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contributed at once to produce and imbitter the melancholy state of society which closed the last century, and by their violence to the overthrow of that party; from which period the state of society is happily contrasted by the social quiet, security, and concord which have been experienced during the subsequent thirty years.

It was said of David Mallet's life of Chancellor Bacon, that "it contained no illustration of the philosophy of the period; and that had he written the life of Marlborough, he might have omitted the tactics of the period with the same propriety." The same characteristic belongs to more than one history of the American revolution, in which Franklin appears not to have held even a secondary place.

Among the transactions which followed the peace, the abrogation of the constitution which had been drawn up by Franklin for Pennsylvania, merits some notice. The same month which is marked by the Declaration of Independence gave birth to the convention which formed the republican constitution of Pennsylvania. Dr. Franklin was the president of that convention. The constitution which it adopted presents his political opinions; a single assembly and a plural executive were in his judgment the proper basis of a government for a free people. Averse from any form which would subject human affairs to the caprice or passions of any individual, he considered a single executive as constituting in effect a monarchy, the natural tendency of which was to despotism. It was completed 28th September, 1776, having a preamble assigning the causes of its formation; its first chapter was a Bill of Rights, embracing all those free principles of action, right, and security which leave no room for the equivocations of unwritten law, and asserting all that was necessary to social security, freedom of action and opinion.

The second chapter contained the plan of a frame of government, wherein the legislative power was assigned to an assembly of responsible delegates, and the executive to a president and council. The assembly to be annually chosen by ballot, and the members to be eligible for only four years out of seven; no members elected by the state to Congress of the United States to sit longer than two years successively, and to be ineligible for three years afterwards. All bills presented at any session to lie over after debate for another session, and to be printed in the interval for public consideration; and by the § 47, a council of censors was constituted to be chosen every seventh year, to sit one year, whose duty it should be to inquire whether the constitution had been administered inviolate; the legislators faithful; the executive performed their duty; in what manner the revenue had been collected and disposed of; and if they should find cause, to call a convention in two years after their session for the revision of the constitution, &c.

This constitution was in operation until after the present constitution of the United States was established. The parties which grew out of the contest on that occasion assumed various names, which as is not uncommon were sometimes deceptive, and displayed in action what was very different from or absolutely opposed to the signification of the title assumed.

It was in the heat of these excitements that the constitution of Pennsylvania furnished by Franklin was assailed; and while the friend of freedom cannot but regret the various modes by which constitutions have been subverted in more recent times, he who is familiar with history will be apt to moderate his surprise

at what has happened in other countries, when he learns that even in Pennsylvania, the constitution of Franklin was not terminated by the means and mode provided within itself; but that proceedings characterized by violence put an end to it, and supplied its place by the constitution which still exists.

This abstract of history would be defective, if the causes and consequences were not adverted to. The § 36 of Franklin's constitution is in the following words: "As every freeman, to preserve his independence (if without a sufficient estate), ought to have some profession, calling, trade, or farm, whereby he may honestly subsist, there can be no necessity for, nor use in establishing offices of profit; the usual effects of which are dependance and servility, unbecoming freemen, in the possessors and expectants; faction, contention, corruption, and disorder among the people. But if any man is called into public service, to the prejudice of his private affairs, he has a right to a reasonable compensation."

The discussions which had arisen on the formation of the federal constitution had unfolded unequivocal prepossessions towards monarchical institutions, and the forms of the English government especially. Titular distinctions and the appetite for place, ranks, orders, and degrees-patricians and plebeians-the well-born and the vulgar, were heard of, and menaced a restoration of the vices and follies which had cost so much to overcome and do away. A constitution which required every man to have a profession, calling, or trade, and which at once held forth the incongruity of sinecure offices, could not but be odious to the newly self-incarnated nobility; and the work of Franklin, under which the commonwealth prospered in quiet, was doomed to a like proscription with that of his family. An illustration of the state of society at the period, is pertinent to the historical purpose of this preface. Such were the ridiculous extremes of the passions of the period, that the intolerance of faction, temporarily ascendant in political power, carried its influence into private society. The enjoyment of peace after the recent afflictions. of war naturally led the youth of both sexes to social intercourse and innocent felicity. Dancing assemblies were among the seasonable recreations. A grandson of Franklin, who had been educated with peculiar care and affection during his residence in Europe, had returned home with his intellect well cultivated and the polish of the best manners. Modest and unassuming, amiable and unaffected, his deportment during the completion of his education at the university of his native city had acquired for him private esteem and public admiration. Without seeking distinction, he was by common assent considered the model and became the leading director of those innocent and rational assemblies. But that jealous and unquiet spirit which had closed the doors of the presidential levees against the talented and accomplished daughter of Franklin, carried its proscription into the dancing assemblies; and, surprising as the fact may appear at the present day, the grandson was interdicted from those assemblies of which he was the first ornament, upon this significant plea-that he was a printer! Such an occurrence would appear from its complex absurdity and extravagance almost incredible; but there still survive too many witnesses of the fact to leave it doubtful.

