Journalism was a common by-product of the printing trade. When Franklin and Meredith took over Keimer'sThe Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences: and Pennsylvania Gazettein 1729, there were six other newspapers being published in the colonies—three in Boston and one each in New York, Philadelphia, and Annapolis. The Williamsburg press had a newspaper a few years later, but the other two printing towns in the colonies had to wait some thirty years for journalistic ventures—a newspaper in New London and a magazine in Woodbridge.[i-172]
The fundamental question to be asked in analyzing a newspaper may be stated thus: What is the editorial conception of the primary function of the press? Franklin had received his early newspaper training on his brother'sNew England Courant, which frankly acknowledged entertainment as its primary function and relegated news to a minor place. Of his contemporaries in 1729, the oldest, theBoston News-Letter, held the publication of news to be its sole function; while theBoston Gazette, theNew York Gazette, and theMaryland Gazettetook much the same attitude. In the main, they were rather dreary reprints of stale European news. Bradford'sAmerican Weekly Mercury, in Philadelphia, gave somewhat more attention to local news; but with the exception of the Franklin-BreintnalBusy-Bodypapers, contributed in 1728-1729 in order to bring Keimer to his knees, theMercurygave very little attention to the entertainment function. Only theNew England Weekly Journal, carrying on something of the tradition of the oldCourant, dealt largely in entertainment as well as in news. Thisbi-functional policy was the one adopted by Franklin'sPennsylvania Gazette, which was always readable and amusing at the same time that it was newsy.
Of the editorial or opinion-forming function of newspapers there was little evidence in Franklin's paper,[i-173]at least in the field of politics. The obvious reason was the active governmental censorship. It remained for John Peter Zenger to introduce that function into colonial journalism in theNew York Weekly Journalin 1733: his struggle for the freedom of the press is well known.[i-174]But thePennsylvania Gazettenever became in any degree a political organ while Franklin edited it; and his first political pronouncement was published not in his paper but in a pamphlet,Plain Truth, issued just before his retirement from editorial duties.
Two common misconceptions in regard to Franklin's newspaper call for correction: (1) ThePennsylvania Gazettewas not connected as forerunner or ancestor with theSaturday Evening Post. TheGazette, a newspaper to the end, closed its file in 1815;[i-175]thePost, a story paper, issued its Volume I, Number 1, in 1821. Throughout much of the latter half of the nineteenth century, thePostcarried the legend "Founded in 1821" on its front page; and not until after the Curtis Publishing Company bought it in 1897 did it begin to print the words "FoundedA.D.1728 by Benjamin Franklin" on its cover. The sole connection of thePostwith Franklin lies in the fact that it was first issuedfrom an office at 53 Market Street which Franklin had once occupied.[i-176](2) Franklin did not publish a "chain" of newspapers. A "chain" implies some kind of co-operative connection between the various members, but the several papers which Franklin helped to finance had no such relationship. In some he was a six-years partner,[i-177]keeping his interest until the resident publisher, usually a former employee, was established; to some he made loans or, in the case of relatives, gifts.[i-178]
One of his journalistic ventures which is not mentioned in theAutobiographyis theGeneral Magazine, of 1741. It missed by three days being the first of American magazines: Andrew Bradford had learned of Franklin's project and, with hisAmerican Magazine, beat him in the race for priority. But theAmerican Magazinewas a failure in three monthly numbers, while Franklin's periodical, though more readable, died after its sixth issue.[i-179]As an initial episode in the history of American magazines, theGeneral Magazinehas a certain eminence; but Franklin's neglect of it when writing hisAutobiography, after the events of nearly fifty busy years had apparently crowded it out of his memory, is sufficient commentary on its unimportance.
To the end of his life Franklin was proud of his trade of printing, with its handmaiden journalism. His last will and testament begins: "I, Benjamin Franklin, Printer...." Though clearly not the chief interest of his life, it was one to which he was fundamentally and consistently attached.
An eighteenth-century colonial who wrote on paper money, interest, value, and insurance, who discussed a theory of population and the economic aspects of the abolition of slavery, who championed free trade, and who probably lent Adam Smith some information used in hisWealth of Nations, who was an empirical agriculturist, who was "half physiocratic before the rise of the physiocratic school"—such a colonial has, indeed, claims to being America's pioneer economist.
