Teaching by Examples: Rousseau’s Lawgiver and the Case of Benjamin Franklin

Rousseau’s account of the “legislator” or “lawgiver” is commonly regarded as one of the most far-fetched, ominous, and baffling parts of his teaching in the Social Contract. In brief, Rousseau’s lawgiver seems to be a proto-totalitarian figure whose self-appointed mission is to found a political community by “denaturing” people at a single stroke and who may be a mere figment of Rousseau’s overheated imagination. Accordingly, this part of the Social Contract threatens to make a mockery of Rousseau’s claim to be “taking men as they are and laws they can be,” as well as his claim that the combination of “freedom and equality” is “the greatest good” in the civil state. Following and extending Rousseau’s own method of teaching by examples, however, this essay argues that Benjamin Franklin’s influence over the American republic—especially through his posthumous Autobiography—offers a prosaic example of the apparently fantastical phenomenon sketched by Rousseau. In fact, I argue that Franklin’s case corresponds more fully to Rousseau’s description than do any of Rousseau’s own examples (such as Moses, Lycurgus, and Numa) and that Franklin showed in practice what Rousseau suggested in theory: that a lawgiver can succeed without relying on coercion and without undercutting the equality that underlies a just society. Franklin’s denaturing influence, I suggest, has been crucial for the durability of republicanism in the United States, given the country’s size and diversity.

Along with his account of the general will, Rousseau's account of the "legislator" or "lawgiver" is commonly regarded as the most far-fetched, most ominous, and most baffling part of his teaching in the Social Contract.An ideal lawgiver, according to Rousseau, would meet seven criteria: (1) seeing "all of men's passions," yet experiencing "none of them"; (2) having "no relationship at all to our nature," yet knowing it "thoroughly"; (3) enjoying a happiness "independent of us," yet being "willing to attend to ours"; (4) desiring a "glory" that can crystallize only in a future century; (5) feeling himself capable of "changing human nature, so to speak"; (6) giving laws from outside the "constitution" of the republic, without executive or indeed legislative authority; and (7) displaying a "great soul," with genuine "wisdom," hence being able to "persuade without convincing" by laying a credible claim to divine support (Rousseau 1990(Rousseau -2010, 4:154-57, 4:154-57). 1 Thus, as Frank (2021) notes, "The role of the lawgiver in Rousseau's political theory . . .has often been treated as an anachronistic embarrassment in what is otherwise a thoroughly modern theory of democratic legitimacy" (51).Dent (2005) observes that "Rousseau's having recourse to such a figure is one of the most perplexing points in his whole enterprise.Indeed, it is hard to be quite sure how seriously he took this concept himself" (140).Bertram (2004) describes the lawgiver as "one of the most curious and apparently anomalous features of the Social Contract," one that "solves a problem at the centre of Rousseau's thought, but arguably does so at the cost of diminishing its plausibility" (129).
Worse, as O' Hagan (1999) writes, the lawgiver looks very much like a "totalitarian figure" (23).Hence, Berlin (2002) links Rousseau with the "Jacobins, Robespierre, Hitler, Mussolini, the Communists": "They do not know what their true self is, whereas I, who am wise, who am rational, who am the great benevolent legislator -I know this," Berlin says of "Rousseau's central doctrine" (50).Similarly, Grant (1997) argues that the lawgiver's activity may cause citizens, "the subjects of manipulation," to "experience themselves as childlike dependents" .And Koganzon (2021) suggests that Rousseau's lawgivers are "so compelling as to make it undesirable, if not altogether impossible, for those under their sway to achieve or even 2.For differing views of the lawgiver's purpose, see, for example, Kelly (2003, 66); Douglass (2015, 143); Hanley (2008, 232); Bertram (2004, 129).3. The Autobiography (in Franklin 1987) will hereafter be cited by its title.I have modernized the capitalization, spelling, italics, and punctuation.
desire independence from them" (188).As Oprea (2019) puts it, interpretations of this godlike being have been almost "monolithically illiberal" (593).The lawgiver, in short, seems to be a fantastical, proto-totalitarian figure whose very purpose is hazy. 2 This part of the Social Contract, which Meier (2016) calls its "most philosophical part" (181), threatens to make a mockery of Rousseau's claim to be "taking men as they are and laws they can be," to say nothing of his claim that the combination of "freedom and equality" is "the greatest good" in the civil state (CW,4:131,162).As Keenan (2003) writes, Rousseau's lawgiver seems neither "practical" nor "democratic" (12).But Rousseau's account is not simply abstract or utopian.On the contrary, it makes frequent use of historical examples: Moses, Lycurgus, Numa, Servius, Solon, Muhammed, and Calvin.And these examples are extremely helpful, showing as they do both the empirical caste of Rousseau's thought and the practical import of his most seemingly outlandish claims.Indeed, this is a feature of Rousseau's general way of writing.As he says elsewhere, "I always go back to my examples" (CW,13:299).
Following and extending Rousseau's method of teaching by examples, this essay argues that Benjamin Franklin's influence over the American republic-especially through his posthumous Autobiography, in which he offered himself as a model "fit to be imitated" (Franklin 1987(Franklin , 1307) ) 3 -offers a prosaic example of the apparently fantastical phenomenon sketched by Rousseau.In fact, I argue that Franklin's case corresponds more fully to Rousseau's description than do any of Rousseau's own case studies and that Franklin showed in practice what Rousseau suggested in theory: that a lawgiver can succeed without relying on coercion and without undercutting the equality that underlies a just society.
To be sure, Rousseau himself said that in observing modern nations, he saw "many makers of laws and not one lawgiver" (CW,11:171).But given that he died in 1778, this statement can hardly be taken as a reflection on America's founders.During most of his lifetime, after all, British America was regarded as an imperial backwater; his published works were totally silent on the colonies.Moreover, an English contemporary reports that in 1776 Rousseau's "eyes sparkled" at the mention of "Dr.Franklin"; that "he spoke of him with great zeal and energy as a most respectable person, and called him a star, I think, of the first order"; and that he insisted that the Americans "had not the less right to defend their liberties because they were 4. For an argument that Rousseau and Franklin were justifiably linked in the popular imagination, see Brennan (2024).
obscure or unknown" (Bentley 1977, 60-61).But the works in which Rousseau discussed the lawgiver were all written before Franklin had become known in Europe as a democratic statesman and model of virtue and not merely a great scientist.