The constitution of the commonwealth, it may be better conceived from this anecdote, was not adapted to the views and wishes of the then dominating influence. In the flush of success in some points of political contention, and using but abusing the influence of a great name, while in the prosecution of their vengeance

against popular government equal and free, they conspired to subvert Franklin's constitution, and to establish another which, by a concentration of official patronage, comparatively greater in the executive than that possessed by the royal prototype of England, they calculated would secure to them the power and the offices of the state for ever; nor did they hesitate to resort to means odious and violent to accomplish their purpose. The existing constitution had provided legal means for its correction and amendment; those were wholly disregarded; and such was the temper of the authors of the transactions, that members of the assembly were forced from their dwellings to give an appearance of sanction by their presence, to an act against which they had protested, for which they refused to vote, and to which their constituents were opposed: to complete their purpose, they excluded from the new constitution every provision for its amendment; a feature which was a favourite in all the constitutions formed contemporaneously and since.

This omission, however, only indicated the hopes and purposes of the authors. They had seen the monarch of England governing an unpaid parliament by patronage and influence. The whole power of appointment was therefore vested in the executive. The judiciary, in the absence of a church establishment, was a power to be made permanent to secure the duration and identity of their domination, and the dependance of the bar. Fortunately for mankind, power is constantly blinded by the excess of its passions; the combination was circumscribed and local, but suffrage was diffusive and all comprehending: the illusion which suggested the calculation of a perpetuation of power in the dominant party, survived scarcely ten years; for the general election of 1779 terminated their career, and transferred that very power to the hands of their democratic adversaries. The chief actors in those irrational transactions have moved off the stage, and their descendants who survive are blended with the community, undistinguished, but enjoying that peace, order, and security which began to bless society only at the moment of their overthrow. The reputation of Franklin has gradually ceased to be assailed, and his posterity in the third degree, by the mere force of their faculties and virtues, have found their way to the chairs of philosophy in their native city, to the scientific branches of the military establishment, and to a reputable rank in the naval institutions, of their country.

These incidents belong to history, they carry a moral which cannot be disregarded, but the generation now upon the tapis have no means but a vague tradition to appreciate how great the obligations they owe to the men of those days, the evils they have escaped, or the afflictions endured and overcome in arriving at the present state of peace, concord, and prosperity.

It would be remiss on this occasion not to notice a recent collection and publication of familiar letters of Dr. Franklin, by Jared Sparks, Esq. of Boston. A few of those letters had appeared in the edition of 1818, but the rest have never before reached the press; they are principally addressed to his relatives, and to Miss Stevenson, to whom letters appear addressed, in the early published editions: miscellaneous fragments form an appendix thereto, taken from some volumes which had been collected by Col. W. Duane, and transferred from his private library to the Philadelphia Atheneum; these will also be found at the close of the second volume of this edition. In the preface to Mr. Sparks's publication, he deplores the loss of "Franklin's letter-book, embracing the entire period of his agency in

England, throughout a space of almost twenty years, ascribable to the treachery or negligence of the person to whom he intrusted them when he went to France." Mr. Sparks animadverting on that injustice to Franklin, of which we took notice in the preceding part of this preface, written before Mr. Sparks's publication appeared, he thus manfully expresses himself:

"Owing to a train of circumstances which, at one time, were not well understood, but now admit of an easy and full explanation, the character of Franklin suffered in the hands of some of his late associates and contemporaries. Suspicions of his political integrity, and even of his private honesty, were scattered among the credulous, and produced impressions on the minds of many of his countrymen, which his brilliant name and great services have as yet hardly effaced. After a laborious inquiry into this matter, with no ordinary means of information and opportunities of research, particularly in regard to his acts as minister plenipotentiary in France, and in negotiating the treaty of peace at the end of the war, I feel authorized to declare, that his conduct admits of unqualified vindication; that so far from open censure or the whispers of suspicion, he deserves the lasting praise and gratitude of his country, for the manly, consistent, undeviating, honourable, and efficient course he pursued, in the face of numerous obstacles and embarrassments, during the whole nine years of his residence in France. His patriotism and fidelity to his trust were equalled only by his unrivalled talents and sagacity."

