correction: (1) The _Pennsylvania Gazette_ was not connected as
forerunner or ancestor with the _Saturday Evening Post_. The _Gazette_,
a newspaper to the end, closed its file in 1815;[i-175] the _Post_, a
story paper, issued its Volume I, Number 1, in 1821. Throughout much of
the latter half of the nineteenth century, the _Post_ carried the legend
"Founded in 1821" on its front page; and not until after the Curtis
Publishing Company bought it in 1897 did it begin to print the words
"Founded A.D. 1728 by Benjamin Franklin" on its cover. The sole
connection of the _Post_ with Franklin lies in the fact that it was
first issued from an office at 53 Market Street which Franklin had once
occupied.[i-176] (2) Franklin did not publish a "chain" of newspapers. A
"chain" implies some kind of co-operative connection between the various
members, but the several papers which Franklin helped to finance had no
such relationship. In some he was a six-years partner,[i-177] keeping
his interest until the resident publisher, usually a former employee,
was established; to some he made loans or, in the case of relatives,
gifts.[i-178]
One of his journalistic ventures which is not mentioned in the
_Autobiography_ is the _General Magazine_, of 1741. It missed by three
days being the first of American magazines: Andrew Bradford had learned
of Franklin's project and, with his _American Magazine_, beat him in the
race for priority. But the _American Magazine_ was a failure in three
monthly numbers, while Franklin's periodical, though more readable, died
after its sixth issue.[i-179] As an initial episode in the history of
American magazines, the _General Magazine_ has a certain eminence; but
Franklin's neglect of it when writing his _Autobiography_, after the
events of nearly fifty busy years had apparently crowded it out of his
memory, is sufficient commentary on its unimportance.
To the end of his life Franklin was proud of his trade of printing, with
its handmaiden journalism. His last will and testament begins: "I,
Benjamin Franklin, Printer...." Though clearly not the chief interest of
his life, it was one to which he was fundamentally and consistently
attached.
V. FRANKLIN'S ECONOMIC VIEWS
An eighteenth-century colonial who wrote on paper money, interest,
value, and insurance, who discussed a theory of population and the
economic aspects of the abolition of slavery, who championed free trade,
and who probably lent Adam Smith some information used in his _Wealth of
Nations_, who was an empirical agriculturist, who was "half physiocratic
before the rise of the physiocratic school"--such a colonial has,
indeed, claims to being America's pioneer economist.
Franklin's hatred of negro slavery was conditioned by more than his
humanitarian bias. It may be seen that his indictments of black cargoes
were the resultant of an interplay of his convictions that economically
slavery was enervating and dear and of his abstract sense of religious
and ethical justice. One should not minimize, however, his distrust of
slavery on other than economic bases. He was acutely influenced by the
Quakers of his colony who, like gadflies, were stinging slaveholders to
an awareness of their blood traffic, and by the rise of English
humanitarianism. In his youth he had published (first edition, 1729;
second, 1730), with no little danger to himself and his business, Ralph
Sandiford's _A Brief Examination of the Practice of the Times_, an
Amos-like vituperative attack on the "unrighteous Gain" of slaveholding.
He also published works of Benjamin Lay and John Woolman.[i-180] Friend
of Anthony Benezet, Benjamin Rush, Fothergill, and Granville Sharp, and
after 1760 a member of Dr. Bray's Associates, he lent his voice and pen
to denouncing slavery on religious and ethical grounds; and in England,
after the James Sommersett trial (1772), he "began to agitate for
parliamentary action" toward the abolishing of slavery in all parts of
the British Empire.[i-181] Following the Sommersett verdict, Franklin
contributed a brief article to the _London Chronicle_ (June 18-20, 1772)
in which he denounced the "constant butchery of the human species by
this pestilential detestable traffic in the bodies and souls of
men."[i-182] Losing his temperamental urbanity when observing "the
diabolical Commerce,"[i-183] "the abominable African Trade," he
recollects approvingly that a certain French moralist[i-184] could "not
look on a piece of sugar without conceiving it stained with spots of
human blood!"[i-185] Conditioned by Quakerism, by his deism, which
suggested that "the most acceptable Service we render him [God] is doing
good to his other Children," and by the eighteenth century's growing
repugnance toward suffering and pain,[i-186] Franklin (although he took
little part in legislating against slavery in Pennsylvania) became
through his writing a model to be imitated, especially in France, by a
people more intent on becoming humane than saintly.
