In the King’s Shadow: Benjamin Franklin on Peopling in Early America

In the King’s Shadow: Benjamin Franklin on Peopling in Early America

“If the United States of America continue increasing, which they certainly will do, though not with the same rapidity as formerly, the Indians will be driven further and further back into the country, till the whole race is ultimately exterminated, and the territory is incapable of further extension.”

——Thomas Robert Malthus [1]

I、Introduction

In 1798, when Thomas Malthus firstly published his masterpiece, An Essay on the Principle of Population, he highly valuated Franklin’s contribution to his chosen subject: “It is observed by Dr. Franklin that there is no bound to the prolific nature of plants or animals but what is made by their crowding and interfering with each other’s means of subsistence.”[2] Franklin accurately assumed the relative and absolute rates of growth for North America into the middle of the 19^th century, which made his pamphlet——Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind (1751) a landmark in the history of modern demography and its author a precursor of Malthus.[3]

Assuming that reproductive capacity was much greater than that needed for replacement, Franklin pessimistically asserted that the availability of subsistence ultimately determined population size and growth. However, on the other hand, he was enthusiastic about colonial population expansion, advocating early marriages, large families and rapid population growth, and no worry that a population doubling every 25 years might cause future suffering. The unreconciled strands of “optimism” and “pessimism” running through his treatment of population have long beguiled chroniclers of population thought.[4] 

Like Malthus, subsequent demographers have also seen Franklin as an important demographic thinker.[5] And because he drew attention to the presence of German immigrants who threatened to make Pennsylvania “a Colony of Aliens,” and hence called for policies to protect and increase the number of English settlers, Franklin was also condemned by historians of immigration for his prejudice against outsiders in North America.[6] Other scholars, such as Cassedy, Detweiler, Gibson, and etc., they balance both strands of Franklin’s thought and attempt to integrate them together.[7] These scholars have made great efforts in interpreting Franklin, but who was the real Franklin: pessimist or optimist? enthusiast for population growth or exclusionist? In one way or another, he at least looked like all of the above. And to some degree he was.

Various as Franklin’s faces are, however, no scholar has studied Franklin’s image in depth, especially from the perspective of his great contribution to the study of population expansion in the New World.[8] This article argues that a new, more fully integrated approach to the study of Franklin offers possibilities for new insight. About 30 years ago, J. G. A Pocock issued his “pleas” for a “new British history” and an “Atlantic republican tradition” that would incorporate the history of England, European continent and North America within a single narrative by exploring the ways in which each interacted so as to modify the condition of one another’s existence.[9] Focusing on the development of an Atlantic world, this kind of history seeks to explore the political and constitutional relationships between the communities of the states were transformed and the process through which they gained “a new sense of their own identities as a national communities.”[10] 

In order to understand Franklin’s image and how his self-identity gradually evolved, I mainly discuss his thoughts on population growth in early America. Moreover, following Pocock’s approach, I will also examine Franklin’s thoughts of population and trace how his consideration of population changed as his self-identity evolved; finally I will conclude that although Franklin’s ideas on population were incoherent, when American founding fathers ultimately cut their links with their Mother Country and declared their independence from Britain, Franklin, himself one of their number, altered his views, radicalizing his theories on population and adopting a new identity—an American of a new Republic, rather than a British subject.

II、Franklin on Peopling

In Franklin’s life, population was an important topic, which attracted his attention persistently. In 1722, for example, when he was just a 16 years old boy, in the guise of “Silence Dogood,” he approvingly reprinted Defoe’s scheme for insuring widows.[11] However, before starting his political career, he mainly claimed early marriage and parenthood, which he thought were the necessary virtues for colonial people.

Asserting “the married state is the happiest state,” Franklin deemed marriage to be of great significance for colonial people. That’s because “man and woman have each of them qualities and tempers in which the other is deficient and which in union contribute to the common felicity.”[12] Moreover, he believed that “single and separate they are not the complete human being; they are like the odd halves of scissors; they cannot answer the end of their formations.”[13] It was marriage that played so important a role in the social lives of colonial people. Therefore, he encouraged them to find their husbands and wives and set up their families in order to pursuit their happiness.

