Interest of Great Britain Considered with Regard to Her Colonies, and
the Acquisitions of Canada and Guadaloupe_ (1760). Since "there is
evidence that the pamphlet created much contemporary interest,"[i-295]
Franklin undoubtedly had some influence in causing the retention of
Canada, a retention which "made the American Revolution
inevitable."[i-296] If the release from French terrorism caused the
colonists to become myopic toward advantages lent them as a British
colony, it is appropriate in view of Franklin's later advocacy of
independence and ironic in view of his then imperialistic principles,
that he should have written _The Interest of Great Britain_. Here
Franklin, later to be a propagandist of revolution, cast himself in the
role of architect of a vast empire. For economic reasons, and for
colonial safety, he urged the retention, ridiculing the charge that the
colonies were lying in wait to declare their independence from England,
if the French were cast out from Canada.
Back in Pennsylvania in 1764 he declared the provincial government
"running fast into anarchy and confusion."[i-297] In his _Cool Thoughts
on the Present Situation of Our Public Affairs_ (1764) he set up a
sturdy antagonism between "Proprietary Interest and Power, and Popular
Liberty." Unlike the "lunatic fringe" of liberals who see "Popular
Liberty compatible only with a tendency toward anarchy" Franklin urged
that the Pennsylvania government lacked "Authority enough to keep the
common Peace."[i-298] The constitutional nature of proprietary
government had lost dignity and hence "suffers in the Opinion of the
People, and with it the Respect necessary to keep up the Authority of
Government." Almost Burkean in his apology for change, he suggested that
the popular party demand "rather and only a Change of Governor, that is,
instead of self-interested Proprietaries, a gracious King!" His
_Narrative of the Late Massacres in Lancaster County_[i-299] is a bloody
tribute to the lack of authority and police power of the current regime.
The _Petition to the King_ for a royal governor maintained that, torn by
"armed Mobs," the government was "weak, unable to support its own
Authority, and maintain the common internal Peace of the
Province."[i-300]
While petitioning for a crown colony, he found himself in 1765 faced
with a larger than provincial interest--Lord Grenville's Stamp Act
forced him into the role of one seeking definition of colonial status.
Such was his position in his examination (1766) before the House of
Commons relative to the repeal of the Stamp Act. Almost brusquely he
told his catechizers that even a moderated stamp act could not be
enforced "unless compelled by force of arms."[i-301] With a preface
asserting that colonials before 1763 were proud to be called Old-England
men, he summarized: "The authority of parliament was allowed to be valid
in all laws, except such as should lay internal taxes. It was never
disputed in laying duties to regulate commerce."[i-302] Parliament, in
the colonial view, had no right to lay internal taxes because "we are
not represented there." Mr. Merriam observes that in advancing this
legal and constitutional issue, the colonists "had in short an
antiquated theory as to the position and power of Parliament, and a
premature theory of Parliamentary representation."[i-303]
Franklin referred to the Pennsylvania colonial charter to prove that all
that was asked for was the "privileges and liberties of Englishmen."
When the examiners asked whether the colonists appealing to the Magna
Charta and constitutional rights of Englishmen could not with equal
force "object to the parliament's right of external taxation," Franklin
with cautious ambiguity declared: "They never have hitherto."[i-304]
Franklin's skill in upholding tenuous, almost "metaphysical,"
constitutional grievances (grievances, however, which were not upheld by
constitutional legalists in England) captivated Edmund Burke's
imagination: Franklin appeared to him like a schoolmaster catechizing a
pack of unruly schoolboys. Conservative in his omission of any appeal to
"natural rights," he was radical in his legalistic distinctions between
parliamentary rights to levy certain kinds of taxes. His position in
1766 and for several years following was one of seeking legal
definitions of the colonial status. Considering the popular excesses in
the colonies, Franklin's view was anything but illiberally radical.
