Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) - Amazon Web Services · Benjamin Franklin wasthe one most of famous Americanshis era. ofHe was a businessman, inventor, philanthropist, and statesman

Founders and the Constitution: In Their Own Words—Volume 1

Benjamin Franklin(1706–1790)

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We must all hang together, or assuredlywe shall all hang separately.

—Benjamin Franklin, at the signing of theDeclaration of Independence, 1776

IntroductionAlthough he was the old sage of the American Revolution and the Founding generation,Benjamin Franklin’s considerable work in the areas of journalism, science, and inventionoften obscure his many contributions to the creation of the Constitution and protection ofAmerican freedoms. His stature was second only to George Washington in lending credibilityto the new federal government, and his wisdom helped ensure the structural stability of whatis now the oldest written constitution still in force in the world.

Franklin’s Albany Plan of 1754 was the first formal proposal for a union of the Englishcolonies. Though it failed to gain the requisite support, it signaled the colonies’ desire tobe more independent of the mother country. Also, the Albany Plan’s federal system ofgovernment in some ways foreshadowed the political system created by the Constitutionthree decades later.

Franklin was also an early opponent of slavery who feared that the institution wouldcorrode the cords of friendship among the new American states. Despite his abhorrence of theslave system, however, Franklin was willing to compromise on the issue at the ConstitutionalConvention, and he remained optimistic about the young nation’s prospects.

Relevant Thematic Essays for Benjamin Franklin• Slavery• Republican Government (Volume 2)

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In His Own Words:Benjamin FranklinAND THE ALBANY PLAN OF UNION

Benjamin Franklin

Standards

CCE (9–12): IC2, IIB1, IIIA2NCHS (5–12): Era III, Standard 3A;Era IV, Standard 3BNCSS: Strands 2, 5, 6, and 10

MaterialsStudent Handouts

• Handout A—Benjamin Franklin(1706–1790)

• Handout B—Vocabulary andContext Questions

• Handout C—In His Own Words:Benjamin Franklin and the AlbanyPlan of Union

Additional Teacher Resource

• Answer Key

Recommended Time

One 45-minute class period.Additional time as needed forhomework.

OverviewIn this lesson, students will learn about BenjaminFranklin. They should first read as homeworkHandout A—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) andanswer the Reading Comprehension Questions. Afterdiscussing the answers to these questions in class, theteacher should have the students answer the CriticalThinking Questions as a class. Next, the teacher shouldintroduce the students to the primary source activity,Handout C—In His Own Words: Benjamin Franklinand the Albany Plan of Union, in which sections ofFranklin’s Albany Plan are compared to similar sectionsof the Constitution. As a preface, there is Handout B—Vocabulary and Context Questions, which will help thestudents understand the document.

The students will be divided into five groups, eachof which will analyze one set of comparisons. The studentswill then come together as a large group and discusstheir answers. There are Follow-Up Homework Options,which ask the students to create a British official’s reporton the Albany Plan or to create a debate between pro-and anti-Albany Plan delegates. Extensions asks studentsto consider Franklin’s claim that the passage of theAlbany Plan would have averted the American Revolution.

ObjectivesStudents will:

• appreciate Franklin’s contributions to hiscommunity and country

• understand the purpose of the Albany Congress• analyze the basic components of the Albany Plan• understand Franklin’s views on the Articles of

Confederation and the Constitution• explain Franklin’s role in the Constitutional

Convention• explain Franklin’s efforts to oppose slavery


I. Background HomeworkAsk students to read Handout A—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) and answerReading Comprehension Questions 1–3.

II. Warm-Up [10 minutes]A. Review answers to homework questions.B. Conduct a whole-class discussion to answer Reading Comprehension Question 3

and the Critical Thinking Questions.C. Ask a student to summarize the historical significance of Benjamin Franklin.

Benjamin Franklin was one of the most famous Americans of his era. He was abusinessman, inventor, philanthropist, and statesman. His Albany Plan was the firstformal proposal for a union of the colonies. Franklin became a champion of Americanrights during the crisis with England, and after independence, he joined the call forrevising the Articles of Confederation. At the Constitutional Convention, Franklintook a moderate position on most issues. Though he favored a stronger centralgovernment, he also insisted on safeguards against tyranny. Franklin was also an earlyopponent of slavery. His last public act was to recommend that Congress adopt a planto extinguish slavery.

III. Context [10 minutes]A. Review the challenges that faced the American colonists in the 1750s. Point out that

the colonies were facing trouble with Indian tribes as well as with the French, whowere seeking to strengthen and expand their North American empire. Emphasizethat the colonies lacked any formal system for cooperation and usually dealtindependently with Indian attacks, French encroachments, and British meddling.

B. Franklin’s Albany Plan of Union called for the creation of a colonial assembly, a“Grand Council,” and an executive, named the “President-General.” In several waysthis form of government was similar to the Congress and the office of presidentlater created by the United States Constitution.

IV. In His Own Words [15 minutes]A. Distribute Handout B—Vocabulary and Context Questions.B. Distribute Handout C—In His Own Words: Benjamin Franklin and the Albany

Plan of Union. Be sure that the students understand the vocabulary and the “who,what, where, and when” of the document.

C. Divide the class into five groups, assigning to each group one of the sets ofcomparisons in Handout C. Have each group list the similarities and differencesbetween the relevant sections of the Albany Plan and the Constitution.

LESSON PLAN



V. Wrap-Up Discussion [10 minutes]Have the students come together as a large group and share their answers toHandout C.

VI. Follow-Up Homework OptionsA. Have the students assume the role of a British official who has the duty of

supervising the American colonies in 1754. Then have them compose this official’sreport on the Albany Plan to the king. The report should be in the form of a two-to three-paragraph essay, and it should explain why the official thinks the AlbanyPlan is either a good or a bad idea.

B. Have the students create a debate between two delegates at the Albany Congress,one who supports Franklin’s plan and another who opposes it. The debate shouldbe no longer than one page in length and should be in the form of a script ordialogue.

VII. ExtensionsFranklin reflected many years later on the consequences of the rejection of theAlbany Plan:

Remark, February 9, 1789.

On Reflection, it now seems probable, that if the foregoing Plan or some thing like it, hadbeen adopted and carried into Execution, the subsequent Separation of the Colonies fromthe Mother Country might not so soon have happened, nor the Mischiefs suffered on bothsides have occurred, perhaps during another Century. For the Colonies, if so united, wouldhave really been, as they then thought themselves, sufficient to their own Defence, andbeing trusted with it, as by the Plan, an Army from Britain, for that purpose would havebeen unnesessary: The Pretences for framing the Stamp-Act would not then have existed,nor the other Projects for drawing a Revenue from America to Britain by Acts ofParliament, which were the Cause of the Breach, and attended with such terrible Expenceof Blood and Treasure: so that the different Parts of the Empire might still have remainedin Peace and Union. But the Fate of the Plan was singular. For tho’ after many Daysthorough Discussion of all its Parts in Congress it was unanimously agreed to, and Copiesordered to be sent to the Assembly of each Province for Concurrence, and one to theMinistry in England for the Approbation of the Crown. The Crown disapprov’d it, ashaving plac’d too much Weight in the democratic Part of the Constitution; and everyAssembly as having allow’d too much to Prerogative. So it was totally rejected.

Source: The U.S. Constitution Online. <http://www.usconstitution.net/albany.html>.

Suggestions:A. Ask the students to decide if they agree or disagree with Franklin’s idea that “the

subsequent Separation of the Colonies from the Mother Country might not sosoon have happened” if the Albany Plan had passed.

B. Ask the students to discuss how the Albany Plan could have been modified in orderfor it to pass.

Benjamin Franklin

LESSON PLAN


Resources

PrintBrands, H. W. The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin. New York: Doubleday, 2000.Morgan, Edmund S. Benjamin Franklin. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002.Shaw, Peter, ed. The Autobiography and Other Writings by Benjamin Franklin. New York: Bantam Books, 1989.Srodes, James. Franklin: The Essential Founding Father. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2002.Van Doren, Carl. Benjamin Franklin. Reprint. New York: Penguin, 2001.

Internet“The Albany Plan of Union, 1754.” The Avalon Project at Yale University Law School. <http://www.yale.edu/

lawweb/avalon/amerdoc/albany.htm>.“Benjamin Franklin, Queries and Remarks respecting Alterations in the Constitution of Pennsylvania.” The

Founders’ Constitution. <http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch12s25.html>.“Benjamin Franklin, 1706–1790.” Colonial Hall. <http://www.colonialhall.com/franklin/franklin.asp>.“Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania.” University Archives and Records Center,

University of Pennsylvania. <http://www.archives.upenn.edu/primdocs/1749proposals.html>.

Selected Works by Benjamin Franklin• Poor Richard’s Almanack (1733–1758)• Autobiography (1771–1788)• Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One (1773)

LESSON PLAN


07 032-043 Founders Franklin 8/27/07 4:54 PM Page 36

Our Constitution is in actual operation;everything appears to promise that it will last;

but in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.

—Benjamin Franklin, Letter to M. Leroy, 1789

Although his voice was weak, it could be clearly heard throughoutConvention Hall in Philadelphia. The delegates had temporarily ceasedtheir bickering as Benjamin Franklin, at eighty-one years the oldestmember of the group, read one of his proposals. With the exception ofGeorge Washington, Franklin was probably the most esteemedmember of the remarkable group of statesmen who filled ConventionHall that hot summer of 1787. Franklin had repeatedly called forharmony in the proceedings. This newest proposal, like his previousones, sought to forge a compromise among the delegates.

