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Perspectives on Political Science

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Franklin's Classical American Statesmanship

Christopher E. Baldwin

To cite this article: Christopher E. Baldwin (2012) Franklin's Classical American Statesmanship, Perspectives on Political Science, 41:2, 67-74, DOI: 10.1080/10457097.2012.660446

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10457097.2012.660446

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Perspectives on Political Science, 41:67–74, 2012 Copyright C© Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1045-7097 print / 1930-5478 online DOI: 10.1080/10457097.2012.660446

Franklin’s Classical American Statesmanship

CHRISTOPHER E. BALDWIN

Abstract: Herbert Storing has persuasively argued that American political thought and statesmanship breaks with the tradition of classical political philosophy and statesman- ship, particularly its concern with shaping the character of citizens and leaders, and instead sides with modern politi- cal philosophy, which has tended to encourage statesmen to forgo shaping the character of citizens and leaders and to focus instead on shaping institutions that will function re- gardless of citizens’ virtue (or lack of virtue). An exception to this general rule, however, is Benjamin Franklin. Franklin, in the tradition of classical statesmanship, sought to shape not only American political institutions, but also and espe- cially the character and way of life of his fellow citizens. Yet the character and way of life that Franklin helped lead his fellow citizens to embrace is uniquely modern and American in spirit. Thus, Franklin can be said to offer us an example of classical, but uniquely modern and American, statesmanship.

Keywords: Benjamin Franklin, American political thought, civic education

C lassical political philosophy, teaching that

political communities are held together above all by a common “affection” born of a shared conception of the good life and “political virtue,” encouraged statesmen to concern themselves with shaping the

character of citizens and leaders.1 Modern political philoso- phy, on the other hand, has tended to encourage statesmen to forgo shaping the character of citizens and leaders and to focus instead on shaping institutions that will function re- gardless of citizens’ virtue (or lack of virtue), such that even

Christopher E. Baldwin is assistant professor in the De- partment of Political Science, Rhodes College. E-mail: [email protected]

high-minded modern thinkers like Kant have argued that “as hard as it may sound, the problem of organizing a nation is solvable even for a people comprised of devils, if only they possess understanding.”2 As Herbert Storing has persuasively argued, American political thought and statesmanship break with the tradition of classical political philosophy and states- manship and side with modern political philosophy. “High American statesmanship,” Storing argues, has tended to es- chew “that kind of statesmanship which had formerly been regarded as its essence: great, “way of life”-setting, character- forming political leadership” and is instead characterized by “an understanding of the principles of governmental struc- ture and operation of the broadest and deepest kind.”3 An ex- ception to this general rule, however, is Benjamin Franklin. Franklin, in the tradition of classical statesmanship, sought to shape not only American political institutions but also and especially the character and way of life of his fellow citi- zens. Yet the character and way of life that Franklin helped lead his fellow citizens to embrace is uniquely modern and American in spirit. Thus, Franklin can be said to offer us an example of classical, but uniquely modern and American, statesmanship.4

FRANKLIN’S SUBTLE REVOLUTION: LIBERATING AMERICAN HEARTS AND MINDS

Like Tocqueville after him, Franklin lived in a time of tremendous political and social revolution, and he seems to have sensed and understood that for America’s new and more democratic institutions to succeed they needed to be made use of by citizens and leaders animated by a new democratic spirit and character. To succeed, America’s political revolu- tion needed to be accompanied and supported by a broader revolution, a revolution in and reshaping of people’s hearts and minds, their character, and way of life. It is just such a broad and sweeping revolution that Franklin subtly seeks to effect and guide in his Autobiography, which he presents

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as “a sort of key to life” meant to “influence . . . the minds of youth” and to assist in “the forming of future great men” (633–35).5

Now Franklin’s Autobiography is not overtly revolution- ary in either its subject matter or tone. Never having had the chance to finish his autobiography, Franklin never tells us about or explicitly justifies the American Revolution. His work is also remarkably free of the sort of revolutionary rhetoric and rancor that one might find, for example, on virtu- ally every page of Paine’s writings. Nevertheless, Franklin’s Autobiography is revolutionary in both spirit and substance, although its revolutionary character only gradually dawns on us.6 For Franklin’s story (and education of his readers) begins on anything but a revolutionary note. With consid- erable fondness and gratitude, Franklin begins his story by painting for us a picture of the prerevolutionary world into which he was born. In England, we are told, the Franklins were a respectable but “obscure family” who “were some- times in danger of trouble” and persecution for their religious beliefs, even having to hide and read in secret their family Bible (571). The Franklins emigrated to America “to enjoy their mode of religion with freedom”; once here, Franklin’s father was compelled by the social and economic conditions of colonial America to take up a trade, as “a tallow chandler and soap boiler,” that afforded him little chance for leisure or advancement (572, 574). Hence, although “his great ex- cellence was a sound understanding and solid judgment in prudential matters, both in private and public affairs,” “the straightness of his circumstances” prevented Franklin’s fa- ther from making full use of his abilities and kept him “close to his trade” (575). He did, though, manage to raise a family of seventeen children, raising them “piously in the dissent- ing way” and imparting to them a strict sense of right and wrong (619). Franklin, for example, relates the story of how, as a boy, he and his friends stole a number of building stones from a neighbor so that they might build a small wharf to stand on while they fished for minnows, a clever scheme with which the young Franklin was well pleased. Franklin’s father, however, was not so pleased; he rebuked young Ben and taught him that although his scheme might have been clever and useful to him and his friends, it was still wrong and “that nothing was useful which was not honest” (574). Franklin’s father thus offered young Ben many religious and moral lessons, but he could not afford to provide his son with a more formal education. Yet young Ben still managed to sat- isfy his “bookish inclination” by reading whatever books he could, reading as a boy many of his father’s books, primarily Christian writings, as well as his copy of Plutarch’s Lives (577). Seeing his son’s “bookish inclination,” Franklin’s fa- ther persuaded him to indenture himself at the age of twelve as an apprentice to his brother so he might learn to be a printer.

