The Eric Metaxas Show - Mark Skousen 

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

Mark Skousen joins us to discuss his new book The Greatest American: History’s Most Versatile Genius, a biography of Ben Franklin. 

Welcome to the Eric Metaxus show. Would you consider yourself smart, insightful, precocious, astute, clever, wise beyond your years, and good at checking a thesaurus for synonyms? Well, then you've come to the right place. Here now is the handsome, attractive, striking, gorgeous, and quite frankly, breathtaking, Eric Mattaxas! Hey there, folks, welcome to the program. As you probably know, if you listen to this program, I am right.

a big book on the American Revolution. I have been reading thousands and thousands of pages. For sure, one of my favorite characters, because my book, it's, you know, it's an epic story. It's the story of stories and all kinds of people. One of my absolute favorite people in the story is Benjamin Franklin. And it just so happens that someone I've gotten to know, and I'm a fan of, Mark Scousen, has written a book, brand new book, on did you guess it? Benjamin Franklin. The book is called The Greatest American Benjamin Franklin,

the world's most versatile genius. Mark Scouson, welcome to the program. Well, I'm glad to be with you, and especially I'm delighted that you're writing a book on the American River. Is it going to be out for next year? Oh, yes, oh, yes. And I keep saying that I am branding next year, as you know, the official term,

which no one will remember and will never pronounce. is the semi-quincentennial. That's the 250th. And hardly anybody knows that, much less will pronounce it. We know President Trump's not going to say semi-quincentennial because it's not like bicentennial or tricentennial. So I have labeled the 250th the supercentennial. So next year is the super centennial of the United States of America.

And my book will be out next year, by the grace of God, because it's not easy to write a book, as you know, having written many of them yourself. Now, most people would know you as the guy behind Freedom Fest. I had the privilege of being at Freedom Fest a couple of years ago where I had to interview. I got the joy of receiving an amazing award from you for my book as Atheism Dead. I had the privilege of interviewing one of my heroes, John Cleese. Oh, my gosh.

I can't believe that that really happened. So Freedom Fest was a wonderful experience for me and you and I got to spend some time there. George Gilder was there. We've had him on this program many, many times. Ben Stein was there. So it's just an extraordinary thing. So you're the man behind that. You're also one of the chief economists in the United States of America right now. You write about the economy. So my first question, of course, is what led you, Mark Scousen, to write another biography of the great Benjamin Franklin? Well, first of all, it's not really a biography. In fact,

I do have a two-page summary of his life, but it's 80 chapters of what, we can learn from Ben Franklin to today's hot issues. So whether it's taxation, inflation, tariffs, the trade war, war in general, I mean, Franklin is considered America's greatest diplomat. So I found it interesting that President Trump a couple weeks ago had the hoodon bust of Ben Franklin in his Oval Office as he, I think he was channeling Ben Franklin to see if he could improve his diplomatic skills. Okay, now I got to tell you something. First of all, I have the Hudam bust of George Washington in this room. It's not visible. It should be visible. I also have the Hudon bust of Benjamin Franklin in wax. It is a wax candle version of the Ben Franklin Hudon bust. Hudon, of course,

a very famous 18th century French sculptor. So it's kind of funny you bring that up. But when you bring up the president, President Trump, I was myself talking to somebody in Washington, D.C., a couple of weeks ago, about why President Trump would have Benjamin Franklin, you know, in his pantheon of greats right there. And I thought part of it has to do with the fact that Ben Franklin is on the $100 bill. Don't you think that's got to be part of it?

I think he would be, it would please his vanity to know that he's worth a hundred times more than the founder of our nation, George Washington. I was going to say. But in all seriousness, in doing my research on the American Revolution, one thing that has fascinated me, and I'm going to be writing about it, if I've already begun writing about it, Ben Franklin, and this is a parallel with President Trump, Ben Franklin sought. to make Canada the 14th colony to join us in rebelling against the mother country. He went there following Benedict Arnold's failed attempt to take Montreal and Quebec to parlay with them, to try to talk them into joining us. It was while he was in Canada that he acquired his famous Pine Martin hat. the fur hat that we see him wearing in Paris a few years following his time in Canada.