A Civic LeaderFranklin was a successful American entrepreneur. As such, he looked for waysto improve the lives of his fellow citizens through his many inventions, and theformation of beneficial voluntary organizations. He also served in colonial government,represented Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress, and as a delegate to theConstitutional Convention. His cardinal teaching was that “the most acceptable Serviceof God is doing Good to Man.” Franklin sought to promote public virtues through hismany writings, such as Poor Richard’s Almanack. He formed a secret society, the Junto, topromote beneficial ideas. In 1743, he helped to create the American Philosophical Societyto advance the cause of science in the New World. He also played a major role in buildingthe first fire department, the first public library, and the first hospital in Philadelphia.

Franklin also worked to improve his community through scientific invention. Anexample of his selflessness was his refusal to accept patent protection for his famousstove. “That as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others,” Franklinasserted, “we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours,and this we should do freely and generously.”

His fellow citizens repeatedly called upon Franklin to serve in public. He served asdeputy postmaster of Philadelphia and deputy postmaster general of the colonies. Hewas a clerk for and later a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly. After Americanindependence, he established the U.S. Post Office. “I shall never ask, never refuse, norever resign an office,” Franklin once declared.

The Albany PlanIn 1754, the prospect of war with the French led several of the royal governors to call fora congress of all the colonies. One purpose of the meeting was to plan war operationsagainst the French. Another purpose was to prepare some plan of confederation amongthe colonies. Only seven colonies sent commissioners to this congress, which met in Albany,New York. Reception among the American colonists and the colonial newspapers wasgenerally unfavorable. But Franklin’s own Pennsylvania Gazette ran a political cartoonwith the motto “Join, or Die!”

Benjamin Franklin

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706–1790)

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At Albany, Franklin drafted and introduced the first formal proposal for apermanent union of the thirteen colonies. This became known as the Albany Plan. It wassimilar to the decentralized system of government that would later emerge under theArticles of Confederation. There would be a union of the colonies under a single centralgovernment, though each colony would preserve its local independence.

Public opinion, however, was not yet ready for a centralized colonial government.Though the Albany Congress did adopt Franklin’s plan, the colonial assemblies rejectedit because it encroached on their powers. The British government also disapproved ofthe plan, fearing it would give the colonies too much independence.

Defender of American RightsBetween 1757 and 1775, Franklin resided in England as an agent for several colonies.During the Stamp Act crisis of 1765 he became famous in London as a defender ofAmerican rights. The British later branded Franklin a traitor. He escaped probableimprisonment by returning to Philadelphia in May 1775. There he was received as a heroof the American cause and was immediately nominated to be a member of the SecondContinental Congress. Thirteen months later, he served on the committee that draftedthe Declaration of Independence. He then served as president of Pennsylvania’sconstitutional convention.

Not long afterward, the aged statesman set sail once again for Europe as a diplomatfor the newly established United States of America. Franklin succeeded in gainingFrench support for the American Revolution. As commissioner to France from1779–1785, Franklin, along with John Jay and John Adams, negotiated the Treaty ofParis (1783) that ended the War for Independence.

Sage of the Constitutional ConventionFranklin arrived back in the United States in 1785. Believing the Articles ofConfederation to be too weak, he joined in the call for a Constitutional Convention. Hewas chosen to represent the state of Pennsylvania at the Constitutional Convention thatmet in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. At 81, Franklin was the oldest member ofthe convention. He attended almost every session, though his age and illness sometimesmade it necessary for others to speak for him.

Franklin’s prestige reassured his countrymen about the meeting in Philadelphia, andhis presence promoted harmony in the proceedings. Franklin made several successfulproposals at the Convention. His ideas often reflected his sympathy with the commonpeople. For example, he favored giving the lower house of Congress the sole power topropose money and tax bills. Franklin believed that the lower house would reflect the“public spirit of our common people.” He also successfully opposed propertyrequirements for voting and financial tests for holders of federal office.

Though he favored a stronger central government, Franklin also worried about thepossibility of tyranny. He therefore desired a clear listing of the powers of the federalgovernment. He also supported an executive council instead of a single president. Whenthis idea failed, Franklin seconded Virginian George Mason’s call for an advisory councilto the president. He believed that the president should be limited to only one term inoffice, so that no one man should gain too much power. He also opposed giving theexecutive absolute veto power over the Congress. Franklin’s proposals met with somesuccess. A cabinet was established, and Congress was given the power to overridepresidential vetoes by a two-thirds vote.


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On September 17, the convention met for the last time. Fellow Pennsylvanian JamesWilson delivered a speech on behalf of Franklin in support of the Constitution. Passageof the plan, Franklin asserted in the speech, “will astonish our enemies, who are waitingwith confidence to hear . . . that our States are on the point of separation, only to meethereafter for the purpose of cutting one another’s throats.” The new Constitution wasratified into law by the states on June 21, 1788.

Franklin was concerned, however, that the issue of slavery could someday result inthe states “cutting one another’s throats.” Franklin had been an opponent of slavery asearly as the 1730s. At the convention, he made the case that all free black men be countedas citizens. Such a course, Franklin believed, would have the “excellent effect of inducingthe colonies to discourage slavery and to encourage the increase of their freeinhabitants.” In 1787, Franklin was elected first president of the Pennsylvania Society forPromoting the Abolition of Slavery. His final public act was signing a petition toCongress recommending dissolution of the slave system.

Franklin was optimistic about America’s future. As the convention delegates signedthe Constitution, he pointed to the sun carved into the president’s chair, and reflected:“I have often . . . in the course of this session . . . looked at that . . . without being able totell whether it was rising or setting; but now at length I have the happiness to know thatit is a rising and not a setting sun.” As he exited Convention Hall upon the completionof the Constitution, a woman came up to him and asked what the delegates had created.Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Franklin died two and one-halfyears later, still optimistic that the republic he helped to shape would endure.

Benjamin Franklin

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Reading Comprehension Questions

1. List three ways in which Franklin improved the lives of those in his community.

2. What was the Albany Congress?

3. List five proposals that Franklin made at the Constitutional Convention.

Critical Thinking Questions

4. How do you think the other delegates at the Constitutional Convention viewedFranklin?

5. What did Franklin mean when he told the woman outside Convention Hall thatthe delegates had created “a republic, if you can keep it”?


Excerpts from the Albany Plan of Union (1754) and the

United States Constitution (1788)

1. Vocabulary: Use context clues to determine the meaning or significance of each ofthese words and write their definitions:

a. tranquility

b. posterity

c. ordain

d. delegated

e. respective

f. vested

g. assent

h. requisite

i. originated

j. approbation

k. concur

l. consent

m. consuls

n. levy

o. duties

p. imposts

q. excises

2. Context: Answer the following questions.

a. When was this document written?

b. Where was this document written?

c. Who wrote this document?

d. What type of document is this?

e. What was the purpose of this document?

f. Who was the audience for this document?


VOCABULARY AND CONTEXT QUESTIONS

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Excerpts from the Albany Plan of Union (1754) and the

United States Constitution (1788)

Directions: Compare the selected portions of the Albany Plan to the correspondingexcerpts from the Constitution. List the ways in which the sections are similar and then theways in which they are different.

1: Preamble and Federal System

Albany Plan

(Preamble): It is proposed that humble application be made for an act of Parliament ofGreat Britain, by virtue of which one general government may be formed in America,including all the said colonies, within and under which government each colony mayretain its present constitution, except in the particulars wherein a change may bedirected by the said act, as hereafter follows.

Constitution(Preamble): We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union,establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promotethe general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, doordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

(Tenth Amendment): The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

2: Branches of Government

Albany Plan(1): [It is proposed] that the said general government be administered by a President-General, to be appointed and supported by the crown; and a Grand Council, to be chosen bythe representatives of the people of the several Colonies met in their respective assemblies.

(4): There shall be a new election of the members of the Grand Council every three years.

Constitution(Article II, Section 1, Clause 1): The Executive power shall be vested in a President of theUnited States of America.

(Article I, Section 1): All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congressof the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

(Article I, Section 2, Clause 1): The House of Representatives shall be composed ofmembers chosen every second year by the people of the several States.

(Article I, Section 3, Clause 1): The Senate of the United States shall be composed of twoSenators from each State, chosen by the legislature thereof, for six years.

Benjamin Franklin

IN HIS OWN WORDS: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ANDTHE ALBANY PLAN OF UNION

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3: Legislative Process

Albany Plan(6): The Grand Council shall meet once in every year, and oftener if occasion require.

(9): [It is proposed] that the assent of the President-General be requisite to all acts of theGrand Council, and that it be his office and duty to cause them to be carried into execution.

Constitution(Article I, Section 4, Clause 2): The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year.

(Article I, Section 7, Clause 2): Every bill which shall have passed the House ofRepresentatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to thepresident of the United States; if he approve, he shall sign it, but if not, he shall returnit, with his objections, to that house in which it shall have originated, who shall enter theobjections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after suchreconsideration, two thirds of that house shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent,together with the objections, to the other house, by which it shall likewise bereconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of that house, it shall become a law.

(Article II, Section 3): [The President] shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed.

4: Military Powers

Albany Plan(10): [It is proposed] that the President-General, with the advice of the Grand Council,hold or direct all Indian treaties, in which the general interest of the Colonies may beconcerned; and make peace or declare war with Indian nations.

(23): [It is proposed] that all military commission officers, whether for land or sea service,to act under this general constitution, shall be nominated by the President-General; but theapprobation of the Grand Council is to be obtained, before they receive their commissions.

Constitution(Article I, Section 8, Clause 11): [The Congress shall have the power] to declare war.

(Article II, Section 2, Clause 1): The President shall be Commander-in-Chief of theArmy and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States, when calledinto the actual service of the United States.

(Article II, Section 2, Clause 2): He shall have power, by and with the advice and consentof the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; andhe shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appointambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and allother officers of the United States.


