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Reason and Power in Benjamin Franklin's Political Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Gerald Stourzh
Gerald Stourzh
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Extract

Perhaps no period of modern history has been more a victim of generalization than the Age of Enlightenment. The worship of reason and progress and belief in the essential goodness and perfectibility of human nature are most commonly associated with the 18th century climate of opinion. Many of the stereotypes which have been applied to it have automatically been transferred to Benjamin Franklin. Already to contemporaries of his old age, Franklin seemed the very personification of the Age of Reason. Condorcet, who had known Franklin personally, summed up his description of Franklin's political career as follows: “In a word, his politics were those of a man who believed in the power of reason and the reality of virtue.” In Germany, an admirer was even more enthusiastic: “Reason and virtue, made possible through reason alone, consequently again reason and nothing but reason, is the magic with which Benjamin Franklin conquered heaven and earth.” This is also the judgment of posterity. F. L. Mott and Chester E. Jorgensen, who have so far presented the most acute analysis of Franklin's thought and its relationship to the intellectual history of his time, do not hesitate to call him “the completest colonial representative” of the Age of Enlightenment. Unanimous agreement seems to exist that Franklin was “in tune with his time.”

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , December 1953 , pp. 1092 - 1115
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1953

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References

1 Oeuvres du Marquis de Condorcet, eds. O'Connor, A. Condorcet and Arago, M. F., 2nd ed., 12 vols. (Paris, 1847–1849), Vol. 3, p. 420Google Scholar.

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4 Becker, Carl, review of the Franklin Institute's Meet Dr. Franklin, in American Historical Review, Vol. 50, p. 142 (Oct., 1944)Google Scholar. Cf. Henry Steele Commager's statement that it was the faith in reason which gave unity to Franklin's life. “Franklin, the American”, review of Van Doren's, CarlBenjamin, Franklin, in New York Times Book Review, Oct. 9, 1938, p. 1Google Scholar. Charles A. Beard explicitly referred to Franklin as an outstanding example of American writers on progress. Introduction to Bury, J. B., The Idea of Progress (New York, 1932), p. xxxviiGoogle Scholar.

5 Even after having achieved world-wide fame as a natural philosopher, he observed that we deserve reprehension if “we neglect the Knowledge and Practice of essential Duties” in order to attain eminence in the knowledge of nature. The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Smyth, Henry Albert, 10 vols. (New York, 1905–1907), Vol. 4, p. 22Google Scholar. (Hereafter cited as Writings.)

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7 Parton, James, Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, 2d ed., 2 vols. (Boston, 1897), Vol. I, p. 160Google Scholar. See also Writings, Vol. 2, p. 89Google Scholar. The authors who so far have most closely scrutinized Franklin's political thought do not see the relevance of many of the younger Franklin's remarks on human nature, arbitrary government, or the nature of political dispute to his concept of politics. See Eiselen, M. R., Franklin's Political Theories (Garden City, N. Y., 1928), p. 13Google Scholar; Miles, R. D., “The Political Philosophy of Benjamin Franklin”, unpub. diss. (Univ. of Michigan, 1949), p. 36Google Scholar; Benjamin Franklin, Representative Selections (cited in note 3), p. lxxxii. The most recent work in this field, Rossiter's, Clinton “The Political Theory of Benjamin Franklin”, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 76, pp. 259–93 (July, 1952)Google Scholar, pays no attention to Franklin's conception of human nature and his attitude towards the problem of power and the ends of political life. Rossiter's contention (p. 268) is that Franklin “limited his own thought process to the one devastating question: Does it work?, or more exactly, Does it work well?” Franklin, however, like everybody else, had certain ends and goals in view, and the question “Does it work?” is meaningless without the context of certain basic desiderata.

8 This little work has been omitted in the Smyth edition of Franklin's writings, because “the work has no value, and it would be an injury and an offence to the memory of Franklin to republish it.” Writings, Vol. 2, p. viGoogle Scholar. I t is, however, reprinted as an appendix to Parton, op. cit., Vol. 1, and has since been republished independently with a bibliographical note by Lawrence C. Wroth (New York, 1930).

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11 Willey, Basil, The Eighteenth Century Background (London, 1940)Google Scholar, Ch. 3, passim.

12 Pope's epitaph intended for Newton's tomb.

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14 See Lovejoy, A. O., The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, Mass., 1936)Google Scholar. This brilliant analysis of that complex of ideas has been applied to Franklin only once, although it offers important clues for an understanding of Franklin's conception of human nature. Pitt, Arthur Stuart in “The Sources, Significance, and Date of Franklin's ‘An Arabian Tale’”, Publications of the Modern Language Association, Vol. 57, pp. 155–68 (03, 1942)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, applies Lovejoy's analysis to one piece of Franklin's and does not refer to relevant writings of Franklin's youth in which this idea may also be found. Pitt's article is valuable in pointing out the sources from which Franklin could have accepted the idea directly, namely Locke, Milton, Addison, and Pope.

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72 Writings, Vol. 5, p. 204Google Scholar. See also Vol. 5, p. 261. Another sign of Franklin's antiradical attitude during his stay in England is his disgust with the Wilkes case. See Writings, Vol. 5, pp. 121, 133, 134, and 150Google Scholar. Also Letters and Papers of Benjamin Franklin and Richard Jackson, 1753–1785, ed. Van Doren, Carl (Philadelphia, 1947), p. 139Google Scholar.

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79 “Constitutional Reform” (1805), ibid., pp. 998–99.

80 Writings, Vol. 3, p. 231Google Scholar. See also p. 309.

81 Writings, Vol. 9, pp. 564, 702Google Scholar. In 1788, Franklin repeatedly said that there was at present the “danger of too little obedience in the governed,” although in general the opposite evil of “giving too much power to our governors” was more dreaded. Writings, Vol. 9, p. 638Google Scholar; and Vol. 10, p. 7.

82 Writings, Vol. 9, p. 593Google Scholar.

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85 “Queries and Remarks …“, Writings, Vol. 10, pp. 58–61Google Scholar. For Franklin's disagreement with the bicameral system of the United States Constitution, see Writings, Vol. 9, pp. 645, 674Google Scholar. The paradox of Franklin's attitude is thrown into relief if one considers that even Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, raised his voice against the dangers of an “elective despotism,” and exalted “those benefits” which a “proper complication of principles” would produce. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Ford, Paul Leicester (New York and London, 1904–1905), Vol. 4, p. 19Google Scholar.

86 April 14, 1767, in the William L. Clements Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

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90 Benjamin Vaughan to Lord Shelburne, November 24, 1782. Benjamin Vaughan Papers in the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia. Photostat in the Benjamin Vaughan Collection in the William L. Clements Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

91 Writings, Vol. 9, p. 138 (written in 1783)Google Scholar. See also Vol. 10, p. 59.

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95 Benjamin Franklin's Letters to the Press (cited in note 55), p. 193; Writings, Vol. 2, p. 56Google Scholar; Vol. 3, p. 228. See also Vol. 3, 231; Vol. 5, p. 79.

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101 Ibid., pp. 12, 13.

102 Writings, Vol. 6, p. 87Google Scholar.

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