Although born in the New World, Franklin makes it clear to us that he was born into a New World still dominated by the ideas of the Old World and its way of life. It was a world of intense religious and moral seriousness where some beliefs and practices were considered simply right and others simply wrong. It was a world where the hearts and minds of the young were shaped by Christian and, to a lesser extent, classical writings and ideals. It was a world of rigid social

hierarchies with only limited opportunities for economic and social advancement. And while Franklin writes of this world of his youth without any revolutionary rancor, he also ran away from that world and subtly leads us to want to do the same. Running away from his family and the service he owed his brother was, Franklin confesses, a mistake and moral failing—the first of five particular mistakes that he made in his life and wished he could undo. Yet Franklin also admits that, if he had his life to live over, he would be perfectly willing to make these same five mistakes again if need be, mistakes he terms “errata” (585 with 567–68). For mistake and moral failing though it was, Franklin leads us to see his running away as understandable, perhaps even admirable. After all, his brother did treat him poorly and take advantage of his labor and ingenuity. Franklin merely sought to escape his brother’s “harsh and tyrannical treatment” and to be free to make his own way in the world (584). Can we not understand, even admire, Franklin’s rebellion against his brother’s tyranny and his love of freedom? Should we not admire Franklin for his willingness to work and persevere through all setbacks to make a good life for himself, a life that was also of great benefit to his country and that might never have taken shape if he had not run away? Was not Franklin’s errata in running away unfortunate for the strained personal relations it caused but still entirely understandable, even admirable in many ways?

Just as Franklin leads us to see his leaving his family and brother behind to set off for Philadelphia and independence as desirable, so too does he subtly lead us to see the desirability of turning away from or rebelling against other aspects of the world and life into which he was born. For example, Franklin particularly prompts us to question and turn away from the intense religious seriousness of the world into which he was born. Franklin admits to becoming himself “a doubter” in matters of religion at a young age, doubts he elaborated upon and explained in print in his “A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain” (581, 606). In fact, he seems to have been such a “doubter” that he began to be “pointed at with horror by good people as an infidel or atheist” (585). Franklin, though, does not expand on these doubts he entertained in his Autobiography. Without either affirming or denying the reasonableness of his doubts, he confesses that their public expression and explication was an error, the publication of his “Dissertation” being another of his errata; whatever its truth, Franklin suggests that religion is personally and socially useful as a support to moral behavior (619–20). Franklin thus rather slyly prompts us to take the question of religion’s truth less seriously than the question of its utility, and he goes on to lead us to doubt the utility of taking religion as seriously as it was in the world into which he was born.7

Franklin’s narrative makes it hard to resist asking the ques- tion of why the state should care what individuals believe, establishing a state religion and persecuting dissenters. Does doing so accomplish anything more than turning respectable, conscientious dissenters (like the Franklins in England) into criminals who learn to evade the laws of the state? And why, Franklin leads us to wonder, do various religious sects care so much about making us good Presbyterians, Catholics,

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or Anglicans? Would they not do better to concentrate on making us good citizens? After all, is not “the most accept- able service of God . . . the doing of good to man” (642)? Does taking seriously and arguing over the finer points of theology, what separates one religion or sect from another, ultimately do anything more than sow unnecessary division and hostility among people? Such, Franklin suggests, is indeed the consequence of this unfortunate habit he himself “caught” from reading his “father’s books of dispute on religion,” a habit he later came to regret and changed much to his satisfaction (578–79, 577). Through his Autobiography Franklin prompts us to wonder if it would not be better for states, for different religions and sects, and for individuals to tolerate different religious beliefs, just as Franklin himself encouraged his fellow Philadelphians to do by advocating and assisting in the building of a public meeting place “expressly for the use of any preacher of any religious persuasion” (666). Indeed, Franklin’s tale might even tempt us to follow his example more precisely, such as when Franklin charmingly and mischievously tells us how he once listened to the sermons of a popular preacher who captivated large outdoor audiences. Franklin, “without being interested in the subject” of the sermon, “had the curiosity to learn how far he [the preacher] could be heard by retiring backwards” until he could no longer hear him; calculating the area the preacher’s voice could carry and the number of people who could stand in that area, Franklin “computed” the number of people who could have heard the preacher and thus “reconciled” himself to newspaper accounts regarding the size of the preacher’s audiences and “to the ancient histories of generals haranguing whole armies, of which. . . [he] had sometimes doubted” (669). Following the example of Franklin, might we not come to think it best not only to tolerate religious differences but also to heed not the voice of authority but instead follow our thoughts, questions, and reason wherever they might lead us?