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5: Power of Taxation

Albany Plan(16): That for these purposes [the President-General and the Grand Council] havepower to make laws, and lay and levy such general duties, imposts, or taxes, as to themshall appear most equal and just (considering the ability and other circumstances of theinhabitants in the several Colonies), and such as may be collected with the leastinconvenience to the people; rather discouraging luxury, than loading industry withunnecessary burdens.

Constitution(Article I, Section 8, Clause 1): The Congress shall have the power to lay and collecttaxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defenceand general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall beuniform throughout the United States.

Sources: “The Albany Plan of Union, 1754.” The Avalon Project at Yale University Law School.<http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/amerdoc/albany.htm>.

“Constitution of the United States.” The Bill of Rights Institute.<http://www.BillofRightsInstitute.org>.

Benjamin Franklin

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For nearly 250 years, the existence of slaverydeprived African Americans of independent livesand individual liberty. It also compromised therepublican dreams of white Americans, whootherwise achieved unprecedented success in thecreation of political institutions and socialrelationships based on citizens’ equal rights andever-expanding opportunity.Thomas Jefferson, who in 1787described slavery as an“abomination” and predictedthat it “must have an end,” hadfaith that “there is a superiorbench reserved in heaven forthose who hasten it.” He lateravowed that “there is not a manon earth who would sacrificemore than I would to relieve usfrom this heavy reproach in anypracticable way.” AlthoughJefferson made several proposalsto curb slavery’s growth orreduce its political or economicinfluence, a workable plan toeradicate slavery eluded him. Others also failed toend slavery until finally, after the loss of more than600,000 American lives in the Civil War, the UnitedStates abolished it through the 1865 ratification ofthe Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

American slavery and American freedom tookroot at the same place and at the same time. In1619—the same year that colonial Virginia’s Houseof Burgesses convened in Jamestown and becamethe New World’s first representative assembly—about 20 enslaved Africans arrived at Jamestownand were sold by Dutch slave traders. The numberof slaves in Virginia remained small for severaldecades, however, until the first dominant laborsystem—indentured servitude—fell out of favorafter 1670. Until then indentured servants,typically young and landless white Englishmen andEnglishwomen in search of opportunity, arrived bythe thousands. In exchange for passage to Virginia,they agreed to labor in planters’ tobacco fields forterms usually ranging from four to seven years.Planters normally agreed to give them, after theirindentures expired, land on which they couldestablish their own tobacco farms. In the first fewdecades of settlement, as demand for the crop

boomed, such arrangements usually worked in theplanters’ favor. Life expectancy in Virginia wasshort and few servants outlasted their terms ofindenture. By the mid-1600s, however, as thesurvival rate of indentured servants increased,more earned their freedom and began to competewith their former masters. The supply of tobacco

rose more quickly than demandand, as prices decreased, tensionsbetween planters and formerservants grew.

These tensions exploded in1676, when Nathaniel Bacon leda group composed primarily offormer indentured servants in arebellion against Virginia’sgovernment. The rebels, upset bythe reluctance of GovernorWilliam Berkeley and thegentry-dominated House ofBurgesses to aid their efforts toexpand onto American Indians’lands, lashed out at both theIndians and the government.

After several months the rebellion dissipated, butso, at about the same time, did the practice ofvoluntary servitude.

In its place developed a system of race-basedslavery. With both black and white Virginiansliving longer, it made better economic sense toown slaves, who would never gain their freedomand compete with masters, than to rent the labor ofindentured servants, who would. A few early slaveshad gained their freedom, established plantations,acquired servants, and enjoyed liberties shared bywhite freemen, but beginning in the 1660sVirginia’s legislature passed laws banninginterracial marriage; it also stripped AfricanAmericans of the rights to own property and carryguns, and it curtailed their freedom of movement.In 1650 only about 300 blacks worked Virginia’stobacco fields, yet by 1680 there were 3,000 and, bythe start of the eighteenth century, nearly 10,000.

Slavery surged not only in Virginia but also inPennsylvania, where people abducted from Africaand their descendants harvested wheat and oats,and in South Carolina, where by the 1730s riceplanters had imported slaves in such quantity thatthey accounted for two-thirds of the population.

Slavery� �


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02 006-009 Founders Slavery 7/17/04 9:43 AM Page 6

The sugar-based economies of Britain’s Caribbeancolonies required so much labor that, on someislands, enslaved individuals outnumberedfreemen by more than ten to one. Even in the NewEngland colonies, where staple-crop agriculturenever took root, the presence of slaves wascommon and considered unremarkable by most.

Historian Edmund S. Morgan has suggestedthat the prevalence of slavery in these colonies mayhave, paradoxically, heightened the sensitivity ofwhite Americans to attacks against their ownfreedom. Thus, during the crisis preceding the Warfor Independence Americansfrequently cast unpopularBritish legislation—whichtaxed them without theconsent of their assemblies,curtailed the expansion oftheir settlements, deprivedthem of the right to jurytrials, and placed themunder the watchful eyes of red-coated soldiers—asevidence of an imperial conspiracy to “enslave”them. American patriots who spoke in such termsdid not imagine that they would be forced to toil intobacco fields; instead, they feared that Britishofficials would deny to them some of the sameindividual and civil rights that they had denied toenslaved African Americans. George Mason,collaborating with George Washington, warned inthe Fairfax Resolves of 1774 that the BritishParliament pursued a “regular, systematic plan” to“fix the shackles of slavery upon us.”

As American revolutionaries reflected on theinjustice of British usurpations of their freedomand began to universalize the individual rights thatthey had previously tied to their status asEnglishmen, they grew increasingly conscious ofthe inherent injustice of African-American slavery.Many remained skeptical that blacks possessed thesame intellectual capabilities as whites, but fewrefused to count Africans as members of thehuman family or possessors of individual rights.When Jefferson affirmed in the Declaration ofIndependence “that all men are created equal,” hedid not mean all white men. In fact, he attemptedto turn the Declaration into a platform from whichAmericans would denounce the trans-Atlanticslave trade. This he blamed on Britain and its kingwho, Jefferson wrote, “has waged cruel war againsthuman nature itself, violating it’s [sic] most sacredrights of life and liberty in the persons of a distantpeople who never offended him, captivating &carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere.”

The king was wrong, he asserted, “to keep open amarket where MEN should be bought & sold.”Delegates to the Continental Congress from SouthCarolina and Georgia, however, vehementlyopposed the inclusion of these lines in theDeclaration of Independence. Representatives of other states agreed to delete them. Thus began,at the moment of America’s birth, the practice of prioritizing American unity over blackAmericans’ liberty.

Pragmatism confronted principle not only onthe floor of Congress but also on the plantations of

many prominent revolu-tionaries. When Jeffersonpenned his stirring defenseof individual liberty, heowned 200 enslavedindividuals. Washington, thecommander-in-chief of theContinental Army andfuture first president, was

one of the largest slaveholders in Virginia. JamesMadison—who, like Jefferson and Washington,considered himself an opponent of slavery—wasalso a slaveholder. So was Mason, whose VirginiaDeclaration of Rights stands as one of therevolutionary era’s most resounding statements onbehalf of human freedom. Had these revolution-aries attempted to free their slaves, they would havecourted financial ruin. Alongside their land-holdings, slaves constituted the principal assetagainst which they borrowed. The existence ofslavery, moreover, precluded a free market ofagricultural labor; they could never afford to payfree people—who could always move west toobtain their own farms, anyway—to till their fields.

Perhaps the most powerful objection toemancipation, however, emerged from the sameset of principles that compelled the Americanrevolutionaries to question the justice of slavery.Although Jefferson, Washington, Madison, andMason considered human bondage a clearviolation of individual rights, they trembled whenthey considered the ways in which emancipationmight thwart their republican experiments. Notunlike many nonslaveholders, they consideredespecially fragile the society that they had helpedto create. In the absence of aristocratic selfishnessand force, revolutionary American governmentsrelied on virtue and voluntarism. Virtue theyunderstood as a manly trait; the word, in fact,derives from the Latin noun vir, which means“man.” They considered men to be independentand self-sufficient, made free and responsible by

Slavery

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In 1650 only about 300 AfricanAmericans worked Virginia’s tobacco

fields, yet by 1680 there were 3,000;by the start of the eighteenth century,

there were nearly 10,000.


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habits borne of necessity. Virtuous citizens madegood citizens, the Founders thought. The use ofpolitical power for the purpose of exploitationpromised the virtuous little and possessed thepotential to cost them much. Voluntarism wasvirtue unleashed: the civic-minded, selfless desireto ask little of one’s community but, because ofone’s sense of permanence within it, to give muchto it. The Founders, conscious of the degree towhich involuntary servitude had rendered slavesdependent and given them cause to resent whitesociety, questioned their qualifications forcitizenship. It was dangerous to continue to enslavethem, but perilous to emancipate them. Jeffersoncompared it to holding a wolf by the ears.

These conundrumsseemed to preclude an easyfix. Too aware of the injusticeof slavery to expect muchforgiveness from slaves, in thefirst decades of thenineteenth century a numberof Founders embarked onimpractical schemes topurchase the freedom of slaves and “repatriate”them from America to Africa. In the interim, debateabout the continued importation of slaves fromAfrica stirred delegates to the ConstitutionalConvention. South Carolina’s Charles Pinckneyvehemently opposed prohibitions on the slavetrade, arguing that the matter was best decided byindividual states. The delegates compromised,agreeing that the Constitution would prohibit fortwenty years any restrictions on the arrival of newlyenslaved Africans. As president, Jefferson availedhimself of the opportunity afforded by theConstitution when he prohibited the continuedimportation of Africans into America in 1808. Yethe had already failed in a 1784 attempt to halt thespread of slavery into the U.S. government’swestern territory, which stretched from the GreatLakes south toward the Gulf of Mexico (thecompromise Northwest Ordinance of 1787 drewthe line at the Ohio River), and in his efforts toinstitute in Virginia a plan for gradualemancipation (similar to those that passed inNorthern states, except that it provided for theeducation and subsequent deportation of freedAfrican Americans). Of all the Founders, BenjaminFranklin probably took the most unequivocalpublic stand against involuntary servitude when, in1790, he signed a strongly worded antislaverypetition submitted to Congress by the PennsylvaniaAbolition Society. This, too, accomplished little.

