THE FOUNDING OF THE COUNTRY
The
puritans are separated from the founding fathers by the enlightenment. The enlightenment was based on science.
The great
big dude of science was Newton.
The great big dude of the enlightenment was Voltaire.
Newton
Newton was in England. Again almost all science comes from the northern protestant
countries (Namely Britain and England)
And Newton is born in 1642 - 1727)
The significance of Newton is that he figures out
how the whole universe works. He leaves
little mystery. He shows it to work
like a machine with according to simple laws that he figures out.
Newton inspired the idea that we could figure out
the world. This made people disatisfied
with problems. No its not okay that
some are rich and some are near starvation.
Why couldn’t we end all problems of the world?
Newton did.
He figured out all the problems of the world.
He figured
out a whole world as a machine.
This means
you do not need to mention god to figure everything out.
This also
means we can figure out everything for our selves.
We use our
eyes to figure everything out.
For example
the king is just a man.
For example
all men are equal.
1694-1778
Colonialism
And the war
was fought to free _________ (the colony) from ______ (the imperialist mother
country).
If you remember the concept of imperialism, we
were imperialized by England. They were
imperialistic to us.
They made manufactured goods and we were to
supply the raw materials.
We were not at the time the big mighty us, but
some colonies up and down the east coast.
The why
Revolution means to overthrow the government.
We are the first government in the world to have rights and
democracy.
Before there were BEAS and you had no rights! All countries before of us were run by King
Gods.
When we say the pledge of allegience you should
be damned grateful and proud.
Fear of uncertainty concerning what Britain would
do next probably brought on our revolution.
It happens after the french indian war which the
British win and puts them at the peak of their power. And the problem wasn’t the money, but that they controlled us.
They taxed us to pay for their occupation of
us. They said we couldn’t go past the
appalacian mountains. The stamp act was
concerning a stamp that was to be put on paper products showing the tax had
been paid. This pissed of three noisy
groups. Journalists, lawyers and
clergy. They controlled our tea
trade. It made legal tea cheaper than
other tea. It wasn’t the price, but
that if tea now, what later?
Even after the war started our army was more to
protect than to Attack. Officers still
toasted to the king. Then the british
blockaded us navally and tom Paine wrote common sense and slowly we became
states, not colonies.
The most remembered battle cry for independence
is no taxation without representation.
American Exceptionalism
Show the
dollar bill.
We may not feel so powerful now, but it shows a time when ordinary men
were giants and an aspect of American Exceptionalism.
THE AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALIST VISION in the
revolution.
We developed from a
revolution in christian and republic time.
The founding fathers
The founding fathers we’re going to look at are Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.
Thomas Jefferson’s Schedule
Write this most beautiful of schedules
Tell of the house that reflects the mind of TJ. His writing pad, his clock, his bed between
two rooms.
5 parts of the Declaration of Independence
The next
day they are to have memorized the first line of the third paragraph.
George Washington
The father
of our country is _______ _________ .
He is on the one dollar bill and the quarter and the father of our
country.
Between the puritans and the time we are now
writing about there was a war. I won’t
say much about battle in this class.
The war was horrible. All wars
are horrible. And, it was very doubtful
that we’d win. We were a small colony
against the greatest power on earth.
The war lasted 8 years.
War is hell
We won’t focus on war, because it isn’t
interesting to me. Historians have lots
of jobs: teacher writer, researcher, film consultant, documentary maker. What is history? It is what is of interest to the historian. If you want to study the history of sports
you can. Or the history of waffle
irons. Or the history of tennis shoes.
There is not much to say except that war is
hell. War was worse back then. When they show you the shiny picture of Iraq
being blown up, remember what is on the ground. Babies blown to bits.
Some times war is necessary, but it should never be glamourized.
The tree of liberty must be watered with the
blood of patriots.
George Washington Led us in that war effort.
He was also the head of the constitutional
convention.
He was also the first president of the united
states.
As president Washington did two great things:
a - he refused to be king. He would not be called your excellency, your
glory, your majesty. Just Mr.
President. He wasn’t only the first
president of the US. He was the first
president in the history of the world.
b- He quit after two terms. This set up the tradition that presidents
don’t go beyond two terms.
Ben Franklin’s autobiography
Franklins
life was an experiment. He experimented
with how much one person can do with one life.
His early
life
Born in 1706. The second child of 7. After his mother died, his father remarried
and had another 10 children. His
father wanted him to be a minister, but they had no money to send him to
school. His father apprenticed him as a
candle maker at 12 and then to his brother
as a printer. This is where he
first got going with writing.
He wrote anonymously under the name Silence Dogood (a chatty moralizing woman) (because he was young) and rerwrote the
lords prayer and the book of common prayer and invented a parable about
persecution and was happy about the praise they got (all 14). (we only know because he revealed it in his
autobiography 55 years later).
