# Benjamin Franklin's proto Trump rhetoric **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 23, 2017, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benjamin-franklins-proto-trump-rhetoric/789660 "2017-06-23T02:01:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Reddy\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@Reddy\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reddy_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benjamin-franklins-proto-trump-rhetoric/789660/1 "2017-06-23T02:01:17Z")
"Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion. 1. Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind." Jesus Christ. I always thought Franklin was one of the ‘good ones’ so to speak of the Founders. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benjamin-franklins-proto-trump-rhetoric/789660/2 "2017-06-23T02:18:44Z")
In many ways, he was. And in other ways, he was not. The web of life is of a mingled yarn, both good and ill together. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benjamin-franklins-proto-trump-rhetoric/789660/3 "2017-06-23T02:36:38Z")
At least, in that last sentence, he acknowledged that he was speaking of his own (culture’s) preference, rather than some absolute superiority. That’s better than most white folks would have thought then, I’m pretty sure. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benjamin-franklins-proto-trump-rhetoric/789660/4 "2017-06-23T05:36:38Z")
Why is it that people who ought to know better insist on judging previous times by the standards of our own time? ---
**Author:** ![Edible\_Hat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@Edible\_Hat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edible_Hat)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benjamin-franklins-proto-trump-rhetoric/789660/5 "2017-06-23T09:54:34Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > Why is it that people who ought to know better insist on judging previous times by the standards of our own time? Why do so many insist on dismissing these “judgments” (I would rather call them “revisionist histories,” in a non-pejorative sense, that complicate our heroic-romantic views of the past) by saying that these were the “standards” of the time? There were plenty of anti-racists during Franklin’s time who would have been aghast at what he wrote. In fact, Franklin himself was one such man. He published the first German language newspaper in the new world BEFORE he wrote the passage in the original post. He later renounced his anti-German views, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/arrogance_ex_machina/32/192_2.png) [@Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrogance_Ex_Machina)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benjamin-franklins-proto-trump-rhetoric/789660/6 "2017-06-23T10:00:45Z")
[QUOTE=Benjamin Franklin] “And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion;” [/QUOTE] Even Russians and Swedes aren’t white enough? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benjamin-franklins-proto-trump-rhetoric/789660/7 "2017-06-23T17:44:17Z")
> [@Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](#): > > Even Russians and Swedes aren’t white enough? 😃 It’s enough to make me question whether Ben Franklin had actually _met_ any Swedes. One would think so… There was that New Sweden colony on the Delaware river – before Franklin’s time, but I assume the Swedish colonists didn’t all move back to Sweden just because a different colonial power took over the territory. But still… “swarthy”? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benjamin-franklins-proto-trump-rhetoric/789660/8 "2017-06-23T22:24:54Z")
Swarthy as in, not proper white people. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benjamin-franklins-proto-trump-rhetoric/789660/9 "2017-06-23T23:04:35Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Swarthy as in, not proper white people. Well, he says “swarthy complexion” and then goes into some weirdness about how much sunlight they’re reflecting up into space… so it seems like he’s talking about actual skin color.😕 ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benjamin-franklins-proto-trump-rhetoric/789660/10 "2017-06-23T23:30:32Z")
When you judge an historical figure for their racial attitudes, do you judge them at the end of their life or during the middle? Franklin wrote this piece when he was a 45 year old Briton, in 1751. Which is to say that the popular image of the wizened old man with the severe mullet is not this guy. In fact, when he republished this essay in later years (1760 and 1761), he removed these paragraphs (it was his opponents who put it back in when they republished the paper in 1764, to discredit him). Another interesting edit: In its original form, the essay criticizes the use of slaves thusly: > [@](#): > > ’Tis an ill-grounded Opinion that by the Labour of Slaves, America may possibly vie in Cheapness of Manufactures with Britain. The Labour of Slaves can never be so cheap here as the Labour of working Men is in Britain. Any one may compute it. Interest of Money is in the Colonies from 6 to 10 per Cent. Slaves one with another cost £30 Sterling per Head. Reckon then the Interest of the first Purchase of a Slave, the Insurance or Risque on his Life, his Cloathing and Diet, Expences in his Sickness and Loss of Time, Loss by his Neglect of Business (Neglect is natural to the Man who is not to be benefited by his own Care or Diligence), Expence of a Driver to keep him at Work, and his Pilfering from Time to Time, almost **every Slave being by Nature a Thief** , and compare the whole Amount with the Wages of a Manufacturer of Iron or Wool in England, you will see that Labour is much cheaper there than it ever can be by Negroes here. (My emphasis) In later editions, Franklin softened the argument that slaves were inherent thieves. It’s almost like he was tempering his attitude. (And, it could be argued, the essay as a whole is a criticism of using slaves to fill the labor void in America): > [@](#): > > ’Tis an ill-grounded Opinion that by the Labour of Slaves, America may possibly vie in Cheapness of Manufactures with Britain. The Labour of Slaves can never be so cheap here as the Labour of working Men is in Britain. Any one may compute it. Interest of Money is in the Colonies from 6 to 10 per Cent. Slaves one with another cost £30 Sterling per Head. Reckon then the Interest of the first Purchase of a Slave, the Insurance or Risque on his Life, his Cloathing and Diet, Expences in his Sickness and Loss of Time, Loss by his Neglect of Business (Neglect is natural to the Man who is not to be benefited by his own Care or Diligence), Expence of a Driver to keep him at Work, and his Pilfering from Time to Time, almost **every Slave being from the nature of slavery a Thief** , and compare the whole Amount with the Wages of a Manufacturer of Iron or Wool in England, you will see that Labour is much cheaper there than it ever can be by Negroes here. Finally, some context. Franklin’s essay was in response to a law passed by Mother England that limited the expansion of iron manufacturing in the colonies. Franklin’s argument was that this was not wise, since America’s vast frontier represented an opportunity for England to expand its population (and, as a consequence, its influence). Franklin, a proud Briton and a proud colonist, is countering the idea that England needed protection from colonial competition by encouraging British expansionism. He larger point is an economic one, but he finishes with an appeal to the mindset of the time, which is that the “races” were in a competition to overtake the world. Cite: [Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, 1751](https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-04-02-0080#BNFN-01-04-02-0080-fn-0013) ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benjamin-franklins-proto-trump-rhetoric/789660/11 "2017-06-24T15:09:19Z")
Nobody’s perfect. At least he didn’t like slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/benjamin-franklins-proto-trump-rhetoric/789660/12 "2017-06-24T21:44:26Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > In later editions, Franklin softened the argument that slaves were inherent thieves. From what you quoted, I question whether he was even originally making a racial claim about the “thieving nature” of black people, as opposed to a sociological claim about the thieving nature of enslaved people: > [@Ben Franklin](#): > > Reckon then the […] Loss by his Neglect of Business (Neglect is natural to the Man who is not to be benefited by his own Care or Diligence), […] and his Pilfering from Time to Time, almost every Slave being by Nature a Thief […] In other words, Franklin’s saying that it’s natural for an enslaved worker who doesn’t share in the benefits of his labor to be neglectful of his work. Likewise, it’s natural for an enslaved worker who’s prevented from earning things he wants by working for them to steal things he wants instead. Neither of those observations is necessarily dependent on the enslaved worker’s race. Mind you, I’m not trying to argue that Franklin wasn’t a racist, at least in some ways and at some times: it would be very odd for an 18th-century white Briton to be completely non-racist. I’m just saying that it’s not clear that this particular statement about slaves naturaly being thieves is specifically racist in nature. What you refer to as a later “softening” of the claim strikes me as more of a clarification.