BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706–1790) - Bill of Rights Institute€¦ · —Benjamin Franklin, Letter to M. Leroy, 1789 Although his voice was weak, it could be clearly heard throughout

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.

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

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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>.

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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.

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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

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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.

Republican Government

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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,

Republican Government

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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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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706–1790) - Bill of Rights Institute€¦ · —Benjamin Franklin, Letter to M. Leroy, 1789 Although his voice was weak, it could be clearly heard throughout