MY PERSPECTIVE, Gary Damron

This summer, we'll celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. As we explore events leading up to the signing, last week we talked about the pride, then disappointment, of English colonists after their shared victory over France. Then, in addition to governmental and economic changes, new ways of thinking began to impact the colonists' view of the world and their relationship to England.

First was the Enlightenment, that started in Europe and spread to the New World. A religious revival called the Great Awakening which followed was unique to the American experience. These two movements transformed American culture and united colonists through common beliefs and shared experiences.

The Enlightenment provided a philosophical framework for challenging British authority, emphasizing reason, individual liberty, and natural rights. Inspired by thinkers like England’s John Locke, it framed concepts of government by consent and the right to revolt. Locke's social contract set forth that government exists only with the consent of the governed. He argued that when a government violates the social contract and fails to protect natural rights, the people have a duty to overthrow it. The Enlightenment's focus on reason over tradition promoted ideas of religious freedom and freedom of speech.

The American Enlightenment was an intellectual development that changed the thinking of the educated and informed leadership in the colonies. At its heart was the belief that God is benevolent. Included was an optimistic view of human nature, perceiving man not as innately depraved, but possessing a rational mind. Coinciding with this came the outlook of an orderly universe that functions in a mechanical fashion, with processes that man could understand and refine. Proponents believed practical knowledge, discovered by reason, could improve society.

Benjamin Franklin personified the Enlightenment. Born in Puritan Boston in 1706, the 15th of 17 children, Ben was indentured as an apprentice at age 12 to an older brother to learn the printing trade. His relationship with his brother James, however, was volatile and marked by verbal and physical abuse as well as artistic rivalry.

After one beating too many, Ben broke his indenture and ran away, which was illegal. He fled to New York and eventually settled in Philadelphia, where he sought to establish himself as an independent printer. Though the skills learned from James were foundational to his success as a printer and publisher, Ben later noted that this experience fostered his lifelong aversion to tyranny and arbitrary power.

In Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin left a legacy of civil improvements and scientific research. His many practical innovations included the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, various medical devices, maps of the Gulf Stream, and swim fins. Notably, he did not patent his inventions, believing they should freely serve the public good.

He enhanced public life by founding the first American hospital in 1751, a volunteer fire department, the first public lending library. He helped form the American Philosophical Society to encourage scientific exchange and he established an institution that became the University of Pennsylvania. In his 1790 will, Benjamin Franklin bequeathed £1,000 each to Boston and Philadelphia to create trust funds which - through compounding interest - grew by 1990 to more than $6.5 million. Originally intended for loans to young married apprentices, the money later funded civic improvements including scholarships, trade schools, and public works.

Franklin's journey reflects the way the Enlightenment impacted the development of American thought. He was raised, according to his autobiography, “piously in the Dissenting Way [Congregationalist]”. But he began doubting, and much has been made of his comment at age 15: “in short I soon became a thorough Deist” who believed in a detached and uninterested God. Those who misuse this statement forget that practicality was a key to Franklin’s beliefs. After several negative experiences with other Deists, he wrote, "I began to suspect that this Doctrine tho’ it might be true, was not very useful.”

We can draw summary statements from his book, where Franklin wrote his “Substance of and intended Creed." He began that “one God who made all things”, who “governs the World by His Providence”, should be “worshipped by Adoration, Prayer and Thanksgiving. But the most acceptable Service of God is doing Good to Man. The Soul is immortal and God will certainly reward Virtue and punish Vice either here or hereafter.” We also remember that in 1776, Franklin proposed as a motto for the new country, “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”

At age 81, he requested that clergy be called to lead the Constitutional Convention in prayers for "Assistance from Heaven" and blessings on the deliberations. At its conclusion he said, “I have so much faith in the general governance of the world by Providence that I can hardly conceive a transaction of so momentous importance ... without being in some degree influenced, guided, and governed by that omnipotent, omnipresent, and beneficent Ruler....”.

England remained fixed in tradition and slow to change. Through the Enlightenment that made its way from Europe, American colonists came to believe they could improve on what they had. The ideas had a revolutionary effect in the colonies and became part of a new identity which developed alongside their experience of making things work in a new land. They believed God had given them gifts to understand their world and make it better.