Franklin's hatred of negro slavery was conditioned by more than his humanitarian bias. It may be seen that his indictments of black cargoes were the resultant of an interplay of his convictions that economically slavery was enervating and dear and of his abstract sense of religious and ethical justice. One should not minimize, however, his distrust of slavery on other than economic bases. He was acutely influenced by the Quakers of his colony who, like gadflies, were stinging slaveholders to an awareness of their blood traffic, and by the rise of English humanitarianism. In his youth he had published (first edition, 1729; second, 1730), with no little danger to himself and his business, Ralph Sandiford'sA Brief Examination of the Practice of the Times, an Amos-like vituperative attack on the "unrighteous Gain" of slaveholding. He also published works of Benjamin Lay and John Woolman.[i-180]Friend of Anthony Benezet, Benjamin Rush, Fothergill, and Granville Sharp, and after 1760 a member of Dr. Bray's Associates, he lent his voice and pen to denouncing slavery on religious and ethical grounds; and in England, after the James Sommersetttrial (1772), he "began to agitate for parliamentary action" toward the abolishing of slavery in all parts of the British Empire.[i-181]Following the Sommersett verdict, Franklin contributed a brief article to theLondon Chronicle(June 18-20, 1772) in which he denounced the "constant butchery of the human species by this pestilential detestable traffic in the bodies and souls of men."[i-182]Losing his temperamental urbanity when observing "the diabolical Commerce,"[i-183]"the abominable African Trade," he recollects approvingly that a certain French moralist[i-184]could "not look on a piece of sugar without conceiving it stained with spots of human blood!"[i-185]Conditioned by Quakerism, by his deism, which suggested that "the most acceptable Service we render him [God] is doing good to his other Children," and by the eighteenth century's growing repugnance toward suffering and pain,[i-186]Franklin (although he took little part in legislating against slavery in Pennsylvania) became through his writing a model to be imitated, especially in France, by a people more intent on becoming humane than saintly.
His letter to Anthony Benezet (London, July 14, 1773), however, clearly indicates that for economic, as well as humanitarian reasons, he had sought freedom for slaves:
I am glad to hear that such humane Sentiments prevail so much more generally than heretofore, that there is Reason to hope our Colonies may in time get clear of a Practice thatdisgraces them, and, without producing any equivalent Benefit, is dangerous to their very Existence.[i-187]
I am glad to hear that such humane Sentiments prevail so much more generally than heretofore, that there is Reason to hope our Colonies may in time get clear of a Practice thatdisgraces them, and, without producing any equivalent Benefit, is dangerous to their very Existence.[i-187]
Franklin's view of the economic disabilities of slavery is best expressed inObservations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, Etc.(1751). Arguing against British restraint of colonial manufactures, he observed that "'tis an ill-grounded Opinion that by the Labour of slaves,Americamay possibly vie in Cheapness of Manufactures withBritain. The Labour of Slaves can never be so cheap here as the Labour of working Men is inBritain."[i-188]With arithmetic based on empirical scrutiny of existing conditions, resembling the mode of economists following Adam Smith, he charged that slaves are economically unprofitable due to the rate of interest in the colonies, their initial price, their insurance and maintenance, their negligence and malevolence.[i-189]In addition, "Slaves ... pejorate the Families that use them; the white Children become proud, disgusted with Labour, and being educated in Idleness, are rendered unfit to get a Living by Industry."[i-190]Slaves are hardly economical investments in terms of colonial character. Looking to the "EnglishSugarIslands" where Negroes "have greatly diminish'd the Whites," and deprived the poor of employment, "while a few Families acquire vast Estates," he realized that "population was limited by means of subsistence,"[i-191]which foreshadowed the more pessimistic progressions of Malthus. Having just maintained that "our People must at least be doubled every 20 Years,"[i-192]and intuitively suspecting that the means for subsistence progress more slowly, he exclaimed, "Why increase the Sons ofAfrica, by planting them inAmerica, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red?"[i-193]He saw mere economic extravagance as the short-time effect ofslavery; he feared that the long-time effect would be to create an aristocracy subsisting at the head of a vast brood of slaves and poor whites.[i-194]
It was inevitable in a state having no staple crop, such as rice, sugar, tobacco, or cotton, which offered at least economic justification for negro slavery, that abolition of slaves should be urged partially on purely economic grounds, and that Pennsylvania should have been the first colony to legislate in favor of abolition, in 1780. Although one may feel that economic determinism is overly simple and audacious in its doctrinaire interpretations, one can not refuse to see the extent to which economics tended to buttress humane and religious factors in Franklin's mind to make him a persuasive champion of abolition.[i-195]