Just as Franklin leads us to question and turn away from the religious seriousness of the world he was born into, so too does he lead us to question and turn away from its moral seriousness. To be sure, Franklin does not lead us away from moral seriousness altogether, only from the particularly in- transigent form of moral seriousness that characterized his age, its moral absolutism, and belief that some things are simply right and others simply wrong regardless of their consequences or utility. Such was the sort of belief, for ex- ample, that Franklin’s father sought to impart to his children and held by, among others, the Quakers, who Franklin often singles out for their steadfast belief that it is always right to seek peace and always wrong to wage war. Franklin, how- ever, does not lead us to admire the Quakers for their moral steadfastness. On the contrary, Franklin leads us to regard the Quakers’ principled opposition to all attempts by the Penn- sylvania Assembly to arm and defend the state as foolish at best and hypocritical at worst. The defense of the state was necessary and not to defend it was foolish, as Franklin notes even many “good Quakers” recognized (673). Yet their principles prevented them from doing the reasonable thing and led them into hypocrisy, employing “a variety of eva- sions” to allow for the defense of the state without actually

voting for its defense, somewhat ignobly allowing others to defend them while they did nothing to help and maintained their sense of moral purity and superiority only by means of deceit and evasion (675). Franklin suggests that in such cir- cumstances “common sense, aided by present danger,” often proves “too strong for whimsical opinions” like the Quakers’ principled pacifism and moral absolutism (706). Rather than seeing the world in terms of moral absolutes, Franklin leads us to wonder if we might not do better to follow the example of the Dunkers and be open to changing our principles as we progress and discover new and better principles (676–77). And in considering what our principles ought to be, Franklin prompts us to think we might do well to consider not only what is simply right and wrong, regardless of consequence, but also the consequences of our actions and their utility for ourselves and others. Might we not want to consider moral that which makes us “happy . . . in this world,” “the nature of man alone considered” (652)?

With our barely noticing it at first, Franklin effects a subtle and gradual revolution of our hearts and minds away from the ideals and way of life that characterized the world into which he was born, as were of course many of his immediate readers. He helps liberate his immediate readers from the particular religious and moral seriousness of that world, as well as from unthinking acceptance of its rigid and limiting social and economic order that prevented Franklin’s father from realizing his full potential and threatened to do the same to Franklin himself had he not rebelled and set out to make his own life and to pursue his own happiness. More generally, by his example, Franklin encourages future gen- erations of Americans to question and free themselves from whatever they have been taught—by Church, State, society, and even their own families—to believe and think about how they should live their lives. He encourages us to think freely and for ourselves, to live lives governed and shaped by our own thoughts, our own conscience, our own choices and ac- tions. Franklin’s subtle revolution as waged in the pages of his Autobiography seeks to liberate our hearts and minds and suggests, even if does not openly declare, his and our right to live free, self-governing lives and to the pursuit of happiness. Franklin, however, does not stop at merely suggesting our right to the pursuit of happiness; he shows us how we might best pursue happiness. As a model of the good life Franklin points us not to the pages of the Christian and classical au- thors he grew up reading, but instead offers us the story of his own life. Not Jesus or Socrates, not Cato or Caesar, but Franklin is to be our role model. Like so many of the Chris- tian and classical authors he read as a young man, however, Franklin continues to tell us that the key to the successful pursuit of happiness and the good life is virtue, although Franklin turns out to understand virtue in a rather new and unique way.

FRANKLIN’S “BOLD AND ARDUOUS PROJECT”: A NEW MORAL TEACHING FOR A NEW WORLD

Perhaps the most memorable and well-known part of Franklin’s Autobiography is his account of his “bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection” (643).