At 17 he was suffering because of working too
much for his brother and ran away to Philadelphia. He got on a ship by telling the captain he’d gotten a girl in
trouble and needed to get away. He
arrived penniless.
Wet and dirty he showed up with just enough money
for two pieces of bread.
Deborah Reed who he was later to marry (7 years) saw him and laughed at him.
He got a job in as a printers office. Really fortunately, the govenor of
philadelphia read a letter he wrote to send to his family. The governor was so impressed that he met him
and proposed to set him up as an independent printer. The governor sent him to England to get new printing
presses. Unfortunately when he got
there he found out that the governors letters of credit hadn’t been sent.
Franklin creates the national mind
He came back and got his job as a printers
assistant back. He was 20. He also stunned everybody with how much and
how diligently he worked. Others drank
and played around. He had more serious
visions.
On the ship back he wrote the 13 virtues we read.
SHOW THE 13 VIRTUES THEY ARE TO CHOOSE THREE COPY THEM AND WRITE 5 LINES ON WHAT KIND
OF GOOD THINGS CAN COME FROM FOLLOWING THEM.
He plied his time in the name of industry with
carefulness only a puritans decendant could muster. After two years back, he had a printing business that put out a
newspaper and an almanac that was full of the sayings of a character he
invented called “Poor Richard” Almanacs
had weather charts, lunar charts, weather forcasts and holiday dates and
recipes and lots of useful stuff. The
difference was that he wrote proverbs by someone he invented called poor
richard. It was a hit in all 13
colonies.
It had sayings like, “early to bed early to rise
makes a man healthy wealthy and wise.”
“He that lies down with dogs shall rise up with
fleas.” “necessity never made a good bargain”
“A penny saved is a penny earned” “the lord helps
them that helps themselves”
Haste makes waste. Time is money. An apple a
day keeps the doctor away. To find a
girl’s faults praise her to her girlfriends.
“Lost time is never found again” “Don’t count
your chickens before they’re hatched.
“Afriend in need is a friend indeed.”
“Fish and visitors smell in three days” “there are no gains, without
pains” Sloth makes all things
difficult, but industry all easy.” “He
that lives on hope will die fasting”.
“At a working man’s house hunger looks in , but dares not enter”
It was popular and Poor Richards saying were
popular all over. He became the best
known man in the American colonies.
Perhaps being the first thing we had in common. Creating an ethos. “hard work, honesty and healthy skepticism”
Telling us who we were. For many it was the only thing they’d read (other than the bible)
all year.
He married his wife and they lived above the
print shop. With his illigitimate child,
(one child died at the age of 6).
He forms our infrastructure
He formed a club called the “Junto” club. This was a club of men making personal and
social improvement. Here started to
deal with science and phiosophical issues.
Through this he helped found a permanent police force. And the first hospital in Philadelphia and
the first fire department in america.
He founded the Univ. of Pennsylvania.
He helped to found an orphanage.
His business grew as his reputation did. He put print shops in many cities, and
started selling them paper and ink.
In the year 1753 our King appointed him to be the
first Postmaster General of the American colonies. He quickly did a six month inspection of the post offices and
came back with a plan to build post roads.
These were the first things that drew the scattered colonies
together. Newspapers could also go from
one colony to another. And years of
communication did create some understanding.
This linked our colonies. So he made the intellectual and actual links
of the colony.
He made the first odometer.
Franklin as inventor
He inventeed the rocking chair and bifocals as
well as the long arm (to get books down from the top shelf) lightening rod and the franklin stove and didn’t patend it because he thought that
inventions should be used to improve mankind.
He thought that an iron rod from the ground to the top of a steeple
would attract and carry away the lightning that otherwise might strike and
destroy the building. He wrote how to
make and use his lightening rods in his Poor Richards Almanac.
He was the one that suggested daylight savings
time.
And he discovered that lighteneing and
electricity were one and the same. He
made a list of what electricity and lightening did. He did it at the age of 46. His world wide reputation soared.
Some religious people condemned him saying that lightening was gods way
of punishing people and he shouldn’t interfere. Previously, man had thought that lightening happened when the
gods were angry. It was taken personally. From this time on it is understood to only
be an electrical discharge. Nothing
personal.
This was the first practical thing ever done with
electricity.
He invented the word “charge”
He also nearly died trying to electrocute a x-mas
turkey.
He was
amongst the first to map the gulf stream.
He created a flexible urinary cathetor.
He did almost all he did for the public
good. This is very puritan as the
puritans said not to waste your calling on yourself but use it.
His biggest contributions were scientific. He discovered positive and negative
electricity. The forces that could be
built up in leyden jar capacitors were parlor tricks, people didn’t take it
seriously. He established the laws by
which it oprates how to store it how to use it and the words (positive,
negative and battery for instance)
Franklin the revolutionary
At 55 the pennsylvania assembly sent him off to
settle a dispute because the heirs of william penn refused to pay taxes. It was a 7 year visit. He was popular and had a room to do
experiments. He was in no hurry to
return to America and his wife.