A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency[i-196]has been appraised as "by far the ablest and most original treatise that had been written on the subject up to 1728and was probably the most widely read work on paper currency that appeared in colonial America."[i-197]That Franklin's interest in paper money was not unique, one may gather from the fact that between 1714 and 1721 "nearly thirty pamphlets appeared" on this subject in Massachusetts alone.[i-198]One of the 1728 theses at Harvard, answered in the affirmative, was: "Does the issue of paper money contribute to the public good?"[i-199]"Since there was a scarcity of circulating medium, caused by the constant drain of specie for export," explains Mr. D. R. Dewey, "it is not strange that projects for converting credit into wealth should have sprung up in the colonies."[i-200]Franklin argued in hisModest Enquiry[i-201]that (1) "A plentiful Currency will occasion Interest to be low," (2) it "will occasion the Trading Produce to bear a good Price," (3) it "will encourage great Numbers of labouring and Handicrafts Men to come and settle in the Country," and (4) it "will occasion a less consumption of European Goods, in proportion to the Number of the People." Thus he saw paper money as a "Morrison's Pill," promising to cure all economic ills.[i-202]It has been suggested that as a printer Franklin naturally would favor issues of paper money. In view of his later apostasy one should note that in this essay Franklin apparently accepted the current mercantilist notions, best expressed here in his conviction that paper money will secure a favorable balance of trade.Demands for emissions of paper money were inevitable in a colony in the grip of such a restrictive commercial policy as British mercantilism. It must be observed, however, that Franklin differed from the proper mercantilists to the extent that simple valuable metals were not to be measures of value. Deriving his idea from Sir William Petty, Franklin took labor as the true measure of value,[i-203]—a position later held by Karl Marx. In his preoccupation with the growth of manufactures and favorable balances of trade, Franklin gave no suggestions that at least by 1767 he was to become an exponent of agrarianism and free trade. One wonders to what extent his warnings against the purchase of "unnecessary Householdstuff, or any superfluous thing," his inveterate emphasis on industry and frugality, were conditioned by his view that such indulgence would essentially cause a preponderance of imports, hence casting against them an unfavorable trade balance.[i-204]
In 1751 Parliament passed an act regulating in the New England colonies the issue of paper money and preventing them "from adding a legal tender clause thereto"; in 1764 Parliament forbade issue of legal tender money in any of the colonies. As a member of the Pennsylvania assembly, Franklin had successfully sponsored issues of paper money; in London, following the 1764 act, he urged that one of the causes breeding disrespect for Parliament was "the prohibition of making paper money among [us]."[i-205]Economics blends into politics when we remember that the 1764 restraining legislation was "one of the factors in the subsequent separation, for it caused some of the suffering thatinevitably follows in the wake of an unsound monetary policy whose onward course is suddenly checked."[i-206]In 1766 Franklin was yet an ardent imperialist, who sought politically and economically to keep whole "that fine and noble China Vase, the British Empire." HisRemarks and Facts Concerning American Paper Money(1767), in answer to Lord Hillsborough's Board of Trade report circulated among British merchants, is an ardent plea for legal tender paper money. He argued that British merchants (since yearly trade balances had regularly been in their favor) had not been deprived of gold and silver, that paper moneyhad workedin the Colonies,[i-207]and that British merchants had lost no more in their colonial dealings than was inevitable in war times. Franklin concluded that since there were no mines in the colonies, paper money was a necessity (arguing here very shrewdly that even English silver "is obliged to the legal Tender for Part of its Value"). Hence, at least for colonies deserving it, the mother country should take off the restraint on legal tender. What Franklin seems not to have known and what the merchants had actually felt (they had their accounts staring at them) was that in the past, especially after 1750, much of the legal tender was in effect nothing but inconvertible fiat money. Mr. Carey quotes from an uncollected item, Franklin's "The Legal Tender of Paper Money in America," in which he threatened that "if the colonies were not allowed to issue legal-tender notes there was no way in which they could retain hard money except by boycotting English goods."[i-208]Franklin suggested (to S. Cooper, April 22, 1779) that depreciation may not be unmixed evil, since it may be viewed as a tax: "It shouldalways be remembered, that the original Intention was to sink the Bills by Taxes, which would as effectually extinguish the Debt as an actual Redemption."[i-209]Not a little Machiavellian for one who was not blind to the sanctity of contracts!
