The Eric Metaxas Show - #193 - Mark Skousen

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

Today on The Eric Metaxas Show, it is a Socrates in the City conversation with Mark Skousen.

Welcome to Socrates in the city, the city in which we find ourselves today, the city of brotherly love Philadelphia. I am thrilled and privileged as a part of our special Socrates Revolution series to be at Carpenter's Hall here in Philadelphia. Right now, I have the fun and honor of speaking with Mark Scousen. He's a financial economist, teaches at Chapman University. He has written many books and done many things. The book I'm holding, a new book, The Greatest American Benjamin Franklin, the world's most versatile genius,

is what has brought Mark to my attention most recently, although we've known each other for some time. But I think even more interesting than that, he is a direct descendant of Benjamin Franklin. Mark, welcome. Nice to be with you. And in fact, Franklin had something to say about people who think they're really important because their ancestors were important. He says, he that boast of his ancestors does but advertise his own insignificance.

Well. So I guess I'm not going very far. I'm glad to have advertised your insignificance. And then we can shift to your significance. It is the history of where we are right now. I mean, to think that the First Continental Congress was right here. This is the building. Almost nothing has changed to think that John Jay was here.

George Washington. I think Patrick Henry. Patrick Henry, of course. And who can forget Connecticut's Ollifalett Dyer? Who? Who can forget Ollifolet Dyer? No, but so many of these legends were here. Benjamin Franklin, of course, in 1774, was not here.

He was still in London where he'd been living for 18 years. I want to get to all of that. But we can maybe go chronologically or you can just maybe talk a little bit more generally about Franklin. And then we'll start at the beginning. We can start at Milk Street in 1706, which I remember from a third grade book report that I did. But other than your being a direct descendant, what is your interest as an American in Benjamin Franklin? I've entitled my book The Greatest American, a lot of people saying, are you sure about that? So I can scientifically prove that Franklin is the greatest American.

Scientifically. Scientifically. Empirical evidence that he is the greatest America. Okay. Because I looked at the list of the Forbes magazine, 100 most innovative historic figures in America. Okay. I looked at the 100 greatest scientists of all time. Okay.

That list. I looked at the list of 100 greatest philosophers in history. And I looked at the greatest diplomats in history and also a book called The Wealthy 100, The Wealthiest Americans in History. There is only one person on all five lists. Oh, hold on a second. Let me guess because I know a lot. I know so much. I'm out of just at top of my head, I would say Benjamin Franklin. The topic of our discussion. I know. That's right. But you think of it, I didn't realize this when I wrote the book. And then I started seeing all these surveys. And I thought, oh my gosh, he is the world's most versatile genius in all these different categories. It's truly amazing. Well, he is undeniably a big deal. No matter how you look at it, I think one of the things that I find interesting, I mean in writing my own book

on the Revolution, you find that Franklin was a huge celebrity. Well, he was the most famous American at his time. He was much more famous than Jefferson or Washington or Adams. The only reason they're famous is because of the American Revolution. Without the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin would still be famous today for all of these categories that we're talking about. Like Voltaire and, well, like many figures. Where do we even begin?

Well, okay, so in a way, I mean, you say the greatest American, I would say also not, you know, whether he's the greatest or is a question, but he's one of the most American Americans in the history of America. Yeah. His ability to do so many different kinds of things and to think of the, you know, meritocracy, the idea that, you know, he's the same. son, the humble son of Josiah Franklin, the candle maker in Boston. And then he rises to a kind of prominence. Can we think of anybody in the history of the world from that era who did anything like that? I mean, it's very hard to find figures from that era who weren't born wealthy, who weren't born famous or adjacent to fame. Well, certainly, there's actually biography by H.W. Brands called the first American. And there's another one called the first scientific American. So a lot of these first, the first postmaster general, who actually made a

profit for the post office. Can you imagine that? Oh, I can't. Well, I guess let's start with you know, well, we're talking about, we're celebrating the super centennial, the 250th, anniversary of the birth of the nation. And wherever you look, you see Franklin. Most people think that he, that Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase, the sentence, the famous sentence, we hold these truths to be self-evident. Right. Franklin, Franklin wrote that.

Franklin crosses out. Well, let me tell that story. Yeah, I mean, because it's really important. Most people don't know this. When I give a talk on Ben Franklin and I say, okay, gentlemen ladies and gentlemen fill in the blank we hold these twos to be and of course everyone says self-evident and then I say well actually Thomas Jefferson initially wrote sacred and undeniable which is a beautiful phrase and has religious overtones

Franklin with his left hand being a a material scientist a secular scientist in many ways he believed in God but he was more of a skeptic of religion and stuff Scratches out sacred on denial and puts in self-evident because he wanted something that was a little bit more bold and direct and one that had applied to everyone. I actually think later in life, he did become more religious after the American Revolution. He saw the miracles that you describe in your new book on Revolution. I'm sure it's in there. And Franklin became more of an active deist. And so I actually think he would prefer, going back, Thomas Jefferson's, we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable that all men are created equal and endowed with their creator with certain inalienable rights.

