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the United States and the form of democratic government it will practice. His thoughts on America’s future cause him a moment of unreserved pride, when he declares his astonishment at finding a “system approaching so near to perfection as it does.” The degree of perfection that has been achieved is all the more remarkable, Franklin notes, because it was assembled from a number of men “who carry with them their prejudices, passions, errors of opinion, local interests, and selfish views.” And, rather than having such a motley crew dissolve into bloodshed and a Tower of Babel, where they are rendered incapable of communicating with one another, instead they have created a document that “will astonish our enemies.” As for his previous objections to the Constitution, which he does not name specifically, Franklin consigns them to the four walls of the convention. He does so out of a conviction that “much of the strength and efficiency of any government in procuring and securing happiness to the people, depends on opinion.” Thus, Franklin will not whisper a word of his own prior doubts about the Constitution, and he expresses a desire that other members, when returning home to their constituency, will likewise remain silent on the detracting aspects of the document. Doing so will cultivate the continued good opinion held by foreign nations, as well as among ourselves. Franklin ends his brief speech with a call to “every member of the Convention” to consider his own fallibility and “put his name to this Instrument.”
For Discussion or Writing 1. Franklin presents two controlling themes in this brief but powerful essay: the fallibility of humans and the exercise of unanimity for the greater good. How are these two notions linked to the concept of democracy? 2. Franklin raises the specter of foreign opinion in his essay. How do his words of cultivating the appearance of unanimity relate to his cultivation of a public persona in his autobiography?
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1788, 1791) As the critic William H. Shurr readily admits, Franklin’s Autobiography “has been judged one of the most important and influential of American books” (435). A central part of the importance of Franklin’s self-narrative lies in its identification of a particularly American character, a self-made man. Further, Franklin’s own large presence as a founding father would naturally give considerable weight to any telling of his own life and his part in the founding of the nation. Ironically, Shurr writes, Franklin’s Autobiography is held up as a model for the genre in general and yet the term autobiography did not come into existence in English until 1797, seven years after Franklin’s death. Even then, the term referred to an “odd, pedantic neologism” (Shurr 435). The Autobiography contains four parts, the fi rst begun in August 1771, five years before the onset of the American Revolution. The second part was penned 13 years after the Revolution. In the fi rst section, Franklin makes express use of the phrase Dear Son and seems to have addressed his illegitimate son, William, as the intended reader. He opens in the way that a father might write to a son, by recalling family anecdotes and by striking a kind, familiar tone. Franklin writes, “Now imagining it may be equally agreeable to you to know the circumstances of my life, many of which you are yet unacquainted with, and expecting a week’s uninterrupted leisure in my present country retirement, I sit down to write them to you.” On the basis of these opening remarks, then, part 1 appears to be a written version of the kind of conversation one had with one’s elders. To determine one’s place in the world, one needs to have knowledge of one’s forebears. For William, this kind of family history might prove painful, however, because he was Benjamin Franklin’s illegitimate child. In fact, Shurr believes that the opening references to “some sinister accidents” that Franklin desired to change was in fact a direct attack on his son’s illegitimacy” since William’s coat of arms would have to bear “the bar sinister—the heraldic mark of illegitimacy” (444–