The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin (138 page)

“It is the first time I have been questioned upon it,” Franklin replied.

Here is my creed. I believe in one God, creator of the universe. That he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental principles of all sound religion, and I regard them as you do [Stiles shared Franklin’s tolerance] in whatever sect I meet with them.

As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as it probably has, of making his doctrines more respected and better observed, especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure.

I shall only add, respecting myself, that, having experienced the goodness of that Being in conducting me prosperously through a long life, I have no doubt of its continuance in the next, though without the smallest conceit of meriting such goodness.

To this Franklin added a postscript requesting that Stiles not publish this letter, which doubtless would upset the orthodox. “I have ever let others enjoy their religious sentiments, without reflecting on them for those that appeared to me unsupportable and even absurd. All sects here, and we have a great variety, have experienced my good will in assisting them with subscriptions for building their new places of worship; and as I have never opposed any of their doctrines, I hope to go out of the world in peace with them all.”

His flagging
strength did not diminish his zest for political combat. He continued to seek to expand the scope of human liberty, and he
resisted efforts to diminish it. Propertied groups were trying to revise the Pennsylvania constitution to grant special privileges to property; Franklin responded much as before: “Is it supposed that wisdom is the necessary concomitant of riches?” Far from claiming special privileges, property ought to accept special responsibilities. He recapitulated his earlier argument about the origins of property, and asserted, “Private property therefore is a creature of society, and is subject to the calls of that society, whenever its necessities shall require it, even to its last farthing.”

He entered the fight over the college. “I am the only one of the original trustees now living, and I am just stepping into the grave myself,” he declared, by way of reintroducing himself to the debate over what the young scholars should learn. As at the founding, he rejected the teaching of Latin and Greek to any but specialized scholars as an anachronism from an age that knew no other literature. Referring to the French habit of carrying hats on the arm, simply as ornaments, long after wigs displaced them from French pates, Franklin dubbed the vestigial teaching of the classics “the
chapeau bras
of modern literature.”

He left the field of combat as he had entered it seven decades before—leading with his pen and his wit. In February 1790 he forwarded an antislavery petition to Congress. “Mankind are all formed by the same Almighty Being, alike objects of his care, and equally designed for the enjoyment of happiness,” the petition read. At a time when the “spirit of philanthropy and genuine liberty” was abroad in America, a legislature explicitly chartered to secure the blessings of liberty to the American people could not ignore this gross denial of liberty to slaves. “These blessings ought rightfully to be administered without distinction of colour to all descriptions of people.” To tolerate any less was to contradict the meaning of the Revolution. “Equal liberty was originally the portion, and is still the birthright of all men.” Americans of goodwill looked to Congress for “the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men who alone in this land of freedom are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who amidst the general joy of surrounding freemen groan in servile subjection.”

This petition, and the fact that it arrived over Franklin’s signature, prompted Representative James Jackson of Georgia to leap to the defense of slavery. The Bible endorsed slavery, he said, as well it might, for it allowed the bringing of barbarians to the Gospel. If not slaves, who would work the fields of the south? The abolitionists should be silenced as subversive of social order.

Jackson delivered himself into Franklin’s hands. Franklin wrote to
the
Federal Gazette
to say that the congressman’s speech “put me in mind of a similar one made about 100 years since by Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim, a member of the Divan of Algiers.” For the benefit of the readers of the
Gazette,
Franklin reproduced Ibrahim’s speech, which decried attempts to ban Barbary piracy and free the Christians enslaved as a result. The speech, of course, was a hoax, but, as with Franklin’s other hoaxes, the bait went down before the barb was felt. Franklin took the arguments of such American apologists for African slavery as Jackson and placed them in the mouths of Muslim apologists for piracy and Christian slavery. “If we cease our cruises against the Christians, how shall we be furnished with the commodities their countries produce, and which are so necessary for us? If we forbear to make slaves of their people, who in this hot climate are to cultivate our lands?” To emancipate the Christian slaves would deprive them of continued exposure to the true Muslim faith, “sending them out of Light in Darkness.” And so on, to a conclusion derisively parallel to that reached by Jackson: “Let us then hear no more of this detestable proposition, the manumission of Christian slaves.”