Among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of? Property? Money. Money. Money. Franklin might say money. Spoken like a financial economist. Happiness is the term we all use. Well, money is a metaphor, isn't it? Money, money, there's no such thing is money. Money is the thing that we use. used by other things. And this, I mean, this gets to the heart of everything. I, in my book, I have several paragraphs on Franklin's edit of Jefferson's phrase. And I, there's a lot to it. But because you're here, I just want to talk about Franklin and with our limited time, let's start

at the beginning. I mentioned, I did this book report in third grade. I was captivated in third grade with Franklin. There was this beautiful picture book by the Dulliaries. They used to produce the most glorious picture books for kids. And so I remember to this day that he was born on Milk Street in Boston in 1706. Right. January 17th. Let's start. January 17th. I didn't remember that. So let's start there. Tell us about his early years. So yeah, he was married to parents, the 10th child. And as a result, Josiah, his father. said, you are my tithe child, and so I want you to become a minister, and I want you to go to Harvard and become a minister in the gospel. Franklin never took to that and rejected his father's

advice and became... At what point did he, because, I mean, he blasts out of Boston, you know, under cover of night, what is it, 17 years old? Yeah, 17 years old. He left Boston. So he'd already been a printer's apprentice to his brother for quite a few years. So at what point does Benjamin Franklin decide he doesn't want to go to Harvard, doesn't want to go to? Well, this was as a young teenager, so he was 11, something like that. And he says, father, I don't want to be a minister. And so he said, his father said, well, why don't you become an apprentice under your older brother, James, who was publishing a newspaper.

And so that's what he did. And he actually started submitting articles anonymously under Silas. Silence do good. Do good, that's right. Silence do good. And who was purported to be a middle-aged widow. So right there, the genius, at an incredibly young age, he is writing for the public. Yeah, yeah.

Under a pseudonym, it's not just a pseudonym, right? He's created this persona. His genius was obvious very, very early. And he started very young reading. He was a voracious reader, and he was absorbing everything, and he would actually learn to become a really good writer by looking at other writers and writing their words and their sentences so that he would become a good writer.

And if you read Franklin's autobiography, he has a beautiful way of expression, a felicity of expression. Which is what Adams said about Jefferson. But of course, that's what gives Franklin the right to edit Jefferson, is that he's been writing for many, many decades, beautifully, beautifully. To me, he's the ultimate Yankee in many ways. And yet at some point, he decides he doesn't want to be under his brother's throat. Well, James found out, Silas Dugood was being written by him. And he really got angry and he said, you're not allowed to write anymore. And that's when he decided to leave.

So he goes to New York, can't find employment there. So he ends up in Philadelphia with two loaves of bread. He bought two or three loaves of bread and was walking down the street. And Deborah's future wife. sees him and sees him as rather odd character. But he immediately finds work with a publisher, a printer in Philadelphia, and that became his career. I'm a little bit amazed that I didn't remember two things that you mentioned, that his brother was angry at him for writing these people.

Why was his brother angry at him? I think it was just jealousy. Probably, yeah, this little genius. But also that he went to New York first. I don't remember that he went to New York first. I thought he went straight to Philly. No, no. He stopped in New York, but didn't find any employment there.

So he ended up in Philadelphia, and that made his whole life was in Philadelphia, except then he later in life. He was so successful, by the way, as a printer, that he was able to retire at the age of 42. And he got someone else to take over the publishing, and he got royalties from stuff like that. And as I understand it, he retired and he just played golf for the rest of his life. Yeah, that's what. That's a nice joke because golf had actually been invented. I don't think there was a golf course in Philadelphia at the time. But it's a funny humor because a lot of people, when they retire,

that's what they, a lot of them spend time playing golf. He did not. He did two things that put him on the map and made him the most famous American. One was his scientific work experiments in electricity, which was all the rage at the time. He got all of these experiments and these instruments from England, from his scientific friends in England. He had developed all these friendships as a printer. And so then he also became involved with civic affairs and he became a legislature and he started the Junto and had the first library and the first hospital and helping pave the roads and all of these wonderful improvements. So he's without question a public figure at this point, especially with his scientific breakthroughs

and the kite experiment that he had. And he writes up these articles that are published against the Copley Prize, which is the Nobel Prize of the time. And so he's quite famous in Europe. So when he goes, he's chosen as colonel. When he loses an election, they choose him to be the representative. to one colony and eventually four colonies. Right.

So he goes over in 1756. 57. 7. Yeah. He goes over to represent the colony against the Penn family, whatever. Well, because they are tax exempt on all of their land. Right. Right.

And he doesn't think that's right. But so he goes over and he stays for 18. years. The idea that the quintessential American lived in Europe 27 years, nine years in Paris and 18 years in London, it's almost inconceivable that he was, he represented a link between the new world and the old world in a way that nobody else could come close to that. Now, I did come back for two years to visit his wife and family, which many biographers say he abandoned his wife, Deborah. That is not accurate, in my opinion, having reviewed the history. His wife had an extreme aversion to getting on a ship on the ocean. It's kind of like people

were afraid to fly. And he begged her to come with him. In fact, even when he got over to London, he himself wrote letters and he had friends of his write letters saying, please come over. It's safe. This will be fine and stuff like that. never could. So they became estranged. There's no question about it. They continued to write and talk about pedestrian matters and home matters. And she actually, during the American Revolution, defended, or actually before that in the Stamp Act, and the controversy of the Stamp Act, Deborah, defended against people who came in and wanted to do harm to the city. See, that's what's so interesting is that Franklin represents someone,

who loved being a British subject, who loved England. He was a loyalist. And who starts out as a loyalist. I mean, you can't really say he's a loyalist because it's before the term exists. But the point is he would have been described as somebody who was desperately desiring to help England to keep America part of the...

