Writing about Benjamin Franklin's 13 Virtues began with taking a class on Benjamin Franklin in preparation for a family Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania, carried through Christmas in California and into the New Year in Montana.
I combined a lot of Ben Franklin's life story along with his Virtues linked below. Perhaps of more interest, they also include personal photos and events as we went through the holiday season, and occasionally there's some connection between it all that's actually logical.
As stated at the outset, Franklin's concept was to focus on each of them for one week at a time in hopes that it would become a habit carried forward and practiced without conscious effort.
While we might think looking back at his life that everyone who met him must have considered themselves fortunate to have had the privilege, not everyone loved him. He could be quite persuasive, which left some feeling they had lost an argument, no matter how much Franklin may have been seeking the best possible solution.
I would have thought only 21st Century anti-American historical revisionists would dislike Benjamin Franklin. Even so they would have to acknowledge he had been a great man of his time, but D.H. Lawrence basically trashed Ben Franklin's entire life story as creating an unrealistic expectation that any average American could accomplish anything. Mark Twain joked that in living such a remarkable life, Frankliln made the average boy's life miserable because the lad's parents would inevitably hold Ben Franklin up as an example to be emulated when the boy would rather be having fun playing with his friends.
I skimmed quickly through Benjamin Franklin's truly remarkable life story in my blog, and I highly recommend The Great Courses class I took if you want to learn more. His personal papers have also been preserved in 40 volumes and counting, which you can access on line at The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (franklinpapers.org), if you want to go to the original sources.
There's much more to know, including the final years of his life when his negotiations in Europe played such an integral part in our country's independence.
Anyway, getting back to history, we may think of our break from Great Britain as something of an isolated incident, though we know the colonies required the military aid of France. As such, we had a treaty with France which required that they also reach a peace agreement with England, and that's just one entanglement.
The American Revolution was in some ways part of a World War that Ben Franklin's brilliant statesmanship helped stop from becoming more widespread.
France and Spain saw the rebellion of British colonies in America as an opportunity to attack their long time nemesis Great Britain while her military was distracted. They planned a sea invasion, which the wild waters around the British Isles foiled. The failure revealed to both France and Spain how inept each other's military had become under centuries of aristocratic rule.
Worried France might become too strong if she defeated Great Britain, Catherine the Great of Russia, offered to act as mediator in negotiations between Great Britain and the British American colonies that would become the United States. At that time, England still held New York, but Empress Catherine II suggested ceding New York to a new country of New England in exchange for Great Britain keeping the southern colonies, which had agricultural resources of far greater value to the British Empire than the fledgling industries of the north with all their taverns fullof hot-headed rebels.
Stirring the pot, Great Britain suggested Russia expand its Empire across the Pacific to challenge Spain in California and South America. What a different world that would have been, if Russia ruled the American west coast from Alaska all the way down to Tierra Del Fuego.
Remember, at that time, Spain still ruled Florida as well as most of North America west of Louisiana and western South America, while France owned the Louisiana territories that swept up through the midwest. The Western Border for the newly created United States was also part of these negotiations, many years before our "Manifest Destiny" would play out with the continental United States ruling everything between the Canadian and Mexican borders.
Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, the son of the illustrious Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa, feared Russia, which was a potential military threat to Central Europe, wielding too much power on world affairs, so he also offered to mediate.
Benjamin Franklin's deft negotiations often put him at odds with not only the Brits and French but his American negotiating team members John Adams (who became the 2nd President of the United States), John Jay and Henry Laurens. Ben ignored advice from the Continental Congress that he deemed countreproductive.
Franklin had an assistant who was revealed to be a spy for Great Britain. Instead of firing him on the spot, Franklin rationalionlized that the man was competent at his job, and then Franklin used him to allow certain information to leak to Great Britain before he told France, in order to soften up negotiations.
We all know that the United States gained independence, which led to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, where Ben Franklin was the senior member among many young men. He and George Washington were the most revered members of that august body.
It was from that point forward that some headway was made, as selfish interests softened. Incredible as it seems, the Constitutional Convention did not leak any information about the negotiations. At the end of the Convention, Franklin again stepped forward to suggest that everyone leave whatever objections they had to the Constitution in Philadelphia rather than point them out. Without this statement, perhaps the agreement would have fallen apart before being ratified. Our government leaders should seek to uphold this standard today.
In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other. I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected?
It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die. If every one of us in returning to our Constituents were to report the objections he has had to it, and endeavor to gain partizans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and thereby lose all the salutary effects & great advantages resulting naturally in our favor among foreign Nations as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity. Much of the strength & efficiency of any Government in procuring and securing happiness to the people, depends, on opinion, on the general opinion of the goodness of the Government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its Governors. I hope therefore that for our own sakes as a part of the people, and for the sake of posterity, we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution (if approved by Congress & confirmed by the Conventions) wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts & endeavors to the means of having it well administered.
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