Crucially, the claim that Franklin eventually became a Rousseauian lawgiver does not depend on any assumption that he was a doctrinal Rousseauian.Nothing in Rousseau's account suggests that a lawgiver must adopt the principles of the Social Contract-in the cases of Moses and Muhammad, for instance, such a claim would be preposterous.Nor am I arguing that Franklin (any more than Moses or Muhammad) was directly inspired by Rousseau's account of the lawgiver, although it is worth noting that he was frequently compared to Rousseau by his contemporaries and that he owned at least eight of his works, including the Social Contract (Lopez 1990, 16;Wolf and Hayes 2006, 688-89). 4 Instead, my argument is that Franklin's Autobiography corresponds almost perfectly to Rousseau's description of the work of a lawgiver: (1) the book was published posthumously, and hence was the work of someone who saw "all of men's passions" but experienced "none of them"; (2) its author displayed a thorough knowledge of human nature, while having (in death) "no relationship at all" to it; (3) he displayed (in life) a remarkable independence from his compatriots, as well as a remarkable willingness to attend to their happiness; (4) he indicated that he hoped thereby to secure himself glory in another century; (5) he helped denature his compatriots, both by leading them to see themselves primarily as Americans and by encouraging them to follow his example of moral and civic virtue; (6) he was a sort of illustrious outsider, spending most of his later years abroad, who did the bulk of his lawgiving work when he had neither executive nor legislative authority; and (7) he was celebrated for his individual greatness and wisdom and thus could lay a credible claim to divine support, as he repeatedly did.No other figure whom I know of, including Rousseau's exemplary lawgivers, can match Franklin in all these respects.
In the same way that Rousseau's account moves between abstract generalities and concrete examples, this essay moves between the theory of the lawgiver and the particular case of Franklin.I begin by advancing the proposition that the lawgiver is not a mythical superhuman but an actual human being, one whose core purpose is to mold both the civic laws and (more importantly) the unwritten moral laws of an established but weak community and who (precisely because of his own all-too-human weaknesses) should 5. Slack (2017) likewise suggests that Franklin "understood himself as a lawgiver in the classical sense" (162).See also Forde (2003, 270).
use neither violence nor governmental authority.Franklin, I show, conformed to this model even better than Rousseau's exemplars; moreover, he was routinely referred to by contemporaries as a potential lawgiver and had a persistent interest in lawgivers himself.I then argue that the fundamental task of the lawgiver is to provide a denaturing civic education, bringing people to regard themselves and their compatriots as members of a unified whole, set apart from all other peoples, and dependent on each other for life, liberty, prosperity, and honor.In America, I suggest, it was Franklin, above all, who effected this transformation-by proposing the unification of the colonies in his Albany Plan of Union, by helping to secure America's independence during the Revolutionary War, by lending critical support to the Constitutional Convention, and especially by modeling and affirming a distinctively American identity in his Autobiography.Next, I explain the lawgiver's dependence on two means of persuasion in particular: religion, on the one hand, and the lawgiver's own "great soul," on the other.Franklin, I demonstrate, made liberal use of both.Finally, I consider the ways in which Franklin showed things both "as they are" and "as they should appear," as Rousseau argues a great lawgiver must do (CW, 4:154). 5 The Humanity of the Lawgiver "The discovery of the best rules of society suited to nations," Rousseau says at the beginning of his chapter on the lawgiver, "would require a superior intelligence, who saw all of men's passions yet experienced none of them; who had no relationship at all to our nature yet knew it thoroughly; whose happiness was independent of us, yet who was nevertheless willing to attend to ours."It seems, then, that a lawgiver would have to be "a god" (Shklar 1969, 155).Rousseau himself goes on to declare that "Gods would be needed to give laws to men" (CW,4:154).Accordingly, many scholars contend that his lawgiver is a myth, a pedagogical fiction, or one of his empty reveries (e.g., Connolly 1988, 57;Dent 2005, 140-42;Keenan 2003, 50;Koganzon 2021, 185-86;Shklar 1969, 155).Although Rousseau certainly presents the lawgiver as exceptional, however, he does finally present him as human-"an extraordinary man [un homme extraordinaire] in the state" (CW,4:155).To be sure, in the Geneva Manuscript version of this chapter, he goes so far as to describe the lawgiver's activity as "almost divine"; but in the published version he says merely "superior" (CW,4:101,155).Likewise, whereas the Geneva Manuscript says 6.As Bertram (2004) points out, "This marks a sharp divide between Machiavelli and Rousseau" (146n.8). 7. Numa and Calvin were both foreigners, although (like Moses, Servius, Solon, and Muhammad) they did have governmental authority while they acted as lawgivers.8.These are classed as laws because they are in fact expressions of the general will, being at least tacitly affirmed by the majority and recognized by all members of the civil association as authoritative.Contra Meier (2016, 180): "[A]ccording to the principles of political right, they are precisely not this: laws." that lawgiving requires "superhuman eloquence" (CW, 4:104), that extravagant claim is simply removed from the Social Contract.
Indeed, the all-too-human passions of the lawgiver explain why, as Rousseau goes on to stress (in both versions), this "extraordinary man" should have no governmental authority: "Otherwise his laws, ministers of his passions, would often only perpetuate his injustices, and he could never avoid having private views alter the sanctity of his work" (CW, 4:155). 6Accordingly, although the lawgiver "constitutes the republic," he himself "does not enter into its constitution."In the best case, the lawgiver would be a foreigner, or at least a sort of outsider, as with Lycurgus, who first gave up the kingship of Sparta and then spent years traveling abroad before returning to establish a new regime (CW,4:155). 7Precisely because his powers are less than divine, moreover, "the wise founder does not start by drafting laws that are good in themselves, but first examines whether the people for whom he destines them is suited to bear them."And even this constrained sort of lawgiving can succeed only when a people is in its "youth," or in the midst of a one-off revolutionary crisis (CW,. But what laws does the "extraordinary man" actually give?Rousseau observes that there are four different kinds of law: fundamental political laws; civil laws; criminal laws; and the laws "of morals, customs, and especially of opinion."And he maintains that it is the latter-not, then, what we would call constitutional laws-that are "the most important" of all, forming "the genuine constitution of the state."These, he insists, are the laws "on which the success of all the others depends" and "to which the great lawgiver attends in secret while appearing to limit himself to the particular regulations that are merely the sides of the arch of which morals, slower to arise, form at last the unshakeable keystone" (CW,).8 Though they all crafted or helped craft new constitutional laws, Rousseau's exemplars are above all moral and theological lawgivers.

