Masterpieces of American Literature
Email
  • Home
    • What is STORY
    • The Elements of Fiction
    • What Is A Short Story
    • Literary Theory Guide
  • Lit. 214
    • Class Presentations
  • Colonial Period
    • Native American >
      • Red Jacket's Speech
      • Story Collections
      • Lyrics, Poems and Chants
    • Spanish Explorers
    • Early Colonial >
      • New England Primer
      • Anne Bradstreet
      • Mary Rowlandson
      • John Winthrop
      • John Smith
      • Colonial Song Lyrics
    • Colonial and Revolutionary >
      • Readings >
        • Ben Franklin >
          • Advice on the Choice of a Mistress
          • Excerpts from The Autobiography
          • A Tale
        • Phyllis Wheatly >
          • Poems
        • Thomas Paine >
          • Common Sense
        • Philip Freneau >
          • Freneau Poems
        • Thomas Jefferson >
          • Writings
        • Jupiter Hammon >
          • An Evening Thought
      • Lyrics
  • Romantic Period
    • Elements of American Romanticism
    • Authors >
      • Washington Irving >
        • Irving's Place >
          • Irving's Place2
        • Irving on the Tale
        • Rip Van Winkle
        • Rip 2
        • Rip 3
        • Poetry
      • James Fenimore Cooper >
        • LOTH Silent Movie
        • Chapter 32
        • Chapter 32 B
      • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. >
        • Selected Poems
      • Ralph Waldo Emerson >
        • Selected Writings
        • Transcendentalism
      • Edgar Allen Poe >
        • Poe's Approach to Fiction
        • Life of Poe
        • Selected Poems
        • "The Raven"
        • The Black Cat
        • The Tell-Tale Heart
      • William Cullen Bryant >
        • Bryants Poems
      • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow >
        • Selected Poetry
      • Margaret Fuller
      • Fanny Fern
      • Herman Melville >
        • Moby Dick
      • Nathaniel Hawthorne >
        • Scarlett Letter Excepts
        • Young Goodman Brown
      • C. Clement Moore
    • Lyrics >
      • Folk / Gospel
      • Parlor Music
      • Music Hall
      • Stephen Foster >
        • Music
      • George Root
  • Civil War Period
    • 1850 - 1861 >
      • Harriet Anne Jacobs
      • Francis Harper
      • Frederick Douglass
      • Songs of Protest, Freedom, Sadness
    • 1861 - 1866 >
      • Julie Ward Howe
      • Emily Dickinson
      • Walt Whitman >
        • Excerpts
      • Abraham Lincoln
      • Louisa May Alcott
      • Misc. Poets
      • Warriors & Memoirs
    • Civil War Songs

Benjamin Franklin

Businessman, Civic Leader, Inventor, Diplomat, Author.  Few ever accomplished so much.

Link to Franklin's Biography
                                                                          Ben Franklin as a Writer

I. Major Themes in Franklin's Writing

            1. Interest in the individual and society; the creation of an American national identity.

            2. Tension between aristocracy and democracy; the awareness of America as distinct in values and interests from those of England.

            3. Tension between appearance and reality; shift from an other worldly to a worldly viewpoint.

            4. Tension between romantic idealism and pragmatic rationalism; theory should be tested primarily by experience not logic; reason should be tested pragmatically.

II. Omissions in Franklin's Writings

            1. Discussion of racial themes.

            2. Love and emotion between men and women.

            3. Discussion of the inspirational use of nature
.

PictureYoung Ben Franklin at Printing Press
                         Speech in the Convention at the Conclusion of its Deliberations

                                                                               By Ben Franklin

MR. PRESIDENT,

I confess, that I do not entirely approve of this Constitution at present; but, Sir, I am not sure I shall never approve it; for, having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change my opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.  It is therefore that, the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment of others.  Most men, indeed, as well as most sects in religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them, it is so far error.  Steele, a Protestant, in a dedication, tells the Pope, that the only difference between our two churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrine, is, the Romish Church is infallible, and the Church of England is never in the wrong.  But, though many private Persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of that of their Sect, few express it so naturally as a certain French Lady, who, in a little dispute with her sister, said, "But I meet with nobody but myself that is always in the right."  "Je ne trouve que moi qui aie toujours raison."