With the Revolution and the attendant depreciation in currency, Franklin tended to warn against over-issues.[i-210]Like Governor Hutchinson, who said that "the morals of the people depreciate with the currency," Franklin confessed in 1783 "the many Mischiefs, the injustices, the Corruption of Manners, &c., &c., that attended a depreciating Currency."[i-211]There is no evidence to show that Franklin dissented from the conservative prohibition in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 against issues of legal tender paper.[i-212]
Deborah Logan (in a letter in 1829) stated that Franklin "once told Dr. Logan that the celebrated Adam Smith, when writing his 'Wealth of Nations,' was in the habit of bringing chapter after chapter as he composed it, to himself, Dr. Price and others of the literati; then patiently hear [sic] their observations, and profit by their discussion and criticism—even sometimes submitting to write whole chapters anew, and even to reverse some of his propositions."[i-213]James Parton observed that the allusions to the colonies which "constitute the experimental evidence of the essential truth of the book" were supplied by Franklin.[i-214]But Rae reasonably counters: "It ought of course to be borne in mind that Smith had been in the constant habit of hearing much about the American Colonies and their affairsduring his thirteen years in Glasgow from the intelligent merchants and returned planters of that city."[i-215]
In general, we may conclude that Franklin and Smith were exponents of free trade in proportion as they were reactionaries against British mercantilism. Each in his reaction tended to elevate the function of agriculture beyond reasonable limits. Unlike the physiocrats and Franklin, however, Adam Smith did not hold that, in terms of wealth-producing, manufacturers were sterile. Even if Franklin saw only agriculture asproductive, he was not blind to the utility of manufactures, especially after the break with the mother country, when he realized that home industry must be developed to supply the colonial needs formerly satisfied by British exports.[i-216]
Finally, each was, in varying degrees, an exponent of laissezfaire.[i-217]Since we shall discover that politically Franklin was less a democrat than is often supposed, we may feel that his belief in free trade led him to embrace reservedly the principle of laissez faire, rather than that free trade, an economic concept, was but a fragment of a larger dogma, namely, that government should be characterized by its passivity, frugality, and maximum negligence. V. L. Parrington quotes[i-218]from George Whately'sPrinciples of Trade, which contained views congenial to Franklin:
When Colbert assembled some wise old merchants of France, and desired their advice and opinion, how he could best serve and promote commerce, their answer, after consultation, was, in three words only,Laissez-nous faire: "Let us alone." It is said by a very solid writer of the same nation, that he is well advanced in the science of politics, who knows the full force of that maxim.Pas trop gouverner: "Not to govern too much!"which, perhaps, would be of more use when applied to trade, than in any other public concern. (Present editors' italics.)
When Colbert assembled some wise old merchants of France, and desired their advice and opinion, how he could best serve and promote commerce, their answer, after consultation, was, in three words only,Laissez-nous faire: "Let us alone." It is said by a very solid writer of the same nation, that he is well advanced in the science of politics, who knows the full force of that maxim.Pas trop gouverner: "Not to govern too much!"which, perhaps, would be of more use when applied to trade, than in any other public concern. (Present editors' italics.)
Laissez faire in Franklin's as in Whately's view tended to be synonymous with free trade. Laissez faire was suggested by his insistence on free trade, as he progressively expressed his antipathy for mercantilism, rather than that free trade was simplya natural deduction from a more inclusive economic-political dogma.