He was really working for reconciliation. And I want to come to this horrible moment in the cockpit in 1774. But before we get to that, he's, so he's in England for 18 years. He's corresponding a lot. His daughter is here.

Sally. From whom one of us has descended. Is it you? Yes. It's you. Through Sarah. Sally. Yeah.

And his sister is in Boston all this time. Jane. Yeah. So Jane is important to him. But she's in Boston. of course. Right. So they have a lengthy correspondence. In fact, he has probably more letters to her. They don't have very many letters of her to him. To Jane. To Jane. Yes. But they did correspond their entire adult life. And at some point, she came down and lived with them in Philadelphia.

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and his respect for women is not that typical of the day. It's interesting to me that I think you could say the same thing about John Adams and George Washington. But it's interesting that they valued women in a way that you wouldn't think men of that time would. Yeah, so Franklin actually changed his views on a lot of topics. And going from a loyalist to a rebel is just one. one example of that. Racism is another, but women is another important issue here because I have a chapter in my book on chapter 77 on his hard-to-governed passions. So he was a red-blooded Casanova type of person as a young man. He went to England. He spent time there and he

describes in the autobiography. And this is one thing that's unique about Franklin. He's Frank. He tells you what he really thinks in the autobiography. And there's a whole paragraph about his hard to govern passions with low women, he says. And he ended up having an illegitimate child, his first child, William, which they adopted. His wife, Deborah, was willing to accept him. They didn't get along particularly well. But nevertheless, William was an illegitimate child. And he confesses to this. He calls it his errata. And his marriage to Deborah was to overcome this errat. as he called it. Okay, so he fathers William before, it seems, before his marriage to Deborah,

and then she graciously concedes or consents to raising William. That's correct, yeah. And of course, where we end up with William is sad. We'll get to that in a moment. But William is the very young man who's with him during the kite experiment. He's not a child, though, at that point. No, no, he's a teenager. He's a teenager.

No, actually, it might be in his early 20s. I was going to say, I think he's going to say. Something like that, yeah. But they have this wonderful relationship. And I, to get back to this idea that Franklin saw himself, I don't know what the right term is, but as a proud British subject. And he puts his son forward while they're both living in England to become the royal governor of New Jersey. Jersey, at King George's inauguration.

Inocuration. William has a far better seat than his father because William has made inroads in society. So Franklin tries very hard to broker peace during these years. He sides, he's against the stamp act. I'm sorry, he's for the Stamp Act initially. And then realizes the American colonists don't like the Stamp Act and are protesting, and they're burning an effigy, and they're attacking, physically attacking, those who try to impose, the commissioners who come over to impose the Stamp Act,

which is on every letter, everything you purchase and stuff like that. And one of these commissioners was a friend of Franklin's, and that's, I think his wife writes to him about that. But so he's taking the measure of how the Americans feel. And he begins to not only see that side, but advocates famously in Parliament. They question him, this is February 1766, right before they repeal the Stamp Act. But his testimony is so important because they thought, this is a real live American. He can tell us what he thinks.

So it is interesting that he was trying to broker peace before. Yeah, but even as early as 1771, he sees disunion. He sees that we're two separate countries. 1771, that's early. Now, he didn't really come out in favor of total independence. This was just his private thoughts in writing letters and so forth. But, you know, after the cockpit incident where he had, actually loses his job as commissioner and he was being paid like 1,200 pounds or 1,800

a year. He was getting extremely wealthy just from being the colonial agent. That was totally cut off. Before we get to the infamous incident in the cockpit, you say that in 1771 he can feel that there's a separation. I hadn't heard that. What I find interesting is how he's cheeky in communicating with parliament and making it clear that the population of America is booming. Doubling every 25 years.

And in a sense, without saying it, because it wouldn't have been the thing to say in the 18th century, but that's where the future is. And he's trying to say that the future for England is with the colonies. So in a sense, don't mess it up. He's trying to let them know. Their flourishing redounds to you, England. So you shouldn't be pinching pennies because you're going to be pound foolish, which is exactly what happened. In fact, he was highly influential. I have a chapter in the book on Benjamin Franklin's influence on Adam Smith, who wrote the wealth of nations in March of 1776,

considered the Declaration of Economic Independence. And what's really interesting is Adam Smith has this wonderful material on America. It's a huge section of the book. And in it he says, this is going to be one of the greatest empires in the world. That's his prediction. Where did he get that information? He got it from Benjamin Franklin because the story is told that as he was the last couple of years, Adam Smith, who's Scottish, was in London working with his.

publisher and working through the manuscript and he took the manuscript to the various clubs around there and his friends and one of them was Benjamin Franklin. He would look through each chapter and make comments and recommendations. And I am absolutely convinced that it was Franklin's influence. I call him the Adam Smith's Invisible Hand. That's excuse me, that's very clever. Yeah, thank you. That's the chapter 29 of the book. And so it's one of my original contributions, this relationship between Benjamin Franklin and Adam Smith, which is a very important one, because Adam Smith actually comes out in favor of independence. Well, where would he get that idea if it wasn't from Franklin? And it was very controversial at the time because you had Edward Gibbons and you had a lot of the other.

