Benjamin Franklin Part 12

[Footnote i-298: _Ibid._, IV, 229.]

[Footnote i-299: The ma.s.sacre led by the "Paxton boys."]

[Footnote i-300: _Writings_, IV, 314.]

[Footnote i-301: _Writings_, IV, 418.]

[Footnote i-302: _Ibid._, IV, 419. See Beer, _op. cit._, 294 f.]

[Footnote i-303: _A History of American Political Theories_, 46.]

[Footnote i-304: _Writings_, IV, 445-6.]

[Footnote i-305: To Joseph Galloway, May 20, 1767 (photostat of unpublished MS letter in W. S. Mason Collection; original in W. L.

Clements Library).]

[Footnote i-306: To Joseph Galloway, Aug. 20, 1768 (photostat of unpublished MS letter in W. S. Mason Collection; original in W. L.

Clements Library).]

[Footnote i-307: To Joseph Galloway, April 14, 1767 (photostat of unpublished MS letter in W. S. Mason Collection; original in W. L.

Clements Library). Cf. also letter to the same, Jan. 11, 1770, _ibid._]

[Footnote i-308: See, for example, _An Edict by the King of Prussia_ (1773)--for its effect see _Writings_, VI, 146--and _Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One_ (1773). Crane, _op. cit._, concludes that Franklin appears as "the chief agent of the American propaganda in England, especially between 1765 and 1770" (p. 26). For treatment of American propagandists see P. G. Davidson, "Whig Propagandists of the American Revolution," _American Historical Review_, x.x.xIX, 442-53 (April, 1934), and his _Revolutionary Propagandists in New England, New York and Pennsylvania, 1763-1776_ (unpublished dissertation, University of Chicago, 1929); summarized in _Abstracts of Theses_, Humanistic Series VII, 239-42; F. J. Hinkhouse, _The Preliminaries of the American Revolution as Seen in the English Press_ (New York, 1926).]

[Footnote i-309: _Writings_, V, 297.]

[Footnote i-310: See R. G. Adams, _Political Ideas of the American Revolution_, 35, 62-3.]

[Footnote i-311: Oct. 2, 1770 (_Writings_, V, 280). See also _Causes of the American Discontents before 1768_ (V, 78 f., 160-2). An aspect of his loyalty to the crown may be seen in his hatred of French desire to separate the colonies from England (V, 47, 231, 254, 323). The printing of the _Examination_ and other of Franklin's pieces in Europe b.u.t.tressed the predisposition of France to hate Great Britain (V, 231). The best comprehensive treatment of backgrounds is C. H. Van Tyne's _The Causes of the War of Independence_.]

[Footnote i-312: _Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography_, XXV, 311 (1901). See also _ibid._, 307-22, and XXVI, 81-90, 255-64 (1902).

See _Writings_, VI, 144.]

[Footnote i-313: _Writings_, VI, 173.]

[Footnote i-314: _Ibid._, VI, 319. His unpublished letters of 1775 in the Original Correspondence of Benjamin Franklin with the Bishop of St.

Asaph (in the W. S. Mason Collection) emphasize his progressive apathy toward a reconciliation. Especially see letters of May 15 and July 7.]

[Footnote i-315: _Ibid._, VI, 460.]

[Footnote i-316: Cited in Davidson, _op. cit._, 442.]

[Footnote i-317: Hugh Williamson claimed that he actually gave Franklin the letters. Apparently another person went to the office where the letters were archived and posing as an authorized person secured the desired correspondence (D. Hosack, _Biographical Memoir of Hugh Williamson_, New York, 1820, 37 ff.).]

[Footnote i-318: For an interesting account of this episode see Parton, _op. cit._, 1, chap. IX.]

[Footnote i-319: _Writings_, V, 134. Franklin and Burke were friendly; see their correspondence. The best exposition of Burke's doctrines is that by John MacCunn, _The Political Philosophy of Edmund Burke_ (London, 1913).]

[Footnote i-320: _Ibid._, V, 439; see also 527.]

[Footnote i-321: London, April 20, 1771; unpublished MS letter in W. S.

Mason Collection. Compare with Abbe Raynal's opinion that "society is essentially good; government, as is well known, may be, and is but too often evil" (_The Revolution of America_, Dublin, 1781, 45).]

[Footnote i-322: M. Eiselen (_Franklin's Political Theories_, Garden City, N. Y., 1928) observes that Franklin as presiding officer had actually little to do with casting the instrument. From his later paper on the Const.i.tution it is possible, however, to see that he accepted most of its major ideas (pp. 57-8). See S. B. Harding, "Party Struggles over the First Pennsylvania Const.i.tution," _Annual Report of the American Historical a.s.sociation for 1894_, 371-402.]