Trying to counteract "the general Rage against America, artfully work'd
up by the Grenville Faction,"[i-305] fearful that the unthinking rabble
in the colonies might demonstrate too lustily against duties and the
redcoats,[i-306] Franklin saw, as a result of the constitutional
dilemma, the true extent of the fracture:
But after all, I doubt People in Government here will never
be satisfied without some Revenue from America, nor America
ever satisfy'd with their imposing it; so that Disputes will
from this Circumstance besides others, be perpetually
arising, till there is a consolidating union of the
whole.[i-307]
His chief demand was for a less ambiguous relation between the mother
and her offspring, for a unified, pacific commonwealth empire. Until he
left for the colonies in 1775, he tirelessly sought through
conversation, conference, and articles[i-308] sent to the British press
(in addition he "reprinted everything from America" that he "thought
might help our Common Cause") to reiterate patiently the colonies'
"Charter liberties,"[i-309] their abhorrence of Parliament-imposed
internal taxes, and the quartering of red-coated battalions. Constantly
hoping for a favorable Ministry (of a Lord Rockingham or a Shelburne),
and bemoaning the physical infirmities of Pitt which rendered him
politically impotent, Franklin felt almost romantically confident at
first of a change that must come. All the while, like Merlin's gleam,
visions of a world-encircling British empire haunted the Pennsylvania
tradesman. A letter to Barbeu Dubourg discloses at once his belief in an
imperial federation[i-310] and in the sovereignty of the colonial
assemblies: "In fact, the British empire is not a single state; it
comprehends many; and, though the Parliament of Great Britain has
arrogated to itself the power of taxing the colonies, it has no more
right to do so, than it has to tax Hanover. We have the same King, but
not the same legislatures."[i-311] Marginalia by Franklin's hand in an
anti-colonial pamphlet written by Dean Tucker indicate how completely
he (and here he represented colonial, not private, opinion) had failed
to see the growth of parliamentary power: "These Writers against the
Colonies all bewilder themselves by supposing the Colonies _within the
Realm_, which is not the case, nor ever was."[i-312]
By 1774 Franklin had discovered the futility of his imperialistic
illusions: ministries, fearing the siren colonies, had blocked their
ears with wax. The Pennsylvanian knew that "Divine Providence first
infatuates the power it designs to ruin."[i-313] He who had wished for
an empire as harmoniously companied as the orbited harmony of celestial
bodies lamented while on his way to America in 1775 that "so glorious a
Fabric as the present British Empire [was] to be demolished by these
Blunderers."[i-314] Broken was "that fine and noble China Vase, the
British Empire."[i-315] In 1774 he would have gained little cheer from
William Livingston's opinion (uttered in 1768): "I take it that clamour
is at present our best policy."[i-316]
His sense of defeat was aggravated by that ugly scene in the Cockpit in
1774 when Wedderburn bespattered the taciturn colonial agent with foul
invective. It had been charged that Franklin, the postmaster, had
purloined[i-317] letters of Governor Hutchinson and Lieutenant Governor
Oliver of Massachusetts and had sent them back to the colonies as proof
of the colonists' contention that the royal governors were hostile to
their colonial subjects. He whom (as Lord Chatham said) "all Europe held
in high Estimation for his Knowledge and Wisdom, and rank'd with our
Boyles and Newtons," was decked by Wedderburn "with the choicest flowers
of Billingsgate." In the presence of Lord Shelburne, Lord North, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund Burke, Jeremy Bentham, and Priestley,
Franklin, "motionless and silent," bore the harangue of the solicitor
general for a full three hours.[i-318] Franklin's eloquent mock humility
inspired Horace Walpole to write:
Sarcastic Sawney, swol'n with spite and prate,
On silent Franklin poured his venal hate.
The calm philosopher, without reply,
Withdrew, and gave his country liberty.
