FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN
As the only person to have signed the three most significant founding documents of the United States—the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE (1776), the TREATY OF PARIS (1783), and the U.S. Constitution (1787)—Benjamin Franklin holds a revered place in the history of U.S. law.
Through his great success as a newspaper publisher, journalist, writer, civic leader, scientist, politician, and diplomat, and as an inventor, Franklin became an international celebrity in his day and an icon of the American character to later generations.
Franklin’s varied career had a lasting effect on U.S. law and politics.As a leading local figure, he established and shaped many of the fundamental institutions of Philadelphia and colonial Pennsylvania. Before the Revolutionary War (1775–83), Franklin served as envoy to Great Britain for several colonies. Though he first advocated reconciliation with Britain, he eventually supported the cause of American independence. He was assigned the task of securing an alliance with France during the war, and his
political skill and prestige helped gain vital sup-
port for his young country as it fought the
world’s greatest military power. After the war,
Franklin used his diplomatic ingenuity to nego-
tiate a successful peace treaty with Britain.
Franklin also helped persuade the Constitu-
tional Convention of 1787 to reach important
compromises on the particulars of the Constitu-
tion, and his support of that document greatly
improved its chances of ratification.
Franklin was born January 17, 1706, in
Boston, into a devout Puritan household. His
only formal education consisted of two years of
grammar school, after which he began work for
his father, who was a tallow chandler, or candle
maker. At age twelve, he was apprenticed to his
half-brother, James Franklin, a printer and the
founder of the New England Courant, the fourth
newspaper established in the British colonies. In
his teenage years, Franklin began to improve
himself by reading on his own, including the
works of such authors as John Bunyan, Plutarch,
Daniel Defoe, Cotton Mather, Joseph Addison,
and JOHN LOCKE. Franklin employed his literary
talents early, and wrote for the Courant articles
satirizing Boston life and politics. He became a
manager of the newspaper, but then abruptly
moved to Philadelphia in 1723 after disagree-
ments with his brother.
Franklin arrived in Philadelphia at age sev-
enteen with only one Dutch dollar and a copper
shilling in his pocket. He found work in a print
shop and prospered enough to start his own
printing business in 1728. In 1730, Franklin
became sole owner of the Pennsylvania Gazette,
which he transformed from a failing enterprise into a very influential newspaper. He also had
success in other publishing ventures, including
Poor Richard’s Almanack (1732–57), an annual
that presented practical information, satire,
proverbs, and aphorisms. In 1730, Franklin mar-
ried Deborah Read, with whom he had two chil-
dren. He also had two illegitimate children, one
of whom,William Franklin, later became gover-
nor of New Jersey.
In 1727, still a rising young businessman,
Franklin formed a club of tradesmen called the
Junto, which met each week for discussion. This
group became highly influential in the life of
Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. Under his lead-
ership, it founded a circulating library, the first
of its kind in the colonies, in Philadelphia in
1731; the American Philosophical Society in
1743; a city hospital in 1751; and an academy
that developed into the University of Pennsylva-
nia. Franklin led the group in making many
other civic improvements as well.
In 1748, now wealthy from his printing and
publishing interests, Franklin retired from busi-
ness. He devoted the rest of his life to natural
philosophy, writing, politics, and diplomacy. In
the area of natural philosophy, or science,
Franklin’s ingenuity and curiosity gained him
world renown as both an inventor and a theo-
retician. He designed an improved stove, later
dubbed the Franklin stove, that was widely used,
as well as bifocal glasses and a new type of clock.
He began to study electricity in 1746. His ideas
and experiments on this subject—including the famous experiment that involved a kite with a metal key attached to it—identified the electrical nature of lightning. His work with electricity gained him many honorary degrees, including membership in the Royal Society in 1756 and in the French Academy of Sciences in 1772.He also developed a theory of heat absorption and was among the first to describe the Gulf Stream ocean current.
Franklin’s study of natural philosophy was interrupted by an involvement in politics and
diplomacy that ultimately dominated the last
part of his life. In Pennsylvania, he was a member
of the Quaker party, which sought to democra-
tize the colony’s politics and wrest power from its
original founders, the Penn family. He served as
a representative to the Pennsylvania Assembly
from 1751 to 1764. In 1754, he represented Penn-
sylvania at the Albany Congress, which had been
called to unite the colonies in a war against the
French and Indians. There, he unsuccessfully
presented the Plan of Union, which would have
established partial self-government for the
colonies. The British did not approve of
Franklin’s plan because they felt it gave too much
power to the colonies, and the colonial assem-
blies rejected it because they felt it gave the
British monarch too much power. Franklin also
shared with another person the office of deputy
postmaster for the colonies, from 1753 to 1774.
In this office, he did a great deal to increase the
frequency and efficiency of mail delivery.
Franklin began a long and successful diplo-
matic career when he went to England in 1757 as
the agent of the Pennsylvania Assembly. He
remained in Britain through 1762 and met
many leading figures of British society, includ-
ing the philosopher DAVID HUME and the author
Dr. Samuel Johnson. After spending two more
years in Pennsylvania, he returned to England in
1764 to serve again as the Pennsylvania Assem-
bly’s agent, and remained in Britain as an agent
for various colonies in turn, until 1775. During
his years abroad, he witnessed firsthand the
growing rift between Britain and the colonies.
In the controversy over the 1765 STAMP ACT,
Franklin emerged as the American colonies’ chief
spokesperson and defender. The act imposed a tax
on publications and papers and provoked an out-
rage in the colonies.As the first of a series of major