Samuel Johnson. Samuel Johnson was very much opposed to the... My opinion of Johnson has fallen greatly. you read what he says about the Americans, but there's so many great members of parliament, obviously Edmund Burke and William Pitt, who really understand that the Americans are right. They are correct. They are, in a sense, being true to the British Constitution, and the parliament and King George are not being true to it. So let's go, do you want to tell the story of the incident in Cockpit, what led up to this? I mean, just to set it up, it follows.

the horrible news of the destruction of the tea in December of 1773. So the king is not at all amused with how the colonists or behavior. He has sent troops and various commissioners and governor. He appoints the governor, of course, every time to Massachusetts. And the governor is Hutchinson. And Hutchinson writes these letters. And he says, in these personal letters that he's sending back to Washington, or I'm not not to Washington, but to London, he is basically saying we need to limit the rights of the colonists. Okay, now these letters are written 1767, 1768. So it's several years before, but somehow Benjamin Franklin, because he's a clever man, he somehow manages to get a hold of these private letters from the, from the, from the

governor in Massachusetts, and I guess it's his idea, which backfires very badly, that if he shares these letters with the Boston leaders, they'll blame Hutchinson but not Parliament. I mean, this is his scheme. It gets out of hand for whatever reason. They're actually published. They were published by the printers in Boston. And so as a result, but they don't say who. who got it. Correct. And finally, Franklin admits that he was the one. And so they call him to the cockpit, which is in... The King's Privy Council. This is a, I mean, to explain in any case people don't know. I mean, ostensibly, he thinks at first that he's going there to argue for why Hutchinson

needs to be removed as governor. And then he can kind of smell the atmosphere like they're not even they're not even interested in discussing this. They are going to try to publicly humiliate me. For three straight hours, he's standing in front of them, totally silent, not saying a word, as the solicitor General Wetterberg just rails against him the whole time. And there's this huge group of people watching, not the public, but the government officials and so forth. And it's at that point that he is stripped of his official duties and loses 1,800 pounds a year, his revenue. She's completely wiped out financially.

But this is why I have several chapters on him, what he was wisely doing, always living within his means, always saving, diversifying his portfolio, different bank. accounts, rental properties. He becomes one of the wealthiest citizens because he doesn't spend all of this money. When you are in prosperous times, that's when you need to save and retained earnings. You need to save and hold back and invest, not increase your spending, which is what most Americans do when they get an increased income. So it's a really important lesson there that he was able to survive and prosper even during a time when he lost a huge amount of money. Hey there, folks. Suzanne and I want to invite you to join us for something extraordinary.

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To me, the most, I guess the most interesting thing about this incident in the cockpit is that they set out to humiliate, to publicly humiliate, one of the greatest men in the world, they have decided that he represents all of the evils of the colonies, and they actually believe insanely that he's the mastermind behind everything that's happening in the colonies, which of course is preposterous. It's not true. But they decide that he is the king picks Wedderburn, who is known to be nasty, vicious, and they humiliate him publicly for three hours. And when he walks out of there... He went to the bathroom immediately. I didn't know that. Well, when he walks out of there, he is a changed man. He has decided, okay, if that's the way you want it, you want me to be your enemy, I will be your enemy.

And from that moment on, he is for the colonies, for independence. He's a changed man. And he leaves right after that, doesn't get back till May of 1775. And only then does he learn about Lexington and Concord. He didn't know when he left. Yeah. So that news had not arrived in London at that point that the war had actually begun informally.

So it's, he sees this is the end. We're now moving toward independence. And he becomes the member of the second Continental Congress, which is here in Philadelphia, but not here at Carpenter Hall over in Independence Hall. Just a couple hundred yards, a hundred yards from here.

Well, he, one of the things that I didn't know, you know, obviously you do all this research and it's amazing, he was still in the last year that he was in England after the incident in the cockpit, sort of trying to figure out

is it possible to keep things together. And he meets privately. secretly, secretly with Admiral Howe at the House of Admiral Howe's sister, because Franklin is playing chess with the sister. He loved chess. That was his abocation, if you will. But by the time he gets to America, he's really bitter. I guess he begins to see some of what the British have done, the burning of Charlestown, some of the

barbarity. So in 1776, well, you can tell the story, but did you know that he once spend a night in the same bed as John Adams? Do you know the story? Well, they were to meet with the General Howell. No, Admiral, Admiral Howe, yeah, the brother, yeah. To see if they can reconcile and of course they couldn't reconcile, but the night before they spent the time together. And back then everybody kind of slept in the same beds and they were actually in the same bed together. Not a very large bed. No. It's not like today.

Yeah. And Franklin has the windows open. Yeah. And he has this theory of cold that is actually healthy for you. And Adams has a big connoption over this. This may be the beginning of the estrangement. where they become somewhat enemies. John Adams and Benjamin Franklin in Paris is where it really comes out

when Franklin is sent over there as the first ambassador. I would argue that it takes some time that they were still palsy-wellsy. They were pals at that point. But anyway, it's so funny. I write about it. I just find it so funny and charming that these two giants of history are in the same bed arguing about whether to close the wind The theory of cold.