As propagandist for legislative freedom, Franklin, appealing for
sanction to legalistic and constitutional liberty more than to natural
rights, was no more radical than Edmund Burke. If ever an extreme
democrat, Franklin had yet by 1775 to become one. Temperamentally
hostile to "drunken electors," the "madness of mobs," he held a
patrician attitude toward authority. Earlier, in 1768, he had written
from London: "All respect to law and government seems to be lost among
the common people, who are moreover continually inflamed by seditious
scribblers, to trample on authority and every thing that used to keep
them in order."[i-319] To Georgiana Shipley he sent (_Epitaph_ on
Squirrel Mungo's death) this Miltonic and unrepublican sentiment:
Learn hence,
Ye who blindly seek more liberty,
Whether subjects, sons, squirrels or daughters,
That apparent restraint may be real protection
Yielding peace and plenty
With security.[i-320]
In 1771 he indicted Parliament in a letter to Joseph Galloway: "Its
Censures are no more regarded than Popes' Bulls. It is despis'd for its
Venality, and abominated for its Injustice." But he hastened to show
that he had no illusions that men are natively pure, that only
governments are wicked. With almost a Hamiltonian distrust of the public
ranks he wrote: "And yet it is not clear that the People deserve a
better Parliament, since they are themselves full as corrupt and venal:
witness the Sums they accept for their Votes at almost every
Election."[i-321]
Back in the colonies, Franklin remained just long enough to help form a
constitution for Pennsylvania,[i-322] and to aid Jefferson in writing
the Declaration of Independence.[i-323] After the royal governors had
dissolved the assemblies and the Continental Congress urged the colonies
to form their own constitutions, Franklin assumed leadership in his
state and helped to compose a constitution less conservative than those
of most of the other colonies.[i-324] Created between July 15 and Sept.
28, 1776, essentially by one who had just worked on and signed the
Declaration of Independence, it is not strange that the dominant
ideology of this constitution--that of natural rights, the compact
theory, and consent of the governed--should be like that of the
Declaration. The new constitution has been called the "most democratic
constitution yet seen in America."[i-325] The unicameral legislature,
the assembly of representatives, the plan of judicial review of laws
every seven years, and other features have been looked upon as
demonstrating the dangerous ultra-democratic tendencies of Franklin. The
revolutionary Benjamin Rush, who had helped Paine with _Common Sense_,
was dismayed because, in his view, Pennsylvania "has substituted mob
government for one of the happiest governments in the world.... A single
legislature is big with tyranny. I had rather live under the government
of one man than of seventy-two."[i-326] One wonders to what extent
Franklin was responsible for the unicameral legislature when we know
that it "was the natural outcome of Penn's ideas of government as
embodied in his various charters."[i-327] The plural executive, the
right of freemen to form their militia and elect their own officers,
the extension of male suffrage, and other innovations in this
constitution were of a radical nature in as far as the populace were
given greater liberties and responsibilities than ever before in the
colonies. It seems almost incredible that the patrician-minded Franklin,
with his Puritan heritage, should have thus almost hurriedly cast
himself at the feet of the people. Certain extenuating factors may be
mentioned in an attempt not to gloss over but to understand the violent
antithesis between Franklin the imperialist and Franklin the
revolutionist. To what extent did his antipathy for proprietary
governors, as well as the general colonial experience with governors,
suggest a joint executive of a council and governor?[i-328] Since his
experience as a Whig propagandist had been to exalt colonial
legislatures, to what extent did he see in the unicameral form a plan
which would give freest movement to the legislative activity? Prior to
1776 there is little that would suggest that Franklin had any confidence
in men, _unchecked_.[i-329] Yet it is difficult to show that, in the
first flush of indignation against England and revolutionary enthusiasm,
Franklin did not favor for a time distinctly radical tendencies.
In 1776 he left, as he wrote to Jan Ingenhousz, "to procure those aids
from European powers, for enabling us to defend our freedom and
independence."[i-330] He who had "been a Servant to many publicks, thro'
a long life" went to Passy, where from the Hôtel de Valentinois of M.