It may be proper to state the nature of some of those odious imputations, in which personal jealousy and the angry hate of the refugees who had obtained amnesty united in propagating. During the periods of the first and second presidency, it had been whispered by certain persons, that Franklin had obtained a million of livres from the court of Versailles, and had appropriated it to his private use. The writer of this preface has frequently heard the calumny unreservedly uttered; and it was not until Thomas Jefferson entered upon the presidential duties, that the authentic means of putting an end to this odious moral assassination could be reached. It appeared that this report had at an early period of the first presidency been made the subject of an official but secret investigation, and Mr. Gouverneur Morris, official agent at Paris, was instructed to trace the subject to its source.

This million unaccounted for, as the libellists said, was found to be that very million which has been a subject of petition for nearly half a century, and which was only decided to be repaid by Congress in 1832-3; Franklin was suspected of receiving and appropriating to his own use. Mr. Gouverneur Morris, by no means an admirer of Dr. Franklin or his philosophy, to his honour, performed his duty with integrity. He found that this million had been advanced by the French court before Franklin had arrived in France; that it was placed to the order of Baron Beaumarchais; and that it was disposed of in supplying military stores, of which the government of the United States had acknowledged the receipt. But what ap pears most remarkable is, that although this report of the American minister at Paris reposed in the archives of the department of state, the calumny was tolerated until Thomas Jefferson caused it to be exposed, and set the slander to rest for ever. The letters first ushered to the public by Mr. Sparks unfold further the domestic and social character of Franklin. One of his eulogists has described him as silent in company, and given to converse freely with only one person. The in

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ference intended by this trait of character, is not exactly that which naturally belongs to it. In the habitual innocency and playfulness which he was fond of indulging with his grandchildren, he frequently introduced, in reproof of too light and frequent volubility, this admonition :-" Recollect you have two ears, and two eyes, and only one mouth, which shows you must not speak more than half what you hear, and of half as much as you see."

He entertained a very unfavourable opinion of the ordinary modes and topics of conversation in mixed companies; he did not consider them always the most favourable places for obtaining or communicating knowledge; in mixed companies capacities are generally unequal, and egotism or the desire to show off qualities more superficial than solid too generally predominates; useful topics are rarely thought of, and where gaiety prevails, it is good philosophy to partake and not to disturb it by the interposition of gravity, or serious discussions, which are better adapted to the retired privacy and deliberation of individuals of similar temper and dispositions: he was in his domestic relations habitually cheerful and gay; and though no man possessed a more ready or keen wit, he repressed it abroad; considering vanity as a predominating passion, and too often using an exaggerated freedom with the qualities and failings of neighbours.

In those select societies which sprung up under his guidance in his first maturity, and of which the philosophical society and the city library are existing monuments, he was the actuating spirit. Among his associates of those early days his wit was as interesting as his philosophy was instructive; the questions which he propounded in the Junto extended to every department of practical knowledge, and had for their aim uniformly utility and the promotion of benevolence; in the discussions which arose he had always a principal but an unobtrusive share; he was not dogmatical in any thing; though he spoke frequently, he was never guilty of a long or an incomprehensible speech; and when others flagged, he was always ready to bring his philosophy and his good humour into action. Several sheets of his first thoughts suggested for discussion lie before the writer; with their first terms altered, interlined, improved, augmented, or abridged. From those fragments the following are selected.

"The great secret of succeeding in conversation is to admire little, to hear much; always to distrust your own judgment, and sometimes that of your friends; never to pretend to wit, but to make that of others appear as much as possible; to hearken to whatever is said, and answer to the purpose."

Another extract, though not strictly analogous, is distantly so, and cannot be out of place.

"How shall we judge of the goodness of a writing? or what qualities should a writing on any subject have, to be good and perfect in its kind?

"Answer. To be good, it ought to have a tendency to benefit the reader, by improving his virtue or his knowledge.

"The method should be just; that is, it should proceed regularly from things known to things unknown, distinctly, clearly, and without confusion.

"The words used should be the most expressive that the language affords, provided they are the most generally understood.

"Nothing should be expressed in two words that can as well be expressed in

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