Though
the pen was still sharp, the hand that held it was failing. Franklin’s friends and colleagues wrote what they and he knew to be their farewells. “Would to God, my dear Sir,” declared Washington, “that I could congratulate you upon the removal of that excruciating pain under which you labour, and that your existence might close with as much ease to yourself as its continuance has been to our country and useful to mankind.” If the united wishes of Americans, and the prayers of all friends of science and humanity, could effect a cure, then Franklin would indeed be cured. Sadly, such could not be. Yet Franklin should rest easy in mind if he could not rest easy in body.

If to be venerated for benevolence, if to be admired for talents, if to be esteemed for patriotism, if to be beloved for philanthropy, can gratify the human mind, you must have the pleasing consolation to know that you have not lived in vain. And I flatter myself that it will not be ranked among the least grateful occurrences of your life to be assured that, so long as I retain my memory, you will be recollected with respect, veneration, and affection by your sincere friend,

George Washington

In March 1790 Franklin received a visit from Jefferson. The former minister to France was on his way from Monticello to New York, to take up his new post as Washington’s secretary of state. “At Philadelphia I called on the venerable and beloved Franklin,” Jefferson recorded. The two shared stories of friends in France, with Jefferson supplying the latest intelligence as to how they were surviving the revolution there. “He went over all in succession, with a rapidity and animation almost too much for his strength.” Jefferson expressed pleasure that Franklin had committed as much of his life story to paper as he had; the world would greatly benefit from reading it. “I cannot say much of that,” replied Franklin, “but I will give you a sample of what I shall leave.” Thereupon he instructed his grandson William Bache to hand Jefferson the account he had written aboard ship on the way back from London in 1775, regarding the failed negotiations with Lord Howe. Jefferson said he would gratefully read it, then return it. Franklin insisted he keep it. “Not certain of his meaning,” Jefferson recounted, “I again looked into it, folded it for my pocket, and said again I would certainly return it. ‘No,’ said he, ‘keep it.’” Not till later did Jefferson realize this was the only copy of a crucial account of the last moment when separation between Britain and the American colonies might have been averted.

Early in April, Franklin showed signs of a pulmonary infection. Whether this was related to the pleurisy he had suffered earlier in his life was (and is) unknown. His general inactivity did not help matters, nor the opium, which in its sedative influence prevented the full expansion of the lungs. He ran a fever, his breathing grew heavy, and he developed a painful cough. Yet he remained remarkably alert and good-humored.

Benjamin Rush, Franklin’s greatest admirer among Philadelphians, and a physician, attended his friend during the final days. “The evening of his life was marked by the same activity of his moral and intellectual powers which distinguished its meridian,” Rush noted. On April 8 Franklin dictated a letter—his last—to Jefferson, displaying his continued command of important details of the peace negotiations with Britain. As his strength ebbed further, he accepted his approaching end with characteristic—and characteristically wry—equanimity. “His conversation with his family upon the subject of his dissolution was free and cheerful. A few days before he died, he rose from his bed and begged that it might be made up so that he might die ‘in a decent manner.’ His daughter told him that she hoped he would recover and live many years longer. He calmly replied he hoped not. Upon being advised to change
his position in bed that he might breathe easy, he said, ‘A dying man can do nothing
easy.’”

Briefly before the end his symptoms abated. Sally and some of the others allowed themselves optimism. But then the abscess that had been growing in his lung burst, and in his weakened condition he could not expel the fluid. He slipped into unconsciousness, and at eleven o’clock on the night of April 17, 1790, three months after his eighty-fourth birthday, with his grandsons Temple and Benny at his bed, he quietly died.

Epilogue
April 17, 1990

Franklin’s friends could have predicted that his ingenuity would not die with him, nor his concern for his fellow citizens. Yet few anticipated the ingenious bequest he left the two cities of his American life. True to his conviction that elected officials in a republic should not be paid, he had refused to accept his salary as president of Pennsylvania. Some of this money he had already devoted to various public purposes; the £2,000 that remained due him he set aside for two special revolving funds, one for Boston, the other for Philadelphia. Recalling the loans that had allowed him to commence his printing career, he directed that these funds were to be lent at 5-percent