In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, -- if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I believe, farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.  I doubt, too, whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better constitution; for, when you assemble a number of men, to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views.  From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected?  It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear, that our councils are confounded like those of the builders of Babel, and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats.  Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution, because I expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best.  The opinions I have had of its errors I sacrifice to the public good.  I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad.  Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die.  If every one of us, in returning to our Constituents, were to report the objections he has had to it, and endeavour to gain Partisans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and thereby lose all the salutary effects and great advantages resulting naturally in our favour among foreign nations, as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity. Much of the strength and efficiency of any government, in procuring and securing happiness to the people, depends on opinion, on the general opinion of the goodness of that government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its governors.  I hope, therefore, for our own sakes, as a part of the people, and for the sake of our posterity, that we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution, wherever our Influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts and endeavours to the means of having it well administered. 

On the whole, Sir, I cannot help expressing a wish, that every member of the Convention who may still have objections to it, would with me on this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility, and, to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this Instrument.

September 17, 1787

Franklin, Ben.  “Speech in the Convention at the Conclusion of its Deliberations.” Early American Reader.  Ed.  Glenn Turner.  Elgin:  Homespun Publishing and Graphics, 1997. 44-45.
                                                                                                                          

To Advice on Choice of a Mistress
To the Autobiography Excerpts
To Colonial Period
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
    • What is STORY
    • The Elements of Fiction
    • What Is A Short Story
    • Literary Theory Guide
  • Lit. 214
    • Class Presentations
  • Colonial Period
    • Native American >
      • Red Jacket's Speech
      • Story Collections
      • Lyrics, Poems and Chants
    • Spanish Explorers
    • Early Colonial >
      • New England Primer
      • Anne Bradstreet
      • Mary Rowlandson
      • John Winthrop
      • John Smith
      • Colonial Song Lyrics
    • Colonial and Revolutionary >
      • Readings >
        • Ben Franklin >
          • Advice on the Choice of a Mistress
          • Excerpts from The Autobiography
          • A Tale
        • Phyllis Wheatly >
          • Poems
        • Thomas Paine >
          • Common Sense
        • Philip Freneau >
          • Freneau Poems
        • Thomas Jefferson >
          • Writings
        • Jupiter Hammon >
          • An Evening Thought
      • Lyrics
  • Romantic Period
    • Elements of American Romanticism
    • Authors >
      • Washington Irving >
        • Irving's Place >
          • Irving's Place2
        • Irving on the Tale
        • Rip Van Winkle
        • Rip 2
        • Rip 3
        • Poetry
      • James Fenimore Cooper >
        • LOTH Silent Movie
        • Chapter 32
        • Chapter 32 B
      • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. >
        • Selected Poems
      • Ralph Waldo Emerson >
        • Selected Writings
        • Transcendentalism
      • Edgar Allen Poe >
        • Poe's Approach to Fiction
        • Life of Poe
        • Selected Poems
        • "The Raven"
        • The Black Cat
        • The Tell-Tale Heart
      • William Cullen Bryant >
        • Bryants Poems
      • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow >
        • Selected Poetry
      • Margaret Fuller
      • Fanny Fern
      • Herman Melville >
        • Moby Dick
      • Nathaniel Hawthorne >
        • Scarlett Letter Excepts
        • Young Goodman Brown
      • C. Clement Moore
    • Lyrics >
      • Folk / Gospel
      • Parlor Music
      • Music Hall
      • Stephen Foster >
        • Music
      • George Root
  • Civil War Period
    • 1850 - 1861 >
      • Harriet Anne Jacobs
      • Francis Harper
      • Frederick Douglass
      • Songs of Protest, Freedom, Sadness
    • 1861 - 1866 >
      • Julie Ward Howe
      • Emily Dickinson
      • Walt Whitman >
        • Excerpts
      • Abraham Lincoln
      • Louisa May Alcott
      • Misc. Poets
      • Warriors & Memoirs
    • Civil War Songs