The revolutionary spirit of the postwar decade,combined with the desire of many Upper Southplantation owners to shift from labor-intensivetobacco to wheat, created opportunities to reducethe prevalence of slavery in America—especially inthe North. Those opportunities not seized upon—especially in the South—would not soon return.

Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin in1793 widened the regional divide. By renderingmore efficient the processing of cotton fiber—which in the first half of the nineteenth centurypossessed a greater value than all other U.S.exports combined—Whitney’s machine triggereda resurgence of Southern slavery. Meanwhile, thewealth that cotton exports brought to America

fueled a booming Northernindustrial economy thatrelied on free labor andcreated a well-educatedmiddle class of urbanprofessionals and socialactivists. These individualskept alive the Founders’desire to rid America of

slavery, but they also provoked the development ofSouthern proslavery thought. At best, Southernersof the revolutionary generation had viewed slaveryas a necessary evil; by the 1830s, however,slaveholders began to describe it as a positive good.African Americans were civilized Christians, theyargued, but their African ancestors were not. Inaddition, the argument continued, slaves benefitedfrom the paternalistic care of masters who, unlikethe Northern employers of “wage slaves,” cared fortheir subordinates from the cradle to the grave.This new view combined with an older critique ofcalls for emancipation: since slaves were theproperty of their masters, any attempt to forcetheir release would be a violation of masters’property rights.

Regional positions grew more intractable asthe North and South vied for control of the West.Proposals to admit into statehood Missouri, Texas,California, Kansas, and Nebraska resulted incontroversy as Northerners and Southernerssparred to maintain parity in the Senate. The 1860election to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, aRepublican who opposed the inclusion ofadditional slave states, sparked secession and theCivil War.

“I tremble for my country when I reflect thatGod is just,” Jefferson had prophetically remarked,for “his justice cannot sleep for ever.” Americanspaid dearly for the sin of slavery. Efforts by

“I tremble for my country when Ireflect that God is just,” Jefferson hadprophetically remarked, for “his justicecannot sleep for ever.” Americans paid

dearly for the sin of slavery.


members of the founding generation failed toidentify moderate means to abolish the practice,and hundreds of thousands died because millionshad been deprived of the ability to truly live.

Robert M. S. McDonald, Ph.D.United States Military Academy

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Suggestions for Further ReadingBailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

Press, reprint, 1992.Freehling, William W. The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776–1754. New York: Oxford University

Press, 1990.Jordan, Winthrop D. White Over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550–1812. Chapel Hill, N.C.:

University of North Carolina Press, 1968.Miller, John Chester. The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery. Charlottesville: University of

Virginia Press, reprint, 1991.Morgan, Edmund S. American Slavery—American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. New York:

W.W. Norton, 1975.Tise, Larry E. Proslavery: A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701–1840. Athens: University of

Georgia Press, 1987.


As Benjamin Franklin left Philadelphia’s ConventionHall in September 1787, upon the completion of thework of the Framers of the Constitution, a womanapproached him and asked the old sage of theRevolution what the delegates had created. Franklinresponded, “A republic, Madame, if you can keepit.” The woman’s reaction to Franklin’s reply is left unrecorded by history,but she might well haveasked Franklin for a moredetailed answer. Thoughthe word “republic” wascommon currency inAmerica at the time, themeaning of the term wasimprecise, encompassingvarious and diverse formsof government.

Broadly, a republicmeant a country not governed by a king. The rootof the word is the Latin, res publica, meaning “thepublic things.” “The word republic,” Thomas Painewrote, “means the public good, or the good of thewhole, in contradistinction to the despotic form,which makes the good of the sovereign, or of oneman, the only object of the government.” In arepublic, the people are sovereign, delegatingcertain powers to the government whose duty is tolook to the general welfare of society. That citizensof a republic ought to place the common goodbefore individual self-interest was a key assumptionamong Americans of the eighteenth century.“Every man in a republic,” proclaimed BenjaminRush, “is public property. His time and talents—his youth—his manhood—his old age, nay more,life, all belong to his country.”

Republicanism was not an American invention.In shaping their governments, Americans looked tohistory, first to the ancient world, and specifically tothe Israel of the Old Testament, the Roman republic,and the Greek city-states. New Englanders inparticular often cited the ancient state of Israel as theworld’s first experiment in republican governmentand sometimes drew a parallel between the TwelveTribes of Israel and the thirteen American states. In1788, while ratification of the Constitution wasbeing debated, one Yankee preacher gave a sermonentitled,“The Republic of the Israelites an Example

to the American States.” Indeed, the Bible was citedby American authors in the eighteenth centurymore often than any other single source.

Americans not only knew their Bible, but alsothe history of the Greeks and Romans. The eliteclass mastered ancient languages and literature, arequirement of colleges at the time. To these men

of the eighteenth century,ancient languages were notdead, nor were ancientevents distant; rather,the worlds of Pericles and Polybius, Sallust andCicero were vibrant and near. The relativelyminor advancements intechnology across 2,000years—people still traveledby horse and sailing ship—

served to reinforce the bond eighteenth-centuryAmericans felt with the ancients.

Like the Greeks and Romans of antiquity,Americans believed that government must concernitself with the character of its citizenry. Indeed,virtue was “the Soul of a republican Government,”as Samuel Adams put it. Virtue had twoconnotations, one secular and the other sacred.The root of the word was the Latin, vir, meaning“man,” and indeed republican virtue often referredto the display of such “manly” traits as courage andself-sacrifice for the common good. These qualitieswere deemed essential for a republic’s survival. “Apopular government,” Patrick Henry proclaimed,“cannot flourish without virtue in the people.” Butvirtue could also mean the traditional Judeo-Christian virtues, and many Americans feared thatGod would punish the entire nation for the sins ofits people. “Without morals,” Charles Carrollproclaimed, “a republic cannot subsist any lengthof time.” New Englanders in particular sought tohave society’s institutions—government andschools as well as churches—inculcate such qualitiesas industry, frugality, temperance, and chastity inthe citizenry. The Massachusetts Constitution of1780, for example, provided for “public instructionsin piety, religion, and morality.”

The second ingredient of a good republic was awell-constructed government with good institutions.

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“If the foundation is badly laid,” George Washingtonsaid of the American government,“the superstructuremust be bad.” Americans adhered to a modifiedversion of the idea of “mixed”government, advocatedby the Greek thinker Polybius and later republicantheorists. A mixed republic combined the threebasic parts of society—monarchy (the one ruler),aristocracy (the rich few), and democracy (thepeople)—in a proper formula so that no one partcould tyrannize the others. But Americans believedthat the people of a republic were sovereign, so theysought to create institutions that approximated themonarchical and aristocraticelements of society. TheFramers of the Constitutiondid just this by fashioning asingle executive and a Senateonce removed from thepeople. The problem, as JohnAdams pointed out in hisThoughts on Government, wasthat “the possible combinations of the powers ofsociety are capable of innumerable variations.”

Americans had every reason to be pessimisticabout their experiment in republicanism. Historytaught that republics were inherently unstable andvulnerable to decay. The Roman republic and thecity-state of Athens, for instance, had succumbed tothe temptations of empire and lost their liberty. Thehistories of the Florentine and Venetian republicsof Renaissance Italy too had been glorious but short-lived. Theorists from the ancient Greek thinkerPolybius to the seventeenth-century English radicalAlgernon Sidney warned that republics suffer fromparticular dangers that monarchies and despotismsdo not. Republics were assumed to burn brightlybut briefly because of their inherent instability.One element of society always usurped power andestablished a tyranny.

The great danger to republics, it was generallybelieved, stemmed from corruption, which, likevirtue, had both a religious and a worldly meaning.Corruption referred, first, to the prevalence ofimmorality among the people. “Liberty,” SamuelAdams asserted, “will not long survive the totalExtinction of Morals.”

“If the Morals of the people” were neglected,Elbridge Gerry cautioned during the crisis withEngland, American independence would notproduce liberty but “a Slavery, far exceeding that ofevery other Nation.”

This kind of corruption most often resultedfrom avarice, the greed for material wealth. SeveralAmerican colonial legislatures therefore passed

sumptuary laws, which prohibited ostentatiousdisplays of wealth. “Luxury . . . leads tocorruption,” a South Carolinian declared duringthe Revolutionary era, “and whoever encouragesgreat luxury in a free state must be a bad citizen.”Another writer warned of the “ill effect ofsuperfluous riches” on republican society. Avaricewas seen as a “feminine” weakness; the lust forwealth rotted away “masculine” virtues. JohnAdams bemoaned “vanities, levities, and fopperies,which are real antidotes to all great, manly, andwarlike virtues.”

The second meaning ofcorruption referred toplacing private interest abovethe common good. Thistemptation plagued publicofficials most of all, who hadample opportunity tomisappropriate public fundsand to expand their power.

“Government was instituted for the general good,”Charles Carroll wrote,“but officers instrusted with itspowers have most commonly perverted them to theselfish views of avarice and ambition.” Increasinglyin the eighteenth century, Americans came to seegovernment itself as the primary source of corruption.