But I really believe his desire to acquire Canada as part of the new United States of America, that that ties him to Trump in a way because Trump, of course, is trying to do something similar with Canada. Yeah, in the treaty that Franklin negotiated with the British, at the end after the Battle of Yorktown, in those negotiations, that's one thing Franklin wanted to do was to annex Canada. And it's one of the many things that he didn't accomplish. It was not able to do so. But if you look at Canada as opposed to Mexico and other countries,

certainly bordering the United States, I mean, Canada clearly has a culture that is very similar to the U.S. U.S. The same language and many, they even have a Thanksgiving just like we do. There's lots of things to be said for at least a border, a porous border rather than a wall. I've always, it's always bothered me that, you know, I send copies of my book to Canada all the time. And it costs three or four times more to go just across this border. between to go to Detroit versus Toronto. And of course, it's due to all of these regulations and

restrictions and tariffs and that sort of thing that really shouldn't exist. By the way, my book, the greatest American, was actually printed in Canada. And fortunately, there's no duties on books. There are some exemptions. Tariffs cannot be imposed on books, on artwork, on software. There's a lot of things that, by law, cannot be tariffed, if you will. So Canada is, I think is a perfect example that we should have certainly a very liberal trade policy. with Canada since we're culturally so similar. Well, that's for sure.

And you know about the economy, you know about economic issues. But let me ask you again. So the new book is called The Greatest American, Benjamin Franklin, the world's most versatile genius. And I think he was. He was a Renaissance man like we've never seen. But what was it that led you, Mark Scousen, to say, I want to write a book about Ben Franklin?

So it actually started when Chris Reddy at Newsmax invited me to be a columnist, a monthly columnist for their newsletter, which is still coming, it still comes out called the Franklin Prosperity Report. So I wrote a column for like six years. And so this became the basis of all of these 80 chapters that I have in there. And I've added a couple of academic papers, one on Benjamin Franklin, was. he, Adam Smith's invisible hand, they played a role in adopting free market capitalism. Both of them had very similar beliefs. They're free traders, by the way, which is an interesting phenomenon in today's issue. So this became the basis of my book. How can we apply Franklin's views in today.

And whether so, if you look at the 80 chapters, there's chapters on investing, on business, personal finance, the economy, politics, diplomacy, sex. In fact, there was one call of my, there's one call to Eric, I wrote for the Franklin Prosperity Report on Franklin's hard-to-governor passions and about sex. love and marriage. And it was the one column that they rejected and said, no, this is too racy for our audience. So it's chapter 77 in the book. Okay, got to go to a break. I'm talking to Mark Scouse. And the book is the greatest American. There's been a national focus on eating only the healthiest of foods, and that's great news for balance of nature. Their method of producing

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my pillow.com. Use the code, Eric. Okay, I'm back with Mark Scousen. We're talking about his new book on Ben Franklin titled The Greatest American. So Franklin is such a fascinating figure. I mean, born, I remember I did a book report on him in third grade. And I remember that he was born in 1706 on Milk Street in Boston, that his father was a candlestick maker. And so he is raised in the heart of puritanical Puritan Boston.

But of course, at age what, 15, 16, I can't remember, skips away. He was a pressed, apprenticed to his brother, the printer, but he escapes. I don't remember exactly why being a printer's devil, as they used to call them in those days, was so onerous. Well, he had sharp differences with his older brother who demanded all kinds of things from him and would not allow him to publish under his name. He wanted to write articles, so Sonance Do Good was created. That was his first attempt at creating a nom de plume, and it was very popular. Also, James ended up in jail a couple of times because he violated the restrictions on free press back then. And so Franklin basically took over.

and then when James came back out of jail, they disagreed again. So Franklin took off and ran away from home, if you will, as a teenager, ended up in Philadelphia and used his skills to become the most successful printer, publisher is like being the Pennsylvania Gazette was like the New York Times of its era, and it was franchised all over the other colonies. He was so successful at it that age 42, he retired. and that's when he devoted his life to civic interests, helping improve the local community, and then becoming a diplomat, an ambassador, colonial agent in London.