It's just so, it's such a beautiful moment that I'd never heard before. But all right, so let's go. So Franklin. There's a whole book on Franklin's medicines as a doctor of medicine. Franklin covers so many topics. It really is amazing, how versatile he is. Yeah. It was still possible in the 17th and 18th centuries, I guess, to know everything.

You know, to be, some people have said that of John Milton. He's the last man, this is, of course, in the 17th century, who had read everything it was possible to read in his time. And then after that, the proliferation of information, it made it impossible. But Franklin, Isaac Newton, you could say Jonathan Edwards, they're writing about Jonathan Edwards is writing about optics and, you know, they're all writing about everything. They're just polymathic figures. Yeah, we always talk about the Jack of All Trades. And in Franklin's case, he was a master of most, which is pretty unusual. Right.

Yeah, but I agree with you. And I teach my students this all the time, the importance of a liberal arts education because I tell them what you're majoring in is probably not what you're going to end up doing in life. So it's very important that you have these expanded topics. I major in economics and end up in finance primarily. That's where I've made most of my money. And so you have to be willing to change. It's creative disruption.

We have a dynamic economy, and Franklin saw the, he was very optimistic about the future of America, as you know. So he was definitely a man who embraced change rather than resisting it. Yeah. He was, so he wrote a letter to Admiral Howe before their meeting. before their meeting in, what is it, September of 1776. And it is scathing. It is a scathing. If you ever wondered where Franklin stands by that point,

I think he'd written the letter that summer in July or August, right after he, you know, comes to America and realizes what's been going on. And it is such a scathing letter. And you realize if there's anybody that is for independence, if there's anybody that despises the British at this point, it's Benjamin Franklin. He really is dramatically changed by this point. He's definitely, this is one of the areas where he's changed. And that's where he goes.

And we mentioned before his change in women, which, by the way, I should say, when he was in Paris as a widower, he greatly respected and honored the women over there who were in charge of the Salones and the intellectual atmosphere in Franklin appreciated not just their beauty, but their intellect. So that's important. But in case of Franklin, he saw the writing on the wall. And so he, at the age of 70, became a rebel. And that's unusual because a third of the U.S. population remained loyal to the king.

So there was a civil war going on during the American Revolution. Oh, yeah. I'm sure you cover that. And it was called the American Revolution. So, all right. So in 1776, I mean, there is so much to say we won't possibly cover it all. In 1775, he goes to Canada, wearing the Pine Martin, well, he acquires this Pine Martin hat that he then wears in Paris that represents America, and he's this homespun figure, but that's later.

But he goes to Canada, hoping to, as an ambassador for the 13 colonies, hoping to get Canada to join us. That's amazing to me that he's in Canada in 17. I think Benedict Arnold was up there too. Well, yes, not as an ambassador, but. As a military official, but he failed. That mission failed. And it also failed in the Treaty of Paris. tried, he wanted to annex Canada as part of the deal and that failed also. So he definitely

failed when it came to Canada in that regard. But he also got deathly ill on this trip because it was during the early, it was during the winter when he went to Canada and there were some major problems and he came back and he was sick. And so he was not, he didn't do a lot in the second Continental Congress during that time period. He did make a few changes in the Declaration of Independence, but not much. I mean, he was on the committee of five people to write the Declaration of Independence. And he and Jefferson were both, and Adams, I'm sorry, John Adams, Jefferson and Franklin, were all assigned, not just, hey, we've declared independence, but, you know, we need to, we need a document. Can you come up with something?

But the three of them were also assigned to come up with the great seal of the new nation. And it's interesting because you mentioned he became more religious at the end of his life. Both he and Jefferson come up with

a seal that features the Israelites in the wilderness. The Israelites at Sinai. And so that narrative of you know, breaking free from Pharaoh or King George, looking directly to God, governing ourselves. It's fascinating to me that Franklin and Jefferson,

both of whom were thought of as deists, saw that. Yeah, well, he said rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. That was the motto that he wanted. Eventually they ended up with e pluribus unum out of many one, which is a little bit different. But, yeah, rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. Yeah, it's a pretty strong. That's a pretty strong statement.

So what else did he do? He wasn't here long before they shipped him off to France. Right. So I think in September, maybe October, he became the ambassador. Why? Because he was the most famous American. And he was well known as a scientist. And when he came to France, he was honored and he had no free time.

had all kinds of regalia and dishes and stuff like that in his honor. He describes in pretty good detail how difficult it was for him to even engage in negotiations because of his fame as a scientist and beloved by the people and he had the coonskin cap. It was a Pine Martin. Well, I find it ironic. It's a Pine Martin hat. and he got the hat in Canada, you know, but it represents America because it's this,

he's the primitive. He's the American primitive. And they embrace him like, I mean, there's really nothing quite like him. It's fascinating. I want to rewind slightly. So Franklin comes back from London. He comes back in May 1775.

right. As soon as France realizes that there is a war between the colonies and their old enemy, Great Britain, they have an interest in this. They obviously the French really want England to lose or to lose something or to lose the colonies. And so they don't do this publicly. until after we win at Saratoga, you know, 1777, and all becomes public. But behind the scenes, there's stuff going on.