He came back and lost an election as thefaction
of the Penn family beat him by 25 votes.
People were hoping the king would adopt pennsylvania as a colony and
thus override the Penns.
Within a month he went back to England to deliver
the petition to the king.
Soon a bigger issue happened. A tax required a stamp on all paper
goods. Called the stamp act. No taxation without reputation became a battle cry. Riots in the streeets and words near treason
were spoken. People started to think he
was part of the reason it got passed.
He went to try get it repealed. In 1766 for 4 hours he was heavily grilled,
Edmund Burke said it was like school kids quizzing a school master” They wondered
if America would take up arms against England.
He said not if not provoked, but what was the stamp act if not
provokative. He thought himself English
but things were getting tenser. He reminded them that americans were
englishmen.
The stamp act was repealed and franklin became a
hero. But there were other taxes just to show they could tax us. And they put army people in boston homes to
enforce them. The Boston tea party
happened. And now independence was
talked of. Franklin hoped it wouldn’t happen.
He was to be the representative of massatuchets
to England the govenor (hutchinson) denied this as hutchinson wanted troops
(franklin circulated letters on this) .
So then there was a cry to get rid of hutchinson. Then hutchinson wanted a trial. Franklin admited he circulated them. at 68 he was grilled badly in England for
and hour and a half and said nothing.
He went in to the chamber an englishman and left
a revolutionary. While there his wife
died. When he got back his city was
ready for war and it was already on. He
served as the second continental congress and was appointed to the 5 man
committee that made the declaration of independence. He didn’t like sacred and undeniable and made “self evident “
This was treason. John Hancock said
“upon signing” we must all hang together.
Franlin said or we’ll all hang separately.
Franklin the ambassador
He made the first american cartoon. THe colonies as a snake divided.
He became enemies with his british friends. He called them enemies (this is at 70)
American sent him to get arms in France on the
day the declaration of independence was adopted. The hopes of America went with him. He was there for six years.
He got arms shipments secretely. He had to deal with royalty who didn’t like disroyalty,
but didn’t like england either. He had
no position but his reputation. All
knew him. He liked humor, women,
friends and flirting so he was well recieved in France. He was considered a leader of the Enlightenment. He had two girlfriends there. One a musician and composer. And another to whom he proposed
marriage. She had a salon and was near
his own age. But she refused him. They
stayed the best of friends.
He was in France when he found out we won. He had to make a peace treaty with England. The treaty of paris. He wore the same plain suit he wore at his
trial in England. At 69 they finally honored his request to come back home. He went to France a lobbyist and came home a
representative of a sovereign nation.
h
Franklin settles our form of government
A t the age of 81 he went to the constitutional convention and was the one to solve
the biggest dilemna of the constitution.
He called on the delegates to sign it because he didn’t like all but had
lived long enough to see many things he once thought were 100% right are wrong
now. They should all question their
perfection.
In 1790 at the age of 84 he died. He wrote his autobiography for
18 years and finished it in the last year of his life. It is probably the first great book of American
literature.
Franklins book heralds the dawn of a new era that
will be free from all the craziness that starts wars.
we are a new nation, beyond the ignorant and
unenlightened and un scientific way s of life.
We don’t have to fall into the ugly problems of class divisions and
religious wars of old tradition bound Europe.
Show the
Jefferson video
Like the puritans
Founding fathers were the people who created our
government and led us to independence from the British. We’ll look at one: Benjamin Franklin. He was a signer and major figure of the
constitution convention.
Read Ben
Franklin Says: How is he like a puritan?
How is he not like a puritan.
Franklin admits loving the puritans writng
(particularly Cotton Mather’s “Essays to do good”). He knew many of the aging puritan leaders. And shows his sentiments in his proverb
“Leisure is time for doing something useful”
We see the Puritan influence in his insistence on frugality, simplicity,
and utility as standards of value; and we see it just as clearly in his
acceptance of public duty, his constant effort to improve the community, his
willingness at last to serve the local and international community without pay.
1)They try
to be excellent
They are not fearful of god, but the judgement of
history.
Franklin is puritan in that he hates the sin of relaxing.
His writing style is influenced by the self
criticising, plain style puritan diaries.
He is constantly concerned that he is observed as
a person of worth. Not of salvation,
but of credit and example (that’s why he writes his autobiography).
But his belief in his own apparent goodness and
potential are not puritan.
2)
Jefferson is American exceptionalist.
Jefferson
is Puritan in that he believes in American
Exceptionalism.
Thomas Jefferson is like a puritan in that he
thinks america is the example of salvation like the “city of god” for
Europe. He wrote that The United states
must show by example the sufficiency of human reason for the care of human
affairs and the at the will of the amjority, the Natural Law of every society,
is the only sure guardian of the rights of man.”
read pg 299
of Jefferson Himself
But he believes in religious freedom and freedom
not to believe. So he is different from
puritans too.