Fear of government’s tendency to expand itspower at the expense of the people’s liberty waspart of Americans’ English political heritage. Theyimbibed the writings of late-seventeenth-centuryEnglish radicals and eighteenth-century “country”politicians who were suspicious of the power of British officials (the “court”). Governmentcorruption was manifested in patronage (theawarding of political office to friends), faction (theformation of parties whose interests were opposed tothe common good), standing (permanent) armies,established churches, and the promotion of an eliteclass. Power, these country writers argued, waspossessed by the government; it was aggressive andexpansionist. Liberty was the property of thegoverned; it was sacred and delicate. The history ofliberty in the world was a history of defeat by theforces of tyranny.

Though the history of republicanism was adismal one, the lessons of history as well as theirown colonial experience convinced the AmericanFounders that they possessed sufficient informationon which to base a new science of politics.“Experience must be our only guide,”John Dickinsonproclaimed at the Philadelphia Convention; “reasonmay mislead us.” The Framers of the United StatesConstitution all had experience as public servants,


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Fear of government’s tendency to expand its power at the expense of thepeople’s liberty was part of Americans’

English political heritage.


and it must be remembered that the documentthey produced did not spring forth as somethingentirely new in the American experience. Rather,the Founders had learned much from the operationof their colonial charters, state constitutions, andthe Articles of Confederation.

At Philadelphia, the Founders focused on theproper construction of the machinery of governmentas the key to the building of a stable republic. TheConstitution makes no mention of the need for virtueamong the people, nor does it make broad appealsfor self-sacrifice on behalf of the common good. It isa hard-headed documentforged by practical men whohad too often witnessedavarice and ambition amongtheir peers in the statehouse, the courtroom, andthe counting house. A goodconstitution, the Foundersheld, was the key to goodgovernment. Corruption and decay could beovercome primarily through the creation of a writtenconstitution—something England lacked—thatcarefully detailed a system in which powers wereseparated and set in opposition to each other sothat none could dominate the others.

James Madison, often called “The Father of theConstitution” because of the great influence of hisideas at Philadelphia, proposed to arrange themachinery of government in such a fashion as notto make virtue or “better motives” critical to theadvancement of the common good. Acknowledgingin The Federalist Papers that “enlightened statesmenwill not always be at the helm,” Madison believedthat the separate powers of government—legislative,executive, and judicial—must be set in oppositionto one another, so that “ambition must be made tocounteract ambition.”

“In framing a government which is to beadministered by men over men,” Madison asserted,“the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enablethe government to control the governed; and in thenext place oblige it to control itself.”

James Wilson, representing Pennsylvania atthe Philadelphia Convention, declared that theConstitution’s separation of powers and checksand balances made “it advantageous even for badmen to act for the public good.” This is not to saythat the delegates believed that the republic couldsurvive if corruption vanquished virtue in society.Madison himself emphasized the importance ofrepublican virtue when defending the newgovernment in The Federalist Papers. But the Framers

agreed with Madison that men were not angels, andmost were satisfied that the Constitution, as GeorgeWashington put it,“is provided with more checks andbarriers against the introduction of Tyranny . . . thanany Government hitherto instituted among mortals.”

The question remained, however, whether onepart of society would come to dominate. No matterhow perfect the design, the danger remained that afaction would amass enough political power to takeaway the liberty of others. To combat this problem,classical republican theory called for creating auniformity of opinion among the republican

citizenry so that factionscould not develop. Theancient Greek city-states, forexample, feared anythingthat caused differentiationamong citizens, includingcommerce, which tended tocreate inequalities of wealthand opposing interests. In

contrast, Madison and the Founders recognizedthat factionalism would be inherent in a commercialrepublic that protected freedom of religion, speech,press, and assembly. They sought only to mediatethe deleterious effects of faction.

Republics also were traditionally thought to bedurable only when a small amount of territory wasinvolved. The Greek city-states, the Roman republic,the Italian republics, and the American states allencompassed relatively small areas. When the Romanrepublic expanded in its quest for empire, tyrannywas the result. Madison turned this traditionalthinking on its head in The Federalist Papers, arguingthat a large republic was more conducive to libertybecause it encompassed so many interests that nosingle one, or combination of several, could gaincontrol of the government.

Not all Americans accepted the Madisoniansolution. Agrarians, such as Thomas Jefferson, wereuncomfortable with the idea of a commercial republiccentered on industry and sought to perpetuate anation of independent farmers through the expansionof the frontier. Though uneasy about the “energeticgovernment” created by the Constitution, Jeffersonendorsed the Framers’ work after a bill of rightswas added to the document. “Old republicans” likeSamuel Adams and George Mason opposed theConstitution, even after the addition of a bill ofrights, fearing that the power granted to the centralgovernment was too great and wistfully looking backto the Revolutionary era when virtue, not ambition,was the animating principle of government. But in1789, as the new government went into operation,

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[The Constitution] is a hard-headeddocument forged by practical men whohad too often witnessed avarice and

ambition among their peers.


most Americans shared the optimism of BenjaminFranklin, who had decided at the conclusion of thePhiladelphia Convention that the sun carved intothe back of the chair used by George Washingtonwas a rising—not a setting—sun, and therebyindicative of the bright prospects of the nation.

“We have it in our power to begin the worldover again,” Thomas Paine had written in 1776,during the heady days of American independence.And indeed the American Founders in 1787 werekeenly aware that they possessed a rare opportunity.

Like the legendary Lycurgus of Ancient Greece,they were to be the supreme lawgivers of a newrepublic, a novus ordo seclorum or new order of theages. The American Founders were aware that theeyes of the world and future generations were uponthem, and they were determined to build an eternalrepublic founded in liberty, a shining city upon ahill, as an example to all nations for all time.

Stephen M. Klugewicz, Ph.D.Consulting Scholar, Bill of Rights Institute


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Suggestions for Further ReadingAdair, Douglass. Fame and the Founding Fathers: Essays by Douglass Adair. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998.Bailyn, Bernard. The Origins of American Politics. New York: Vintage Books, 1968.McDonald, Forrest. Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution. Lawrence: University

Press of Kansas, 1985.Pocock, J.G.A. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition.

Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975.Rahe, Paul A. Republics Ancient and Modern, 3 vols. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994.Wood, Gordon. The Creation of the American Republic. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1969.


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In 1760, what was to become the United States ofAmerica consisted of a small group of coloniesstrung out along the eastern seaboard of NorthAmerica. Although they had experienced significanteconomic and demographic growth in theeighteenth century and had just helped Britaindefeat France and take control of most of NorthAmerica, they remained politically and economicallydependent upon London. Yet, in the next twenty-five years, they would challenge the political controlof Britain, declare independence, wage a bloody war,and lay the foundations fora trans-continental, federalrepublican state. In thesecrucial years, the colonieswould be led by a newgeneration of politicians,men who combinedpractical political skillswith a firm grasp ofpolitical ideas. In order to better understand theseextraordinary events, the Founders who madethem possible, and the new Constitution that theycreated, it is necessary first to understand thepolitical ideas that influenced colonial Americansin the crucial years before the Revolution.

The Common Law and the Rightsof EnglishmenThe political theory of the American colonists inthe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was deeplyinfluenced by English common law and its idea ofrights. In a guide for religious dissenters written inthe late seventeenth century, William Penn, thefounder of Pennsylvania, offered one the bestcontemporary summaries of this common-lawview of rights. According to Penn, all Englishmenhad three central rights or privileges by commonlaw: those of life, liberty, and property. For Penn,these English rights meant that every subject was“to be freed in Person & Estate from ArbitraryViolence and Oppression.” In the widely usedlanguage of the day, these rights of “Liberty andProperty” were an Englishman’s “Birthright.”

In Penn’s view, the English system of governmentpreserved liberty and limited arbitrary power byallowing the subjects to express their consent to thelaws that bound them through two institutions:

“Parliaments and Juries.”“By the first,” Penn argued,“the subject has a share by his chosen Representativesin the Legislative (or Law making) Power.” Penn feltthat the granting of consent through Parliamentwas important because it ensured that “no new Lawsbind the People of England, but such as are bycommon consent agreed on in that great Council.”

In Penn’s view, juries were an equally importantmeans of limiting arbitrary power. By serving onjuries, Penn argued, every freeman “has a share in theExecutive part of the Law, no Causes being tried, nor

any man adjudged to loose[sic] Life, member orEstate, but upon the Verdictof his Peers or Equals.” ForPenn, “These two grandPillars of English Liberty”were “the Fundamentalvital Priviledges [sic]” ofEnglishmen.

The other aspect of their government thatseventeenth-century Englishmen celebrated was asystem that was ruled by laws and not by men. AsPenn rather colorfully put it: “In France, and otherNations, the meer [sic] Will of the Prince is Law, hisWord takes off any mans Head, imposeth Taxes, orseizes a mans Estate, when, how and as often as helists; and if one be accussed [sic], or but so much assuspected of any Crime, he may either presentlyExecute him, or banish, or Imprison him atpleasure.” By contrast, “In England,” Penn argued,“the Law is both the measure and the bound ofevery Subject’s Duty and Allegiance, each manhaving a fixed Fundamental-Right born with him,as to Freedom of his Person and Property in hisEstate, which he cannot be deprived of, but eitherby his Consent, or some Crime, for which the Lawhas impos’d such a penalty or forfeiture.”

This common law view of politics understoodpolitical power as fundamentally limited byEnglishmen’s rights and privileges. As a result, itheld that English kings were bound to ruleaccording to known laws and by respecting theinherent rights of their subjects. It also enshrinedthe concept of consent as the major means to theend of protecting these rights. According to Pennand his contemporaries, this system ofgovernment—protecting as it did the “unparallel’d

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Priviledge [sic] of Liberty and Property”—hadmade the English nation “more free and happythan any other People in the World.”

