Benjamin Franklin becomes the First President instead
- Thread starter Jericho15
- Start date
Eh, by that age he was long past being able to be a particularly attentive or effective executive. See David McCullough's "John Adams" to look at how he behaved as Ambassador to France, two decades earlier. But let's say he keeps his wits about him and actually cares, I'd say it might be a bit more progressive than Washington's presidency, in terms of the type of legislation he'd push. Not sure what the cabinet looks like. If Adams is VP you're bound to run into trouble there, especially concerning Franklin's lifestyle. Speaking of which, should he ever happen upon political enemies in those eight years, they'd have tons of stuff to use against him in terms of his personal life. If Republican newspapers (or Federalist? Not sure which side would be backing him, though I think it'd be the Feds) got ahold of that stuff, they'll have a field day.
Franklin was allied in principle with the Republicans. However he never chose a political party per se.
I don't think so you see politics then weren't that dirty and his affairs were more of a secret everyone knew but no one talked about out of respect. Not to mention Franklin was held in high esteem by the younger generation then, the Republican Generation (1754-1767) who viewed him as sort of the Grandfather of Liberty basically.
As for his cabinet, Franklin strikes me as the kind of guy who would pick a whole spree of vastly different people just because they could perform that task exceedingly well regardless of partyl lines or reputation.
I don't think so you see politics then weren't that dirty and his affairs were more of a secret everyone knew but no one talked about out of respect. Not to mention Franklin was held in high esteem by the younger generation then, the Republican Generation (1754-1767) who viewed him as sort of the Grandfather of Liberty basically.
As for his cabinet, Franklin strikes me as the kind of guy who would pick a whole spree of vastly different people just because they could perform that task exceedingly well regardless of partyl lines or reputation.
The 1790s are not the 1950s. Just how much do you know about these times?
I have quite the opposite impression; the mud they slung in the early years of the Republic was dark, stinky, and copious. This era thought nothing of implying or outright stating both sexual depravity and outright treason.
It's quite true the party system had not yet jelled. That only made things worse; no one considered himself a partisan, they considered themselves true patriots, people with honor and common sense--and their opponents therefore were traitors, faithless, idiots or lunatics; it was their patriotic duty to get them out of office at the very least, better yet run them out of town on a rail or send them to the gallows. It's really quite spectacular. The very most moderate way of looking at it is that perhaps they meant as little by it as we do with our own apocalyptic rhetoric today. But they were probably a lot more serious...
That's a much stronger and more relevant argument; I'd suggest you forget about the first line and only mention this one. Franklin had indeed won himself a special place in the American heart, for his generations-long sustained advocacy of the rights, dignity, and benefit of the American colonists/patriots. I do believe that even the luminaries of his own generation, who were as much his rivals as his collaborators and had a more realistic assessment of his limits as well as strengths, did respect him.
If he weren't so very old and obviously close to death, I do suppose his name would have been put forth and won very wide assent. There's no getting around his age though.
As for his scandalous life, I still say you are wrong that this was an era that let easy low-lying political fruit like that just hang there unplucked in general. But I think you might be right about Franklin as a special case; people wouldn't keep silent about his escapades, but they'd murmur them quietly in admiration and respect, figuring the old scamp was entitled.
But he's still way way too old to take up the burden in 1789, alas.
Yes he might. Ideally that's what any President was supposed to do. In practice they didn't of course, in practice there were parties forming, gelling around different world-views. How "well" someone performs a task is obviously a function of what the "task" is conceived to be after all, and the new nation was forming distinct factions with different visions for what should happen next.
I daresay Franklin would indeed have cut across those nascent party lines. But that kind of ideal abstract good-of-the-Republic glow can't last. Eventually the nation has to fall into the pattern of alternating parties--let one coalition demonstrate just what results it thinks it can win the nation, then let the other try to show what they mean in deeds--it's the only way to resolve the debates, in practice. And its also the only way to make the doors to highest office into revolving doors, increasing the chances of high-powered individuals to aspire to occupy high office, at least briefly. If we really had a succession of Presidents who really did have a high and impartial vision and clear sight as to the best interests of the nation, they'd do as you hope Franklin would, put the best people in charge of specific tasks, checking their partisan tendencies by balancing them with others in overlapping spheres of responsibility, so as to achieve a vector sum of effort in the direction of the most good of the nation.
Sounds great, right? That's the theory of absolute monarchy. If we could produce paragons of virtue and wisdom, should we not put them into unchecked power and trust they will use their power for good?
Franklin would laugh at that proposition, and agreeing that theory of government is deluded and utopian and leads straight to tyranny is something most of the otherwise deadlocked factions could agree on straightaway.
Insofar as I've been agreeing with you, it's largely out of ignorance--I happen not to be aware of who Franklin's political enemies were; as far as I know if he had them they were either nonentities or Tories (in the Revolutionary era sense of Loyalists) and were purged from the US body politic. But this may not be true, it could be that those who viewed him with the sort of alarm I know people held against Washington or Jefferson or the Adamses, have just had their objections lost to common history. After all the man was very old in the post-Revolutionary period and maybe people just ignored him when they didn't like something he stood for, figuring he'd go away soon enough but it was his younger supporters they had to attack?
I dunno.