Oh, yes. And it has been brought to my attention, before we go too far, too far, that Benjamin Franklin, in December of 1775, met with Silas Dean and some secret Frenchman, in the room right behind us, right here in Carpenter's Hall. And so those were the first conversations.

And obviously they paved the way for what eventually would become, you know, serious. But I just wanted to say that because we were just talking about, you know, yes, he goes over to France. But before that, there had been secret conversations in this very building with Silasthine, who later becomes along with Franklin. He became a commissioner. He was sent over there. In fact, he was over there earlier before Franklin.

Franklin went over there, along with John Jay, who ended up going to Spain to deal with that. And in fact, what's interesting is Franklin was 70 years of age when he was appointed to be this ambassador to get armaments, funding, whatever they could with the help of France. And they didn't really trust Franklin. They were fearful that he was too old. So they sent over one commissioner after another. They had the two Lee brothers, Arthur Lee and William Lee. Then they later sent John Adams with Abigail Adams. They went over there together.

And by the way, none of them was able to raise any money whatsoever except for Ben Franklin. He was the only one to raise any money. John Adams finally did raise some money from the Dutch, but only after your town, after we had won the war. Then he finally got some money. And they really resented Franklin. When you read what Arthur Lee and William Lee and Ralph Echard would write, Franklin would write letters back to them after they sent these insulting letters,

but he would never mail them. He had this policy of never confronting directly. opposing somebody's point of view. He'd say, well, I know you think that way. Have you ever considered this? And he made a decision to publicly never offend anyone in public. So that's why he was so successful as a diplomat. But I do, if I, if you, if you don't mind, I want to tell you the most interesting story about Franklin and raising of money because he raised millions of Levera, which was the French currency at the time, and sent armaments over there, sent over generals. He had troops there. In fact, the Battle of Yorktown, which we would get to,

wouldn't have won that war without the French troops, uniforms, ships, ships, everything. It was a French victory, if you will, and American victory as well, working together. But the story I want to tell you is that after all this fundraising and after signing the agreement after Saratoga and so forth, the French all in support. Robert Morris writes and letters, say, if we've run out of money, can you please ask for 25 million livres? And they think, you know, the war is still going on. But Franklin writes back and says, are you kidding? I have raised money. I have done everything I can. We're broke. They're broke. Everybody's broke. No, I can't. I'm sorry, I can't raise $25 million. Morris writes back and says, yes, you must do this. You have to write, we need the money desperately.

So Franklin writes in his best diplomatic writing, writes a letter to Versian, the foreign minister, and says, listen, we need $25 million, Libra, because if we lose this war, and if you lose this, war, the British will dominate for the next hundred years. So please, we need your help. He writes the letter. Here's nothing. A week goes by nothing. Two weeks go by, nothing. Finally, he writes another letter to Virgin and say, did you get my email? Sorry. But anyway, so Virgin writes back and says, come visit me in Versailles and we'll talk. So frankly immediately gets in his carriage. goes to Versailles, walks in, and there's Verjean saying, Dr. Franklin, have a seat, and he's not smiling. Is this 1779, 1780? This is 1779. Yeah. But right around that time period. So it's nearing the end of the war, but they still don't know. I mean, the British are still winning a lot of

battles, and they're headed south and so forth. But in any case, Verjean says, listen, Dr. Franklin, We know that you're broke. We know that you can't pay the interest, let alone the principal back. And not only that, but I need to tell you this, Dr. Franklin, we're broke. We don't have any money. And the French people are rebelling. And so I'm sorry, Dr. Franklin. We cannot loan you $25 million livres.

And then he paused. And he said, but because of the law, love you have for the French people. And because of the love the king has for you, the king has decided to give you, not as a loan, but as a free gift, six million livres out of his own treasury. Now, Eric, that's what we call fundraising. Wow. Well, listen, I mean, there's so much, This is why it's just hopeless in the course of an hour or so to correct. There's so much to think that the French, in a way, were bankrupted by their efforts to help the Americans. It didn't go well for them.

And they ended up having something that they called a revolution dramatically different from our revolution, dramatically different outcome. But it's so fascinating to think that here you have Franklin and Adams. And of course, Adams was not at all pleased. you've referenced this. At this point, he's very annoyed with how disorganized Franklin was. And as a womanizer, he went to a party once that Madame Elveseuse was performing. Madame Elvizuess was putting her arms around Franklin, even though he was a widower and stuff, but they were very affectionate. And this was very much the French way. And both John and Abigail Adams Puritans were just,

livid by his behavior. He considered him not only a womanizer, but a heretic and all kinds of names and stuff. It's kind of sad. But it's unclear whether he really was. That's as far as I can tell. He just loved the French culture and none of the other Americans did. Yeah. Well, so... Except Thomas Jefferson, who also really liked the French and also Franklin and Jefferson liked each other a lot and they were quite friendly well so it's interesting to me that he spends nine years here it's it's extraordinary he lives a long life in those days lived to 84 no nobody very few people lived well into their 80s he had gout kidney stones he had some problems the stone was a real pain because there was no solution literally you had to pass the stone there was no other way to

So on the way home, he had a carriage that was provided that softened the blow as he traveled to the ship and then stopped in England to see his son William, who, because of an exchange of prisoners, ended up in England and tried to reconcile. And that's the other story that's really pretty interesting. I didn't know that or I've already forgotten it. I thought, I didn't know that he had tried to reconcile, because that's, we haven't really touched on that. That's a bitter, heartbreaking story that his son, his only son, his beloved son, chooses to side with the British adamantly.

