeting Lord Howe Again

  Franklin’s negotiations in London with Adm. Richard Howe—the ones that began under the cover of chess matches at Howe’s sister’s house at the end of 1774—had ended in failure, but they did not destroy the respect the two men felt for each other. What particularly frustrated Lord Howe was that the impasse had dashed his dream of being designated a peace envoy to the colonies. By July 1776, the admiral was commander of all British forces in America, with his brother, Gen. William Howe, in charge of the ground troops. In addition, he had gotten his wish of being commissioned to try to negotiate a reconciliation. He carried with him a detailed proposal that offered a truce, pardons for the rebel leaders (with John Adams secretly exempted), and promises of rewards for any American who helped restore peace.

  Because the British did not recognize the Continental Congress as a legitimate body, Lord Howe was unsure where to direct his proposals. So when he reached Sandy Hook, New Jersey, he sent a letter to Franklin, whom he addressed as “my worthy friend.” He had “hopes of being serviceable,” Howe declared, “in promoting the establishment of lasting peace and union with the colonies.”41

  Franklin had the letter read to the Congress and was granted permission to reply, which he did on July 30. It was an adroit and eloquent response, one that made clear America’s determination to remain independent yet set in motion a fascinating final attempt to avert an all-out revolution.

  “I received safe the letters your Lordship so kindly forwarded to me, and beg you to accept my thanks,” Franklin began with requisite civility. But his letter quickly turned heated, even resurrecting the phrase “deluge us in blood” that he had edited out of Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration:

  Directing pardons to be offered to the colonies, who are the very parties injured, expresses indeed that opinion of our ignorance, basen
ess and insensibility which your uninformed and proud nation has long been pleased to entertain of us; but it can have no other effect than that of increasing our resentments. It is impossible we should think of submission to a government that has with the most wanton barbarity and cruelty burnt our defenseless towns in the midst of winter, excited the savages to massacre our peaceful farmers, and our slaves to murder their masters, and is even now bringing foreign mercenaries to deluge our settlements with blood.

  Skillfully, however, Franklin included in his letter more than mere fury. With great sorrow and poignancy, he went on to recall how they had worked together to prevent an irreparable breach. “Long did I endeavor, with unfeigned and unwearied zeal, to preserve from breaking that fine and noble china vase, the British empire; for I knew that, being once broken, the separate parts could not retain even their share of the strength or value that existed in the whole,” he wrote. “Your Lordship may possibly remember the tears of joy that wet my cheek when, at your good sister’s in London, you once gave me expectations that a reconciliation might soon take place.”

  Perhaps, Franklin intimated, peace talks could be useful. It was not likely. It would require that Howe be willing to treat Britain and America “as distinct states.” Franklin said he doubted that Howe had such authority. But if Britain wanted to make peace with an independent America, Franklin offered, “I think a treaty for that purpose is not yet quite impracticable.” He ended on a graceful personal note, declaring “the well-founded esteem and, permit me to say, affection which I shall always have for your Lordship.”42

  Howe was understandably taken aback by the terms of Franklin’s response. The messenger who delivered it reported the “surprise” on his face and his comment that “his old friend had expressed himself very warmly.” When the messenger asked if he wanted to send a reply, “he declined, saying the doctor had grown too warm, and if he expressed his sentiments fully to him, he should only give him pain, which he wished to avoid.”

  Howe waited two weeks, as the British outmaneuvered General Washington’s forces on Long Island, before sending a carefully worded and exceedingly polite response to his “worthy friend.” In it, the admiral admitted that he did not have the authority “to negotiate a reunion with America under any other description than as subject to the crown of Great Britain.” Nevertheless, he said, a peace was possible under terms that the Congress had laid out in its Olive Branch Petition to the king a year earlier, which included all of the colonial demands for autonomy yet still preserved some form of union under the Crown. Although he had refrained from being explicit “in my public declaration,” he now made clear that the peace he envisioned would be “of mutual interest to both countries.” In other words, America would be treated as a separate country within the framework of the empire.43

  This was what Franklin had envisioned for years. Yet it was, after July 4, likely too late. Franklin now felt so. Even more fervently, John Adams and others in his radical faction felt that way. So there was much discussion and dissent within the Congress about whether Franklin should even keep the correspondence alive. Howe forced the issue by paroling a captured American general and sending him to Philadelphia with an invitation for the Congress to send an unofficial delegation for talks before “a decisive blow was struck.”

  Three members—Franklin, Adams, and Edward Rutledge of South Carolina—were appointed to meet with Howe to hear what he had to say. The inclusion of Adams (who had warned the Congress that, in his biographer David McCullough’s words, Howe’s messenger was “a decoy duck sent to seduce Congress into renunciation of independence”) was a safeguard that Franklin would not revert to his old peace-seeking habits.

  With perhaps a hint of irony, Franklin proposed that the meeting could take place in the governor’s mansion at Perth Amboy, which had lately been vacated by his captive son, or alternatively on Staten Island. Howe chose the latter. On the way there, the committee spent the night in New Brunswick, where the inn was so full that Franklinand Adams were forced to share a bed. The result was a somewhat farcical night, recorded by Adams in his diary, which gave a delightful glimpse at Franklin’s personality and the odd-couple relationship he had over the years with Adams.