Roy de Chaumont he was to direct financial efforts calculated, with
Washington's generalship, and the assiduous loyalty of a minority group,
to win the Revolution. Welcomed as the apotheosis of "les
Insurgens,"[i-331] he was virtually deified; as Turgot expressed it,
_Eripuit caelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis_. The universality of his
vogue in France was primarily due to his deistic naturalism, his wily
pleading and activities in behalf of colonial independence, the
receptivity of the Gallic mind for any marten-capped child of the New
World, and to his scientific thought and experimentation which had
fortified Reason in purging the unknown of its terror, helping thus to
make the _philosophe_ at home in his reasonable world. Three weeks after
Franklin arrived in France, one Frenchman said that "it is the mode
today for everybody to have an engraving of M. Franklin over the
mantelpiece."[i-332] France overnight became Franklinist when the savant
came to dwell at Passy. Even before the victory of Yorktown he became
_la mode_. It was to be his success to convert France's unrecognized
alliance with the colonies to an open and undisguised alliance, perhaps
even to war with England.[i-333] But even for one who enjoyed, as John
Adams wrote, a reputation "more universal than that of Leibnitz or
Newton, Frederick or Voltaire,"[i-334] it was to be a difficult task to
manipulate a Beaumarchais, a Vergennes, and others, in spite of the
well-known and inveterate economic and political grievances which the
French held for the English. The virtues he stressed in the _Morals of
Chess_ he was able to translate into a diplomatic mien, uniting
"perfect silence" with a "generous civility." As a result, his record as
minister to France is marked by complete success; but for this "it is by
no means certain that American independence would have been achieved
until many years later."[i-335]
Plagued by Frenchmen desiring places in the colonial army, feted by the
_philosophes_, sorely vexed by the need for settling countless maritime
affairs, embracing and embraced by the venerable Voltaire, corresponding
with Hartley concerning exchange of prisoners, shaping alliances and
treaties, conducting scientific experiments, investigating Mesmer,
intrigued by balloon ascensions, made the darling of several salons,
associating in the Lodge of the Nine Sisters with Bailly, Bonneville,
Warville, Condorcet, Danton, Desmoulins, D'Auberteuil, Pétion,
Saint-Étienne, Sieyès, and others, all men who helped to give shape (or
shapelessness) to the French Revolution,[i-336] Franklin found little
time to search for that philosophic repose which he had long coveted. It
may be extravagant to say that Franklin was the "Creator of
Constitutionalism in Europe,"[i-337] but we know that in 1783 he printed
the colonial constitutions for continental distribution.[i-338] It has
been suggested that Franklin was an important formative factor in
Condorcet's faith in universal suffrage, a unicameral legislature, and
the liberties guaranteed by constitutional law.[i-339] Then, too,
Franklin had signed the Declaration of Independence--a document which
the French hailed as the "restoration of humanity's title
deeds."[i-340] The Duc de la Rochefoucauld eulogized the unicameral
legislature of Pennsylvania, identifying "this grand idea" and its
"maximum of simplicity" as Franklin's creation.[i-341] Fauchet eulogized
him as "one of the foremost builders of our sacred constitution."[i-342]
Along with Helvétius, Mably, Rousseau, and Voltaire, Franklin was
considered as one who laid the foundations for the French
revolution.[i-343] Franklin's taciturnity, his "art of listening," his
diplomatic reserve, do not suggest a volatile iconoclast doing anything
consciously to bring about a republican France. This did not prevent him
from becoming a symbol of liberty by his mere presence in the land,
stimulating patriots to examine the foundations of the tyrannical
authority which they saw or imagined enslaving them. Holding no brief
for natural equality, Franklin suggested that "quiet and regular
Subordination" is "so necessary to Success."[i-344] Realist that he was,
he became almost obsessed with the innate depravity of men until he was
doubtful whether "the Species were really worth producing or
preserving."[i-345] One would not be considered excessively republican
who inveighed against the "collected passions, prejudices, and private
interests" of collective legislative bodies.[i-346] He wrote to Caleb
Whitefoord: "It is unlucky ... that the Wise and Good should be as
mortal as Common People and that they often die before others are found
fit to supply their Places."[i-347] The great proportion of mankind,
weak and selfish, need "the Motives of Religion to restrain them from
Vice."[i-348] No less extreme than J. Q. Adams's retort to Paine's
_Rights of Man_, that it is anarchic to trust government "to the custody
of a lawless and desperate rabble," was Franklin's distrust of the
unthinking majority.[i-349]