His letter to Anthony Benezet (London, July 14, 1773), however, clearly
indicates that for economic, as well as humanitarian reasons, he had
sought freedom for slaves:
I am glad to hear that such humane Sentiments prevail so much
more generally than heretofore, that there is Reason to hope
our Colonies may in time get clear of a Practice that
disgraces them, and, without producing any equivalent
Benefit, is dangerous to their very Existence.[i-187]
Franklin's view of the economic disabilities of slavery is best
expressed in _Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling
of Countries, Etc._ (1751). Arguing against British restraint of
colonial manufactures, he observed that "'tis an ill-grounded Opinion
that by the Labour of slaves, _America_ may possibly vie in Cheapness of
Manufactures with _Britain_. The Labour of Slaves can never be so cheap
here as the Labour of working Men is in _Britain_."[i-188] With
arithmetic based on empirical scrutiny of existing conditions,
resembling the mode of economists following Adam Smith, he charged that
slaves are economically unprofitable due to the rate of interest in the
colonies, their initial price, their insurance and maintenance, their
negligence and malevolence.[i-189] In addition, "Slaves ... pejorate the
Families that use them; the white Children become proud, disgusted with
Labour, and being educated in Idleness, are rendered unfit to get a
Living by Industry."[i-190] Slaves are hardly economical investments in
terms of colonial character. Looking to the "_English_ Sugar _Islands_"
where Negroes "have greatly diminish'd the Whites," and deprived the
poor of employment, "while a few Families acquire vast Estates," he
realized that "population was limited by means of subsistence,"[i-191]
which foreshadowed the more pessimistic progressions of Malthus. Having
just maintained that "our People must at least be doubled every 20
Years,"[i-192] and intuitively suspecting that the means for subsistence
progress more slowly, he exclaimed, "Why increase the Sons of _Africa_,
by planting them in _America_, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by
excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and
Red?"[i-193] He saw mere economic extravagance as the short-time effect
of slavery; he feared that the long-time effect would be to create an
aristocracy subsisting at the head of a vast brood of slaves and poor
whites.[i-194]
It was inevitable in a state having no staple crop, such as rice, sugar,
tobacco, or cotton, which offered at least economic justification for
negro slavery, that abolition of slaves should be urged partially on
purely economic grounds, and that Pennsylvania should have been the
first colony to legislate in favor of abolition, in 1780. Although one
may feel that economic determinism is overly simple and audacious in its
doctrinaire interpretations, one can not refuse to see the extent to
which economics tended to buttress humane and religious factors in
Franklin's mind to make him a persuasive champion of abolition.[i-195]
_A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper
Currency_[i-196] has been appraised as "by far the ablest and most
original treatise that had been written on the subject up to 1728 and
was probably the most widely read work on paper currency that appeared
in colonial America."[i-197] That Franklin's interest in paper money was
not unique, one may gather from the fact that between 1714 and 1721
"nearly thirty pamphlets appeared" on this subject in Massachusetts
alone.[i-198] One of the 1728 theses at Harvard, answered in the
affirmative, was: "Does the issue of paper money contribute to the
public good?"[i-199] "Since there was a scarcity of circulating medium,
caused by the constant drain of specie for export," explains Mr. D. R.
Dewey, "it is not strange that projects for converting credit into
wealth should have sprung up in the colonies."[i-200] Franklin argued in
his _Modest Enquiry_[i-201] that (1) "A plentiful Currency will occasion
Interest to be low," (2) it "will occasion the Trading Produce to bear a
good Price," (3) it "will encourage great Numbers of labouring and
Handicrafts Men to come and settle in the Country," and (4) it "will
occasion a less consumption of European Goods, in proportion to the
Number of the People." Thus he saw paper money as a "Morrison's Pill,"
promising to cure all economic ills.[i-202] It has been suggested that
as a printer Franklin naturally would favor issues of paper money. In
view of his later apostasy one should note that in this essay Franklin
apparently accepted the current mercantilist notions, best expressed
here in his conviction that paper money will secure a favorable balance
of trade. Demands for emissions of paper money were inevitable in a
colony in the grip of such a restrictive commercial policy as British
mercantilism. It must be observed, however, that Franklin differed from
the proper mercantilists to the extent that simple valuable metals were
not to be measures of value. Deriving his idea from Sir William Petty,
Franklin took labor as the true measure of value,[i-203]--a position
later held by Karl Marx. In his preoccupation with the growth of
manufactures and favorable balances of trade, Franklin gave no
suggestions that at least by 1767 he was to become an exponent of
agrarianism and free trade. One wonders to what extent his warnings
against the purchase of "unnecessary Householdstuff, or any superfluous
thing," his inveterate emphasis on industry and frugality, were
conditioned by his view that such indulgence would essentially cause a
preponderance of imports, hence casting against them an unfavorable
trade balance.[i-204]
In 1751 Parliament passed an act regulating in the New England colonies
the issue of paper money and preventing them "from adding a legal tender
clause thereto"; in 1764 Parliament forbade issue of legal tender money
in any of the colonies. As a member of the Pennsylvania assembly,
Franklin had successfully sponsored issues of paper money; in London,
following the 1764 act, he urged that one of the causes breeding
disrespect for Parliament was "the prohibition of making paper money
among [us]."[i-205] Economics blends into politics when we remember that
the 1764 restraining legislation was "one of the factors in the
subsequent separation, for it caused some of the suffering that
inevitably follows in the wake of an unsound monetary policy whose
onward course is suddenly checked."[i-206] In 1766 Franklin was yet an
ardent imperialist, who sought politically and economically to keep
whole "that fine and noble China Vase, the British Empire." His _Remarks
and Facts Concerning American Paper Money_ (1767), in answer to Lord
Hillsborough's Board of Trade report circulated among British merchants,
is an ardent plea for legal tender paper money. He argued that British
merchants (since yearly trade balances had regularly been in their
favor) had not been deprived of gold and silver, that paper money _had
worked_ in the Colonies,[i-207] and that British merchants had lost no
more in their colonial dealings than was inevitable in war times.