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Franklin, of course, was not the first to undertake such a “bold and arduous project.” In fact, Franklin relates to us—seemingly for the sake of contrast—the story of an en- counter he had while living in England, in the Old World, with a particularly devout elderly woman engaged in the same project. Wishing to be a nun but unable to do so in England, this woman “vowed to lead the life of a nun as near as might be done in those circumstances.” Having given almost all she had to charity, she lived alone in a tiny garret, permitted to live there for free thanks to the charity of Catholic landlords who “deemed it a blessing to have her there.” In that garret she led a retired and remarkably spartan life of poverty and chastity, living “on water gruel only and using no fire but to boil it.” She obediently and piously devoted her life to preparing and per- fecting her soul so that she might be closer to God in this life and the next. She continually failed in this endeavor, however, finding it “impossible to avoid vain thoughts.” So she con- fessed her sins daily and continued her “bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection.” After meeting this exceptional woman, Franklin recalls being most struck by how her life demonstrated “on how small an income life and health may be supported” (610–11). Franklin seems to miss entirely the point of her life, thereby somewhat mis- chievously making his own point about her life, as Ralph Lerner has astutely observed.8 Franklin does not admire, or prompt us to admire, her great piety or moral seriousness in seeking to avoid all sin, including the deadly sin of vanity or pride. Instead, he is impressed, and impresses us, with her frugality, with a trait that would have helped her make a life for herself in this world, if only she had been willing to do so. It is in this spirit, with a view to pursuing happiness and the good life in this world, that Franklin undertook his own and quite different “bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection,” and offers us through his tale a new moral teaching uniquely suited to life in the New World.

Franklin tells us how, after some study of what others had to say on the matter, he settled on a list of twelve virtues, later adding humility as his thirteenth virtue at the suggestion of a friend who “kindly informed” him that he “was generally thought proud” (652). Franklin then listed his thirteen virtues in such an order that the acquisition of those virtues at the top of his list might help him more easily achieve other, more challenging virtues farther down his list; for example, he hoped that by becoming frugal and industrious he would become wealthy enough that it would be easier for him to be sincere and just, economic need no longer tempting him to be otherwise. Having methodically determined and ordered his virtues, Franklin then set out to methodically master them. Devising a full and quite precise daily schedule, Franklin set aside time apart from work and relaxation every day for self-examination. During this time he would record all of his moral failings that day in a notebook, but concentrate on mastering only one particular virtue in any given week, mov- ing on to the next virtue on his list the next week. In this way Franklin hoped he might gradually and progressively master each of his virtues so that he would eventually no longer have any moral failings to record in his notebook, arriving at “moral perfection” and living “without committing any fault at any time” (643–44).

Yet Franklin, like the elderly woman he met in England, found himself unable to achieve moral perfection. In part, he simply found himself too busy “mix[ing] with the world,” with “voyages and business” and a great “multiplicity of af- fairs,” to devote the requisite time and energy to his project of achieving moral perfection (650). More importantly, though, he came to regard moral perfection as simply beyond his (and our) reach. Franklin tells us that he was simply not made to be orderly, and certainly not humble; he wryly notes that should he have succeeded in overcoming his pride and become hum- ble, he would “probably be proud of . . . [his] humility” (654). Rather than wrack himself with feelings of guilt and inade- quacy, Franklin chose to accept his “natural passions,” like pride, and his imperfect character, abandoning his “bold and arduous project” but noting that “by the endeavor” he was “a better and happier man” than he would have been “had [he] not attempted it” (653, 651). What is more, like the man who decided that he “like[d] a speckled ax best” when the cost of rendering it blemish-free proved greater than the ben- efit, Franklin goes so far as to cheerfully convince (or try to convince) himself that he likes his speckled and imperfect character best, better than a more perfect character (650). Af- ter all, his imperfect character, like a speckled ax, was still of considerable use; it helped him to make his way in the world, benefitting both himself and others, perhaps even more than he should have been able to if he had continued to insist on such “extreme nicety” and “foppery in morals” as he had by striving for a perhaps unattainable “moral perfection” (650).

Through the story of his efforts to achieve moral per- fection Franklin subtly points to a new moral teaching, a moral teaching in many ways remarkably different from both Christian and classical moral teachings. To begin with, Franklin’s moral teaching, in contrast to Christian and clas- sical moral teachings, is remarkable for its rational and pro- gressive spirit. Unlike the elderly Catholic woman he met in England, Franklin does not look to divine revelation to learn what is virtuous and what is vicious. Franklin instead con- siders the question of virtue and vice by making use of his own reason, much like that great teacher of classical virtue, Aristotle. Yet Franklin no more simply accepts the authority of Aristotle (or any other moral thinker) than he does Bibli- cal revelation. Franklin considers what a wide range of moral teachings have said about virtue and vice over the course of history and, open to the possibility of moral progress, makes up his own mind.

In addition to being more rational and progressive in spirit than Christian and classical moral teachings, Franklin’s moral teaching is also more democratic and egalitarian. Christian and classical moral teachings in many ways pre- supposed the existence of an aristocratic world where a few, like the elderly woman Franklin met in England, were freed from economic necessity, either by personal wealth or the generosity of others, to devote their lives to moral and spir- itual perfection while others had to work. Franklin’s moral teaching, in contrast, presupposes a more democratic and egalitarian world where most, if not all, will have to work to earn a living. Franklin’s moral teaching offers a method by which even those busy with business and work might seek to attain virtue, a method that asks people not to devote their

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whole lives to the attainment of virtue but only to set aside a part of their busy days so that they might gradually improve themselves.