The Founders imbibed this view of Englishrights through the legal training that was commonfor elites in the eighteenth-century Anglo-Americanworld. This legal education also made them awareof the history of England in the seventeenth century,a time when the Stuart kings had repeatedlythreatened their subjects’ rights. In response, manyEnglishmen drew on the common law to argue thatall political power, even that of a monarch, should belimited by law. Colonial Americans in the eighteenthcentury viewed the defeat of the Stuarts and thesubsequent triumph of Parliament (which was seen asthe representative ofsubjects’ rights) in theGlorious Revolution of 1688as a key moment in Englishhistory. They believed that ithad enshrined in England’sunwritten constitution therule of law and the sanctityof subjects’ rights. Thisawareness of English history instilled in theFounders a strong fear of arbitrary power and aconsequent desire to create a constitutional formof government that limited the possibility of rulersviolating the fundamental liberties of the people.

The seriousness with which the colonists tookthese ideas can be seen in their strong opposition toParliament’s attempt to tax or legislate for themwithout their consent in the 1760s and 1770s. Afterthe Revolution, when the colonists formed their owngovernments, they wrote constitutions that includedmany of the legal guarantees that Englishmen hadfought for in the seventeenth century as a means oflimiting governmental power. As a consequence,both the state and federal constitutions typicallycontained bills of rights that enshrined coreEnglish legal rights as fundamental law.

Natural RightsThe seventeenth century witnessed a revolution inEuropean political thought, one that was to proveprofoundly influential on the political ideas ofthe American Founders. Beginning with the Dutchwriter Hugo Grotius in the early 1600s, severalimportant European thinkers began to construct anew understanding of political theory that arguedthat all men by nature had equal rights, and thatgovernments were formed for the sole purpose ofprotecting these natural rights.

The leading proponent of this theory in theEnglish-speaking world was John Locke (1632–1704).Deeply involved in the opposition to the Stuartkings in the 1670s and 1680s, Locke wrote a book onpolitical theory to justify armed resistance toCharles II and his brother James. “To understandpolitical power right,” Locke wrote, “and derive itfrom its original, we must consider, what state allmen are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfectfreedom to order their actions, and dispose of theirpossessions and persons, as they think fit, within thebounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, ordepending upon the will of any other man.” ForLocke, the state of nature was “a state also ofequality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is

reciprocal, no one havingmore than another.”

Although thispregovernmental state ofnature was a state of perfectfreedom, Locke contendedthat it also lacked animpartial judge or umpire toregulate disputes among

men. As a result, men in this state of naturegathered together and consented to create agovernment in order that their natural rightswould be better secured. Locke further argued that,because it was the people who had created thegovernment, the people had a right to resist itsauthority if it violated their rights. They could thenjoin together and exercise their collective orpopular sovereignty to create a new government oftheir own devising. This revolutionary politicaltheory meant that ultimate political authoritybelonged to the people and not to the king.

This idea of natural rights became a centralcomponent of political theory in the Americancolonies in the eighteenth century, appearing innumerous political pamphlets, newspapers, andsermons. Its emphasis on individual freedom andgovernment by consent combined powerfully withthe older idea of common law rights to shape thepolitical theory of the Founders. When faced withthe claims of the British Parliament in the 1760sand 1770s to legislate for them without theirconsent, American patriots invoked both thecommon law and Lockean natural rights theory toargue that they had a right to resist Britain.

Thomas Jefferson offers the best example ofthe impact that these political ideas had on thefounding. As he so eloquently argued in theDeclaration of Independence: “We hold these


The political theory of the Americancolonists in the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries was deeplyinfluenced by English common

law and its idea of rights.


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truths to be self-evident, that all men are createdequal, that they are endowed by their Creatorwith certain unalienable Rights, that among theseare Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.That to secure these rights, Governments areinstituted among Men, deriving their just powersfrom the consent of the governed, That wheneverany Form of Government becomes destructive ofthese ends, it is the Right of the People to alter orabolish it, and to institute new Government,laying its foundations on such principles andorganizing its powers in such form, as to themshall seem most likely to effect their Safety andHappiness.”

This idea of natural rights also influenced thecourse of political events inthe crucial years after 1776.All the state governments putthis new political theoryinto practice, basing theirauthority on the people,and establishing writtenconstitutions that protectednatural rights. As GeorgeMason, the principal author of the influentialVirginia Bill of Rights (1776), stated in thedocument’s first section: “All men are by natureequally free and independent, and have certaininherent rights, of which, when they enter into astate of society, they cannot, by any compact, depriveor divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment oflife and liberty, with the means of acquiring andpossessing property, and pursuing and obtaininghappiness and safety.” The radical implications ofthis insistence on equal natural rights would slowlybecome apparent in postrevolutionary Americansociety as previously downtrodden groups began toinvoke these ideals to challenge slavery, argue for awider franchise, end female legal inequality, and fullyseparate church and state.

In 1780, under the influence of John Adams,Massachusetts created a mechanism by which thepeople themselves could exercise their sovereignpower to constitute governments: a specialconvention convened solely for the purpose ofwriting a constitution, followed by a process ofratification. This American innovation allowed theideas of philosophers like Locke to be put intopractice. In particular, it made the people’s naturalrights secure by enshrining them in a constitutionwhich was not changeable by ordinary legislation.This method was to influence the authors of thenew federal Constitution in 1787.

Religious Toleration and theSeparation of Church and State

A related development in seventeenth-centuryEuropean political theory was the emergence ofarguments for religious toleration and theseparation of church and state. As a result of thebloody religious wars between Catholics andProtestants that followed the Reformation, a fewthinkers in both England and Europe argued thatgovernments should not attempt to force individualsto conform to one form of worship. Rather, theyinsisted that such coercion was both unjust anddangerous. It was unjust because true faithrequired voluntary belief; it was dangerous becausethe attempts to enforce religious beliefs in Europe

had led not to religiousuniformity, but to civil war.These thinkers furtherargued that if governmentsceased to enforce religiousbelief, the result would becivil peace and prosperity.

Once again the Englishphilosopher John Locke

played a major role in the development of these newideas. Building on the work of earlier writers, Lockepublished in 1689 A Letter Concerning Toleration, inwhich he contended that there was a natural rightof conscience that no government could infringe.As he put it: “The care of Souls cannot belong to theCivil Magistrate, because his Power consists only inoutward force; but true and saving Religion consistsin the inward perswasion [sic] of the Mind, withoutwhich nothing can be acceptable to God. And suchis the nature of the Understanding, that it cannotbe compell’d to the belief of any thing by outwardforce. Confiscation of Estate, Imprisonment,Torments, nothing of that nature can have anysuch Efficacy as to make Men change the inwardJudgment that they have formed of things.”

These ideas about the rights of conscience andreligious toleration resonated powerfully in theEnglish colonies in America. Although thePuritans in the seventeenth century had originallyattempted to set up an intolerant commonwealthwhere unorthodox religious belief would beprohibited, dissenters like Roger Williamschallenged them and argued that true faith couldnot be the product of coercion. Forced to flee bythe Puritans, Williams established the colony ofRhode Island, which offered religious toleration toall and had no state-supported church. As thePuritan Cotton Mather sarcastically remarked,


Natural rights became a centralcomponent of political theory in theAmerican colonies . . . , appearing in

numerous political pamphlets,newspapers, and sermons.


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Rhode Island contained “everything in the worldbut Roman Catholics and real Christians.” Inaddition, Maryland, founded in the 1630s, andPennsylvania, founded in the 1680s, both providedan extraordinary degree of religious freedom bythe standard of the time.

In the eighteenth century, as these arguments forreligious toleration spread throughout the English-speaking Protestant world, the American colonies,becoming ever more religiously pluralistic, provedparticularly receptive to them.As a result, the idea thatthe government should not enforce religious beliefhad become an important element of Americanpolitical theory by the lateeighteenth century. After theRevolution, it was enshrinedas a formal right in many ofthe state constitutions, aswell as most famously in theFirst Amendment to thefederal Constitution.

Colonial Self-GovernmentThe political thinking of the Founders in the lateeighteenth century was also deeply influenced bythe long experience of colonial self-government.Since their founding in the early seventeenthcentury, most of the English colonies in theAmericas (unlike the French and Spanish colonies)had governed themselves to a large extent in localassemblies that were modeled on the EnglishParliament. In these colonial assemblies theyexercised their English common law right toconsent to all laws that bound them.

The existence of these strong local governmentsin each colony also explains in part the speed withwhich the Founders were able to create viableindependent republican governments in the yearsafter 1776. This long-standing practice of self-government also helped to create an indigenouspolitical class in the American colonies with therequisite experience for the difficult task of nationbuilding.

In addition to the various charters and royalinstructions that governed the English colonies,Americans also wrote their own Foundingdocuments. These settler covenants were an earlytype of written constitution and they provided animportant model for the Founders in the lateeighteenth century as they sought to craft a newconstitutional system based on popular consent.

Classical RepublicanismNot all the intellectual influences on the Foundersoriginated in the seventeenth century. Becausemany of the Founders received a classicaleducation in colonial colleges in the eighteenthcentury, they were heavily influenced by thewritings of the great political thinkers andhistorians of ancient Greece and Rome.

Antiquity shaped the Founders’ politicalthought in several important ways. First, itintroduced them to the idea of republicanism, orgovernment by the people. Ancient political thinkersfrom Aristotle to Cicero had praised republican

self-government as the bestpolitical system. Thisclassical political thoughtwas important for theFounders as it gave themgrounds to dissent from theheavily monarchical politicalculture of eighteenth-centuryEngland, where even thecommon law jurists who

defended subjects’ rights against royal powerbelieved strongly in monarchy. By reading theclassics, the American Founders were introducedto an alternate political vision, one that legitimizedrepublicanism.

