The Political Philosophy of Benjamin Franklin (The Political Philosophy of the American Founders)

292 Pages·2007·1.37 MB·English

by  Lorraine Smith Pangle

The Political Philosophy
of Benjamin Franklin
the political philosophy of the
american founders
Garrett Ward Sheldon, Series Editor
;l:
THE
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
OF
Benjamin Franklin
LORRAINE SMITH PANGLE
:l;
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
This book was brought to publication with the generous assistance
of a University Co-operative Society Subvention Grant
awarded by the University of Texas at Austin.
© 2007 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2007
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
The Johns Hopkins University Press
2715 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363
www.press.jhu.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pangle, Lorraine Smith.
The political philosophy of Benjamin Franklin / Lorraine Smith Pangle.
p. cm. — (The political philosophy of the American founders)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8018-7931-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8018-8666-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8018-7931-0 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8018-8666-X (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Franklin, Benjamin, 1706–1790. I. Title.
JC211.F73P36 2007
320.092—dc22
2006101684
A catalog record for this book
is available from the British Library.
for
Linda Rabieh
This page intentionally left blank
CONTENTS
Note on Sources ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
The Earliest Franklin
Franklin, Socrates, and Modern Rationalism
1 The Economic Basis of Liberty 15
The Weber Critique
The Value of Work
Work, Acquisitiveness, and Nature
A Republican Political Economy
The Meaning of Leisure
2 The Virtuous Citizen 49
The Ethos of the Merchant
Franklin’s Early Thoughts on Virtue and Vice
Franklin’s Retreat from His Early Views
The Project for Moral Perfection
Humility, Pride, and Vanity
The Art of Virtue
3 Philanthropy and Civil Associations 91
Man as a Political Animal
Franklin and Tocqueville on Associations
Franklin’s Benevolent Projects
Democratic Leadership
4 Thoughts on Government 127
The Albany Plan of Union
Of Proprietors and Kings
Statesmanship and Public Relations
Natural Right and Human Opinion
vii
Contents
Representation and Federalism
Democratic Diplomacy
The Constitutional Convention
Immigration, Race, and Slavery
5 The Ultimate Questions 185
Enlightenment and the Adequacy of Reason
The Civic Benefits of Religion
The Defects of Christianity
Toleration and Religious Freedom
The Existence of God
Eros, Death, and Eternity
225
Notes
263
Recommended Readings
265
Index
viii
NOTE ON SOURCES
All references to Franklin’s Autobiography are to the Leonard
Labaree edition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964). Un-
less otherwise noted, all other citations from Franklin’s writings
are to The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, edited by Leonard W.
Labaree et al. The digital edition, sponsored by the American
Philosophical Society and Yale University and produced by
the Packard Humanities Institute, is available online at www
.franklinpapers.org. It is searchable by name, date, word, and
phrase. Although the online edition reaches to the end of Frank-
lin’s life, it is not yet complete for the final years. The print edi-
tion, with thirty-seven volumes to date (New Haven: Yale Uni-
versity Press, 1959–), contains material from the almanacs and
useful notes and relevant documents not available online. The
editors of the Papers have been very conservative in attributing
to Franklin early unsigned essays from the Pennsylvania Gazette.
I have followed J. A. Leo Lemay in accepting as authentic some
essays that the Papers do not include. These are published in
Lemay’s collection, Franklin, Writings (New York: Library of
America, 1987), and his attributions are defended in Lemay, The
Canon of Benjamin Franklin, 1722–1776: New Attributions and
Reconsiderations(Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1986).
ix