Benjamin Franklin's Biography

Author: P. Ivanov (Soviet Union), translated by Yi Xin and others
Translator: Yi Xin Gu Ming
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1998-10-01
Features: Franklin was also very concerned and attentive to the things he had founded in later years. Between 1760 and 1765, he was the representative of this library in London. The significance of Franklin's initiative far exceeded the scope of the Enlightenment education movement. In his later years, he had ample reason to say that this group "was the founder of all North American, subscription libraries, and now their number is so great. This was a major event, and its significance has only grown over time. These libraries broadened the horizons of people in North America, making merchants and farmers so educated that they were like most gentlemen in other countries, and perhaps to some extent, they may have encouraged all our colonies to resist in defending their privileges when they did." It is impossible to disagree with Franklin's statements. The outbreak of the American Revolution was not the natural outburst of anger of the immigrants against the tyranny of the British Crown. The revolution could only begin because, in addition to many revolutionary conditions ripening, the advanced minds in America had carried out certain social and political work to mobilize all those who, to some extent, were fighting for the liberation of the colonies. In disseminating new ideas, subscription libraries played a particularly important role, and by the time the revolution began in 1775–1783, their number was already considerable. When establishing libraries, Franklin had to encounter certain difficulties, and even conflicts with some hostile reactionaries who he tried to recruit as volunteer donors. Franklin quickly realized that in many cases, such strong opposition arose from the false impression that he, as the initiator of this pioneering effort, was superior to the people around him. Therefore, he changed his strategy. "I," Franklin recalled, "did my best to stay in the shadows and presented my draft as if it had been thought up by many of my friends, asking them to bypass those they considered book lovers and present the draft to them, which made things go more smoothly." Franklin was an outstanding economist of his time and understood earlier than others in America that slave labor was inefficient and therefore unprofitable. He clearly knew that his compatriots were practical and ambitious, so it was obviously to appeal to their economic interests rather than moral considerations. Perhaps economic interests were given priority, so he had a sufficient and well-founded understanding of the moral standards of American slave owners and would never overestimate them. Franklin made merciless assessments of slave owners. In his article "To Those Who Are Preparing to Move to America," he dispelled the illusions of those who believed America was "a paradise for fools," where "streets were paved with white bread, houses were covered with pancakes, and fried chickens flew around shouting, 'Come and eat me!'... He wrote that people coming to America should prepare to fall into a slave-owning country. 'People,' he wrote, 'like what a black man says. They often repeat these words, saying that the white man forces the black man to work, forces the horse to work, forces the ox to work, forces everything to work. But the pig is the exception. The pig does not work; it eats, drinks, plays, sleeps, and if it wishes, it can live like a gentleman. Such an evaluation of the white man, especially coming from the mouth of a black man, is a fatal disgrace to the entire slave-owning class. Franklin, who particularly loved to work, believed that slave owners, relying on the labor of black people to build their own happiness, had completely lost their creative activity. As a result, people began to degenerate, and morally began to corrupt, and such a way of life had no right to exist. The American Revolution, the war for the liberation of the colonies, did not achieve the goal of abolishing slavery as an economic system. The result of the war was merely the abolition of slavery in the North, where it had no necessary economic foundation for development and was unprofitable. As for the Southern states, then right after the revolution, poison flowers sprouted here one after another. However, however absurd it may seem, the bourgeois revolution in America gave a strong impetus to industrial development, including the textile industry, which created the economic prerequisites for the rapid development of slavery in Southern plantations. Franklin and other progressive figures of the American Revolution failed in their attempt to completely abolish this shameful legacy, but Franklin firmly believed in its inevitable demise. He therefore became the founder of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, whose purpose was to liberate black slaves. In his final years, weakened by illness, he had neither the time nor the energy to lead the society's work, but he served as its president. Franklin even envisioned in the future how to address the issue of establishing free black people in American society. This was not a utopian issue, nor the fantasy of an old man. Almost a century later, when slavery was abolished after a hard-fought and bloody four-year Civil War from 1861 to 1865, the question of how to treat free black people indeed became a serious social, economic, and political issue. On November 9, 1789, shortly before his death, Franklin, on behalf of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, wrote: "Slavery is such a cruel violation of human nature that if it is not eradicated with great caution, it sometimes becomes a source of serious evil. The unfortunate people, who have long been treated as animals, often fall into degradation and lose their dignity as human beings. The heavy chains that bind their bodies also enslave their intellects and weaken their attachment to society." Franklin wrote that the measures for liberation should be carefully considered so that the liberation would not be merely formal, as indeed happened in 1863. He proved that it was necessary to grant black people the same economic and political rights as white people and make them full members of American society with equal rights. Franklin believed that after the liberation of slaves, a "supervisory committee" should be established to monitor the moral, collective behavior, and general status of the freed slaves, to give them guidance and advice, to protect them from unjust actions, and to provide them with other friendly assistance." It is significant that after the liberation of black people, a "Liberators' Committee" was organized, which indeed carried out tasks of this kind. Franklin pointed out that it was entirely purposeful to create the necessary conditions "to teach the freed slaves some trade or other to provide them with a means of livelihood."