Franklin’s understanding of virtue, though, is not only more democratic and egalitarian, more within the reach of ordinary people, in its methodical approach to the attainment of virtue, but also in its understanding of what constitutes virtue. Franklin does not set the bar too high, beyond the reach of ordinary people, asking us to be saints or classical heroes. He does not ask us to be perfectly chaste, like the woman he met in England, but somewhat impishly suggests only that we “use venery but for health or offspring” and “never to dullness” or “weakness” (645), and he does not even count courage as one of his virtues. Neither does he ask us to transcend or limit our concern with wealth and the goods of this world; he does not ask us to renounce our wealth and the goods of the world, like the woman he met in England, or to be willing to give them away in a liberal or magnificent way, as Aristotle advises. Indeed, not even counting charity as a virtue, many of Franklin’s virtues, like frugality and industry, are more concerned with acquiring wealth than with renouncing or generously giving it away.

In addition to offering a different view of the goal we should aspire to, Franklin also offers a different understand- ing of those traits we should (or should not) avoid. Franklin does not pronounce our passions—like fear, love, acquisi- tiveness, and vanity—sinful or ask us to master or transcend them in a heroic or superhuman fashion. Instead, he accepts them as “natural passions” and asks only that we make good, prudent use of them (654). If we do so, those “natural pas- sions” might even come to look like virtues. For example, the desire to acquire, if pursued through honest hard work, might no longer look like the sin or vice of greed but instead like the virtue of industriousness and the admirable desire to make a better life for oneself and one’s family. Even vanity or pride, Franklin suggests, can be made good use of, spurring us both to improve ourselves and to benefit others so they might think well of us. Franklin goes so far as to suggest that rather than think of vanity or pride as a deadly sin “it would not be quite absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life” (568).

Franklin reconceives—in some ways quite radically reconceives—virtue. He no longer counts as virtues traits long conceived of as virtues by the Christian and classical moral traditions, and he sometimes no longer counts as sins or vices traits long considered such. In fact, he even counts some traits long regarded as sinful or vicious as virtues or useful to virtue. Generally speaking, he reconceives virtue so that, “the nature of man alone considered,” it is in “every- one’s interest to be virtuous who wishe[s] to be happy even in this world” (652). Franklin does not ask us to transcend or perfect our nature, but rather to make use of it, flaws and all, to improve ourselves gradually with a view to achieving economic and worldly goals that are in “everyone’s inter- est,” not merely in the interest or reach of an exceptionally virtuous or saintly few. What is more, while Franklin en- courages us to strive for moral perfection reconceived in this more democratic and egalitarian way, he also recognizes that we will invariably fall short of the mark. Franklin, however,

does not chastise us for this or suggest we chastise ourselves, burdening ourselves with an unhappy sense of guilt and con- tinuing to fight the good (but impossible) fight to achieve moral perfection. Rather, Franklin humanely encourages us to accept our own (and others’) inevitable failings and opti- mistically suggests that we might still make good use of our “speckled”—but still good and much improved—characters as we make our way in the world. After all, to err—or, as Franklin might put it, to commit “errata”—is only human.

Franklin, however, does not seek to encourage moral laxity or simply equate virtue with whatever is in our long-term, enlightened self-interest in this world. To be sure, Franklin, who counts only five significant moral failures or “errata” over the course of his rather long life, is not as hard on himself or us as many earlier teachers of morality. For example, one can easily imagine Augustine confessing (and encouraging us to confess) to committing more grievous “errata”—or “sins” as he would prefer to call them—in a single day than Franklin believes he committed over the course of his entire life. Still, even though Franklin does not dwell on or lacerate himself for his moral failings, he does still admit to them. What is more, Franklin both clearly devoted considerable thought and effort to improving his character, even though he ultimately came to accept that perfection is beyond our grasp as human beings, and he sought to correct his “errata” as best he could.

Franklin does not simply shrug off his errata as only minor failings or explain them away as inevitable (and therefore blameless) human failings. He admits his failings, regrets them, and sought to rectify them as best he could. Franklin made amends with his brother and family after running away, despite the service he owed his brother, his first error; he paid back the money entrusted to him by a family friend, Ver- non, despite having spent some of it on his own needs and amusement, his second error; and he married Miss Read after having abandoned her so he would be free to pursue adven- ture and advancement in England, his third error. Franklin, however, could not so neatly rectify his final two errata. He could not unpublish his “A Dissertation on Liberty, Neces- sity, Pleasure, and Pain,” which brought him some acclaim in England but at the expense of harming others by leading them away from the perhaps imperfect but useful wisdom conveyed by traditional religion and morality; still, Franklin did regret its publication and could be said to have rectified his error somewhat by devoting so much time and energy later in life to encouraging his fellow citizens to live good lives. Franklin, though, could not at all undo his fifth and final error, making a pass at his best friend Ralph’s girlfriend and thereby causing a permanent break in their friendship that Franklin regretted. Franklin’s struggle to seek moral perfec- tion, even if ill-fated, and his efforts to remedy his errata as best he could thus show that Franklin was not, and does not encourage us to be, morally lax.