Writing to the pro-colonial Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph, whose "sweet Retirement" at Twyford he had long enjoyed, Franklin, seeing no hopes of a reconciliation between the colonies and Great Britain, uttered what marked him as the first American disciple of Quesnay's school of economic thought: "Agriculture is the great Source of Wealth and Plenty. By cutting off our Trade you have thrown usto the Earth, whence likeAntaeuswe shall rise yearly with fresh Strength and Vigour."[i-219]Upon learning of the colonists' "Resolutions of Non-Importation" he wrote to "Cousin" Folger that they must promote their own industries, especially those of the "Earth and their Sea, the true Sources of Wealth and Plenty."[i-220]Learning that the colonists had threatened to boycott English manufacturers by creating their own basic industries, Franklin demurred in a letter to Cadwallader Evans: "Agriculture is trulyproductive of new wealth; manufacturers only change forms, and whatever value they give to the materials they work upon, they in the mean time consume an equal value in provisions, &c. So that riches are notincreasedby manufacturing; the only advantage is, that provisions in the shape of manufactures are more easily carried for sale to foreign markets."[i-221]Positions to be Examined, Concerning National Wealth[i-222]affords a succinct statement of Franklin's agrarianism. "There seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth. The first is bywar, as the Romans did, in plundering their conquered neighbours. This isrobbery. The second bycommerce, which is generallycheating. The third byagriculture,the onlyhonest way, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the hand of God in his favour, as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous industry."[i-223]Dupont de Nemours, as early as 1769, had written: "Who does not know that the English have today their Benjamin Franklin, who has adopted the principles and the doctrines of our French economists?"[i-224]Before attempting to appraise the real indebtedness of Franklin to the physiocrats, it is well to seek to learn how he came in contact with their ideas, and especially why by the year 1767 he was acutely susceptible to their doctrine. In the summer of 1767, in the company of Sir John Pringle, Franklin went to Paris, not an unknown figure to the French savants, who were acquainted with his scientific papers already translated into French by D'Alibard. That he was feted by the Newtons of the physiocrats, François Quesnay and the elder Mirabeau, as "le Savant, le Geomètre, le Physicien, l'homme à qui la nature permet de dévoiler ses secrets,"[i-225]we are assured, when to De Nemours (July 28, 1768) he writes regretfully: "Be so good as to present my sincere respect to that venerable apostle, Dr. Quesnay, and to the illustrious Ami des Hommes (of whose civilities to me at Paris I retain a grateful remembrance)...."[i-226]Having missed Franklin in Paris (1767), De Nemours had sent Franklin "un recueil des principaux traités économiques du Docteur Quesnay" and his ownPhysiocratie(1768), which cast him in the role "of a propagandist of Physiocratie doctrines."[i-227]Franklin admitted, "I am perfectly charmed with them, and wish I could have stayed in France for some time, to have studied inyour school, that I might by conversing with its founders have made myself quite a master of that philosophy."[i-228]That Franklin was not before 1767 unacquainted with the Économistes we learn when he tells Dupont de Nemours that Dr. Templeman had shown him the De Nemours-Templeman correspondence when the latter was Secretary of the London Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. A second trip to Paris (in 1769) to confer with Barbeu Dubourg, an avowed physiocrat, concerning his forthcoming translation of Franklin's works, served to acquaint him still further with the doctrines of the new school.
Franklin's agrarianism[i-229]is congruent with physiocracy[i-230]in as far as he observed that agriculture alone, of the many industries, produced a surplus of wealth after all of the expenses of production had been paid.[i-231]Each laborer produced more thanenough to satisfy his own needs. This surplus the Économistes termed theproduit net. A worker in manufactures, it was assumed, consumed foodstuffs and other materials in proportion to the value he created in his manufacturing process. Hence there obviously could be noproduit netaccruing from manufactures. Like the physiocrats, Franklin felt that manufactures weresterile, to the extent that no new wealth was created. The physiocrats believed, however, that laborers in manufacturing industriescouldcreate aproduit netif they stinted themselves in consuming foodstuffs, et cetera, but it was argued that this prudential asceticism was not a characteristic habit. To this extent at least the physiocrats were empirical.