[Footnote i-323: That Franklin "had more to do with the phraseology of the Declaration of Independence than has been recognized up to now" (J.

C. Fitzpatrick, _Spirit of the Revolution_, Boston, 1924, 11) has been shown by Becker, _op. cit._]

[Footnote i-324: See text in S. E. Morison, _Sources and Doc.u.ments Ill.u.s.trating the American Revolution, 1764-1788, and the Formation of the Federal Const.i.tution_ (Oxford, 1923, 162-76).]

[Footnote i-325: C. H. Lincoln, _The Revolutionary Movement in Pennsylvania, 1760-1776_, 277.]

[Footnote i-326: Cited in N. G. Goodman, _Benjamin Rush_ (Philadelphia, 1934), 62. Another wrote that the unicameral form is good "if men were wise and virtuous as angels" (Lincoln, _op. cit._, 282; see also 283).

The American Philosophical Society, of which Franklin was president, declared against it.]

[Footnote i-327: T. F. Moran, _The Rise and Development of the Bicameral System in America_ (Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, 13th ser., V [Baltimore, 1895]), 42. The legislative Council (upper chamber) had been destroyed by the 1701 const.i.tution. See B. A. Konkle, _George Bryan and the Const.i.tution of Pennsylvania_ (Philadelphia, 1922), 114. P. L. Ford ("The Adoption of the Pennsylvania Const.i.tution of 1776," _Political Science Quarterly_, X, Sept., 1895, 426-59) observes: "The one-chamber legislature and the annual election were hardly the work of the Convention, for they were merely transferred from the Penn Charter; having yielded such admirable results in the past, it is not strange that they were grafted into the new instrument"

(p. 454).]

[Footnote i-328: Defending (in 1789) the Pennsylvania const.i.tution, Franklin wrote, "Have we not experienced in this Colony, when a Province under the Government of the Proprietors, the Mischiefs of a second Branch existing in the Proprietary Family, countenanced and aided by an Aristocratic Council?" (_Writings_, X, 56.)]

[Footnote i-329: In 1775 he submitted to the Second Continental Congress his _Articles of Confederation_ (_Writings_, VI, 420-6) which called for a "firm League of Friendship" motivated by a unicameral a.s.sembly and a plural executive, a Council of twelve. It was democratic also in its "basing representation upon population instead of financial support"

(Eiselen, _op. cit._, 54).]

[Footnote i-330: _Writings_, VII, 48.]

[Footnote i-331: _Ibid._, VII, 23. No dull sidelight on the quality of Franklin's radicalism during this period is the fact that he brought Thomas Paine to the colonies and was partly responsible for the writing of _Common Sense_. It is alleged that Franklin considered Paine "his adopted political son" (cited in M. D. Conway's _Life of Thomas Paine_, 3d ed., New York, 1893, II, 468). For explication of Paine's political theories see C. E. Merriam, "Political Theories of Thomas Paine,"

_Political Science Quarterly_, XIV, 389-403.]

[Footnote i-332: Hale and Hale, _op. cit._, I, 70; see also 75.]

[Footnote i-333: _Ibid._, I, 32.]

[Footnote i-334: Cited in J. B. Perkins, _France in the American Revolution_, 140.]

[Footnote i-335: _Ibid._, 127.]

[Footnote i-336: See D. J. Hill, "A Missing Chapter of Franco-American History," _American Historical Review_, XXI, 709-19, (July, 1916).]

[Footnote i-337: _Ibid._, 710.]

[Footnote i-338: _Writings_, IX, 132. The Due de la Rochefoucauld translated them into French (IX, 71). Franklin thought they would induce emigration to the colonies. See the scores of requests (on the part of notable Frenchmen) and thanks for copies of the const.i.tutions of the United States listed in _Calendar of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin in the Library of the American Philosophical Society_.]

[Footnote i-339: J. S. Schapiro, _Condorcet and the Rise of Liberalism_, 79-81 and _pa.s.sim_.]

[Footnote i-340: _Ibid._, 222.]

[Footnote i-341: Cited in W. T. Franklin's edition, I, 303-4. E. P.

Oberholtzer, essentially hostile to Franklin, is obliged to admit that Franklin "seems not to have had more than an advisory part" in making the Const.i.tution of 1776. He adds that if Franklin did not form it, "he was at any rate a loyal defender of its principles," and that he seems to have allowed the French to think that the Const.i.tution was his own (_The Referendum in America_, New York, 1900, 26-42). For Franklin's later defenses of unicameralism, see _Writings_, IX, 645, 674; X; 56-8.]