Franklin as Lawgiver
To suggest that Franklin should be considered alongside Moses, Lycurgus, Numa, and the other great lawgivers may seem odd, but the suggestion is 9.The Papers of Benjamin Franklin will hereafter be cited as PBF.10.On the popular comparison of Franklin to Solon, in particular, consider that Solon was reputed to have been a middle-class moneymaker; someone who had travelled extensively; a lover of knowledge; an admirer of virtue over wealth; an extoller of common pleasures; a craftsman of memorable sayings; and someone who was willing to adapt his regulations to less-than-ideal circumstances (Plutarch 2001, 107-27; see also Hanley 2008, 224-25).
not anachronistic.Edmund Burke, for one, wrote in 1775 that "Few things more extraordinary have happened in the history of mankind" than the aged Franklin's quitting "the study of the laws of nature" and plunging "into the midst of the most laborious and most arduous affairs that ever were" in order to "give laws to new commonwealths" (Burke 1775).Later that year, Franklin's confidante Mary Hewson predicted, "I reckon you are soon to be sovereign and lawgiver in the empire of America" (Franklin 1959, 22:299). 9Erasmus Darwin (1787) compared Franklin to Moses.Likewise, when Franklin met Voltaire, Condorcet compared it to a meeting of Sophocles (Voltaire) and Solon (Franklin)."And the cry immediately spread through the kingdom," wrote John Adams, with more than a hint of envy, "and I suppose all over Europe: Qu'il est charmant de voir embrasser Solon et Sophocles [How charming it is to see Solon and Sophocles embrace]" (Isaacson 2003, 355).Accordingly, in a French song composed in 1783 to celebrate America's Independence Day, "Benjamin" (no surname required) was designated "le Solon Américain" (PBF,40:280).A letter written to Franklin by François Steinsky, a professor of natural philosophy in Prague, compared him favorably not only with Solon but also with Lycurgus (PBF, 40:429-33). 10 In the same manner as Rousseau's exemplary lawgivers, Franklin combined narrowly political and legal projects with public moral and theological reforms.By the time he was dubbed "le Solon Américain," he had helped draft both the Declaration of Independence and the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, but was better known for his pithy sayings, moral advice, and didactic poetry, published in France under the title La Science du Bonhomme Richard (Israel 2017, 125-26).Similarly, he eventually played an important role in drafting and shepherding through the Constitution, but it was his Autobiography, which "had an inordinate influence on America's understanding of itself" (Wood 2004, 243), that had perhaps the more profound effect in shaping the United States.
Given his modest origins, his common manners and tastes, his lack of formal education, and his reputation for virtue and wisdom, Franklin was uniquely well-placed among the American founders to put himself forward as a demotic model.Certainly no other founder exerted anything like the 11.Bertram (2004) mentions Hamilton and Madison as possible lawgivers, but elsewhere he points out that "the focus on formal regulation gives a misleading impression of what the lawgiver's real work is all about," since "the real foundation of political success is cultural transformation and . . . the lawgiver's real task is to effect this" (135,.12.As Morgan (2002) writes, "Franklin had always believed that the American union ought to be a union of people, not just of states.With the perspective of distance, gained from so many years in England and then in France, it was probably easier for him to think that way than it was for those he represented.The members of the Continental Congress sat there as agents of particular states and had to divide their loyalties between their home states and the new nation.As the nation's envoy, Franklin could make no such division" (252).Isaacson adds, "[H] e knew not only the nations of Europe but the thirteen states, appreciating both what they had in common and how they differed.As a postmaster he had helped bind America together.He was one of the few men equally at home visiting the Carolinas as Connecticut -both places where he had once franchised print shops -and he could discuss, as he had done, indigo farming with a Virginia planter and trade and economics with a Massachusetts merchant" (Isaacson 2003, 447).
comprehensive effect on America's moral and religious character that Franklin managed to exert through his Autobiography; no one else seems even to have tried. 11Like Lycurgus, moreover, Franklin was a sort of illustrious outsider: he "was certainly not the most American of the Founders during his lifetime.Indeed, one might more easily describe him as the least American and the most European of the nation's early leaders," having "spent the bulk of the last thirty-three years of his life living outside of America, in Britain and France" (Wood 2004, 9-10).He was thus exceptionally well positioned to observe the disunity that hobbled his compatriots, and hence to appreciate the need for a more unified civic vision. 12Finally, during the last two years of his life, the period in which he worked most intensely on the Autobiography (see Lemay and Zall 1981, xx-xxiii), Franklin had no governmental authority.And his advanced age-he was eighty-one at the time of the Convention in 1787, much older than Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton, all of whom became embroiled in the domestic power struggles of the early republic-meant that he had no prospect of serving in the new government, let alone assuming tyrannical power.In sum, Franklin was a nearperfect fit for the role of lawgiver, as Rousseau described it: an illustrious outsider, without executive or legislative authority, passions cooled.Indeed, by not publishing the Autobiography during his lifetime, Franklin went as far as anyone can ever go in separating his ambitions from threats of violence or governmental compulsion, and certainly farther than any of Rousseau's own examples.
