NEW SOLIDARITY

January 19, 1981

Page 4

COMMENTARY

Franklin's 275th Birthday: Creating a Republican Citizenry

by Graham and Pam Lowry

Benjamin Franklin, the real Founding Father of the United States. Above, Franklin's motto, "Join, or Die," which circulated in newspapers throughout the colonies in 1754-1755.

As this nation enters a new year with an opportunity to revive the American System upon which the republic was founded, it is especially appropriate to honor its real Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin, whose 275th birthday will be celebrated Jan. 17. For Americans today, there are important lessons in Franklin's enduring accomplishmentthe creation of a responsible, republican citizenry, and ultimately a constitutional government guaranteeing its freedom to act on

behalf of the nation. The new administration of Ronald Reagan owes its very existence to a resurgence of that quality of responsibility in the American electorate, who acted to ensure the removal of Jimmy Carter and other promoters of the policies which devastated the United States for the last four years. During his presidential campaign. Reagan repeatedly invoked and pledged to revive American republican tradition, citing statements of principle and purpose by leading figures as far back as Massachusetts first governor, John Winthrop. Especially in the current, grave crisis threatening the United States, the primary obligation of the American people is to impose a renewed commitment to the policies of moral and scientific progress exemplified by Benjamin Franklin. Building a Republican Citizenry Franklin's dedication to the task of educating and organizing a republican citizenry defined an active career spanning fully two-thirds of the 18th century. In the face of the British monarchy's unyielding insistence on policies of exploitation and enforced underdevelopment of the American colonies, Franklin's task became the establishment of a sovereign nationstate as well. While his domestic statesmanship and international diplomacy during and after the American Revolution are better known, the principles and methods by which he laid the foundations of the American Republic were dramatically demonstrated even by the 1750s. By the time of the Albany Convention of 1754, convened at Britain's request to organize colonial assistance in the expected renewal of war with France, Franklin was able to put forth a plan for uniting the colonies under a central government with de facto sovereignty to assure their future settlement and economic development. This was no mere paper proposal, as the British recognized in rejecting it, for behind it lay more than a quarter-century of Franklin's efforts to educate and politically arm the citizenry necessary to implementing it. In 1727, four years after arriving in Philadelphia from his native Boston, Franklin founded the "Junto," the task-oriented research and educational body which became in his words "the best school of philosophy and politics that then existed in the province." Functioning as an executive command for a network of similar clubs formed under it, the Junto reached broadly into the population of Philadelphia to educate and organize it around policies

necessary to public improvement. In 1731 these efforts resulted in the creation of the first public subscription library in America, a crucial institution in an era when the scarcity and expense of books cut most people off from the knowledge required for effective citizenship. Franklin's professional role as a printer and publisher was also dedicated to broadening the dissemination of knowledge. Beginning in 1732, his "Poor Richard's Almanac" circulated to households throughout the colonies for a quarter-century, popularizing new scientific discoveries and applications, including Franklin's own work in electricity. In addition to his prestigious "Pennsylvania Gazette," Franklin oversaw the establishment and handpicked the editors of a network of newspapers extending into colonies in both the North and the South. Franklin repeatedly used his publications and the added leadership capabilities of the Junto to rally public support for implementing new policies. In 1729 an organizing drive spearheaded by his treatise "On the Nature and Necessity of Paper Currency" forced the Pennsylvania General Assembly to adopt his credit-generating currency proposals, which led to an impressive expansion of that colony's economy. A National Elite Franklin was determined to organize a republican elite to foster scientifically competent leadership on a national scale. In 1744 he established the American Philosophical Society, recreating the earlier institution founded by Increase Mather in Franklin's native Massachusetts. In proposing this society "to increase the power of man over matter," Franklin specified that in addition to theoretical science, it must investigate new methods for improving the economy. He directed attention to new agricultural and mining methods, geological and geographic surveying, "new discoveries in chemistry . . . new mechanical inventions for saving labor . . . raising and conveying of water, draining of meadows, etc. all new arts, trades, and manufactures, that may be proposed or thought of." To further correct what he perceived as a decline in intellectual culture from the level of the early English settlers. Franklin initiated the founding of the Pennsylvania Academy in 1749, placing major emphasis on developing the skills for the practical tasks of building a nation. In his published proposal for this institution, which later became the University of Pennsylvania. Franklin intriguingly observes :

The History of Commerce, of the Invention of Arts, Rise of Manufactures, Progress of Trade, Causes, etc. may also be made entertaining to Youth, and will be useful to all. And this, with the Accounts in other History of the prodigious Force and the Effect of Engines and Machines used in War, will naturally introduce a Desire to be instructed in Mechanicks, and to be inform'd of the Principles of that Art by which weak Men perform such Wonders, Labour is sav'd, Manufactures expedited, etc. Franklin Takes Command A master political strategist, Franklin advanced many of his projects, despite growing hostility from the British monarchy and its colonial agents, in the name of more efficient administration of His Majesty's colonies. Under this persuasive reasoning, Franklin took command of the colonies' postal service and coordinated their military capabilities. Appointed postmaster of Philadelphia in 1737, by 1753 Franklin became colonial Postmaster General. He revolutionized colonial communications, and simultaneously became indispensable to every local official and merchant in the colonies whose activities depended on informed coordination with other centers of government and commerce. With this authority and the uniquely comprehensive political intelligence that went with it, Franklin assumed the leading responsibility for organizing a common policy for the colonies. Uniting the Colonies The primary official concern then fostering intercolonial cooperation was military defense, an issue fed by the predictions of renewed war between Britain and France in the early 1750s, as well as by ongoing fears of Indian attacks. In late 1753, after a tour of New England using the cover of his postmaster generalship to organize political support, Franklin mobilized his vast press network in a campaign to unify the colonies. The Pennsylvania Gazette and allied newspapers throughout the colonies carried Franklin's famous cartoon, used repeatedly for the American Revolution, of a serpent cut into segments representing the individual colonies, with the caption "Join, or Die!"

In early 1754, a British directive was issued to the colonial governors to send delegates to Albany to meet in June with the Iroquois Confederation of Indian tribes to discuss common defense against the French in case of war. When the Albany Convention met on June 19, Franklin's closest friend. Massachusetts Gov. William Shirley, instructed his delegates to back an alliance for general defense and measures to promote the common interest of the colonies "in both peace and war." Franklin put forth an ambitious program designed to capitalize on British dependence on the American role in Britain's strategic crisis with France. Sovereignty Advanced The convention recommended the creation of the office of "PresidentGeneral" to be appointed by the King, and a congress, or "Grand Council," elected by the colonial assemblies. The proposed government would make all treaties with the Indians, govern new settlements pending their royal chartering as colonies, and establish an army and navy for common defense and protection of trade. In a broad assertion of sovereignty, the Albany Convention also recommended that the general government be empowered to collect import duties and internal taxes, with the revenues to be deposited in the colonial treasuries and their allocation subject only to the orders of the general government. Knowing full well the republican potential that Franklin and his allies had created in the American people, the British rejected the Albany proposals. But as Britain mobilized for its war with France, Franklin turned every British demand for assistance into a campaign for an effective central government for America. Meantime, his press maintained steady praise for Colonel Washington, who was pushing back the French in the West. To Britain's dismay, the war mobilized and nationalized the republican citizenry that Franklin had devoted himself to creating. Well before a peace was officially concluded in 1763, the British monarchy was faced with an American population determined to take the responsibility for history into its own hands.