How Did Benjamin Franklin's Life Reflect His Belief In Public Service

George Washington may rightly be known as the "Father of his Country" but, for the two decades before the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin was the earth's most famous American.

Franklin was a historic scientist and inventor.¹ His electrical experiments had won him the Royal Society'southward Copley Medal, the eighteen^th Century equivalent of the Nobel Prize, and his inventions included the lightning conductor, the first map of the Gulf Stream and a new musical instrument in the glass armonica – for which Gluck, Mozart and Beethoven all composed concertos. Franklin'south genius was internationally acclaimed, with Immanuel Kant describing him as "The Prometheus of Mod Times" and David Hume hailing him every bit America's "first great man of messages".ⁱⁱ

Born on January 17, 1706 in Boston, Benjamin Franklin was the 10th and youngest son of an contained tallow chandler and soap maker.³ He was apprenticed at the historic period of twelve to his printer brother James, but, following a dispute, Benjamin moved to Philadelphia in 1723. The next year the immature printer was on the motion again, this fourth dimension to London, Britain'south great imperial capital, and his eighteen-month stay would take a lasting influence. In 1726 he returned to America and made Philadelphia his permanent family abode.

From every bit early equally his mid-twenties, Franklin (in partnership with his married woman Deborah) started to become successful, showtime equally a printer, then too as a paper proprietor, author, and merchant. In the years that followed, and inspired past his time in London, he founded some of America'southward great institutions. These included the American Philosophical Society (based on the Regal Society), the Library Visitor of Philadelphia (the first successful public lending library in America), and the Academy of Philadelphia that would ultimately become the University of Pennsylvania. Following his retirement from daily involvement in his business concern and on taking up public service on a full time basis in 1748, Franklin also helped to establish America'southward first public hospital and a system of Burn Insurance, having already created a Fire Service in 1736.

By 1757 Franklin was Deputy Postmaster for N America and a leading member of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, which sent him to London equally its representative. During his fourth dimension in Britain (1757- 1762 and 1764 to March 1775), he as well took on representation for Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Georgia and fought hard for a reconciliation betwixt Britain and its American colonies. Yet, when spurned by the anti-Americans in Lord North'due south government and later on fleeing Britain to escape abort, he became a fierce American patriot.

Having returned to America, Franklin became an early advocate of confederation and was i of the committee of five appointed to draft the Annunciation of Independence. His well-nigh striking contribution was his suggestion to Thomas Jefferson that the phrase 'We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable' be changed to  'We hold these truths to be self evident', which thereby neatly substituted natural law for divine sanction. Franklin was the only human being to sign the three key documents in the birth of the U.s.: the Announcement of Independence, the Treaty of Paris, and the Constitution.

To those can exist added an important quaternary, the 1778 Treaty of Brotherhood with France. As the United States' minister in France from 1776, Franklin brought the French into the war against Britain and kept them there. This fabricated him second only to Washington for his importance in winning the War of American Independence. John Adams inadvertently provided confirmation of the gimmicky and near-gimmicky understanding of Franklin's wartime importance, with his acid comment in an 1815 letter to Thomas Jefferson: "The essence of the whole will be that Dr Franklin's electrical rod smote the world and out sprang General Washington. And then Franklin electrified him, and thence forward those two conducted all the Policy, Negotiations, Legislations, and War."^four

After his return from French republic in 1785, Franklin became, at the age of seventy-ix, the President and constructive Governor of Pennsylvania for 3 years. He was also a member of the Ramble Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. Though enfeebled past sick-wellness, his few contributions to the Convention were important. Together with George Washington, he acted as a senior statesman willing to lend his authority to the compromises they deemed necessary to forge a Constitution capable of serving the new nation.

Too in 1787, Franklin became President of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. In earlier years he had not only owned enslaved people simply had profited from including slave advertisements in his newspapers. However, his views changed over time and he became showtime an advocate of "negro education" and so of abolition. He widely circulated Josiah Wedgwood's "Am I non a Human being and a Blood brother" anti-slavery medallions considering he believed them to have "an Effect equal to that of the best written Pamphlet, in procuring Favour to those oppressed People."⁵

In the final letters between Washington and Franklin - with the victorious full general serving equally his nation's Founding President, and America's greatest e'er polymath approaching the very end of his long and boggling life – a bang-up affection was added to the ii men'due south customary mutual respect and admiration. In his will, Franklin bequeathed Washington something very special: the walking stick, adorned with a "cap of liberty", that he had accepted in 1783 as America's minister plenipotentiary in French republic. Franklin died on 17 Apr 1790.

George Goodwin, FRHistS., FRSA, FCIM
Writer in Residence at Benjamin Franklin House in London forBenjamin Franklin in London: The British Life of America'south  Founding Father (Yale Academy Press).

Notes

1. In the 18th century, nonetheless, he was non called a "scientist," but the contemporary term "natural philosopher."

2. Immanuel Kant, Gesammelte Schriften,vol. 1 (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1900), 472; David Hume to Benjamin Franklin, May 10, 1762, in Leonard W. Labaree et. al., eds.,Papers of Benjamin Franklin,vol. 10 (New Oasis: Yale University Press, 1966), 81-82.

three. This engagement reflects the "new" manner Gregorian agenda. United kingdom and its colonies switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar during Franklin's lifetime, in 1752. Under the Julian calendar, Franklin's birth was recorded as Jan vi, 1706.

4. John Adams to Benjamin Rush, April iv, 1790,Founders Online,Library of Congress.

v. Benjamin Franklin to Josiah Wedgwood, May 15, 1787, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin.

How Did Benjamin Franklin's Life Reflect His Belief In Public Service,

Source: https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/benjamin-franklin/

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