Franklin himself, moreover, had a persistent interest in lawgivers.In the early 1760s, for example, he wrote to his brother Peter on the subject of some verses composed by the latter."You, in the spirit of some ancient legislators," Franklin observed, "would influence the manners of your country by the united powers of poetry and music."But he went on to caution his brother that whereas ancient lawgivers had been able to use the simple and naturalsounding music of antiquity, the modern style of song was relatively weak in its effects, marred by such defects as "drawling," "unintelligibleness," and "screaming without cause" (PBF, 11:539-40). 13By implication, then, modern lawgivers would be well advised to take a different tack-to rely on something other than poetry and music.Writing a decade later to the theologian Ezra Stiles, Franklin referred favorably to the lawgiver Zoroaster, another example mentioned by Rousseau (PBF,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]CW,.In 1784, after a French abbé had brought him "a large manuscript contain[ing] a scheme of reformation of all churches and states, religion, commerce, laws, etc., which he has planned in his closet, without much knowledge of the world," Franklin wrote in his journal, "It is amazing the number of legislators that kindly bring me new plans for governing the United States" (PBF, 42:376).He compared American opponents of the Constitution, in a 1788 polemic, to Hebrew opponents of the Mosaic laws (Franklin 1987(Franklin , 1144-48)-48).And in the Autobiography itself, he painted a comic portrait of a failed lawgiver, Samuel Keimer, his first employer in Philadelphia, who actually tried to establish a new religion (1339-40).
Like Keimer, as well as the "ancient legislators" who had relied on "the united powers of poetry and music," Franklin himself clearly aimed to "influence the manners" of his countrymen.In the Autobiography he recalls a youthful lawgiving project of his own: the founding of a secret "sect," complete with its own "creed," of those dedicated to "the good of their country" and "the good of mankind" (1395-96).Likewise, he describes his best-selling Poor Richard's Almanack as "a proper vehicle for conveying instruction among the common people, who bought scarce any other books" (1397).And the Autobiography itself is manifestly intended to have a lasting influence, by allowing Franklin's "descendants" to "follow the example and reap the benefit" (1391).
To be sure, Franklin initially suggests that the "descendants" he has in mind are merely family members, such as the "Dear Son" to whom the book is addressed (1307).Midway through the work, however, this modest pretense is dropped.His memoir is written, Franklin eventually admits, "for the 14.Rousseau is resolutely agnostic in the Social Contract about how the civil state came into existence: "Man was/is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. . . .How did this change occur?I do not know" (CW, 4:131).In the Second Discourse, likewise, he offers an account that is explicitly hypothetical: the best he can do is offer "conjectures" that connect "two facts given as real" (CW, 3:42; see also Brennan 2020, 588-89).15.Because this comment indicates that "a just and enduring civil association cannot be founded simply from scratch," Dent (2005) presents it as evidence that Rousseau does not take seriously the teaching on the lawgiver (141).

Denaturing
"One who dares to undertake the founding of a people," Rousseau says, "should feel that he is capable of changing human nature, so to speak; of transforming each individual, who by himself is a perfect and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole from which this individual receives, in a sense, his life and his being" (CW, 4:155).But while each individual is indeed by nature independent of any and every political community, according to Rousseau, and while each good citizen is dependent on his political community for life, liberty, prosperity, and honor, lawgivers need not-indeed, probably could not-transform wholly natural human beings into citizens. 14 Lawgivers begin with communities somewhere between the pure state of nature and the fullest corruption of the civil state.Moses's Israelites were not solitaries; they were, as Rousseau says, "a swarm of unfortunate fugitives" (CW, 11:171).Lycurgus's Spartans were "degraded by servitude and by the vices that are its effect" (CW, 11:172).In the time of Numa, Rome was an established community; so too with Solon and Athens, and Calvin and Geneva.Indeed, Rousseau insists that only a people "already bound by some union of origin, interest, or convention" is "suited for legislation" (CW, 4:162). 15Hence the denaturing effected by the lawgiver is less miraculous than it first appears.
But it is in some sense miraculous: in order for citizens to subordinate their own good (or the good of their factions) to the long-term public good, they must feel themselves to be part of a more comprehensive body politic.In Rousseau's terminology, each citizen naturally has a "private will" that 16.Lawrence (1918) traces the will to mold human nature directly to the influence of Rousseau (397,402).
may diverge from "the common cause" (CW,).An unnatural but nonetheless deeply felt "social spirit" is thus required (CW,4:156,220; see also Bertram 2004, 129;Dent 2005, 160-79;Scott 1997, 822-27).After all, while Rousseau does point out that a multitude "united in a body" cannot harm one of its members "without attacking the body" (CW, 4:140), he also stresses that humans are not naturally united in any political body whatsoever.Dedicated citizenship cannot be assumed as a given.Nor can it be expected to develop automatically from the experience of living under a just government: "[L]ike health, justice is a good which one enjoys without feeling it, which inspires no enthusiasm at all, and whose worth one feels only after one has lost it" (CW, 11:171; cf.Bertram 2004, 132-33).So denaturing should be understood not as something that would happen in a utopian republic but as something that has in fact happened, with drastically varying degrees of success, in every functional political communityunder the influence of a self-conscious lawgiver in rare but fortunate cases.Devoted citizenship requires "conformity of the private will to the general," and "love of the fatherland" is the "most effective" means of securing that conformity (CW,3:149,151).Hence "all the ancient lawgivers" sought out "bonds which attached the citizens to the fatherland and to each other" (CW, 11:173).

Franklin's Denaturing Work
Mark Twain, in the mid-nineteenth century, laughed at the extent to which Americans had been denatured by Franklin."Nowadays," he said, "a boy can't follow out a single natural instinct without tumbling over some of those everlasting aphorisms and hearing from Franklin on the spot" (Twain 2012, 306).More bitterly, Thomas Carlyle mocked Franklin as "the father of all Yankees" (quoted in Isaacson 2003, 479).Likewise, D. H. Lawrence lambasted Franklin for having created a type of citizen whose "interests of self never obtrude in his works or his desires"-"a virtuous Frankenstein monster," "a little unit in the vast total of society," "a perfect little wheel within the whole"; thus, he lamented, "the first downright American" had set the "national example" (Lawrence 1918(Lawrence , 397, 403, 405, 1923, 14, 18-19), 14, 18-19). 16Of course, this is also what Franklin's admirers say about him: he was, as the title of a recent biography puts it, The First American.