Free trade no less than agrarianism characterized physiocracy. Although Franklin indicated his antagonism toward governmental restraint of trade, internal and among nations, in his antipathy toward British mercantilism, it was not until after he became impregnated with French doctrine that he began to express very fully his advocacy of free trade. After Connecticut imposed a 5% duty on goods imported from neighboring colonies, Franklin wrote to Jared Eliot in 1747 that it was likely that the duty would devolve on the consumer and be "only another mode of Taxing" the purchaser. In addition he recognized that smuggling, virtually a colonial art, would cause the "fair Trader" to "be undersold and ruined."[i-232]He urged thatthe import duty might suggest selfishness, and might also tend to deter Connecticut commerce. Here, it must be admitted, Franklin did not sanction free trade with a priori appeals to the "natural order," the key in the arch of physiocracy. He rather appealed to the instincts and observations of the prudential tradesman. HisPlan for Regulating Indian Affairs(1766), unlike his 1747 letters,suggested(if it did not express concretely) inviolable laws of commerce in the words: "It seems contrary to the Nature of Commerce, for Government to interfere in the Prices of Commodities.... It therefore seems to me, that Trade will best find and make its own Rates; and that Government cannot well interfere, unless it would take the whole Trade into its own hands ... and manage it by its own Servants at its own Risque."[i-233]To Dupont de Nemours he admitted that British mercantilism had not achieved "that wisdom which sees the welfare of the parts in the prosperity of the whole."[i-234]To Sir Edward Newenham, representing the County of Dublin, he expressed admiration for Irish efforts to secure freedom of commerce, "which is the right of all mankind." "To enjoy all the advantages of the climate, soil, and situation in which God and nature have placed us, is as clear a right as that of breathing; and can never be justly taken from men but as a punishment for some atrocious crime."[i-235]Three years before he met Quesnay (though after he had read Dupont de Nemours's letters to Templeman), Franklin sanctioned free trade through appeal to other than utilitarian prudence: first he admitted that British restraint of colonial commerce, for example with the West Indies, will tend to prevent colonists from making remittances forBritish manufactured goods, since "The Cat can yield but her skin." Then with a suggestion of philosophic generalization he hoped that "In time perhaps Mankind may be wise enough to let Trade take its own Course, find its own Channels, and regulate its own Proportions, etc."[i-236]Restraint of manufactures "deprive[s] us of the Advantage God & Nature seem to have intended us.... So selfish is the human Mind! But 'tis well there is One above that rules these Matters with a more equal Hand. He that is pleas'd to feed the Ravens, will undoubtedly take care to prevent a Monopoly of the Carrion."[i-237]Glorifying the husbandman and suggesting that trade restrictions disturb a natural order, Franklin wrote to David Hartley in 1783 that Great Britain has tended to impede "the mutual communications among men of the gifts of God, and rendering miserable multitudes of merchants and their families, artisans, and cultivators of the earth, the most peaceable and innocent part of the human species."[i-238]
That Franklin was not without his influence in eighteenth-century economic thought we may gather from Dugald Stewart's opinion that "the expressionslaissez-faireand,pas trop gouvernerare indebted chiefly for their extensive circulation to the short and luminous comments of Franklin, which had so extraordinary an influence on public opinion in the old and newworld."[i-239]Mr. Carey maintains that Franklin, unlike the physiocrats, inveighed against trade regulations because they led to smuggling rather than because to any important degree they violated the "natural order." The physiocrats are tenuous, amorphous, and ambiguous when they seek to defineL'Ordre naturel. At times Dupont de Nemours seems to identify it with a primitivistic past.[i-240]Quesnay, on the other hand, says: "Natural right is indeterminate in a state of nature. The right only appears when justice and labour have been established."[i-241]Again, he asserts: "By entering society and making conventions for their mutual advantage men increase the scope of natural right without incurring any restriction of their liberties, for this is just the state of things that enlightened reason would have chosen."[i-242]Natural order is a "providential order": "Its laws are irrevocable, pertaining as they do to the essence of matter and the soul of humanity. They are just the expression of the will of God."[i-243]According to the physiocrats, the laws of the natural order are "unique, eternal, invariable, and universal."[i-244]Now it is true that nowhere did Franklin assert that his advocacy of laissez faire and agrarianism was neatly dependent on these a priori bases. Even though this is true, there are references (quoted above) which seem to suggest that trade restrictions are violations of the very nature of things. It is not wholly fanciful (bearing in mind Franklin's adoration of a Deity who is the creator and sustainer of immutable, universal physical laws which together present the mind with the concept of a vast, wonderfully harmonized physical machine) to conjecture to what extent this matchless physical harmony tended to challenge him with the possibility of discovering a parallel economic machine operating according to immutable laws capable of proof and human adaptability.
