Known for

• 1st President of the University of Pennsylvania (1749-1754)​

• Postmaster General of British America (1753-1774)

• 1st United States Postmaster General (1775-1776)

• 6th President of Pennsylvania (1785-1788)

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During 1776

• Delegate for Pennsylvania

• Age: 70

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Background

• Born: 1706 in Boston, Massachusetts

• Education: Boston Latin School (did not graduate)

• In 1723 (at age 17), while in an unhappy apprenticeship to his brother James as a printer, Franklin ran away to Philadelphia

• A successful newspaper editor and printer; influential publications included Pennsylvania Gazette, Poor Richard's Almanack, Pennsylvania Chronicle​

• Spouse: Deborah Read (common-law marriage, 1730)

• ​Children: 3 (Franklin's acknowledged illegitimate son, William, and 2 children with Deborah Read)

• Slaveowning

  • Did actively participate in slave trade, financially benefited from it in his early life

    • The Franklin household owned enslaved people as early as 1735 until 1790, and was reported to have purchased at least seven individuals: Joseph, Jemima, Peter, King, Othello, George & Bob.

  • 1757-1775: Views on slavery began changing during his time in London

    • 1760s: Campaign to abolish slavery in Britain began

    • 1772: Lord Mansfield ruled, in the case of the enslaved James Somerset, that there could be no such thing as an enslaved human living on English soil

    • Lord Mansfield’s decision, alongside the abolitionist influences of John Woolman and Anthony Benezet, helped shift Franklin’s views

  • 1776-1785: Franklin as US ambassador to France

    • Remained publicly silent on the issue of slavery, aside from a brief mention in ‘A Thought Concerning the Sugar Islands’ (1782)

    • However, proximity to abolitionist friends and French thinkers during this time further encouraged his thinking

  • 1785-1790: Franklin returns to Philadelphia. Publicly condemns slavery on his return; actively pushes for its abolition through multiple essays, petitions, and actions

    • A Plan for Improving the Condition of the Free Blacks

    • An Address to the Public

    • On the Slave Trade (written under a pseudonym)

    • Petitions to Congress

  • In the early 1780s (about 1781?), he ordered that his slaves should be freed

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Personal beliefs

• Politics: Patriot/Whig

  • Part of the Committee of Five, although he was temporarily disabled with gout and couldn't attend most of the meetings

  • At the signing of the Declaration, he is quoted as having replied to a comment by John Hancock that they must all hang together, saying, "Yes, we must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

• Religion: Deist

  • Franklin doubted tenets such as Jesus’s divinity, but he did not deny an active, superintending God​

  • Franklin's family was Puritan, and that foundational upbringing likely followed him through adulthood, which is why Franklin would occasionally refer directly to a Biblical God even though he wasn't traditionally Christian