Reflection on Franklin’s admitted moral failings also sug- gests that Franklin does not simply equate virtue with our enlightened, long-term self-interest in this world, preaching the pursuit of what Tocqueville would later term our “self- interest well understood.” After all, Franklin’s errata did ben- efit him. Running away from his brother was the first step in a remarkable life that might never have happened if Franklin

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had honored his obligation to his brother, and spending the money entrusted to him by Vernon helped him live and enjoy life at a time when he had little money of his own. Breaking his all but official engagement to Miss Read allowed Franklin to go to England, have adventures, and gain experience of the world; he also began to make a name for himself there, ad- vancing himself, by publishing his “Dissertation.” And while Franklin’s romantic overtures toward Ralph’s girlfriend did end their friendship, Franklin does note—perhaps somewhat coldly and disappointingly—that by “the loss of his [Ralph’s] friendship” he was “relieved from a burden” as Ralph was continually borrowing money from him (608). Franklin’s errata did serve his interests, but he still considered them moral failings. In each instance, Franklin pursued his own good without considering, and sometimes at the expense of, others. Franklin thus does not teach us simply to pursue our enlightened, long-term self-interest; he also suggests we have obligations to others, and not only those obligations we ex- plicitly enter into or contract, like his explicit agreement or contract with Vernon. Franklin suggests we also have unspo- ken, natural obligations to family and friends, to those we love and care for, and even to society and our fellow human beings generally—an obligation not to harm, even if not to help, them and the fundamental social ties that bind us all together. As much as Franklin questioned, and prompts us to question, the sort of moral teaching imparted to him by his father and the world he grew up in—that some actions are simply right or simply wrong regardless of their conse- quences or utility—he does not altogether abandon such a belief. Although he modifies significantly the moral teach- ing passed down to him by his father, Franklin remains his father’s son in continuing to think that honesty and doing the right thing ultimately trump utility.9

Franklin’s moral teaching, then, is more rational and pro- gressive, more democratic and egalitarian than Christian and classical moral teachings. It is less demanding, more forgiv- ing, and more accepting of our “natural passions,” especially of most people’s natural and ordinary desire for material well- being and worldly success. Franklin does not exhort us to a life of Christian saintliness and promise us eternal bliss. Nei- ther does he encourage us to live like the heroes, statesmen, and citizens of classical antiquity and tempt us with thoughts of undying glory. Franklin does not ask us, like Aristotle’s perfect gentleman, to perfect our souls and to find a deep and solid satisfaction in recognizing the excellence and worth of our souls. Rather, Franklin teaches us how we all might gradually improve (even if never perfect) our character, even while busy earning a living and living life, and he encour- ages us to do so with a view to being better able to pursue our enlightened self-interest and happiness in this world, within certain limits. For just as Oliver Wendell Holmes would later argue that our right to swing our fist stops at somebody else’s nose, so too does Franklin suggest that our right to pursue our interests and happiness stops at the obligations we owe to others and to society as a whole. Franklin thus offers a new moral teaching uniquely suited to life in a new and more democratic world that teaches us how we might best pursue our own individual happiness while also happily working and living together in society. In the process of doing so, Franklin

also points toward and sketches a new, distinctly modern and American way of life.

FRANKLIN’S VISION OF THE AMERICAN DREAM AND WAY OF LIFE

For many readers the American dream and way of life that Franklin’s Autobiography helps give birth and definition to are characterized perhaps above all by the limitless pur- suit and acquisition of wealth. Max Weber, for example, saw Franklin as the great exemplar and defender of the Protes- tant “work ethic” and “the spirit of capitalism.” According to Weber, Franklin did not defend the limitless acquisition of wealth “from the point of view of the happiness of, or utility to, the individual,” but on moral, even “entirely transcenden- tal” grounds. “The summum bonum of” Franklin’s “ethic,” Weber argued, is “the earning of more and more money, com- bined with the strict avoidance of all spontaneous enjoyment of life,” conceived of “purely as an end in itself.” For Weber, Franklin replaced his father’s strict Calvinsim, with its asceti- cism and worship of the Almighty God, with his own strict capitalism, with its own type of asceticism—dreary, cease- less work—and the worship of the Almighty Dollar.10 D. H. Lawrence similarly found Franklin’s vision of the American dream and way of life to be deeply concerned with work and the pursuit of wealth, even though he found nothing “tran- scendental” or deeply and impressively moral about Franklin. For Lawrence, Franklin was “the first downright American,” a “dry” and “utilitarian little democrat” concerned only with “the material benefit of mankind.” Concerned only with his own and others’ common material interests, Franklin lacked all higher passions, longings, and callings.11 Although per- haps understandable in some ways, such readings of Franklin arguably fail to appreciate fully the complexity of Franklin’s understanding of the value of the pursuit of wealth and the richness of his vision of the American dream and way of life.

