“
The scum of every nation gravitates to the frontier.”
Benjamin FranklinWrapping up my charges (earlier ones
here and
here) that Benjamin Franklin was the
most overrated Founding Father, let me point out what
a bad roommate he was. When Franklin and
John Adams were on a diplomatic mission regarding Canada, the two men had to share a bedroom on Staten Island.
(Make up your own “politics makes strange bedfellows” joke.) It was cold outside and Adams
shut the bedroom window.
“No, that’s very unhealthy,” Franklin said,
opening the window and praising the healthy benefits of fresh air. This lecture was so boring, Adams slept through it. But the poor little guy was still cold!
Not only was he an annoying roommate, but historians agree that Franklin
wasn’t much of a father. For example, his only son William was forced to
risk electrocution flying a kite in a lightning storm while
dad took notes from a covered shed. Of course, images like this engraving by Henry Sadd usually show Franklin going it alone, or if William is present, he’s a mere accomplice.
As an adult,
William opposed the Revolutionary War because he believed the only way the American colonies could achieve independence was through a series of bloody battles, and he couldn’t bear to see that happen. Opposing the war meant that William was defined as a “Loyalist” for King George III of England.
This infuriated his father, and after signing the Declaration of Independence,
Franklin personally arranged for the arrest of his son. William’s subsequent three years of
solitary imprisonment left him with no teeth, no job, no wife (she died in the interim), and no father. Benjamin Franklin
cut all mention of William from his autobiography, and William was exiled to Great Britain for the rest of his days.
What a jerk! Let’s see, what else... One could say that Franklin was indirectly responsible for the renegade
State of Franklin, a real place from 1784–1788. You see, North Carolina originally reached west all the way to the Mississippi. But its inhabitants living on the western frontier were such a pain in the roughneck, North Carolina’s governor cut them loose by turning the land over to the federal government.
The frontier folk then formed their own territory, the
State of Franklin. To see where it was, check the right inset on this map (
from a 1923 book by William R. Shepherd, courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries).
The State of Franklin
applied to Congress for statehood and received seven of thirteen votes,
two votes short of the two-thirds majority required. In 1786, the North Carolina Assembly passed the
Act of Oblivion (how cool!), which was intended to bring the State of Franklin back within North Carolina. It didn’t take, but ten years later, the
state formerly known as Franklin became part of the new state of
Tennessee.
But can I really
define Benjamin Franklin (or anyone!)
by the worst thing he ever did? I suppose not. You've got to love anyone who wrote, “
I would rather have it said, He lived usefully, than, He died rich.” As a final point in his favor, Franklin was both
a printer and a book lover, thus cementing his merit for the ages. Below, the
epitaph that he wrote for himself in 1728:
[Here lies] the Body of B. Franklin, Printer;
Like the cover of an old book,
Its contents torn out,
And stripped of its lettering and gilding,
Lies here, food for worms.
But the work shall not be wholly lost;
For it will, as he believed, appear once more,
In a new and more perfect edition,
Corrected and amended,
By the author.The Henry Sadd engraving is from the Library of Congress. My sources are here. Oh, and as a final aside, Benjamin Franklin’s grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, became a newspapermen who delighted in tweaking George Washington’s image. Bache once wrote that the president was “a despotic, anemic counterfeit of [King] George.” Guess the kid had a little gadfly in his DNA.
“I don’t like [him.] He is a bad man, an imposter, a creator of wicked schemes. I wouldn’t speak to him, but, by God, I love him.”
combination of user error and computer glitches, I’d thrown away my current project from my laptop. And I hadn't backed up for two weeks.
The good news is that I haven’t broken out in a nice cold sweat since seeing Ringu. That along with the adrenaline and weeping made for a nice change of pace in my day.
I returned to the shop the next day, by which time my sweat was a more comfortable lukewarm temperature. The tech-repair person (note the lack of gender giveaway) informed me that the Word documents had been mostly saved. I wanted to say, “I thank you, good tech-repair person.”
The tech person took it in stride. I’m sure they get that all the time there. But as for me, I’m a changed man. And looking at John Calhoun's kind-hearted visage, it’s clear that he too knew about the transformative power of love. After making his quote above, he served as Vice President under both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, and founded the Nullification Party. (If I remember correctly, its members wanted to make hatred, ill will, and mild revulsion null and void. Oh, and I also blogged about Calhoun here.)