O. H. Taylor has shown that "The evolution of the idea of 'laws' in economics has closely paralleled its evolution in the natural sciences."[i-245]In searching for these economic constants, "the economic mechanism was regarded as a wise device of the Creator for causing individuals, while pursuing only their own interests, to promote the prosperity of society; and for causing the right adjustment to one another of supplies, demand, prices, and incomes, to take place automatically, in consequence of the free action of all individuals."[i-246]After giving due weight to the fact that Franklin saw in the doctrine of the physiocrats trenchant arguments to buttress his attacks on British mercantilism, one has cogent evidence for at least raising the question, To what extent may his apprehension of a demonstrable physical harmony have suggested to his speculative mind an economic analogy?[i-247]
Plague of the Pennsylvania proprietaries, propagandist of the American Revolution, moderator of the Constitutional Convention, Franklin was all through his life a politician and statesman in an age characterized above all by political speculations and changes in the destiny of states. Colonial patriot, "arch rebel of King George III," "idol of the court of Versailles," Franklin was a cyclopedia of political strategy and principles. Only through a genetic survey of Franklin the political theorist can one hope to understand his mind as he changed from imperialist, to revolutionist, to the patriarch of the Constitutional Convention who, like a balance wheel, moderated the extreme party factions.
In the early 1720's, Franklin had breathed a Boston air saturated with discontent between the royal governor and the governed. By 1730 he was printer to the Pennsylvania Assembly and in 1736 was appointed clerk to that body. Yet one learns little of his political biases until 1747, when he publishedPlain Truth. In 1729 he genially asserted that he was "no Party-man,"[i-248]and in 1746 temperately stated,
Free from the bitter Rage of Party Zeal,All those we love who seek the publick Weal.[i-249]
Free from the bitter Rage of Party Zeal,All those we love who seek the publick Weal.[i-249]
HisPlain Truth(November, 1747), directed against the proprietary governor as well as against the Quaker assembly, showed Franklin a party man only if one dedicated to "the publick weal" was a party man. With all respect for the Quaker conscience which checks military activity, Franklin could not, however, condone its virtually prohibiting others from defendingthe province's border. And the proprietaries had shown an inveterate unwillingness to arm Pennsylvania—a reluctance which did not, however, prevent them from collecting taxes and quitrents. On other questions the governor and his chiefs had to contend with the opposition of the assembly. Without opposition, the proprietary government could serenely kennel itself in its medieval privilege of remaining dumb to an urgent need: one remembers that eighteenth-century proprietary colonies were "essentially feudal principalities, upon the grantees of which were bestowed all the inferior regalities and subordinate powers of legislation which formerly belonged to the counts palatine, while provision was also made for the maintenance of sovereignty in the king [the king paid little attention to Pennsylvania], and for the realization of the objects of the grant."[i-250]While the government remained inert, Pennsylvania would be a pawn in the steeled hands of the French and their rum-subsidized Indian mercenaries. Appealing to Scripture and common sense, Franklin pleaded for "Order, Discipline, and a few Cannon."[i-251]Not untruthfully he warned that "we are like the separate Filaments of Flax before the Thread is form'd, without Strength, because without Connection, butUnionwould make us strong, and even formidable."[i-252]Since war existed, there was no need to consider him a militarist because he challenged, "The Way to secure Peace is to be prepared for War."[i-253]In the midst ofPlain TruthFranklin uttered what onlybeforethe time of Locke could be interpreted in terms of feudalcomitatus: he entreated his readers to consider, "if not as Friends, at least as Legislators, thatProtectionis as truly due from the Government to the People, asObediencefrom the People to the Government."[i-254]Suggestive of the contract theory, this is revolutionary only in a very elementaryway. With the French writhing under the Treaty of Paris, with appeals to natural rights and the right of revolution, this once harmless principle took on Gargantuan significance. But Thomas Penn anticipated wisely enough the ultimate implication of Franklin's paper; Penn intuitively saw the march of time: "Mr. Franklin's doctrine that obedience to governors is no more due them than protection to the people, is not fit to be in the heads of the unthinking multitude. He is a dangerous man and I should be glad if he inhabited any other country, as I believe him of a very uneasy spirit. However, as he is a sort of tribune of the people, he must be treated with regard."[i-255]It is difficult to see how Franklin's passion for order and provincial union,[i-256]obviously necessary, could have been considered so illiberally subversive of the government. By 1747 Franklin had read inTelemachusthat kings exist for the people, not the people for the kings; he must have read Locke's justification of the "Glorious Revolution" and have become aware of the impetus it gave to the British authority of consent in its subsequent constitutional history.