Franklin concluded that since there were no mines in the colonies, paper
money was a necessity (arguing here very shrewdly that even English
silver "is obliged to the legal Tender for Part of its Value"). Hence,
at least for colonies deserving it, the mother country should take off
the restraint on legal tender. What Franklin seems not to have known and
what the merchants had actually felt (they had their accounts staring at
them) was that in the past, especially after 1750, much of the legal
tender was in effect nothing but inconvertible fiat money. Mr. Carey
quotes from an uncollected item, Franklin's "The Legal Tender of Paper
Money in America," in which he threatened that "if the colonies were not
allowed to issue legal-tender notes there was no way in which they could
retain hard money except by boycotting English goods."[i-208] Franklin
suggested (to S. Cooper, April 22, 1779) that depreciation may not be
unmixed evil, since it may be viewed as a tax: "It should always be
remembered, that the original Intention was to sink the Bills by Taxes,
which would as effectually extinguish the Debt as an actual
Redemption."[i-209] Not a little Machiavellian for one who was not blind
to the sanctity of contracts!
With the Revolution and the attendant depreciation in currency, Franklin
tended to warn against over-issues.[i-210] Like Governor Hutchinson, who
said that "the morals of the people depreciate with the currency,"
Franklin confessed in 1783 "the many Mischiefs, the injustices, the
Corruption of Manners, &c., &c., that attended a depreciating
Currency."[i-211] There is no evidence to show that Franklin dissented
from the conservative prohibition in the Constitutional Convention of
1787 against issues of legal tender paper.[i-212]
Deborah Logan (in a letter in 1829) stated that Franklin "once told Dr.
Logan that the celebrated Adam Smith, when writing his 'Wealth of
Nations,' was in the habit of bringing chapter after chapter as he
composed it, to himself, Dr. Price and others of the literati; then
patiently hear [_sic_] their observations, and profit by their
discussion and criticism--even sometimes submitting to write whole
chapters anew, and even to reverse some of his propositions."[i-213]
James Parton observed that the allusions to the colonies which
"constitute the experimental evidence of the essential truth of the
book" were supplied by Franklin.[i-214] But Rae reasonably counters: "It
ought of course to be borne in mind that Smith had been in the constant
habit of hearing much about the American Colonies and their affairs
during his thirteen years in Glasgow from the intelligent merchants and
returned planters of that city."[i-215]
In general, we may conclude that Franklin and Smith were exponents of
free trade in proportion as they were reactionaries against British
mercantilism. Each in his reaction tended to elevate the function of
agriculture beyond reasonable limits. Unlike the physiocrats and
Franklin, however, Adam Smith did not hold that, in terms of
wealth-producing, manufacturers were sterile. Even if Franklin saw only
agriculture as _productive_, he was not blind to the utility of
manufactures, especially after the break with the mother country, when
he realized that home industry must be developed to supply the colonial
needs formerly satisfied by British exports.[i-216]
Finally, each was, in varying degrees, an exponent of laissez
faire.[i-217] Since we shall discover that politically Franklin was less
a democrat than is often supposed, we may feel that his belief in free
trade led him to embrace reservedly the principle of laissez faire,
rather than that free trade, an economic concept, was but a fragment of
a larger dogma, namely, that government should be characterized by its
passivity, frugality, and maximum negligence. V. L. Parrington
quotes[i-218] from George Whately's _Principles of Trade_, which
contained views congenial to Franklin:
When Colbert assembled some wise old merchants of France, and
desired their advice and opinion, how he could best serve and
promote commerce, their answer, after consultation, was, in
three words only, _Laissez-nous faire_: "Let us alone." It is
said by a very solid writer of the same nation, that he is
well advanced in the science of politics, who knows the full
force of that maxim. _Pas trop gouverner_: "Not to govern too
much!" _which, perhaps, would be of more use when applied to
trade, than in any other public concern_. (Present editors'
italics.)