Having helped to free the colonies, Franklin fittingly became, if not
one of the fathers of the Constitution, then, due to the serenity with
which he helped to moderate the plans of extremists on both sides, at
least its godfather. If, as Mr. James M. Beck asserts, the success of
the Constitution has been the result of its approximation of the golden
mean, between monarchy and anarchy, the section and the nation, the
small and the large state, then its success may be attributed not a
little to Franklin's genius.[i-350] After small and large states had
waged a fruitless struggle over congressional representation, Franklin
spoke:
The diversity of opinion turns on two points. If a
proportional representation takes place, the small States
contend that their liberties will be in danger. If an
equality of votes is to be put in its place, the large States
say their money will be in danger. When a broad table is to
be made, and the edges <of planks do not fit> the artist takes
a little from both, and makes a good joint.[i-351]
The former imperialist could not logically become a state rights
advocate. Engrossed essentially in "promoting and securing the common
Good,"[i-352] he derided the advantage the greater state would have,
asserting that he "was originally of Opinion it would be better if every
Member of Congress, or our national Council, were to consider himself
rather as a Representative of the whole, than as an Agent for the
Interests of a particular State." When Mr. Randolph considered,
To negative all laws, passed by the several States,
contravening, in the opinion of the national legislature, the
articles of union: (the following words were added to this
clause on motion of Mr. Franklin, "or any Treaties subsisting
under the authority of the union.")[i-353]
This is anything but the corollary of a defender of state rights.
Franklin was convinced that the permanence of the national view alone
could prevent federal anarchy. Addressing himself to the problem of
delegated authority Madison observed: "This prerogative of the General
Govt. is the great pervading principle that must controul the
centrifugal tendency of the States; which, without it, will continually
fly out of their proper orbits and destroy the order & harmony of the
political system."[i-354] One is tempted to see here Newton's principle
of gravity translated into terms of political nationalism; one wonders
whether it is probable that (like Madison's) Franklin's emphasis on the
harmony of the whole could have been partly conditioned by the
cohesiveness and harmony of universal physical laws incarnate in
Newtonian physics, of which he was a master.
Franklin was "apprehensive ...--perhaps too apprehensive,--that the
Government of these States may in future times end in a
Monarchy."[i-355] He suggested that moderate rather than kingly salaries
paid the chief executive would tend to allay this danger. Between
Randolph, who belabored a single executive as the "foetus of monarchy,"
and Wilson, who harbored it as the "best safeguard against tyranny,"
stood Franklin, who saw it as subversive of democratic sovereignty but
not necessarily fatal. He declared himself emphatically against the
motion that the executive have a complete negative.[i-356] Extolling
popular sovereignty, he warned that "In free Governments the rulers are
the servants, and the people their superiors & sovereigns."[i-357] He
refused to consider a plan which sought to establish a franchise only
for freeholders: "It is of great consequence that we shd. not depress
the virtue & public spirit of our common people; of which they displayed
a great deal during the war, and which contributed principally to the
favorable issue of it."[i-358] Pinckney had made a motion that rulers
should have unencumbered estates:
Doctr Franklin expressed his dislike of every thing that
tended to debase the spirit of the common people. If honesty
was often the companion of wealth, and if poverty was exposed
to peculiar temptation, it was not less true that the
possession of property increased the desire of more
property--[i-359].... This Constitution will be much read and
attended to in Europe, and if it should betray a great
partiality to the rich--will not only hurt us in the esteem
of the most liberal and enlightened men there, but discourage
the common people from removing to this Country.[i-360]
Pinckney's motion was rejected. Franklin within the Convention did not
seem to fear Gerry's threat--"the evils we experience flow from the
excess of democracy."[i-361]
Franklin suggested the adoption of a unicameral legislature, but does
not seem to have made any struggle for it. His article of 1789 in
defense of the Pennsylvania (unicameral) legislature, however, shows
that he clung to the principle as firmly as he had in 1776.[i-362] He
questioned: "The Wisdom of a few Members in one single Legislative Body,
may it not frequently stifle bad Motions in their Infancy, and so
prevent their being adopted?" In addition the bicameral house is
cumbersome and provocative of delay.