Benjamin Franklin, PoliticianW. W. Norton & Company, 1996 - 240 pagina's A distinguished historian of early America sees Franklin's influence on the course of the revolutionary movement in a new light. Benjamin Franklin was a man of genius and enormous ego, smart enough not to flaunt his superiority but to let others proclaim it. To understand him and his role in great events, one must realize the omnipresence of this ego, and the extent to which he mirrored the feelings of other colonial Pennsylvanians. With this in mind, Francis Jennings sets forth some new ideas about Franklin as the "first American." In so doing, he provides a new view of the beginnings of the American Revolution in Franklin's struggle against William Penn. By striving against Penn's feudal lordship (and therefore against King George) Franklin became master of the Pennsylvania assembly. It was in this role that he suggested a meeting of the Continental Congress which, as Jennings notes, flies in the face of historical opinion which suggests that Boston patriots had to drag Pennsylvanians into the revolution. Franklin's autobiography omits discussion of his heroic struggle against Penn and, in so doing, robs history of his true role in the making of the new country. It is through an accurate accounting of what Franklin did, not what he said he did in his autobiography (which Jennings likens to a campaign speech), that we understand the author's use of the term "first American." |
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Inhoudsopgave
A Personal Preface | 9 |
Introduction | 15 |
Boston | 24 |
Philadelphia | 28 |
Domestic | 32 |
Protégé | 38 |
The Walking Purchase | 49 |
Climbing | 59 |
Fronts and Friends | 138 |
A Wobbly Offensive | 146 |
Royalist | 156 |
Rebound | 168 |
Spokesman | 175 |
Phoenix | 186 |
Coda | 196 |
A Note on Sources | 203 |
Veelvoorkomende woorden en zinsdelen
Albany Albany Congress American Revolution Anglican Assem Assembly Assembly's assemblymen Autobiography Benjamin Franklin bill Boston Braddock British campaign charter chief Church Collinson colonies colonists Conrad Weiser Council Minutes crown defense Delawares Doren Dunn election Empire of Fortune enemy England English feudal Fothergill Frank Franklin Papers French Friends Galloway Germans Governor Morris Ibid Indian Affairs instructions Iroquois Israel Pemberton issue James Logan Jennings John Johnson King knew lands London Lord Magazine of History Massachusetts ment militia ministers Moravians Morris's Number Nutimus oath Ohio country Parliament patronage Paxton Boys Pemberton Penn Letter Books Penn Mss Penn's Pennsyl Pennsylva Pennsylvania persons Peters to Penn petition Philadel Philadelphia political Presbyterians Press Proprietary province Province of Pennsylvania province's Quakers religious Richard Peters royal Schlatter Seven Years War Society Teedyuscung Thomas Penn tion took treaty Votes Walking Purchase William Allen William Penn William Smith wrote York