Adamantly, they would have fights into the night in Philadelphia while he would come and visit. and people wrote about how he and they didn't come to blows but they were bitter it was a bitter in fact so it's actually William who writes to Ben Franklin who's in Paris at the time says well can you stop by and let's reconcile because we'll I'll be in England when your ship arrives and I'll be there to greet you what year roughly are we now talking about 1780 we're would be 1785. Okay, so obviously the war has been settled. It's over.

Yeah, well, 1783 is when they signed the treaty, and it's all in American favor. They've got almost everything they wanted, and again, a lot of that was Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams. They were all together as commissioners, and that was a big success for sure. So the curtain falls on this great tragedy,

as Adams puts it, And now Franklin has an opportunity, you say, to visit his son. Right. But his son was the one reaching out, hoping for reconciliation. As far as I can tell, I thought Franklin rebuffed William. Right. So what happened was he wrote a letter, and then Franklin writes a letter back, and this is before they meet. Uh-huh.

And he writes a letter back, and he says, my dear son, thank you for your letter. but I want you to know that this is a difficult subject for me because not only have you dishonored me in my old age, but you took up arms against me. And it's understandable why we could have certain political differences. but when it comes to human relations, personal family relations mean more. And then he ends his letter with the following. This is a disagreeable subject. I drop it.

He never did reconcile. He removes him from the will. He gives one small piece of property. So he does not visit him. Yes, he does visit them. And they have a cordial meeting, but it's never the same. after that letter. He meets with William in England on his way home. Yeah, they had to talk about legal relations in the estate and stuff like that. So they discussed those

kinds of issues. But that friendship was destroyed. And in fact, you know, there is this lengthy statement by Franklin about there's never a good war or a bad peace. And in that paragraph, he talks about all the things. He kind of soured on the whole thing of the war. He said, we should have never had the war, we should have had independence without the war, that would have been ideal. But because we had this war, things happened that not only destroyed family relations, like his own, but also friendship with his fellow scientists, they weren't able to pursue scientific pursuits. There was no progress economically during the war. He's really down on war. And so it's really kind of a remarkable statement.

It's very similar to, you know, is war worth it? Are we really doing the right thing by going to war? Shouldn't we have worked harder to reconcile our differences without killing each other? And by the way, Franklin describes as does Ken Burns in his series about the rapes, the wanton a killing of individuals. But that's basically all, almost all on the British side. I mean, the British were barbaric. The Americans were

not. The prisoner of wars, the way they were treated? But I think, isn't that the point is that it's so, what they did was so barbaric that you could see, it seems to me, it's interesting, it seems to me naive on Franklin's part to think that it would have been impossible to avoid war. I hadn't heard that. Yeah, I think it's an expression of his bitterness about the whole war that he wished, looking back, he wished it wouldn't have happened. And you know, one of the interesting things that comes out in this story, and I don't know if it's in your book or not, but one of the reasons, you know, at one point, Washington, we haven't

talked much about Washington. The abandonment, so many of the troops were leaving, but, you know, and going home and stuff like that. You know what, turned them around? Like a thousand people came back and said, we're going to join you again, several thousand churches. It was the British killing wantonly and raping their women or stuff like that. It infuriated the Americans who said,

oh, boy, we're fighting this. Yeah. Well, what the British did is just, I hadn't known until I did all my research, and it is so scandalous. It's so, if you ever wanted to know, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. All you need to do is hear some of these stories, what they did,

and knowingly employing the Native Americans and the Hessians to terrorize the colonials, doing that knowingly, really going outside the normal accepted standards of 18th century warfare. So you can see how they pushed a lot of people who are on the fence into the Americans' arms, a lot of them. Yeah, and you know, it's so funny because the British thought that the Americans were uncouth and didn't have any manners and stuff like that. And then we find out this is what the British do during war. So I think what Franklin saw was the depravity of man that comes out during a war, that you think of the British as very polished individuals, wonderful speech.

the King's English and they would never behave like this. But now during war we see this sort of thing. And of course, the Americans don't have a perfect record in this regard, but the Americans have done a better job, I think, are the atrocities that Americans have committed in various wars have been somewhat minimized compared to other. I mean, the Germans, when they, during World War II, they didn't want to be captured by the Russians, I'll tell you that. Well, listen, this is something that my mother, who was in Germany during the war, she told me growing up that the Germans knew the Americans were good guys. The Russians were brutal.

