Benjamin Franklin Study Guide: Success for America, Fame for Franklin

Commentary

Franklin's last years were a whirlwind of activity. He got busier and busier–negotiating with France, negotiating with Britain, helping to write the Constitution, running Pennsylvania, fighting against slavery. Through it all he kept up his essays, letters, experiments and observations. He was well into his seventies, then eighties, suffering from boils, gout, and bladder stones. Still, he kept working.

Franklin's role in bringing the French into the war was crucial. The French had wondered about how seriously Americans wanted independence, but in Franklin they had confidence. Franklin's skill also helped America negotiate a peace treaty with Britain that was more generous than most people had expected or hoped for. His role in the Constitutional Convention, though limited, was also critical. The delegates might never have reached an agreement on the question of representation without his help. In all of these jobs he showed the talents of persuasion. This, perhaps, is how he is best remembered: not as scientist or leader, politician or colonel, but as a persuader. He persuaded Samuel Keimer to take him in as a destitute boy and never stopped persuading people after that. He even persuades us–to see him as he wants us to see him, through the distorted lens of his Autobiography. Most people today think of Franklin as a jolly scientist and self-made man. He was these things, but also much more.

Franklin was quite a romancer–his reputation among the ladies of Paris was notorious. He was a chameleon, taking on whatever pseudonym and attitude was most useful for accomplishing his aims. He was a ruthless businessman and social climber. Yet he was also friend of the common man, a tireless do-gooder who hated greed and dishonesty. He preached the gospel of prosperity but never tried to get rich himself. He was a patriot who loved all of humanity. In short, he was a complicated person with many sides, a man who changed many times over his long life. He presented himself to the world, and to history, as a simple man, but he was hardly simple.

Franklin's attempts to control and manipulate his image were part of a lifelong attempt to influence people. He was a master of public relations, the first in a long line of American spin-doctors. Some people, then and now, resented his talents and have tried to "unmask" an evil and calculating person beneath Franklin's benevolent exterior. These attempts have mostly failed. We will probably never quite know the "real" Franklin and never be able to separate the myth from the history. Yet myth, especially in Franklin's case, is itself part of history. We can only be completely sure of one thing: Franklin was one of the most remarkable people America and the world has ever known.

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