Jade Carolina Gonzlez Surez

Ingles III History and Culture

September 2, 2016
To be a good American
To many people, Benjamin Franklin was the champion of the cause in Britain for more than a
decade before the Revolution. He presented the case for America in British newspapers and
magazines-under various pseudonyms, just as he had done at home in his Pennsylvania Gazette.
His knowledge of America was extraordinary and he answered statements made against his
country by a display of statistics on population, agriculture, manufacturing and trade that was
overwhelming.
In Benjamin Franklin's projects for the improvement of Philadelphia, we see another aspect of
the philosophy of doing good. In his attention to the details of daily living, Franklin shows
himself as the observant empiricist. As the successful engineer of ways to make the city he loved
cleaner, safer and more attractive he continually sponsored new institutions that were proof that
the applications of reason to experience were fruitful in the real world. "Human felicity," he
wrote, "is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little
advantages that occur every day" (119). Franklin typifies that aspect of the American character
that is attentive to small details as well as over-all great plans. The practical idealism of America
lies in the capacity to work for the ideals step by step, to recognize that the perfect world is never
achieved but that one may approach it gradually by a creative attentiveness to each aspect of life.
Benjamin Franklins religious creed held that the best service to God is to be good to man. He
leaned to the views of the "Dissenters" of his day, notably Joseph Priestley and Richard Price,

who preached a doctrine somewhat like present Unitarianism. A moralist, he taught that man's
soul is immortal and that man's conduct in this world will determine his condition in the next; so
he made a creed of virtue, based on integrity and good deeds-man must help himself and others.
In the American tradition Franklin stands as a man who preached thrift, frugality, industry and
enterprise as the "way to wealth." according to which such virtues as thrift and industry were not
enough to bring a man success; he had also to practice charity and help his neighbour. Wealth was
a token of esteem of the Divine Providence that governs men's affairs, and thus the accumulation
of riches was not sought for its own sake alone. Furthermore, wealth and position, being marks of
the divine favour, conferred an obligation; a successful man was a "steward," holding the world's
goods in trust for the less fortunate. This "Protestant ethic" was a common denominator of
Calvinistic Boston where Franklin spent his boyhood and of Quaker Philadelphia where he grew
to young manhood.
Being an American meant for Franklin a passionate love of country and a devotion to a
democratic point of view in which the rights and liberties of his fellow men were guaranteed and
protected. He knew that false claims and allegations could often be best answered by satire and
that at other times a reasoned argument would be more effective. As colonial agent in England, he
was a propagandist, witness and the voice of America.