Worldly Philosophers Club

The Worldly Philosophers, Vol.1, Number 9	June 10, 2007
THE Worldly Philosophers Club For Individualists Who Seek Worldly Wisdom

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LESSONS FROM THE MULTI-TALENTED FOUNDER:
BEN FRANKLIN ON MONEY, FAMILY, AND PATRIOTISM
By Mark Skousen

Mark Skousen along with Ralph Archbald (aka Ben Franklin) unveil the four commemorative stamps
honoring Benjamin Franklin's 300th birthday (Philadelphia, April, 2006)

Dear Worldly Philosophers,

Benjamin Franklin’s success as an entrepreneur, inventor, civil servant, and philosopher-wit is documented in his Autobiography, required reading for high school students. In many ways, Franklin was the ultimate worldly philosopher. In the 19th century, when the book was first released, great business leaders such as Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Mellon boasted success in life after reading his inspiring rags-to-riches story. Franklin addressed his Autobiography to the “more general use [of] young readers” in pursuing a “life of business.” Here was the story of an accomplished figure who had achieved fame and fortune as a publisher, postmaster, scientist, inventor, and public citizen of Philadelphia, and desired to pass along his “prudent and imprudent” experiences to future generations.

Unfortunately, Franklin had been so busy creating a nation that he didn’t finish his memoirs, dying in 1790 at the age of 84 without recording the most eventful years of his illustrious political career. His official autobiography ends abruptly in 1757, when he was just 51 years old. Another 33 years of his life were still to be recorded. What occurred over the next three decades made him a famous man, whom one biographer called “the most beloved and celebrated American of his age, or indeed of any age.”¹ As a young man reading the Autobiography, I felt like the reader of a mystery novel who finds the last chapter missing. I wanted to read in his own words about his life in London as a colonial agent, his role in producing the Declaration of Independence, his service as America’s first ambassador to France, and his part in creating a new constitution and a new nation. I wanted to read about the hard lessons he learned as a diplomat and revolutionary. But it was not to be. Death had come too soon.

Over the years, I’ve collected a variety of books and biographies about my famous ancestor, including The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, a joint project of the American Philosophical Society and Yale University, and published by Yale University Press. So far 37 volumes have been published, with another dozen to go. While perusing his papers, I made a remarkable discovery: Franklin had virtually written, albeit in bits and pieces, the remainder of his illustrious life, through his journals, essays, and letters to his relatives and friends about family life, politics, science, business, literature, and philosophy. As Carl van Doren, Franklin’s premier biographer, explains, “For Franklin, the most widely read of autobiographers, was an autobiographer by instinct and habitual practice.”² There was much to work with. Franklin kept a series of diaries. In letters to his close friends and relatives, he gave charming details of his domestic existence, and related behind the scenes many political maneuvers in London and Paris. Not all his letters survive, but those that do paint a full picture of the man and his colorful career and character.

Lessons from a More Mature Franklin

What lessons did I learn in compiling and editing The Compleated Autobiography, the final 33 years of Franklin’s career? First and foremost, Franklin overcame incredible odds. He survived and prospered during the American revolution despite personal and financial setbacks, family losses, and criticism from friends and enemies alike. He had an unflinching drive to succeed in “the cause of all mankind, the love of liberty.” In 1774, the British fired Franklin as postmaster and colonial agent, cutting off his entire earning power (£1,800 a year). Fortunately, he had practiced what he preached, and he had over the years built up a considerable nest egg, including real estate and savings accounts, through frugality and economy. Thus, his fortune was never in jeopardy, because of the financial techniques he mastered as a printer and retiree. "No revenue is sufficient without economy." He died in 1790 a very rich man.

Franklin had a remarkable gift of prophecy, showing an unflinching optimism. He never doubted that the Americans would win the war, even in its bleakest hour. And after the war, he prophesized that "America will, with God’s blessing, become a great and happy country." Yet, even though the United States won the war for independence, Franklin intensely disliked the idea that war was somehow romantic. He repeatedly told his friends there was no such thing as a “good war.” He learned from his own sad experience that war destroyed friendships and family, and usurped the time he would have spent pursuing inventions and science. He recounted how his own son, William, appointed Royal Governor of New Jersey, remained a royalist during the war. “Nothing has ever hurt me so much and affected me with such keen sensations as to find myself deserted in my own age by my only son; and not only deserted, but to find him taking up arms against me in a cause where my own good fame, fortune and life were all at stake….This is a disagreeable subject. I drop it.” They never did reconcile.

Dealing with People

But Franklin never let criticism or bad luck get him down for long. “Enemies do man more good than harm,” he wrote a friend. “They point out to us our faults; they put us upon our guard; and help us to live more correctly. The best men have always had their share of envy and malice of the foolish and wicked, and a man has therefore some reason to be ashamed of himself when he meets with none of it. My good friend Rev. Whitefield once said, When I am on the road and see boys in a field pelting a tree, though I am too far off to know what tree it is, I conclude it has fruit on it.”

