Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Franklin and Washington

 From Gwinnett Daily Post:

Unless you are a bona fide historian or a serious student of history, you may not be aware of the infighting and rivalries which took place with our founding fathers. They hammered out an exemplary and extraordinary constitution but the process was accompanied by contentious debate and vigorous quarreling.

The intense struggle to reach a consensus was not without rancor and bitterness. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had no use for the other. Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton settled their differences by a duel, an exercise in which you never want to finish second. Hamilton did. The point about all this is that the passion and discord of politics was as evident then as it is today. (While there is no dueling now, thankfully, mean spiritedness seems to have moved front and center and has taken over.)

Larson’s book, “Franklin and Washington,” is fascinating and insightful. Washington gets the highest of marks from Larson for his adroit leadership during the Revolutionary War as general of the Continental Army while Franklin’s savvy recruitment of the support of the French was equally important. Without the leadership of Franklin and Washington, “an unlikely couple,” there would be no United States.

If you know someone who likes to bash the French for not appreciating the U. S., for its contribution to France in World War II, remind them that had Franklin’s diplomacy at the court of King Louis XVI, Washington’s Continental Army could not have been fed, clothed and armed without France’s support.

A Wall Street Journal review has this take on Larson’s book: “The gregarious and folksy Franklin (1706-90) was old enough to be Washington’s father. Born in Boston to humble parents but associated with Philadelphia after he moved there in his teens, Franklin was an enlightened polymath, a printer, scientist and inventor who became an opponent of slavery. Washington (1732-99), the restrained, status-conscious, slave-owing Virginia gentleman, can seem like Franklin’s opposite. If the aloof Washington came to be regarded as his country’s father, Mr. Larson observes, Franklin was his approachable uncle.” (Read more.)
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