And that began, oh, and also, of course, his scientific experiments, which made him, by the way, the most famous American at his time, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson were virtually unknown. but Benjamin Franklin was America's first scientific American and was very well known abroad and won the Copley Award in the UK. And so his reputation preceded him as he went to France to be America's first ambassador, went to London, so forth. That's a really important point why Franklin was so influential as a diplomat as America's first ambassador. So Franklin is undeniably fascinating. I mean, it's hard to know where to begin. First of all, we think of him as the ultimate American. He is America itself. When he goes to France wearing his famous Pine Martin cap that, of course, he got in Canada, he is hailed as the genius. And I don't mean brilliant, but I mean genius, the spirit, the spirit of the spirit of America, the spirit of the enlightenment, the spirit of, um, meritocracy, somebody who rises from being a part of a, you know, a family that is working class to become, you know, one of the kings of the world, consorting with the kings of the world.

So he is hailed as the ultimate American. Of course, he comes from Boston, spends his life in Philadelphia. And yet, in doing my research for my book, I was astonished to realize he spent 27 years of his life in Europe. I mean, that is to me one of the most amazing things. When you think about Benjamin Franklin, the ultimate American, he spent 27 years of his life, 18 years in London, nine years in France. Most people don't know that. That, I mean, in the 1750s, he is sent from Pennsylvania and he spends basically the next two decades in England. I mean, just that alone is fascinating to me. But what a, what an international figure he was. H.W. Brands, the historian called Franklin the first American. And as a first American, boy,

did he set the standard? Because most Americans never traveled within 50 miles of their hometown, let alone outside the United States. But Franklin is no doubt the international man, having gone to all of these countries, and also did a tour of. of Germany and places like that. So, and he learned five languages, or at least he could read five languages. I'm not sure he was very good at speaking French or the Scottish accent and all that sort of thing, but very unique personality. And not only that, but he was not like Elon Musk, who's on the edge, so to speak,

and you wonder about... autistic people who are really geniuses and stuff like that. There's no evidence that Franklin was not always mentally there. He was very wise man, but very quick. And even engaged in mathematics, I mean, I came up with 22 careers. In the book, I have this just one chapter, here are Franklin's 22 careers and inventor and scientists and printer and ambassador. and just the list goes on and on, maybe even the first stand-up comedian because he was always...

I was going to say that he always makes me feel better about myself because he was in so many different places in life. I've often been accused of that or I've accused myself of that. You know, the way, the positive way to say is he's eclectic, he's a renaissance man, the negative way is to say that he's scattered. But here you have a genius who was, genuinely a scientist of the first water. He did things he's elected to the Royal Society in England. I mean, this is the highest honor you can get as a scientist for his work with electricity,

and on and on it goes. But that's not enough. He's also an entrepreneur. He is, as you have already said, a famous statesman and a diplomat. He really is, there's almost no one we can compare him to. I think it's safe to say there's really no one we can compare him to. Yeah, and I should add he was a clerk, he was a governor, a legislator. There are all of these, and he was the founder of the University of Pennsylvania. He established the first, he helped fund the first Negro school of Philadelphia. One of the things I like about Franklin also is that he was willing to change his mind.

You know, most of us were kind of stuck in our ways. We never changed our mind on anything. Franklin was a slave owner. He owned a couple of slaves. They were more house servants than working out in the fields and stuff like that, like you had with Jefferson and with Washington, and they had hundreds of slaves. Franklin had house servants, if you will. And he recognized that when he went to and visited with Reverend Whitfield,

he visited the Negro School of Philadelphia, and he was surprised. He says, I was surprised to see that the black students were just as smart as the white students. So his prejudices really declined dramatically. He became an abolitionist at a time when that was not particularly popular, and he was the first president of the Pennsylvania Society to abolish slavery. So I give him a lot of credit for that. He certainly had a very upbuburn. be optimistic view regarding women. He wasn't just a womanizer. He was a ladies man in many ways,

but he recognized that women were not there, not just beautiful, but that you should be sexually attracted to. But he found them intellectually very stimulating. And in my book, I talk about Madame El Ves-Souz, Madame Brion, who had these salons and would entertain men. and women, and he was just treated with great respect, and he treated them with great respect. So those are just two examples. He's even changed his mind on inflation. He was for inflation. He wrote a pamphlet when the British were restricting the use of species of gold and silver in, they're always talking about the shortage of gold and silver. So he advocated in the pamphlet, the printing of paper money, unbacked paper money, to stimulate commerce. But he didn't

He later in life realized that you could go overboard. And when the continental currency, not worth the continental, he realized that inflation was excessive and we needed to pull back. So in many ways, Franklin is considered the most modern of the founders in terms of his views on minorities, on race, on women, on the economy, on inflation. By the way, there's a couple of quotes that I think you would really appreciate regarding his belief in government. I'll give you these two quotes, which I think are really – they bring Americans together when you hear it. So the first is this, a virtuous and industrious people may be cheaply governed. And the second one is the system of America is commerce with all and war with none. Now, both of these are highly idealistic, but nevertheless, they represent, they symbolize what we ought to be achieving in our, in today's society.