After his first political pamphlet, he widened his horizon from provincial to colonial affairs. Two years before the London Board of Trade demanded that colonial governors hold a conference with the Iroquois, Franklin seems to have devised plans for uniting the several colonies. He was aware of the narrow particularism shown by the provinces; he knew also that since "Governors are often on ill Terms with their Assemblies," no concerted military efforts could be achieved without a militaryfederation.[i-257]One remembers that as soon as he could think politically he was an imperialist, a lesser William Pitt, and in hisIncrease of Mankind(1751) could gloat over an envisioned thickly populated America—"What an Accession of Power to theBritishEmpire by Sea as well as Land!"[i-258]When the Board of Trade, after British efforts to bring the colonies together had failed, demanded that something be done, Franklin was appointed one of the commissioners to meet at Albany in 1754. Like Franklin, Governor Glen had admitted that the colonies were "a Rope of Sand ... loose and inconnected."[i-259]Franklin's plan, adopted by the commissioners, called for a Governor-General "appointed by the king" and a Grand Council made up of members chosen by the Assembly of each of the colonies, the Governor "to have a negation on all acts of the Grand Council, and carry into execution whatever is agreed on by him and that Council."[i-260]Surely not a very auspicious beginning for one who later was to favor the legislative over the executive functions of state. The plan included the powers of making Indian treaties of peace and war, of regulating Indian trade and Indian purchases, of stimulating the settling of new lands, of making laws to govern new areas, of raising soldiers, of laying general duties, et cetera.[i-261]But Franklin did not minimize the lack of cohesion of the colonies. We recollect that "in 1755, at a timewhen their very existence was threatened by the French, Massachusetts and New York engaged in a bitter boundary controversy leading to riot and bloodshed."[i-262]The colonies refused to ratify the plan—"their weak Noddles are perfectly distracted,"[i-263]wrote Franklin. He was probably right when he observed in 1789 that had the plan been adopted "the subsequent Separation of the Colonies from the Mother Country might not so soon have happened."[i-264]The sending of British regulars to America and the resulting efforts at taxation were not least among the sparks which set off the Revolution.
Franklin'sThree Letters to Governor Shirley(1754), while expressing no credulous views of the wisdom of the people, maintained in one breath that the colonists were loyal to the Constitution and Crown as ever colonists were and in another that "it is supposed an undoubted right of Englishmen, not to be taxed but by their own consent given through their representatives."[i-265](Shirley had apparently written that the Council in the Albany Plan should be appointed by England, and not by the colonial assemblies.) Franklin held for the colonists' right to English civil liberty and the right to enjoy the Constitution. Here again we find a factor later magnified into one of the major causes of the Revolution.
In addition to being lethargic in the defense of the Pennsylvania borders, the proprietor refused "to be taxed except for a trifling Part of his Estate, the Quitrents, located unimprov'd Lands, Money at Interest, etc., etc., being exempted by Instructions to the Governor."[i-266]Thereupon Franklin turned fromcolonial affairs (which had indeed proved obstinate) to pressing local matters, when in 1757 he was appointed agent to go to London to demand that the proprietor submit his estates to be taxed. In theReport of the Committee of Aggrievances of the Assembly of Pennsylvania[i-267](Feb. 22, 1757) it was charged that the proprietor had violated the royal charter and the colonists' civil rights as Englishmen, and had abrogated their natural rights, rights "inherent in every man, antecedent to all laws."[i-268]Later it was but a short step from provincial matters to colonial rights of revolution. In thisReportwe see Franklin associated for the first time expressly with the throne-and-altar-defying concept of natural rights.
Although we have yet to review the evidence which shows that Franklin at one stage in his political career was an arch-imperialist, we need to digress to observe an intellectual factor which, if only fragmentarily expressed in his political thought during his activities in behalf of Pennsylvania liberties, was to become a momentous sanction when during the war he became a diplomat of revolution. From the Stoics, from Cicero, Grotius, Puffendorf, Burlamaqui, and as Rev. Jonathan Mayhew[i-269]observes, from Plato and Demosthenes, from Sidney, Milton, Hoadley, and Locke; in addition, from Gordon and Trenchard (seeCato's LettersandThe Independent Whig), Blackstone, Coke—from these and many others, the colonists derived a pattern of thought known as natural rights, dependent on natural law.[i-270]There is no better summary of natural rightsthan the Declaration of Independence; and of it John Adams remarked: "There is not an idea in it but what has been hackneyed in Congress for two years before."[i-271]Carl Becker pointedly observes: "Where Jefferson got his ideas is hardly so much a question as where he could have got away from them."[i-272]A characteristic summary of natural law may be found in Blackstone'sCommentaries:[i-273]