And I think that that speaks to the core values of a culture. It has nothing to do with ethnicity, but it's a culture. And the British really were barbarous in so many different ways that it's an astonishing thing. and I would say they seeded any moral high ground that they might have had. Not that they even thought that they did. It's funny because we mentioned Franklin in the cockpit. That's the moment, I think, where you see dramatically clearly they've decided to go with raw power. We have the power to humiliate you, and we're going to turn our trained gun on you,

who's Alexander Wedderburn and we're going to pull the trigger. We're no longer going to debate the rights of man. It's over. And from that moment on, so... And a lot of it had to do with the king. King George III made major blunders

one after another and had this anger that was caused the rest of the British to act in a depraved manner. I mean, I think there's a lot to do with that of allegiance to the king. The king is right no matter what. Yeah. And that's a very dangerous policy. You've got to be very careful about that. Yeah. We just have a moment left. Maybe you can say a word about Franklin's strong advocacy

for the abolition of slavery. Well, I'd like to talk about two things. One is slavery and the other is his religious views and how those changed. So in the case of slavery, You know, Franklin was the most modern of the founders, if you think about it, because of his views about women's liberation, about his attitude toward capitalism, very much in favor of commercial society and even speculation. He was a bit of a crony capitalist himself in that regard, printing of money for he favored inflation, modest inflation. And slavery was another one where he held slaves, but they were household slaves. it wasn't like the plantations with hundreds. He had a couple of slaves. But when they left him, for whatever reason, he didn't rehire him. At one point he said freedom is a good thing because it encourages hard work and so forth. And when you're enslaved, that tends to encourage laziness and all

of these other problems that you have. So freedom is a good thing. He visited the Negro School of Philadelphia, and there he discovered that the black students were just as smart as the white students. And when he realized that, I think that was a really important moment in his life. So at the end of his life, he was the president of the society to abolish slavery and helped introduce in legislation in the first Congress a bill to abolish slavery. Of course, it was tabled by the Southerners. But I really have to, I have to. I have to, just interrupt briefly, because of the book that I wrote on William Wilberforce, I know that the very young William Wilberforce, while he was in France, visiting France with his friend William Pitt, the younger, he met Benjamin Franklin. Oh, wow.

And so you would imagine that they somehow talked about that, even though this is before Wilberforce took up abolition himself. But please continue. Well, and the final thing is his change transformation in terms of his religious views. So while he was never a churchgoer particularly, he did attend from time to time upon invitation. He had his own liturgy, he had his own service on Sunday where he would have his own prayers and stuff like that. But he was a firm believer in useful good deeds rather than just preaching sermons and long prayers and stuff like that. He was rather critical of the traditional religious views on Sunday. He was a deist, if you will.

You know, God wound up the clock and didn't interfere with our lives. But the American Revolution changed his mind. And so in the American Revolution, he witnessed numerous examples where God intervened, saved George Washington, who really was suffering and somehow struggled and survived. It's quite the story, as you know. And so he gives this speech at the end of the constitutional convention where he is encouraging people to sign them. A hundred yards away from us, yeah. And he was encouraging everyone to sign this document.

He only got 39 to sign it as opposed to 56, I believe, he signed the Declaration of Independence. Very controversial. But he was a firm believer. He had learned from business experience that you, compromise and you, you know, you don't necessarily have a perfect document, but don't let the perfect get in the way of the good, right? And so Franklin gets up and gives this speech and he says, have we not witness over and over again where God intervened so that we would win this war of independence? The longer I live, the more I know that God governs in the affairs of man.

That's a change in Franklin's philosophy. That's not a deist speaking. No, no. He saw God intervening so that we would win the war. Now, he did tell a minister from Yale that it would be easier for him to, he was within a year of dying. He was actually on his deathbed at the time, and he said that it'll be easier for me to find out the truth about whether Jesus is the Christ or not, the Messiah, as people preach. So I don't know if that's true or not, but he did believe in good works. And Christian living, honesty and business, and so forth. It was very good. And I'll end with this, his great epitaph, which you can go to Christ's church,

and it's right next to, he's buried next to his wife, Deborah. And right next to it is his epitaph that he would write many times he'd write this and give this out to people. And it would say, the body of B. Franklin printer, like the cover of an old book, stripped of its lettering and gilding lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not wholly be lost, for it will, as he believe, appear once more in a new and perfect edition corrected and amended by the author. Now, that's a wonderful expression of the resurrection that Benjamin Franklin wrote. And so if you go to Christchurch, you can see they've got the plaque there with that wonderful epitaph

that he would personally write and give out to friends. So that's a great way to end on Franklin as the greatest American in so many ways. Well, thank you for your book. Thank you for your time. And I can't thank you for being a direct descendant of Benjamin Franklin, but it nonetheless makes me happy to think that I've been speaking with one. Thank you, Mark Scousen, for being my guest. Thank you.

And if you don't mind, I'll give you two more quotes from Franklin. Sure. That I found, my wife and I completed Franklin's autobiographical. It was published in 2006. It's called The Completed Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin. It's his own words based on our editing voluminous letters and articles that he had written. And I found two quotes in there that nobody's ever heard before but are very profound. So for domestic policy, he said,

A virtuous and industrious people may be cheaply governed. Wonderful quote. That's good. And for his foreign policy, policy. The system of America is commerce with all and war with none. Thank you. My pleasure, Eric. Real pleasure. Thank you. And thank you for all your work that you do, your TV program and your book. I'm looking forward to reading your new book. Very excited. Very excited that everybody in America can relearn our story if they forgot. It's such an important story, but thanks for all you've done.