Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin, by John
Torrey Morse, Jr.

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Title: Benjamin Franklin
Author: John Torrey Morse, Jr.
Release Date: May 7, 2007 [EBook #21348]
Language: English
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[Illustration: Benj. Franklin]
American Statesmen

Standard Library Edition
[Illustration: Independence Hall, Philadelphia, 1776]

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
BY
JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND
COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1899
Copyright, 1898,
BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
All rights reserved.

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
The editor has often been asked: "Upon what principle have you
constructed this series of lives of American statesmen?" The query has
always been civil in form, while in substance it has often implied that
the "principle," as to which inquiry is made, has been undiscoverable
by the interrogator. Other queries, like pendants, have also come: Why
have you not included A, or B, or C? The inference from these is that
the querist conceives A, or B, or C to be statesmen certainly not less
eminent than E, or F, or G, whose names he sees upon the list. Now
there really has been a principle of selection; but it has not been a
mathematical principle, whereby the several statesmen of the country
have been brought to the measuring-pole, like horses, and those of a

certain height have been accepted, and those not seeming to reach that
height have been rejected. The principle has been to make such a list of
men in public life that the aggregation of all their biographies would
give, in this personal shape, the history and the picture of the growth
and development of the United States from the beginning of that
agitation which led to the Revolution until the completion of that
solidarity which we believe has resulted from the civil war and the
subsequent reconstruction.
In illustration, let me speak of a few volumes. Patrick Henry was hardly
a great statesman; but, apart from the prestige and romance which his
eloquence has thrown about his memory, he furnished the best
opportunity for drawing a picture of the South in the period preceding
the Revolution, and for showing why and how the southern colonies,
among whom Virginia was easily the leader, became sharers in the
strife.
Benton might possibly have been included upon his own merits. But if
there were any doubt upon this point, or if including him would seem to
have rendered it proper to include others equally eminent and yet
omitted, the reply is that Benton serves the important purpose of giving
the best available opportunity to sketch the character of the Southwest,
and the political feeling and development in that section of the country.
In like manner, Cass was hardly a great statesman, although very active
and prominent for a long period. But the Northwest--or what used to be
the Northwest not so very long ago--comes out of the wilderness and
into the domain of civilization in the life of Cass.
John Randolph, erratic and bizarre, was not justly entitled to rank
among great statesmen. But the characteristics of Congress, as a body,
can be brought into better relief in the narrative of his life than in that
of any other person of his day. These characteristics were so striking,
so essential to an understanding of the history of those times, and so
utterly different from the habits and ways of our own era, that an
opportunity to present them must have been forced if Randolph had not
fortunately offered it.

These four volumes are mentioned by way of illustration of the plan of
the series in some of its less obvious purposes. By the light of the
suggestions thus afforded, readers will probably see for themselves the
motives which have led to the presence of other volumes. But one
further statement should be made. It has been the editor's intention to
deal with the advancement of the country. When the people have
moved steadily along any road, the men who have led them on that
road have been selected as subjects. When the people have refused to
enter upon a road, or, having entered, have soon turned back from it,
the leaders upon such inchoate or abandoned excursions have for the
most part been rejected. Those who have been exponents of ideas and
principles which have entered into the progress and have