LYNN BERGMAN: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN - BY WALTER ISAACSON
A book review by Lynn Bergman
About the author, Walter Isaacson
Walter Issaacson, born of a Jewish father and a mother with Christian roots, was baptized by evangelical aunts and received more Christian religious education than Jewish. He does not align with a specific faith, describes himself as secular and voices a humanist philosophy. He has stated that “Religion was at its best when it emphasized spiritual experiences rather than received dogma” and views different religions as “different doors to the same house”.
Past work as president of the left-leaning Aspen Institute (Kamala Harris, Gloria Estefan), chairman of CNN (Rachael Maddow), and managing editor of Time magazine (Time’s 2023 “person of the year” was Taylor Swift…) reveal a decidedly (self-described) secular humanist slant in his approach to his work.
An American Life?
The best Isaacson could do in describing his book is “An American Life”, a rather condescending descriptor of the book’s content. Another noted Democrat author, Jon Meacham, an episcopalian, employs slightly more enthusiasm in his tiles, “Thomas Jefferson – The Art of Power” in describing our left-leaning “Democratic-Republican” third president and “American Lion - Andrew Jackson in the White House” in describing our first Democrat president.
Excerpts from Benjamin Franklin, an American Life, by Walter Isaacson
Page 15, 5th paragraph (January 17, 1706)
Benjamin Franklin was born and baptized on the same day, to Puritan parents. He was named after his father’s brother who emigrated from England at age 65 when young Benjamin was 9 years old.
Page 18, 2nd paragraph
The plan for young Benjamin was to have him study for the ministry, his father Josiah’s tenth son anointed as his tithe to the Lord.
Page 19, 2nd paragraph
Josiah came to believe, no doubt correctly, that his youngest son was not suited for the clergy. His skeptical turn of mind and allergy to authority made it unlikely that he would have become, as planned, a minister. My own experience of being gifted with a good and decent mother who encouraged me to enter the clergy makes me clearly understanding of Benjamin’s resistance to the idea. Like myself, I am convinced that Franklin did more to spread the gospel during his life as an inventor, writer, and philosopher than he would have as a puritan minister. While he was skeptical of Jesus’ resurrection, he accepted Jesus as the greatest moral figure in the history of mankind.
Page 260, 3rd paragraph (late August, 1771)
Franklin arrived, through storms and floods, in Edinburg [Scotland] late on a Saturday and spent one night “lodged miserably” at an inn. “But that excellent Christian, David Hume, agreeable to the precepts of the gospel, has received the stranger and I now live with him,” Franklin reported the next day.
Page 285, 3rd paragraph (December 1774)
Later that same evening, Franklin dined with two old friends, the Quakers John Fothergill and David Barclay…
Page 470, last paragraph (April 17, 1790)
Close to twenty thousand mourners, more than had ever before gathered in Philadelphia, watched as his funeral procession made its way to the Christ Church burying ground, a few blocks from his home. In front marched the clergymen of the city, all of them, of every faith.
Christ Church
Christ Church was founded in 1695 as a parish of the Church of England… and played an integral role in the founding of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States.
Franklin, like no other man, did all he could to prevent the Revolutionary War; yet when the time came to choose, he chose independence from a dastardly King George.
About slavery
Slavery (also termed human trafficking) developed in the Mediterranean beginning about 1200 B.C. Egyptians (ruled by Pharaoh Ramesses III) claimed they were threatened by “Sea Peoples” from Southern Europe and the Aegean and subsequently forced them into servitude or conscription into the Egyptian military.
Between 500 B.C. and 400 A.D., as Rome and Carthage dominated the Mediterranean, large scale enslavement occurred, of thousands of Europeans (as slaves in North Africa) and of North Africans (brought as captives to Europe).
Between the 1500s and 1800s, North African Barbary corsairs (operating from Tunis, Algiers, Tripoli, and Morocco) captured and enslaved an estimated 1 million to 1.25 million European Christians. The term “corsair” refers to Ottoman and Berber privateers that were state-commissioned by the countries they operated from.
Franklin, at age 23 in 1729, published one of the nation’s first anti-slavery pieces. Later, at age 45 in 1751, he attacked slavery strongly in “Observations on the Increase of Mankind”. At age 66 in 1772, he wrote “The Somerset Case and the Slave Trade” preaching that one of Britain’s greatest sins against America was foisting slavery on it. On behalf of the “Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery”, Franklin presented a formal abolition petition to Congress in February 1790 at age 84. Congress decided that it did not have the authority to act on Franklin’s petition. The multitudinous judges that denied “standing” to the litigants claiming that the 2020 presidential election was rigged can probably well identify with the Congress of 1790 that claimed they lacked authority to do what was right (out of fear?).
Concerning “Democracy”
Benjamin Franklin’s guiding principle was “a dislike of everything that tended to debase the spirit of the common people.” Fortunately, few of his fellow founders felt Franklin’s full comfort with “pure democracy”. Our representative form of government (we are a Democratic Republic) with its “checks and balances” including three distinct branches (legislative, executive, and judicial) is infinitely preferrable to a pure democracy where 51% of the voters can decide to “rob blind” the other 49%.
When you hear the left crying “We are losing our Democracy” remember, we never were a pure Democracy... by design of the founders who lived under an actual King, George of England.
About the “Midterms”
The left-wing media would just love it if those folks that voted for President Trump in November 2024 would stay home for the 2026 federal elections this coming November. A Democrat ruled House and Senate would do everything they could end the second Trump presidency two years earlier than 2028. My advice to Trump voters is to AGAIN vote on Trumps behalf in the midterm elections, making them “Too Big to Rig”. One man cannot do it all alone; he needs our help!
Love = Work + Courage
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