All right, folks, I'm talking to Mark Scousen. The new book is called The Greatest American Benjamin Franklin, the world's most versatile genius. We'll be right back. Folks, before I continue my conversation with Mark Scousen about Benjamin Franklin, I want to remind you of our friends at the Hertz The Hurtzog Foundation. In case you didn't know what a foundation was, well, they are there to help you. They're not looking for money from you. They want to help you.

What do they want to help you with? The Hurtzog Foundation wants to help you with homeschooling. They are really the go-to folks, friends of this program for homeschooling and quality K-12 Christ-centered Christian education. Check them out at the Hurtzog Foundation, Hurtzog Foundation. dot com. Herzog foundation.com is the website. As you know, this is very important. If your kids aren't being homeschooled or aren't getting quality K through 12 Christ-centered education, you deserve it. You owe it to yourself and your kids to check it out. And that's why we always recommend

our friends at the Herzog Foundation. They're the number one place. Hertzog Foundation.com. Herzog Foundation.com.com. Okay, Benjamin Franklin, Mark Scousen, I said to you earlier, because I'm writing this book on the revolution to come out next year at the super centennial of the United States of America, I've become so fascinated with Ben Franklin. and you're going over some of the greatest hits of his life. He really is a free thinker in the best sense. You said that he changed his mind on things. He wasn't afraid to change his mind. Two things I think that he changed his mind on,

his disposition toward the mother country, toward Great Britain. He wanted, he was, I think, excited about America being a full-fledged partner of Great Britain going forward. But then the way he was treated. in 1774 really forever made him an enemy of the British crown and an advocate of independence because of what happened in 1774 with Wedderburn in the Privy Council. Yes, the cockpit.

Yeah, the famous cockpit. It's called the cockpit because it was a room during the reign of King Henry. the eighth, which would have been, what, 250 years before Franklin, hard to believe how long ago that is. So 250 years before Franklin, it was used. They would have cockfights in that room. And then it was later on repurposed as where the Privy Council met. But that's a real moment in the life of Ben Franklin, isn't it? Yeah, he stood there in silence the whole time.

silence was one of his virtues, as you know, one of the 12-13 virtues that he talked about in the autobiography. He silently listened for over an hour as he was railed against as the colonial agent representative of America. And what's interesting is I found as early as 1771 where he said, I believe that our union cannot last. Of course, he was a loyalist for most of his adult life, and in fact, to the point where he got his son William, Billy, to be appointed the governor of New Jersey. And that became a major issue in his life. He never did forgive his son for remaining a loyalist. And at one point in a letter he said, this is a disagreeable subject. I drop it. So that was another example of where Franklin changed his mind from being a loyalist to being a rebel. And of course, he had to leave England because otherwise he would have been arrested for sure.

Well, and it's painful that he has this son, William, with whom he's close, until this break happens. And that's why I always say we're in the third existential crisis of our history in America right now. The first is the revolution, the second is the civil war. and we're going through the third right now. And part of the quality or rather the characteristic of an existential crisis is when you have family members turning against family members or close friends becoming enemies, it's heartbreaking. And the story of Franklin's relationship and the broken relationship with his son William, it's tough to think about that.

Yes, and also his friends, he had many science friends and his publisher, William Strawn, he wrote this letter which he never sent about all the cruel things that England had done during the war and said, you were once my friend and now you are my enemy, and I am sincerely yours and signed his name. But fortunately, he never sent it. He was very good, by the way. You know how in today's world all we have to do is push a little button and send an inflammatory email that we instantly regret. Well, in Franklin's case, he would write letters and they'd put it aside for 24 hours and then often not sent it. So we learn a lot about being patient and not being careful what you

say in print. Exactly. Yeah, he was, he was wise. I mean, he was a man of virtue, mostly, and a wise man. There was another thing. that you just touched on, which now I'm forgetting. We were just about to talk about something else. Well, I would like to bring up, since this is a subject that you and your listeners would be very interested in, is Franklin's changing views on religion. Yes. Because he was a deist.

