PORTRAIT OF FRANKLIN
Owned by H. C. Thompson, Philadelphia
Colonial affairs became especially important when war broke out with France and Spain in 1744. The Quakers were then the great problem in the Pennsylvania government, since their principles forbade them to fight, or even to vote money for military purposes. Franklin relates that by a judicious application of Madeira wine to the gullet of Governor Clinton of New York, he borrowed eighteen cannon for the defense of Philadelphia. He did more. He so aroused the Quakers that although they refused to authorize the purchase of powder for the army, “because that was an ingredient of war,” they voted an aid to New England of three thousand pounds to be put into the hands of the Governor, and appropriated it “for the purchase of bread, flour, wheat or other grain.” The Governor accepted with the remark, “I shall take the money, for I understand very well their meaning; other grain is gunpowder.” Franklin himself suggested that the Quakers be importuned to permit the purchase of a fire engine; and then, said he, “we will buy a great gun, which is certainly a fire engine.”
From his position of political and intellectual influence in Pennsylvania, Franklin easily passed into the larger field of general Colonial policies and public service. In 1754, he was made one of the commissioners to a joint congress of seven colonies, which met at Albany; from beginning to end of that meeting he was the leading spirit, and he prepared what is practically the first plan for a Federal Constitution. This was to include a Grand Council, which is the earliest suggestion of a national legislature. The Congress of Albany liked the plan and approved it, but the home government frowned upon it, and Franklin records that “the Assemblies did not adopt it, as they all thought there was too much prerogative in it; and in England it was judged to have too much of the democratic.” Franklin called to mind the Confederation of the Iroquois and marveled that the “Six Nations of ignorant slaves[A] should be capable of forming a scheme for such a union and be able to execute it in such a manner, so that it has subsisted for ages, and appears indissoluble; and yet that a like union should be impracticable for ten or a dozen English colonies.”
[A] The word “slaves” is no doubt used here in the sense of “savages.”
ANOTHER DUPLESSIS PORTRAIT OF FRANKLIN
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
From the original painting by Chappel