With good reason.In 1754, Franklin's Albany Plan of Union laid the groundwork for the unification of the thirteen colonies, far in advance of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution.Later, Franklin played an indispensable role as America's chief diplomat in the War of Independence.He then performed a crucial unifying function at the Constitutional Convention, consistently supporting a spirit of patriotism, compromise, and humility.He was, in fact, the only person to sign all four of the country's founding political documents: "the Declaration of Independence, the treaty with France, the peace accord with Britain, and the Constitution" (Isaacson 2003, 459-60).And long after his death, his memoirs ingrained a sense of civic responsibility and national pride-and a sense of difference from the English, in particular.
"Franklin became not only an icon that ordinary people could emulate but also the most important mythical figure used to assimilate foreigners to American values," Wood (2004) remarks."Schools in the nineteenth century began using his Autobiography to teach moral lessons to students.Many people seemed to know his writings as well as they knew the Bible.It is not surprising that the book Davy Crockett had with him when he died at the Alamo was not the Bible but Franklin's Autobiography" (3).The book was "reprinted piecemeal nearly one hundred and twenty times before the end of the 1850s," according to Huang and Mulford (2008)."Publishers included those in big cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, but also smaller but growing towns, such as Auburn and Buffalo in New York; Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Hudson in Ohio; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and San Francisco, California" (150).Between the Civil War and the First World War, moreover, "The book, usually in full except where a few sentences were deleted as 'unfit for young readers,' was used increasingly in schools and was 'recommended on almost every reading list of books compiled for high school use'" (Labaree et al. 1964, 11).Franklin's influence was thus at least comparable to that of Solon, who "saw the dissolution of his own commonwealth," or Numa, whose "whole design and aim, the continuance of peace and goodwill, on his death vanished with him . . .because it wanted that cement which should have kept all together, education" (Plutarch 2001, 145, 105-106).
The Autobiography begins with the story of Franklin's ancestors, a story that emphasizes the religious persecution they faced in England and the "freedom" they expected in America (1311-12).Shortly after, Franklin recounts that when he first made the reverse trip-traveling to England as a young man and finding work there as a printer-he benefited from an unusual habit: drinking water rather than beer during the workday.So utterly bizarre did his English colleagues find this temperance, he writes, that they gave him a nickname: "the Water American" (1348).17.Franklin's London "is inexplicably committed to darkness" (Anderson 2012, 162).
In the same competitively patriotic spirit, Franklin goes on to celebrate his establishment of a lending library in Philadelphia-the first of his many successful public projects-for having "improved the general conversation of the Americans" and making "the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen [i.e., most members of the leisured upper classes] from other countries" (1372).Indeed, just before mentioning the "affairs of the Revolution," he suggests that the spread of literacy fostered by similar libraries "contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the colonies in defence of their privileges" (1372).Later, he draws a contrast between the lamps he pioneered in Philadelphia, which allowed for "enlightening all the city," and the antiquated lamps of London, with its "very poorly illuminated" streets (1426). 17He also makes a point of cataloging the titanic quantities of food and drink provided to British officers during the French and Indian War (1439).Anderson (2012) suggests that this meticulous cataloging, a "curious gesture," is intended to display "what the cultivators of the earth can produce . . .when they are not engaged in annihilating one another" (176-77).But if it does that, it also highlights the rather lavish needs of the British officers, in contrast to those of Franklin, the Water American, who has already stressed the fact that he was "brought up in such perfect inattention" to cuisine as to be "quite indifferent" to the matter (1315).
Likewise, Franklin refers to the "violent prejudices" of the British General Edward Braddock toward the Pennsylvania Assembly (1435), and stresses Braddock's patrician disdain for American soldiers-"your raw American militia," he quotes Braddock calling them, shortly before Braddock was routed (1441).This general, Franklin says, "might probably have made a figure as a good officer in some European war," but "he had too much selfconfidence, too high an opinion of the validity of regular troops, and too mean a one of both Americans and Indians" (1440).Franklin then speaks of the unflattering ideas that came to "us Americans" about the capacities of British regulars in the light of Braddock's defeat (1442).
And in the final part he highlights the disdainful treatment he received from the British political establishment while petitioning against the hereditary proprietors of Pennsylvania.The Penn family's solicitor, Ferdinand John Paris, was "a proud, angry man," whose writings were "weak in point of argument, and haughty in expression," and who had "conceived a mortal enmity" for Franklin (1466).Lord Granville, though more civil, was perhaps even more threatening."You Americans," he told Franklin, "have wrong ideas of the nature of your constitution. . . .The King is The LegisLaTor of The coLonies" (1465).When Franklin protested, insisting on the principle of popular sovereignty, the lord "assured me I was totally mistaken."So distressed was Franklin by this "new doctrine," he says, that he wrote it down as soon as he returned to his lodgings (1465-66).
Thus Franklin undertakes the primary task of a lawgiver: bringing people to see themselves primarily as members of a civic whole.The Autobiography is written for the benefit of "the American youth," as the letter from Abel James puts it, not the benefit of any particular province, party, sect, class, or ethnicity ( 1373).Of course, to speak of America as a nation was not an innovation; but, as Houston (2008) points out, "in the wake of the imperial crises of the 1760s and the revolutionary struggles of the 1770s," the term "American" did "begin to assume unique social, political, and cultural meanings" (5).And Franklin consistently emphasizes his American identity in the Autobiography.Hence, for example, he shows himself advocating for the colonies to unite under his Albany Plan (1430-32).He depicts himself going to England in 1757 in order to represent the interests of "America" and "Americans" (1465), though officially, he represented only Pennsylvania.Indeed, he puts a patriotic spin even on his scientific achievements, noting that his claim about "the sameness of lightning with electricity" was "laughed at" by the Royal Society of London's "connoisseurs" (1453), and that a celebrated French natural philosopher, the Abbé Nollet, flatly refused to credit his research on electricity because he could not "believe that such a work came from America" (1454).