He was a skeptic. He was a heretic. He was a doubter. He was not a churchgoer. He had his own liturgy and stuff like that. He never denied the existence of God. but the American Revolution changed him. So you should have this in your book.

But Franklin, he said, have we not seen numerous examples of where God governed intervened so that we would win this war of independence? The longer I live, the more I realized that God governs in the affairs of men. So he went from being a deist to an active theist, believing that God actually intervened so that the American Revolution. And he believed that America was the promised land, that it was a land of free and a unique American exceptionalism is very real. Mark, right? Forgive me.

Going to a break. We'll be right back talking to Mark Scousen. Welcome back talking to Mark Scowson. The new book about Benjamin Franklin is called The Greatest American. You were just telling us, Mark, something that I've become aware of only recently in my own research, that Franklin did come around. around to believing that God governed in the affairs of men. He was a little bit more of a of a clockmaker deist in his views of God, but he came around. He was, of course, friends going back to, you know, the late 1730s with George Whitfield, the great evangelist. And so his

views on God and his relationship with faith were complicated. He was always. He was always pro faith, I think. There's no doubt. I mean, he promoted Whitfield and he felt that there's a role for religion, but he was, he saw it mostly pragmatically early on. But then as you just said, the revolution somehow convinced him that God's hand was with America, which is part of the thesis of my book. It seems unavoidable when you study the history of the revolution. We ought not to have won, but we did. But you think that that's what turned Franklin. Yes, and this comes from that final address he gives to the Constitutional Convention, where he says God governs in the affairs of men and so forth. This is where he wanted to

encourage people to have prayers in the Constitutional Convention so that they could resolve their differences. He was always a compromiser and a wonderful diplomat in that respect. But But as far as his religious friends are concerned, they considered him a heretic. I know John Adams were developed into some kind of bitter enemies, in a sense, in France, where they thought Franklin was a womanizer and a non-believer and a heretic and all that sort of thing. It's kind of unfortunate that they became enemies in some ways. but you have to remember that Franklin always believed that he was not a fan of long sermons and so forth, but he believed in good works, in charity, and not just belief.

And so I think that's, again, a modern view of Christianity. If you're not involved in charity and good works, if you're just going to church and listening to a sermon, then, you know, you're not really listening. living your religion. So Franklin was very good in that respect, even though he was not a regular churchgoer. Yeah. Well, that's what so interesting. This is something that you probably wouldn't be aware about it, but I've been speaking about this ad infinitum for the last three plus years that many American evangelicals have made the same mistake that German Lutherans made in the 30s Bonhofer tried to wake them up, that you cannot simply say it's by faith alone,

ergo, I don't need to do anything. That's nonsense. That is cheap. grace, and it is really a mockery of actual faith. And that's what's so interesting. The founders all seem to understand virtue matters, how we behave matters. And they didn't cavalierly talk about faith as though it's merely the intellectual assent to something, but that it has to be lived out. And you see that because of the Puritan background of so many of the founders, obviously those from the Massachusetts. It is really interesting that you see that. And you even see that, of course, in Franklin's autobiography, that he's talking about these virtues. So that he really got that piece of it, which is interesting. Yeah, Faith Without Works is dead, as James said, right? So the other thing

I want to say, and Eric, this may be an area where Franklin would say things that would be controversial even for you and your group. And that is when Elizabeth Powell, a very, very, intelligent political influencer, if you will, came to Franklin and said, well, what have we got for government? Do we have a republic or a monarchy? And of course, this is the basis of one of your books, if you can keep it. And that's what Franklin said, a republic if you can keep it. And he actually writes a letter warning that America someday, you better be careful, do not let us a king rule over us, one man rule, monarchy. And so he would be concerned about presidents, whether it's Joe Biden or Donald Trump signing too much executive orders and not going through Congress. And this is the issue right now on these tariffs and so forth.

if you're going to, Franklin was a free trader. He said no nation has ever ruined by trade. And so this is, the jury is out what's going to happen with this trade war. And I don't know your feelings on this, but we need to be careful that the end result are less barriers and lower tariffs for everyone. And even if you adopted this 10% tariff across the board, that's, That's three times more than what we used to. We used to charge only two or three percent. So it is, again, an issue that Franklin raises even back 250 years ago.