Laissez faire in Franklin's as in Whately's view tended to be synonymous
with free trade. Laissez faire was suggested by his insistence on free
trade, as he progressively expressed his antipathy for mercantilism,
rather than that free trade was simply a natural deduction from a more
inclusive economic-political dogma.
Writing to the pro-colonial Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph, whose
"sweet Retirement" at Twyford he had long enjoyed, Franklin, seeing no
hopes of a reconciliation between the colonies and Great Britain,
uttered what marked him as the first American disciple of Quesnay's
school of economic thought: "Agriculture is the great Source of Wealth
and Plenty. By cutting off our Trade you have thrown us _to the Earth_,
whence like _Antaeus_ we shall rise yearly with fresh Strength and
Vigour."[i-219] Upon learning of the colonists' "Resolutions of
Non-Importation" he wrote to "Cousin" Folger that they must promote
their own industries, especially those of the "Earth and their Sea, the
true Sources of Wealth and Plenty."[i-220] Learning that the colonists
had threatened to boycott English manufacturers by creating their own
basic industries, Franklin demurred in a letter to Cadwallader Evans:
"Agriculture is truly _productive of new wealth_; manufacturers only
change forms, and whatever value they give to the materials they work
upon, they in the mean time consume an equal value in provisions, &c. So
that riches are not _increased_ by manufacturing; the only advantage is,
that provisions in the shape of manufactures are more easily carried for
sale to foreign markets."[i-221] _Positions to be Examined, Concerning
National Wealth_[i-222] affords a succinct statement of Franklin's
agrarianism. "There seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire
wealth. The first is by _war_, as the Romans did, in plundering their
conquered neighbours. This is _robbery_. The second by _commerce_, which
is generally _cheating_. The third by _agriculture_, the only _honest
way_, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the
ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the hand of God in
his favour, as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous
industry."[i-223] Dupont de Nemours, as early as 1769, had written: "Who
does not know that the English have today their Benjamin Franklin, who
has adopted the principles and the doctrines of our French
economists?"[i-224] Before attempting to appraise the real indebtedness
of Franklin to the physiocrats, it is well to seek to learn how he came
in contact with their ideas, and especially why by the year 1767 he was
acutely susceptible to their doctrine. In the summer of 1767, in the
company of Sir John Pringle, Franklin went to Paris, not an unknown
figure to the French savants, who were acquainted with his scientific
papers already translated into French by D'Alibard. That he was feted by
the Newtons of the physiocrats, François Quesnay and the elder Mirabeau,
as "le Savant, le Geomètre, le Physicien, l'homme à qui la nature permet
de dévoiler ses secrets,"[i-225] we are assured, when to De Nemours
(July 28, 1768) he writes regretfully: "Be so good as to present my
sincere respect to that venerable apostle, Dr. Quesnay, and to the
illustrious Ami des Hommes (of whose civilities to me at Paris I retain
a grateful remembrance)...."[i-226] Having missed Franklin in Paris
(1767), De Nemours had sent Franklin "un recueil des principaux traités
économiques du Docteur Quesnay" and his own _Physiocratie_ (1768), which
cast him in the role "of a propagandist of Physiocratie
doctrines."[i-227] Franklin admitted, "I am perfectly charmed with them,
and wish I could have stayed in France for some time, to have studied
in your school, that I might by conversing with its founders have made
myself quite a master of that philosophy."[i-228] That Franklin was not
before 1767 unacquainted with the Économistes we learn when he tells
Dupont de Nemours that Dr. Templeman had shown him the De
Nemours-Templeman correspondence when the latter was Secretary of the
London Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and
Commerce. A second trip to Paris (in 1769) to confer with Barbeu
Dubourg, an avowed physiocrat, concerning his forthcoming translation of
Franklin's works, served to acquaint him still further with the
doctrines of the new school.
Franklin's agrarianism[i-229] is congruent with physiocracy[i-230] in as
far as he observed that agriculture alone, of the many industries,
produced a surplus of wealth after all of the expenses of production had
been paid.[i-231] Each laborer produced more than enough to satisfy his
own needs. This surplus the Économistes termed the _produit net_. A
worker in manufactures, it was assumed, consumed foodstuffs and other
materials in proportion to the value he created in his manufacturing
process. Hence there obviously could be no _produit net_ accruing from
manufactures. Like the physiocrats, Franklin felt that manufactures were
_sterile_, to the extent that no new wealth was created. The physiocrats
believed, however, that laborers in manufacturing industries _could_
create a _produit net_ if they stinted themselves in consuming
foodstuffs, et cetera, but it was argued that this prudential asceticism
was not a characteristic habit. To this extent at least the physiocrats
were empirical.