  Adams was suffering from a cold, and as they went to bed he shut the small window in their room. “Oh!” said Franklin. “Don’t shut the window. We shall be suffocated.”

  Adams replied that he was afraid of the evening air.

  “The air within this chamber will soon be, and is indeed now, worse than that outdoors,” Franklin replied. “Come! Open the window and come to bed, and I will convince you. I believe you are not acquainted with my theory of colds.”

  Adams reopened the window and “leaped into bed,” a sight that must have been worth beholding. Yes, he said, he had read Franklin’s letters (see p. 264) arguing that nobody got colds from cold air, but the theory was inconsistent with his own experience. Would Franklin please explain?

  Adams, with a touch of wryness unusual for him, recorded: “The Doctor then began a harangue, upon air and cold and respiration and perspiration, with which I was so much amused that I soon fell asleep, and left him and his philosophy together.” In addition to winning the argument over leaving open the window, it should be noted that Franklin, perhaps as a result, did not catch Adams’s cold.44

  When Howe sent a barge to ferry the American delegation to Staten Island, he instructed his officer to stay behind as a hostage. Franklin and his committee brought the officer with them as a gesture of confidence in Howe’s honor. Although Howe marched his guests past a double line of menacing Hessian mercenaries, the three-hour meeting on September 11 was cordial, and the Americans were treated to a feast of good claret, ham, tongue, and mutton.

  Howe pledged that the colonies could have what they had requested in the Olive Branch Petition: control over their own legislation and taxes, and “a revisal of any of the plantation laws by which the colonists may be aggrieved.” The British, he said, were still kindly disposed toward the Americans: “When an American falls, England feels it.” He felt the same, even more strongly. If America fell, he said, “I should feel and lament it like the loss of a brother.”

  Adams recorded Franklin’s retort: “Dr. Franklin, with an easy air and collected countenance, a bow, a smile and all that naiveté which sometimes appeared in his conversation and is often observed in his writings, replied, ‘My Lord, we will do our utmost endeavors to save your Lordship that mortification.’ ”

  The dispute that was causing this horrible war, Howe insisted, was merely about the method Britain should use in raising taxes from America. Franklin replied, “That we never refused, upon requisition.”

  America offered other sources of strength to the empire, Howe continued, including “her men.” Franklin, whose writings on population growth Howe knew well, agreed. “We have a pretty considerable manufactury of men.”

  Why then, Howe asked, was it not possible “to put a stop to these ruinous extremities?”

  Because, Franklin replied, it was too late for any peace that required a return to allegiance to the king. “Forces have been sent out and towns have been burnt,” he said. “We cannot now expect happiness under the domination of Great Britain. All former attachments have been obliterated.” Adams, likewise, “mentioned warmly his own determination not to depart from the idea of independency.”

  The Americans suggested that Howe send home for authority to negotiate with them as an independent nation. That was a “vain” hope, replied Howe.

  “Well, my Lord,” said Franklin, “as America is to expect nothing but upon unconditional submission…”

  Howe interrupted. He was not demanding submission. But it was clear, he acknowledged, that no accommodation was possible, at least for now, and he apologized that “the gentlemen had the trouble of coming so far to so little purpose.”45

  To France, with Temple and Benny

  Within two weeks of his return from meeting Lord Howe, Frankl
in was chosen, by a congressional committee acting in great secrecy, to embark on the most dangerous, complex, and fascinating of all his public missions. He was to cross the Atlantic yet again to become an envoy in Paris, with the goal of cajoling from France, now enjoying a rare peace with Britain, the aid and alliance without which it was unlikely that America could prevail.

  It was an odd appointment. Elderly and ailing, Franklin was now happily ensconced, finally, in a family nest that actually included members of his own brood. But there was a certain logic, from the Congress’s perspective, to the choice. Though he had visited there only twice, he was the most famous and revered American in France. In addition, as a member of the Congress’s Committee of Secret Correspondence, Franklin had held confidential talks over the past year with a variety of French intermediaries. Among them was Julien de Bonvouloir, an agent personally approved by the new king, Louis XVI. Franklin met with him three times in December 1775, and came away with the impression, though Bonvouloir was scrupulously circumspect, that France would be willing to support, at least secretly, the American rebellion.46

  Two other commissioners were also chosen for the mission to France: Silas Deane, a merchant and congressional delegate from Connecticut who had already been sent to Paris in March 1776, and Thomas Jefferson. When Jefferson begged off for family reasons, his place was given to the cantankerous Virginian Arthur Lee, who had taken over Franklin’s duties as a colonial agent in London.

  Franklin professed to accept the assignment reluctantly. “I am old and good for nothing,” he said to his friend Benjamin Rush, who was sitting next to him in the Congress. “But as the storekeepers say of their remnants of cloth, I am but a fag end, and you may have me for what you are pleased to give.”47