I mean, he was interested in everything. That's what's so fascinating. You mentioned Adam Smith. He must have known Adam Smith in England. Oh, yes. And in fact, the story is told that when Adam Smith was writing the wealth of nations, he would bring chapter after chapter because they were both in London. London at the same time, and he would ask Franklin and others, could you peruse this chapter?

And you'll notice that in the wealth of nations, published in 1776, by the way, there's a very pro-American section in the book, and even to the point where Adam Smith says that America is destined to be one of the greatest, most powerful nations in the world. And he also advocates American independence. Can you imagine how popular that would be in England? Yes. And then on the other hand, Adam Smith or Benjamin Franklin is very, he's an advocate of laissez-faire, limited government. He says so, very similar to Adam Smith and the free trade movement and that sort of thing. So they learn from each other. There's no question. My chapter 20, I think it's 27 or 29, is called. Benjamin Franklin, Adam Smith's invisible hand, question mark.

That's a funny, funny chapter title. We're going to go to another break. I just want to mention, because he knew so many people, in my book about William Wilberforce, titled Amazing Grace, I talk about how in 1785, Benjamin Franklin, or I should say William Wilberforce, very young man at the time, 25, 26 years old, met Benjamin Franklin, Marie Antoinette in Paris. It's extraordinary to think that this man who would become known as the man who ended the slave trade in the British Empire met his fellow abolitionist who happened to be in France at the time. We'll be right back talking to Mark Scousen. The book is the greatest

American about Ben Franklin. Folks, welcome back talking to Mark Scowson, S-K-O-U-S-E-N. The book is the greatest American about Ben Franklin. So what else can we say that we have a said about Ben Franklin? Well, one of the things that I think is worth pointing out is that Franklin is viewed as some kind of womanizer and that he actually confesses in his autobiography that he engaged with low women, he calls, but he erased the errat in his life. He did have one illegitimate child, William, Billy, but then he married. Deborah, and Deborah, they lived very faithfully to each other. She helped raise Billy in their household.

So one thing I like about Franklin, if we could end on this, you know, you asked the question, well, who would you like to sit down and have a beer with among the founding fathers? And of course, if you sat down with George Washington and asked him some personal questions, like, why did you have any children, he would be reluctant to answer. And the same thing with Thomas Jefferson. You would not want to ask him, well, what was your real relationship with Sally Hemmings, your slave? He would consider that very inappropriate. The Virginians were like that as Southerners. However, Ben Franklin was very open about his relationship, having an illegitimate child admitted it in writing. and he did say let every man know the but let no man know thee thoroughly so he did have some

private things that he probably wouldn't want to talk about but basically he was very open and that's one of the things I really like about Franklin he would be willing to tell you what he really thought of the British about John Adams I should also mention I guess the final thing is that of all the founding fathers in Paris, they had like six commissioners, including John Adams and the Lee brothers. Franklin was the only one who raised any money. He was the fundraiser extraordinaire. He raised not only money, but armaments, equipment, uniforms, so that in the Battle of Yorktown, half the troops were French, all the ships were French. So the armaments, the ammunition, the uniform.

So without Francis' support, and Franklin was the one who raised all that money, we would not have won that war. At least it would have taken a much longer period of time. So Franklin is truly representative of the grandfather of our nation. He recognized he was a whole generation older than George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or John Adams. So that's why he never became president. He was governor of Pennsylvania, but never considered being the first president in the United States. But he does deserve to be the grandfather of our nation. So my book, The Greatest American, I think, is a very legitimate title that he deserves because of his versatility and certainly the most America's greatest diplomat.

So a lot of good things to say about him. You've referenced his difficult relationship at the end of his life in Paris with John Adams. But a lot of people don't know this. And it's going to be a funny chapter. I've already written it in my book where he spends, most people don't know this. It sounds like a joke. He spent a night in bed with John Adams. They were on their way to Staten Island to meet with General How.

This is following the Battle of Brooklyn. And just before they get to Staten Island, they have to spend a night in New Jersey, and there's no room. And the two of them, this is like one of the scenes, like you can't make it up. These two great figures of history spend a night in a bed, arguing about whether we should have the window open or closed. Anyway, we're out of time. Mark Scousen, just a joy to speak with you on a favorite subject of mine, Ben Franklin. The book, folks, it's the greatest American. Mark Scousen, thank you.

Thank you. Be free, as frankly would say.