None of this means that the historical Franklin was always an American patriot.After all, Rousseau does not suggest that the French-born lawgiver Calvin was always a patriotic Genevan, or that the Sabine lawgiver Numa was always a patriotic Roman.Nor must we assume that Franklin liked only America.In January 1760, he wrote to Lord Kames (admittedly a patriotic Scotsman): "[D]id not strong connections draw me elsewhere, I believe Scotland would be the country I should choose to spend the remainder of my days in" (PBF, 9:9-10).In January 1772, he described Ireland as a "fine country" and Dublin as "a magnificent city" (PBF,(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24).Later, as Lopez (1990) points out, he "toyed with the idea of establishing himself in France permanently" (101).And the Autobiography itself suggests an impressive independence of spirit in Franklin.He is perfectly comfortable abroad, almost settling in England (1345-53).He outlines a scheme for a party or sect devoted to the good of "mankind" (1396).He learns French, Italian, Spanish, and Latin (1400-1401).And toward the end of the book, he speaks of certain 18.See also his reference to Justinian in the Geneva Manuscript (CW,4:101).19.See n.8 above.20.On what it means to "persuade," see Kelly (2003, 64-66); Bertram (2004, 138-39).
plans he made for America-on another voyage to England-"if I should return to live there" (1464, italics added).But this cosmopolitanism is quite consistent with Rousseau's presentation of the lawgiver.As Keenan puts it, the lawgiver "must be both of the people and apart from them, both inside and outside" (Keenan 2003, 48; see also Douglass 2015, 143n.192;Kelly 2015, 343;Williams 2007, 155).

Persuading Without Convincing
Rousseau's great negative example of lawgiving is drawn from Rome, long after Numa and Servius. 18"During its finest period Rome saw all the crimes of tyranny revived in its midst," he says, "and nearly perished as a result of combining legislative authority and sovereign power in the same hands."And yet, he claims, "even the decemvirs never took upon themselves the right to have any law passed solely on their authority: Nothing that we propose, they said to the people, can become law without your consent" (CW,.In other words, lawgivers should not-or rather cannot-possess unilateral lawmaking authority, since "the people itself cannot, even if it wanted to, divest itself of this incommunicable right" (CW,4:156).Lawgivers favor particular laws, of course, but they cannot establish anything on their own accord.19  "Thus one finds combined in the work of legislation two things that seem incompatible: an undertaking beyond human force and, to execute it, an authority that amounts to nothing" (CW,4:156).
And there is a still more fundamental problem.If lawgivers should not act through force, and cannot legislate unilaterally, nor can they directly reason with the people.Rousseau insists that complex reasoning is beyond the capacity of the vast majority: "[T]here are a thousand kinds of ideas that are impossible to translate into the language of the people."Besides, he points out that even excellent reasoners cannot be presumed to share a "social spirit" (CW,4:156).
For these reasons, Rousseau says, lawgivers "must necessarily have recourse to another order of authority, which can win over without violence and persuade without convincing" (CW, 4:156). 20All great lawgivers, according to him, have spoken as if they were guided by divine insight, while being 21.Since none of Rousseau's exemplars even claimed to be gods, the need for recourse to divine sanction may be the most important practical implication of his statement that "Gods would be needed to give laws to men," a statement that seems otherwise to contradict his subsequent emphasis on the humanity of the lawgiver.If that statement also points to the problematic character of law as such, as I think it does, it therefore reinforces the difficulty and importance of the human lawgiver's task (see Kelly 2003, 63;Meier 2016, 180-84).22.In the Second Discourse, Rousseau notes that differences in "qualities of mind or soul" are as natural as differences in bodily strength (CW, 3:18).
guided exclusively by their own reason: insofar as they have honored gods with "their own wisdom," religion has served as the "instrument" of politics (CW, 4:156-57). 21"But," Rousseau points out, "it is not every man who can make the gods speak or be believed when he declares himself their interpreter."The "true miracle that should prove his mission," he says, is the lawgiver's outstanding nature, his "great soul" (CW, 4:157). 22Against the Enlightenment orthodoxy, then, Rousseau insists that a petty huckster could never produce the longlasting effects of a Moses or a Muhammad (CW,4:157).The fact that such men persuaded so many people to accept their laws over so many generations itself indicates that they must have been extraordinarily impressive human beings.They may have deceived people in certain respects, but they were not simply frauds (see Kelly 2003, 65-66, 89-92;Meier 2016, 177).

Franklin's Means of Persuasion
That Franklin was willing to use religion as an instrument of politics is clear.In rallying public support for the French and Indian War, for example, he concluded, "Let us resolutely and generously unite in our country's cause (in which to die is the sweetest of all deaths), and may the God of armies bless our honest endeavours" (PBF,6:306).In 1776, his proposal for the Great Seal of the United States included an image of Moses defying the Pharaoh "by command of the Deity," with the motto "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God" (PBF, 22:562-63).The following year, he declared: "Glorious it is for the Americans to be called by providence to this post of honor.Cursed and detested will everyone be that deserts or betrays it" (quoted in Pangle 2007, 165).A decade later, at the Convention, he again appealed to God. "In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayers in this room for the divine protection," he reminded his fellow delegates.
Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered.All of us, who were engaged in the struggle, must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor.To that kind providence we owe this 23.Franklin thus supported and participated in a distinctively Madisonian founding project: "making the Constitution an object of veneration" (Ceaser 2018, 178).24.In the same passage, however, Franklin says that he adopted as a motto the following words from Cicero, which he quotes in untranslated Latin: "O philosophy, thou guide of life!Thou discoverer of virtue and expeller of vices!For one day spent well, and agreeably to your precepts, is preferable to an eternity of error."Philosophy, not God, is the guide.And it is worth noting that Franklin elides the following words: "To you [philosophy] it is that we owe the origin of cities; you it was who called together the dispersed race of men into social life; you united them together, first, by placing them near one another, then by marriages, and lastly, by the communication of speech and languages.You have been the inventress of laws; you have been our instructress in morals and discipline; to you we fly for refuge; from you we implore assistance; and as I formerly submitted to you in a great degree, so now I surrender up myself entirely to you" (Cicero 1877, V.2).
happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity.And have we now forgotten that powerful friend?Or do we imagine we no longer needs its assistance?I have lived, sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -that God governs in the affairs of men.(Farrand 1911, 1:451, italics in original) After the Convention, he wrote publicly that although he did not say the Constitution had been divinely inspired, he could "hardly conceive a transaction of such momentous importance" had been "suffered to pass without being in some degree influenced, guided, and governed by that omnipotent, omnipresent, and beneficent ruler, in whom all inferior spirits live, and move, and have their being" (Franklin 1987(Franklin , 1147-48)-48). 23In his final years, he joined the anti-slavery cause, and in this, too, he laid claim to "the divine blessing" (Franklin 1987(Franklin , 1154)).The Autobiography itself, moreover, is very explicit about Franklin's willingness to instrumentalize religion.Reflecting on his efforts to organize a defensive militia in Pennsylvania, he writes: "Calling in the aid of religion, I proposed to them [viz., the governor and council of Pennsylvania] the proclaiming a fast, to promote reformation and implore the blessing of heaven on our undertaking.They embraced the motion" (1412).
Franklin's memoir is itself replete with references to God.On the very first page, in fact, Franklin refers to "the blessing of God" that had brought him through life "with a considerable share of felicity" (1307).And shortly after, he acknowledges "with all humility" that he owes "the mentioned happiness of my past life" to the "kind providence" of God, "which led me to the means I used and gave them success" (1308).Thus he intimates that in publicizing those means, he is offering not so much his own (merely human) wisdom as the higher wisdom of God.God, he suggests later, is "the fountain of wisdom" (1388). 24Indeed, the Autobiography even advances its own theological teaching, one that has been described as "nonexclusive, doctrinally 25.An argument for a deep split between the public and private Franklin is made by Weinberger (2005).But see, in contrast, Pangle (2007, esp. 54-66, 124-25).
minimal, morality-centered Christianity"-a strikingly Rousseauian theology with nothing about original sin, divine grace, or the necessity of faith in Christ, but a theology that was destined to become "utterly pervasive . . . in America" (Kidd 2017, 8-9, 7).Franklin, moreover, was very much awake to the persuasive force of the individual messenger.Thus when he was asked by the former British prime minister Lord Shelburne to advise his eldest son on politics, Franklin told the young lord a story about Demosthenes, who, when asked about the most important elements of persuasion, replied that "Action" was the first, the second, and the third most important element.As Franklin explained, it was generally understood that Demosthenes was referring to the action of an orator with his hands and so on, but his own interpretation was different: another kind of action would always be more important to someone who wanted to persuade others to follow his advice, namely "such a course of action in the conduct of life as would impress them with an opinion of his integrity, as well as of his understanding" (PBF,42:378).And in the Autobiography he attributes his own success as a public speaker first to his "character of integrity" and then to his habit of speaking (or keeping silent) in such a way as to indicate a self-effacing sort of wisdom (1393).
His integrity and wisdom were indeed proverbial.Abigail Adams spoke of him, in a letter to her husband, as someone "whose character from my infancy I had been taught to venerate."Having met him at a London dinner, she reported: "I thought I could read into his countenance the virtues of his heart; among which patriotism shone in its full luster, and with that is blended every virtue of a Christian: for a true patriot must be a religious man" (Adams 1775).When he appeared in Paris, one local declared that "Everything in him announced the simplicity and the innocence of primitive morals" (quoted in Isaacson 2003, 328).
To some extent, these impressions were mistaken, as Franklin himself admits in the Autobiography with respect to the Christian virtue of humility (1393-94).In fact he was not a Christian, at least not of any orthodox stripe (1382,1408).And his simplicity and innocence were deliberately exaggerated.Hence John Adams (2012) insisted, "Franklin's moral character can neither be applauded nor condemned, without discrimination and many limitations" (285). 25 Yet even Franklin's greatest detractors have found themselves compelled to acknowledge his greatness.Twain (2012), for instance, paid tribute to him as a "genius" who "did a great many notable things for his country, and made her young name to be honored in many lands as the mother of such a son" (308).Lawrence (1923), who certainly did not like Franklin, had to admit that he admired him: "I admire his sturdy courage first of all, then his sagacity, then his glimpsing into the thunders of electricity, then his common-sense humour.All the qualities of a great man, and never more than a great citizen" (19)(20).Even the rivalrous Adams (2012) was forced to concede, "Dr.Franklin was an honor to human nature" (284).After all, it would be difficult to nominate a more manifestly impressive human being, who (as the Autobiography makes clear) excelled not only as a statesman but also as a natural philosopher, writer, publisher, entrepreneur, frontier commander, city organizer, philanthropist, administrator, inventor, and diplomat.Turgot's epigram for Franklin, Eripuit coelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis (He seized lightning from the heavens and the scepter from tyrants), is a mark of his godlike standing among his contemporaries (Isaacson 2003, 492).His fame "was more universal than that of Leibnitz or Newton, Frederick or Voltaire," as Adams (2012) wrote, "and his character more beloved and esteemed than any or all of them" (285).Like Adams, Pitt the Elder called him "an honour to human nature" (PBF, 21:582).Jacques Pierre Brissot described him as "the ornament of the New World."To Jefferson, he was "the ornament of our country, and I may say, of the world" (Wood 2004, 212).
According to Rousseau, in yet another nod to the human passions of the lawgiver, the latter is "one who, preparing himself a future glory with the passage of time, could work in one century and enjoy the reward in another" (CW, 4:154).Franklin does not quite present himself as writing the Autobiography to secure a posthumous glory.After all, as he points out, in an egalitarian society it is an "impropriety" to appear to want "to raise one's reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's neighbours."Thus, "when one has need of their assistance," one is well advised to present one's own scheme not as one's own but as that of a number of friends."The present little sacrifice of your vanity," Franklin assures his readers, "will afterwards be amply repaid" (1380-81).But this is precisely the approach he takes in the Autobiography, which he presents as the idea of the abovementioned friends Abel James and Benjamin Vaughan (1373-79).And while it is surely true, as he stresses, that in writing the book he took pleasure simply in recollecting his happiness, independently of everyone else (1307), that can hardly explain the strenuous efforts he made to revise and prepare it for publication.He was also motivated, he implies, by the glory he expected to win; or as he puts it, in his more deflationary and thus more democratic style, "I shall a good deal gratify my own vanity" (1308, italics in original).John Adams was blunter.