To be sure, Franklin is concerned, and he teaches us to be concerned, with the pursuit and acquisition of wealth. He tells us how he rose from rags to riches through a combination of education, hard work, persistence, and some good luck, and he promises us we might do the same. Franklin in no way aristocratically looks down on working to acquire wealth or on a concern with maintaining wealth as ungentlemanly. On the contrary, he suggests, as Weber rightly observes, that working for and acquiring wealth is both important and morally admirable. Franklin suggests both that it is important and right to pursue and acquire the means to support oneself and one’s family and that there is a dignity both inherent in and produced through labor and working for a living. Contrary to critics like Weber and Lawrence, however, Franklin does not defend the pursuit and acquisition of wealth through work as an ascetic enterprise to be pursued as our only or our highest end and purpose.

While Franklin surely encourages us to work to acquire wealth, he also just as surely encourages us to find enjoyment in and fulfillment through our work. Teaching us by example, Franklin constantly reminds us how he found ways to enjoy his coworkers, how he enjoyed and was good at his work (particularly writing), how he took pleasure and pride in

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the innovations he brought to printing in the colonies and in finding new and enterprising ways to expand his business, and of his considerable satisfaction and pride in making money he had earned and in seeing his fortunes and reputation in the world grow. Moreover, as much as Franklin worked and enjoyed his work, he also found time to enjoy the pleasures and satisfactions of private life. Throughout his life Franklin surrounded himself with friends he could talk to, discuss books and ideas with, and share life with. He also admits to spending more than a bit of time and money being tempted by “that hard-to-be-governed passion of youth” and falling into “intrigues” with a variety of women (631). And while the historical record, even if not his Autobiography, suggests he never entirely overcame “that hard-to-be-governed passion,” he did eventually settle down with Miss Read, his “good and faithful helpmate,” and enjoyed the satisfactions of starting a family with her (631).

Beyond encouraging us to find work that is both personally and financially rewarding and to enjoy rich and full private lives, Franklin also clearly encourages us to follow the exam- ple of his “projecting public spirit” (574). Franklin encour- ages us to associate with our fellow citizens in civic projects that pursue our own personal interests in ways that also simul- taneously benefit the community at large, just as he himself did, for instance, in forming the first public library. Wanting more books to read than he owned, Franklin tells us how he formed the first public library and thereby benefitted himself while also benefitting others and the community at large, im- proving “the general conversation of the Americans” and (at least in Franklin’s view) making “the common [American] tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as most gentleman from other countries” (632). Franklin thus clearly encourages us to recognize and act upon the happy harmony that not infre- quently exists between the pursuit of our interests and bene- fitting the public interest, but he does not thereby suggest that we only serve the common good when doing so is also good for us. After all, Franklin proved himself willing to risk, even sacrifice, his own good on more than one occasion to serve the common good; for instance, he somewhat courageously risked his life by serving in the militia, and he charitably refused to patent and profit from many of his inventions, like his famous stove, that he thought might benefit others in the belief that we should “freely and generously” “serve others” (678). At one point in his life Franklin even hoped to form “a party for virtue” whose members would be motivated by no narrow or partisan interests, but act only “from a principle of benevolence” and with a view to “the good of their country” and “of mankind” as a whole (655). While Franklin never carried this project through, he clearly admired and often exemplified himself that impressive, even if rare, human ca- pacity to rise above our own narrow interests and serve the common good, and he encourages us to do the same.

Busy though Franklin was with work, with friends and family, and with being a good citizen, he still also managed to find time for himself, for pleasures and thoughts that were uniquely his own. While others went to church on Sunday, for example, Franklin often stayed at home and “debauched” himself with a good book, refreshing his spirit and improv- ing his heart and mind in his own way (629). And when

Franklin became financially secure and independent, he re- tired to live life as he wanted. He gave up working every day not for a life of idle leisure and material comfort but for a life filled with those activities he found even more satisfying and meaningful than work and business, politics and philosophy. Franklin initially planned to spend the rest of his life pursuing his “philosophical studies and amusements,” and he did of course become one of the leading and most famous scientific minds of his day (680). Franklin, however, moved by a desire to “enlarge” his “power of doing good” and by “ambition,” ultimately allowed himself to be prevailed upon to spend more and more of his time engaged in public service and politics as a leading citizen, elected official, diplomat, rev- olutionary, and Founding Father (681). The rest, of course, is history, albeit a history that Franklin unfortunately does not fully recount for us in the pages of his Autobiography, leaving untold many of the details of his distinguished career as a scientist and statesman.

WHAT HAS FRANKLIN WROUGHT?

