'"
Here is a man who will illustrate and prove, perhaps better than any
other of those who stood with Washington, the point at which I am
aiming. There was none of the glamour of romance about old Ben Franklin.
He was shrewd, canny, humorous. The chivalric Southerners disliked his
philosophy, and the solemn New-Englanders mistrusted his jokes. He made
no extravagant claims for his own motives, and some of his ways were not
distinctly ideal. He was full of prudential proverbs, and claimed to be
a follower of the theory of enlightened self-interest. But there was not
a faculty of his wise old head which he did not put at the service of
his country, nor was there a pulse of his slow and steady heart which
did not beat loyal to the cause of freedom.
He forfeited profitable office and sure preferment under the crown, for
hard work, uncertain pay, and certain peril in behalf of the colonies.
He followed the inexorable logic, step by step, which led him from the
natural rights of his countrymen to their liberty, from their liberty
to their independence. He endured with a grim humor the revilings of
those whom he called "malevolent critics and bug-writers." He broke with
his old and dear associates in England, writing to one of them,
"You and I were long friends; you are now my enemy and I am Yours,
B.
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