Showing Things as They Are, or as They Should Appear
Rousseau summarizes the lawgiver's goal thus: "By itself, the people always wants the good, but by itself it does not always see it. . . .It must be made to see objects as they are, or sometimes as they should appear to be" (CW, 4:154).Franklin's Autobiography achieves this twin goal.First, it teaches the lesson that vice is largely the product of ignorance about one's "truest interests," "the nature of man alone considered" (1388, 1392).To this extent, it shows things as they are.Franklin is famously ironic, but when he advises his readers to follow his own example of moral and civic virtue-and not, say, Samuel Keimer's example of vice-he is offering sensible guidance, not laughing into his sleeve.Even Weinberger (2005), who argues that Franklin presents an "ironic morality"-"a public display of conventional morality" that simultaneously points the way to a "deep and persistent" moral skepticism-nonetheless agrees that Franklin shows things as they truly are in his practical teaching, and hence that his advice is sound (65, 219-20, italics in original).
Conversely, the repeated affirmation of a distinctively American identity in the Autobiography may be understood as a prime example of showing things "as they should appear to be."In other words, Franklin works to make Americans see themselves as Americans before being private individuals or loyalists of a particular state or party or anything else.And by encouraging readers to admire a new kind of moral virtue 26 -above wealth, rank, intelligence, and talent-Franklin makes an effort to bring the ways things are, in his own republic, somewhat closer to the way things should be.
Twain, Carlyle, Lawrence, and many others have complained about Franklin's denaturing influence on his American descendants.And in encouraging a culture of Franklinian virtue, Franklin was indeed encouraging a certain kind of moral compulsion, exerted not necessarily by individual authority figures but certainly by public opinion.Still, because he presented his teaching in a book that "may be read or not as anyone pleases" (1307), and because that book offered a clear and rationalistic account of the virtues, Franklin made it possible not only to imitate his example but also to modify or reject it.If Franklin understood the importance of the lawgiver's role, then, he also showed how that role might be performed without simply dominating a people.As one scholar puts it, characterizing Rousseau's account of the lawgiver, "There can be no sense of being acted upon by another, no awareness of passively obeying an alien will, if the aim is to enable the emergence of a people aware of its own abilities of ongoing practices of selfrule" (Frank 2021, 54).
The Autobiography itself makes clear that Franklin's own pedagogical efforts frequently met with resistance.His attempt to reform "poor Keimer," for example, was an abject failure (1340).As for his London colleagues, many of them "continued sotting with beer all day," in spite of the Water American's example (1349).And when the Abbé Nollet refused to credit his research on electricity, Franklin was content to let the work stand or fall on its own merits.His tolerant attitude toward the abbé's incredulity toward his natural philosophy might stand in for his attitude toward critics of his moral philosophy, as well as giving some indication of the scope of his ambitions for the spread of that philosophy.As he writes, I once purposed answering the abbé, and actually began the answer.But on consideration that my writings contained only a description of experiments, which anyone might repeat and verify (and if not to be verified could not be defended), or of observations, offered as conjectures, and not delivered dogmatically, therefore not laying me under any obligation to defend them . . .I concluded to let my papers shift for themselves, believing it was better to spend what time I could spare from public business in making new experiments, than in disputing about those already made.I therefore never answered M. Nollet; and the event gave me no cause to repent my silence; for my friend M. le Roy of the Royal Academy of Sciences took up my cause and refuted him, my book was translated into the Italian, German, and Latin languages, and the doctrine it contained was by degrees universally adopted by the philosophers of Europe in preference to that of the abbé, so that he lived to see himself the last of his sect, except Mr. B-----his élève and immediate disciple.Like his scientific teaching, Franklin's moral teaching was based on empirical experimentation that "anyone might repeat and verify."And it was destined to be "universally adopted," especially in preference to the doctrines of abbés and other clergymen.Of course, if the parallel holds, then Franklin's teaching in the Autobiography must also contain some important "observations, offered as conjectures, and not delivered dogmatically."This seems to me a good description of Franklin's theological statements (1382Franklin's theological statements ( , 1396)).And according to Kidd (2017), it is to Franklin above all that America owes its "most common code of spirituality" (8-9).Thus Franklin's formative influence on America shows in practice what Rousseau suggests in theory: that the classical task of lawgiving can be made compatible with modern freedom and equality.Rousseau himself, of course, was doubtful about the emergence of another législateur, partly because (like Franklin) he believed that modern music was so insipid (see Scott 1997, 818-27).But in his First Discourse, Rousseau also raised doubts about whether electricity would ever be understood (CW, 2:13).Franklin, who "found electricity a curiosity and left it a science" (Van Doren 1971, 171), proved him a bit too pessimistic on both scores.

Conclusion
As Rousseau stresses, lawgivers are exceedingly rare; obviously not every political community has had a Moses, a Lycurgus, or a Solon.But even the best political communities are subject to decrepitude, corruption, and ultimately death, since even among denatured citizens "the private will acts incessantly against the general will," and "the government makes a continual effort against [popular] sovereignty" (CW, 4:186; see also Dienstag 2006, 74-75).The Social Contract refers to the lawgiver "changing human nature, so to speak [pour ainsi dire]" (CW, 4:155), not unqualifiedly.
One measure of Franklin's achievement is that, for all its problems, the United States-one of the geographically largest, most populous, and most (religiously, racially, ethnically, linguistically, culturally) pluralistic societies in human history, with a presidential system that has failed almost everywhere else it has been tried-is nonetheless the modern world's longest-lived and most powerful republic.Rousseau's analysis suggests that we should not expect a comparably robust kind of republicanism to take root or long endure in political communities of a similar size or diversity without the intervention of a genuine lawgiver, an intervention as fraught with danger as it is improbable.