Franklin, through his Autobiography, does not seek pri- marily to advocate any particular political policy, institution, or even ideology. Rather, in the spirit of classical statesman- ship, his goal is to shape the overarching character and way of life his fellow citizens. Liberating his readers’ hearts and minds from the ideals and way of life of the Old World into which he—like so many of his immediate readers—was born, Franklin offers us a new moral teaching uniquely suited to life in a more democratic world, and he sketches the broad outlines of a new and uniquely American way of life through the story of his own life. As a classical American statesman, Franklin teaches us how we might live free, self-governing lives in pursuit of our own necessary economic well-being and happiness while also happily living and working together with others in mutually beneficial ways as democratic citi- zens who respect our obligations to others and to society as a whole. He encourages us, like him, to live active lives filled with personally and financially rewarding work, with the pleasures and satisfactions of private life, with the ben- efits and blessings that come with being engaged and active citizens, and perhaps especially with the profound sense of gratification and dignity that comes with attending to and living lives guided by our own heart, mind, and conscience.

Franklin offers us his life as a model for how we should live and think, but he does not tell us exactly how we should live and certainly not what we should think. Franklin presents his life to us as a model, not a rule book, and he invites us to follow his example by filling in the all-important details of our own lives for ourselves. For to follow truly the exam- ple Franklin sets, we must, like Franklin, live and think for ourselves. We must decide for ourselves what sort of work to pursue; how to love, raise a family, and be a friend; what sort of common causes to care about, how to pursue them, and how active a citizen to be; and, of course, what to feel, think, and believe. In doing so we might well make choices very unlike Franklin’s, live and think in ways very unlike Franklin’s. We might even harbor questions or reservations about the basic model of the good life that Franklin offers

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us. In doing so, however, we would still remain true—or perhaps especially be true—to the example Franklin sets for us. We would be questioning the most basic and general lessons about life and how to live that Franklin has to teach us, just as Franklin himself questioned the most basic and general lessons about life and how to live that his father and the world he was born into had to teach him. Through- out his life Franklin gratefully learned about the world, life, and how to live by listening to those who had something to say worth paying attention to—family, society, political and religious authorities, books, and thinkers—but he also questioned what he was taught and ultimately chose to live a free and self-governing life guided by his own heart, mind, and conscience. Whether or not Franklin always perfectly lived up to this ideal himself, this ideal is arguably very near the core spirit, if not simply the core spirit, animating the life Franklin lived and the way of life he recommends to us. Whatever the problems we might find with Franklin’s own life and the way of life he recommends to us, it is hard not to be impressed by and admire the ideal of living a truly free and self-governing life that Franklin helps point us toward, even if imperfectly. We owe, then, Franklin a considerable debt of gratitude for, at the very least, helping point us toward such an ideal and for his efforts to help create a society that not only allows for but even respects the pursuit of such an ideal.

NOTES

1. Aristotle, Politics, trans. Carnes Lord (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 3.9.

2. Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace, in Perpetual Peace and Other Es- says, trans. Ted Humphrey (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1983), 124.

3. Herbert J. Storing, “American Statesmanship: Old and New,” in To- ward a More Perfect Union: Writings of Herbert J. Storing, ed. Joseph M. Bessette (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 1995), 413.

4. For other accounts of Franklin’s political thought and statesmanship to which my own reading of Franklin is deeply indebted, see Ralph Lerner, “Franklin, Spectator,” in The Thinking Revolutionary (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), 41–59; Steven Forde, “Benjamin Franklin’s Autobi- ography and the Education of America,” American Political Science Review 86 (1992): 357–68; Jerry Weinberger, Benjamin Franklin Unmasked: On the Unity of His Moral, Religious, and Political Thought (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2005); and Lorraine Smith Pangle, The Politi- cal Philosophy of Benjamin Franklin (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).

5. Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography, Poor Richard, and Later Writings, ed. J. A. Leo Lemay (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1997). All references to Franklin’s writings are from this volume and cited parenthetically. I have altered Franklin’s spelling and his use of capitalization and emphasis to accord with modern usage.

6. What follows is deeply indebted to Ralph Lerner’s excellent dis- cussion of the subtlety of Franklin’s art of writing in the Autobiography (“Franklin, Spectator,” 41–59).

7. Lorraine Smith Pangle offers a fuller and compelling account of Franklin’s views on both the utility and truth of religion in The Political Philosophy of Benjamin Franklin, 188–214.

8. Lerner, “Franklin, Spectator,” 57. 9. For a different reading of Franklin’s moral thought, see Wein-

berger’s Benjamin Franklin Unmasked. Weinberger argues that Franklin “did not believe in natural duties” and thought that “necessity ultimately rules in life” such that “one should not feel remorse” over (or presum- ably the need to rectify) “‘injustices”’ since “one cannot avoid” them (219, 227).

10. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons (New York: Scribner, 1958), 51 and 53.

11. D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature (New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1923), 13–31.