The second legacy of this classical idea ofrepublicanism was the emphasis that it put on themoral foundations of liberty. Though ancientwriters believed that a republic was the best formof government, they were intensely aware of itsfragility. In particular, they argued that because thepeople governed themselves, republics required fortheir very survival a high degree of civic virtue intheir citizenry. Citizens had to be able to put thegood of the whole (the res publica) ahead of theirown private interests. If they failed to do this, therepublic would fall prey to men of power andambition, and liberty would ultimately be lost.

As a result of this need for an exceptionallyvirtuous citizenry, ancient writers also taught thatrepublics had to be small. Only in a small andrelatively homogeneous society, they argued,would the necessary degree of civic virtue beforthcoming. In part, it was this classical teachingabout the weakness of large republics thatanimated the contentious debate over theproposed federal Constitution in the 1780s.

In addition to their reading of ancient authors,the Founders also encountered republican ideas in


By reading the classics, the AmericanFounders were introduced to an

alternate political vision, one thatlegitimated republicanism.


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the political theory of a group of eighteenth-century English writers called the “radical Whigs.”These writers kept alive the republican legacy ofthe English Civil War at a time when mostEnglishmen believed that their constitutionalmonarchy was the best form of government in theworld. Crucially for the Founding, these radicalWhigs combined classical republican thought withthe newer Lockean ideas of natural rights andpopular sovereignty. They thus became animportant conduit for a modern type ofrepublicanism to enter American political thought,one that combined the ancient concern with avirtuous citizenry and the modern insistence onthe importance of individual rights.

These radical Whigs also provided theFounders with an important critique of theeighteenth-century British constitution. Instead ofseeing it as the best form of government possible,the radical Whigs argued that it was both corrupt

and tyrannical. In order to reform it, they called fora written constitution and a formal separation ofthe executive branch from the legislature. Thisclassically inspired radical Whig constitutionalismwas an important influence on the development ofAmerican republicanism in the late eighteenthcentury.

ConclusionDrawing on all these intellectual traditions, theFounders were able to create a new kind ofrepublicanism in America based on equal rights,consent, popular sovereignty, and the separation ofchurch and state. Having set this broad context forthe Founding, we now turn to a more detailedexamination of important aspects of the Founders’political theory, followed by detailed biographicalstudies of the Founders themselves.

Craig Yirush, Ph.D.University of California, Los Angeles


Suggestions for Further ReadingBailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

Press, 1967.Lutz, Donald. Colonial Origins of the American Constitution: A Documentary History. Indianapolis, Ind.:

Liberty Fund, 1998.Reid, John Phillip. The Constitutional History of the American Revolution. Abridged Edition. Madison: The

University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.Rossiter, Clinton. Seedtime of the Republic: The Origins of the American Tradition of Political Liberty. New

York: Harcourt Brace, 1953.Zuckert, Michael. Natural Rights and the New Republicanism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,

1994.

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Visual Assessment1. Founders Posters—Have students create posters for either an individual Founder,

a group of Founders, or an event. Ask them to include at least one quotation(different from classroom posters that accompany this volume) and one image.

2. Coat of Arms—Draw a coat of arms template and divide into6 quadrants (see example). Photocopy and hand out to theclass. Ask them to create a coat of arms for a particularFounder with a different criterion for each quadrant (e.g.,occupation, key contribution, etc.). Include in the assignmentan explanation sheet in which they describe why they chosecertain colors, images, and symbols.

3. Individual Illustrated Timeline—Ask each student to create a visual timeline ofat least ten key points in the life of a particular Founder. In class, put the studentsin groups and have them discuss the intersections and juxtapositions in each oftheir timelines.

4. Full Class Illustrated Timeline—Along a full classroom wall, tape poster paper inone long line. Draw in a middle line and years (i.e., 1760, 1770, 1780, etc.). Putstudents in pairs and assign each pair one Founder. Ask them to put together tenkey points in the life of the Founder. Have each pair draw in the key points on themaster timeline.

5. Political Cartoon—Provide students with examples of good political cartoons,contemporary or historical. A good resource for finding historical cartoons on theWeb is <http://www.boondocksnet.com/gallery/political_cartoons.html>. Askthem to create a political cartoon based on an event or idea in the Founding period.

Performance Assessments1. Meeting of the Minds—Divide the class into five groups and assign a Founder to

each group. Ask the group to discuss the Founder’s views on a variety of pre-determined topics. Then, have a representative from each group come to the frontof the classroom and role-play as the Founder, dialoguing with Founders fromother groups. The teacher will act as moderator, reading aloud topic questions(based on the pre-determined topics given to the groups) and encouragingdiscussion from the students in character. At the teacher’s discretion, questioningcan be opened up to the class as a whole. For advanced students, do not provide alist of topics—ask them to know their character well enough to present himproperly on all topics.

2. Create a Song or Rap—Individually or in groups, have students create a songor rap about a Founder based on a familiar song, incorporating at least five keyevents or ideas of the Founder in their project. Have students perform their songin class. (Optional: Ask the students to bring in a recording of the song forbackground music.)

Web/Technology Assessments1. Founders PowerPoint Presentation—Divide students into groups. Have each

group create a PowerPoint presentation about a Founder or event. Determine thenumber of slides, and assign a theme to each slide (e.g., basic biographicinformation, major contributions, political philosophy, quotations, repercussionsof the event, participants in the event, etc.). Have them hand out copies of theslides and give the presentation to the class. You may also ask for a copy of the

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presentation to give you the opportunity to combine all the presentations into anend-of-semester review.

2. Evaluate Web sites—Have students search the Web for three sites related to aFounder or the Founding period (you may provide them with a “start list” from theresource list at the end of each lesson). Create a Web site evaluation sheet thatincludes such questions as: Are the facts on this site correct in comparison to othersites? What sources does this site draw on to produce its information? Who are themain contributors to this site? When was the site last updated? Ask students tograde the site according to the evaluation sheet and give it a grade for reliability,accuracy, etc. They should write a 2–3 sentence explanation for their grade.

3. Web Quest—Choose a Web site(s) on the Constitution, Founders, or Foundingperiod. (See suggestions below.) Go to the Web site(s) and create a list of questionstaken from various pages within the site. Provide students with the Web addressand list of questions, and ask them to find answers to the questions on the site,documenting on which page they found their answer. Web site suggestions:

• The Avalon Project <http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm>• The Founders’ Constitution <http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/>• Founding.com <http://www.founding.com/>• National Archives Charters of Freedom

<http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/charters.html>• The Library of Congress American Memory Page <http://memory.loc.gov/>• Our Documents <http://www.ourdocuments.gov/>• Teaching American History <http://www.teachingamericanhistory.org/>

A good site to help you construct the Web Quest is: <http://trackstar.hprtec.org>

Verbal Assessments1. Contingency in History—In a one-to-two page essay, have students answer the

question, “How would history have been different if [Founder] had not beenborn?” They should consider repercussions for later events in the political world.

2. Letters Between Founders—Ask students to each choose a “CorrespondencePartner” and decide which two Founders they will be representing. Have themread the appropriate Founders essays and primary source activities. Over a periodof time, the pair should then write at least three letters back and forth (with a copybeing given to the teacher for review and feedback). Instruct them to be mindfulof their Founders’ tone and writing style, life experience, and political views inconstructing the letters.

3. Categorize the Founders—Create five categories for the Founders (e.g., slave-holders vs. non-slaveholders, northern vs. southern, opponents of theConstitution vs. proponents of the Constitution, etc.) and a list of Foundersstudied. Ask students to place each Founder in the appropriate category. Foradvanced students, ask them to create the five categories in addition tocategorizing the Founders.

4. Obituaries and Gravestones—Have students write a short obituary or gravestoneengraving that captures the major accomplishments of a Founder (e.g., ThomasJefferson’s gravestone). Ask them to consider for what the Founder wished to beremembered.

5. “I Am” Poem—Instruct students to select a Founder and write a poem that refersto specific historical events in his life (number of lines at the teacher’s discretion).



Each line of the poem must begin with “I” (i.e., “I am…,” “I wonder…,” “I see…,”etc.). Have them present their poem with an illustration of the Founder.

6. Founder’s Journal—Have students construct a journal of a Founder at a certainperiod in time. Ask them to pick out at least five important days. In the journalentry, make sure they include the major events of the day, the Founder’s feelingsabout the events, and any other pertinent facts (e.g., when writing a journal aboutthe winter at Valley Forge, Washington may have included information about thetroops’ morale, supplies, etc.).

7. Résumé for a Founder—Ask students to create a resume for a particular Founder.Make sure they include standard resume information (e.g., work experience,education, skills, accomplishments/honors, etc.). You can also have them researchand bring in a writing sample (primary source) to accompany the resume.

8. Cast of Characters—Choose an event in the Founding Period (e.g., the signing ofthe Declaration of Independence, the debate about the Constitution in a stateratifying convention, etc.) and make a list of individuals related to the incident.Tell students that they are working for a major film studio in Hollywood that hasdecided to make a movie about this event. They have been hired to cast actors foreach part. Have students fill in your list of individuals with actors/actresses (pastor present) with an explanation of why that particular actor/actress was chosen forthe role. (Ask the students to focus on personality traits, previous roles, etc.)

Review Activities1. Founders Jeopardy—Create a Jeopardy board on an overhead sheet or handout

(six columns and five rows). Label the column heads with categories and fill in allother squares with a dollar amount. Make a sheet that corresponds to the Jeopardyboard with the answers that you will be revealing to the class. (Be sure to includeDaily Doubles.)

a. Possible categories may include:• Thomas Jefferson (or the name of any Founder)• Revolutionary Quirks (fun Founders facts)• Potpourri (miscellaneous)• Pen is Mightier (writings of the Founders)

b. Example answers:• This Founder drafted and introduced the first formal proposal for a

permanent union of the thirteen colonies. Question: Who is BenjaminFranklin?