Franklin has been criticized for neglecting his devoted wife of 50 years, Deborah. My study of his papers shows this view to be incorrect or at least misleading. He did not abandon his wife; she refused to go with him to England because she had a "invincible aversion to crossing the seas." But he wrote, “I have a thousand times wished you to be with me,” especially when he was ill. Gradually they grew apart. After her death in late 1774, Franklin expressed in letters regret in the loss of his "old and faithful companion” and he instructed his heirs to bury him next to her in Christ’s Church in Philadelphia. When he returned to Philadelphia after the war in 1785, he doted on his children and grandchildren. “After a long absence in Europe I find myself happily at home in a good and convenient house, with an affectionate good daughter and son-in-law to take care of me, and a fine family of grandchildren about my knees who afford me great pleasure.”

Franklin was the most sociable of all the principal Founders. People of all walks of life were naturally attracted to him. Of all the Founding Fathers, only Franklin is approachable, somebody you could sit down with and have a good conversation. "I love company, a chat, a laugh, a glass, and even a song, and relish the grave observations and wise sentences of old men’s conversations."

About Growing Old

While in France, he suffered severe bouts of the gout and a kidney stone, but he never let these ailments bother him for long. Regarding growing old, he said, “People who live long drink of the cup of life to the very bottom and must expect to meet with some of the usual dregs; and when I reflect on the number of terrible maladies human nature is subject to, I think myself favored in having only three incurable ones that have fallen to my share, viz., the gout, the stone, and old age; and that these have not yet deprived me of my natural cheerfulness, my delight in books and enjoyment of social conversation. There are many sorrows in this life, but we must not blame Providence inconsiderately, for there are many more pleasures. This is why I love life.”

I also discovered that Franklin underwent several changes in his personal philosophy during the final years of his life. He went from being a slaveholder to the president of the first abolitionist society. As ambassador to Paris, he gave up on his "early to bed, early to rise" routine and became a late night bon vivant; and upon returning to Philadelphia, he abandoned his famous "time management" and "spent the time idly" playing cards with his friends and family.

He went from a being religious free-thinker to a believer in an activist God. The American revolution, which he considered a “miracle in human affairs,” turned him into a believing theist. At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, he told the delegates, "I have lived a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that GOD governs in the affairs of men!" But he was never a regular church goer. His religion was always a practical one, "good works" rather than "sermon-hearing." He never feared death, but had a “growing curiosity to be acquainted with some other life.” When he died, he wanted his final epitaph to read, “He lived usefully,” rather than “He died rich."

Patriotic Duties

Finally, Franklin, like Washington, was indispensable in achieving American independence and Constitutional government. Washington indeed was the principal hero in winning the war at home, but Franklin played an essential role in winning the war abroad. Historians agree that without massive military and financial aid from France, Washington and the American Army could not have defeated the British at Yorktown, and the war might have dragged on indefinitely. And there is little doubt that Franklin almost singlehandedly engineered the fundraising efforts in France. He accomplished this brilliant diplomacy while in his seventies, a tribute to senior citizens everywhere. “It is incredible,” he wrote, “the quantity of good that may be done in a country by a single man who will make a business of it.”

In his final years, Franklin worked hard at achieving consensus and compromise at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He hated party politics and a divisive press. He believed in a limited but strong central government, and was a big fan of the U. S. Constitution. “I consent to this Constitution because this system approaches so near to perfection.”   In compiling his story, I came across several new quotes: “A virtuous and industrious people may be cheaply governed,” and echoing Washington’s farewell address, “the system of America is commerce with all; war with none.” And last but not least: “God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all nations of the earth so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say, this is my country!”

   ¹ H. W. Brands, The First American (New York: Doubleday, 2000), jacket.
   ² Carl Van Doren, Franklin’s Autobiographical Writings, vi.

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Special Announcement
New Two Volume Edition of Franklin’s Famous Autobiography, edited by Mark Skousen, Now Available

I am happy to announce that Regnery Publishing has just released a new two-volume set of Franklin’s Autobiography, edited by me with a new introduction. Volume 1 is the original Autobiography, covering Franklin’s life from 1706 until 1757. Volume 2 is the Compleated Autobiography, covering Franklin’s memoirs from 1957 until his death in 1790. Both are in paperback, and sell for $19.95 each. If you buy both volumes, the price is $39, and we pay the shipping. To order, call Eagle Publishing at 1-800-211-7661. Hardback copies of The Compleated Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin are also available for $25 postpaid.

For those of you coming to FreedomFest, July 5-7, in Las Vegas, we will have copies there. For more information on this unique conference,

Call Tami Holland at 1 866 266 5101, or go to www.freedomfest.com. See you in Vegas on 7-7-7!