• This Founder was the only Roman Catholic to sign the Declaration ofIndependence. Question: Who is Charles Carroll?

2. Who Am I?—For homework, give each student a different Founder essay. Ask eachstudent to compile a list of five-to-ten facts about his/her Founder. In class, askindividuals to come to the front of the classroom and read off the facts one at atime, prompting the rest of the class to guess the appropriate Founder.

3. Around the World—Develop a list of questions about the Founders and plot a“travel route” around the classroom in preparation for this game. Ask one studentto volunteer to go first. The student will get up from his/her desk and “travel”along the route plotted to an adjacent student’s desk, standing next to it. Read aquestion aloud, and the first student of the two to answer correctly advances to thenext stop on the travel route. Have the students keep track of how many placesthey advance. Whoever advances the furthest wins.

ADDITIONAL CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES



Common Good: General conditions that are equally to everyone’s advantage. In arepublic, held to be superior to the good of the individual, though its attainment oughtnever to violate the natural rights of any individual.

Democracy: From the Greek, demos, meaning “rule of the people.” Had a negativeconnotation among most Founders, who equated the term with mob rule. The Foundersconsidered it to be a form of government into which poorly-governed republicsdegenerated.

English Rights: Considered by Americans to be part of their inheritance as Englishmen;included such rights as property, petition, and trials by jury. Believed to exist from timeimmemorial and recognized by various English charters as the Magna Carta, the Petitionof Right of 1628, and the English Bill of Rights of 1689.

Equality: Believed to be the condition of all people, who possessed an equality of rights.In practical matters, restricted largely to land-owning white men during the FoundingEra, but the principle worked to undermine ideas of deference among classes.

Faction: A small group that seeks to benefit its members at the expense of the commongood. The Founders discouraged the formation of factions, which they equated withpolitical parties.

Federalism: A political system in which power is divided between two levels ofgovernment, each supreme in its own sphere. Intended to avoid the concentration ofpower in the central government and to preserve the power of local government.

Government: Political power fundamentally limited by citizens’ rights and privileges.This limiting was accomplished by written charters or constitutions and bills of rights.

Happiness: The ultimate end of government. Attained by living in liberty and bypracticing virtue.

Inalienable Rights: Rights that can never justly be taken away.

Independence: The condition of living in liberty without being subject to the unjustrule of another.

Liberty: To live in the enjoyment of one’s rights without dependence upon anyone else.Its enjoyment led to happiness.

Natural Rights: Rights individuals possess by virtue of their humanity. Were thought tobe “inalienable.” Protected by written constitutions and bills of rights that restrainedgovernment.

Property: Referred not only to material possessions, but also to the ownership of one’sbody and rights. Jealously guarded by Americans as the foundation of liberty during thecrisis with Britain.


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AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY GLOSSARY

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Reason: Human intellectual capacity and rationality. Believed by the Founders to be thedefining characteristic of humans, and the means by which they could understand theworld and improve their lives.

Religious Toleration: The indulgence shown to one religion while maintaining aprivileged position for another. In pluralistic America, religious uniformity could not beenforced so religious toleration became the norm.

Representation: Believed to be central to republican government and the preservationof liberty. Citizens, entitled to vote, elect officials who are responsible to them, and whogovern according to the law.

Republic: From the Latin, res publica, meaning “the public things.” A government systemin which power resides in the people who elect representatives responsible to them andwho govern according to the law. A form of government dedicated to promoting thecommon good. Based on the people, but distinct from a democracy.

Separation of Church and State: The doctrine that government should not enforcereligious belief. Part of the concept of religious toleration and freedom of conscience.

Separation of Powers/Checks and Balances: A way to restrain the power of governmentby balancing the interests of one section of government against the competing interestsof another section. A key component of the federal Constitution. A means of slowingdown the operation of government, so it did not possess too much energy and thusendanger the rights of the people.

Slavery: Referred both to chattel slavery and political slavery. Politically, the fate that befellthose who did not guard their rights against governments. Socially and economically, aninstitution that challenged the belief of the Founders in natural rights.

Taxes: Considered in English tradition to be the free gift of the people to the government.Americans refused to pay them without their consent, which meant actual representationin Parliament.

Tyranny: The condition in which liberty is lost and one is governed by the arbitrarywill of another. Related to the idea of political slavery.

Virtue: The animating principle of a republic and the quality essential for a republic’ssurvival. From the Latin, vir, meaning “man.” Referred to the display of such “manly”traits as courage and self-sacrifice for the common good.

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An Eighteenth-Century Glossary

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Answer Key

Answer Key

Benjamin Franklin

Handout A—Benjamin Franklin

(1706–1790)

1. Franklin improved lives in all these ways:a. He made scientific inventions.b. He refused to accept patent

protection for his famous stove.c. He promoted public virtues

through his many writings.d. He formed a secret society, the

Junto, to promote beneficial ideas.e. He helped to create the American

Philosophical Society to advancethe cause of science in the NewWorld.

f. He played a major role inbuilding the first fire department,the first public library, and thefirst hospital in Philadelphia.

g. He served in many public offices.2. In 1754, the prospect of war with the

French led several of the royal governorsto call for a congress of all the colonies.One purpose of the meeting was toplan war operations against the French.Another purpose was to prepare someplan of confederation among thecolonies. Only seven colonies sent com-missioners to this congress, which met inAlbany, New York. At Albany, Franklindrafted and introduced the first formalproposal for a permanent union of thethirteen colonies. This became knownas the Albany Plan. It was similar to thedecentralized system of government thatwould later emerge under the Articles ofConfederation. There would be a unionof the colonies under a single centralgovernment, though each colony wouldpreserve its local independence.

3. Franklin favored giving the lower houseof Congress the sole power to proposemoney and tax bills. He successfullyopposed property requirements for vot-ing and financial tests for holders of fed-eral office.He desired a clear listing of thepowers of the federal government. He

also supported an executive councilinstead of a single president. When thisidea failed, Franklin seconded the call foran advisory council to the president. Hebelieved that the president should belimited to only one term in office, so thatno one man should gain too much power.He also opposed giving the executiveabsolute veto power over the Congress.

4. As the oldest member of the conven-tion, and as someone who had a longrecord of accomplishment and publicservice, Franklin was certainly viewedwith respect by most delegates. Perhapssome thought his day had passed. Hewas seen as a centrist on the issue ofthe power of the central government.Southern delegates surely resented hisantislavery views.

5. Answers will vary but could includethe following: Franklin believed thatthe survival of the republic dependednot only on the form of governmentbut also on the virtue of the people;the people have the responsibility ofpreserving the Constitution.

Handout B—Vocabulary and

Context Questions1. Vocabulary

a. calm, peaceb. descendantsc. enactd. givene. individual, particularf. placedg. agreementh. requiredi. been createdj. approvalk. agreel. permissionm. diplomatsn. impose, place upono. taxes on imported goodsp. taxes on ships bringing goods

from foreign countriesq. taxes on domestic goods

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ANSWER KEY


2. Contexta. The document was written in

1754.b. It was written in Albany, New

York.c. Benjamin Franklin wrote the

document.d. The document is a primary

source—a plan of government.e. Franklin wrote the plan to propose

a design of union of the colonies.f. The American colonists and the

British government were theaudience for the plan.

Handout C—Benjamin Franklin

and the Albany Plan of Union1: Similarities: Both documents propose

a stronger union of the colonies in afederal system. The colonies/statesretain certain powers in each system.Differences: The Albany Plan creates acentral government among the coloniesfor the first time, whereas the Consti-tution aims to strengthen the existinggeneral government (“to form a moreperfect Union”).

2. Similarities: Both documents create anexecutive and a legislative branch. Underthe Albany Plan, the members of theGrand Council, like the members of theSenate created by the Constitution, arechosen by the colonial/state legislatures.Differences: The Albany Plan creates aunicameral (one-house) legislature,elected every three years. The Consti-tution creates a bicameral (two-house)legislature, the House members beingchosen every two years and the senatorsevery six. House members are electeddirectly by the people, unlike themembers of the Grand Council, whoare chosen by the colonial assemblies.

3. Similarities: Both legislatures meet atleast once a year. Under both plans,the executive and legislature have arole in the lawmaking process. The

president (or president-general) mustexecute the laws.Differences: Under the Albany Plan, thepresident-general has an absolute veto(i.e., acts of the Grand Council cannotbecome law without his approval).Under the Constitution, the presidenthas a limited veto (i.e., even if the presi-dent disapproves of the measure, theCongress can still enact a bill into lawby a two-thirds vote of each house).

4. Similarities: Both the president and thepresident-general make treaties withthe advice of the legislature. They alsoappoint military officers with theconsent of the legislature.Differences: Under the Albany Plan,the president-general does not need theapproval of the Grand Council to makewar and treaties. Under the Constitu-tion, the president needs two thirds ofthe senators to approve a treaty he hasmade. The Congress is given the powerto declare war, though the President iscommander-in-chief of the armedforces of the United States.

5. Similarities: Both central governmentsare given the power to tax. Taxes shouldbe just.Differences: There are no significantdifferences here.

Elbridge Gerry

Handout A—Elbridge Gerry

(1744–1814)1. Gerry signed the Declaration of

Independence and the Articles ofConfederation.

2. Gerry announced that he could not signthe Constitution. He believed it wouldcreate a too-powerful central govern-ment. Despite his refusal to approve thedocument, Gerry did not speak againstit. He believed the Constitution was nec-essary to prevent the union of the statesfrom falling apart. During the ratifica-tion debates in Massachusetts, he argued

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