Franklin placed a high value on marriage, but he particularly emphasized early marriage rather than late marriage. That’s because “(1) Early ones stand the best chance of happiness. Habits are not yet set and form more easily to each other; (2) By early marriages youthful dissipation is avoided; (3) Parents who marry late often die before the children are grown up. ‘Late children are early orphans;’ (4) Early marriages bear more children.”[14]

    

           Nevertheless, in order to support his points of view on early marriages, Franklin firmly opposed to late marriages. He pointed out:

“Late marriages are often attended too with this further inconvenience; that there is not the same chance that the parents shall not live to see their offspring educated. Late children, says the Spanish proverb, are early orphans; a melancholy reflection to those whose case it may be!”[15]

     Later in replying to John Alleyne in 1768, he explained his points of view on early marriages much more clearly. He wrote:

“Marriages are generally in the Morning of Life, our Children are therefore educated and settled in the World by Noon, and thus our Business being done, we have an Afternoon and Evening of cheerful Leisure to our selves, such as your Friend at present enjoys. By these early Marriages we are blest with more Children, and from the Mode among us founded in Nature of every Mother suckling and nursing her own Child, more of them are raised.”[16]

     Pointing out not having children was unnatural and, ultimately, regrettable, Franklin also supported patriarchy and large families:

“For what old Batchelor can die without Regret and Remorse, when he reflects upon his Deathbed, that the inestimable Blessing of Life and Being has been com­municated by Father to Son through all Generations from Adam down to him, but in him it stops and is extinguished.”[17]

He presented a powerful analogy between “planting” and parenting and argued that what some call the “Bondage” and “Cares” of raising a family are actually akin to the “delight” and “pleasure” that a planter has in tilling his “fertile Garden” and “raising as many beautiful and useful Plants from it as he can.”[18] Later he extolled early marriages since they tend to be “blest with more Children,” then colonial people can set up big families. [19]

Franklin endorsed early marriages and big families, that’s because colonial people could benefit a lot from them. For one thing, early marriages can increase colonial population and make people hardworking to exploit the barren lands in early America; For another thing, the spirit of cooperation and industriousness during their exploitation can also help North Americans to construct a new world.[20] As we can see, before he started his political careers, his ideas of population gradually formed. However, his theories on population were still immature.

Since the 1750s, Franklin started his career as a politician, during which his population arguments became mature. In 1751, in the form of a brief pamphlet, he drafted Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, &c., in which he stated that population levels were determined by the means of subsistence:

“There is…no Bound to the prolific Nature of Plants or Animals, but what is made by their crowding and interfering with each others’ Means of Subsistence. Was the Face of the Earth vacant of other Plants, it might be gradually sowed and overspread with one Kind only; as, for Instance, with Fennel; and were it empty of other Inhabitants, it might in a few Ages be replenished from one Nation only; as, for Instance, with Englishmen.”[21]

Franklin’s arguments were simple. However, it was Franklin who breathtakingly mentioned that neither by changing the customs and laws of marriage nor by restricting (or expanding) opportunities for emigration and immigration can the population be manipulated.[22]

Moreover, he surprisingly assumed the doubling time of the colonial population at 25 years:

“This Million doubling, suppose but once in 25 Years, will in another Century be more than the People of England, and the greatest Number of Englishmen will be on this Side the Water.”[23]

As we can see, it was Franklin who not only assumed that the population of the United States would double every 25 years, but also presumed that the population of North America would outstrip that of Great Britain. Moreover, he concluded that the key to national independence lay in the proper governance of population. It was these claims that, 50 years later, seized the attention of Thomas Malthus, and earned Franklin a founding role in the history of modern demography.[24]

III、The Americanization of Franklin: From a British Subject to an American Founding Father

Franklin’s consideration of population was numerous, which directly connected with his attitudes toward the relationships between Britain and northern colonies. Before American Revolution, as a loyal subject, Franklin supported the population policies of the Mother Country:

“Was the Face of the Earth vacant of other Plants, it might be gradually sowed and overspread with one Kind only; as, for Instance, with Fennel; and were it empty of other Inhabitants, it might in a few Ages be replenish’d from one Nation only; as, for Instance, with Englishmen.”[25]

Obviously, he made a chauvinistic advice to the British prince. And his final two paragraphs made his intention clear: North America was a largely “empty” continent that should be filled with Englishmen and “such Kind of Partiality” to be “natural.”[26]

Franklin also encouraged the Britain to protect the colonial expansion and prevent the territorial expansion of France in North America. In the fall of 1754, just prior to the outbreak of the French and Indian War, he published A Plan for Settling Two Western Colonies, in which he presented an additional view of the demography of colonial expansion. It promoted the establishment of English colonies in “the great country back of the Appalachian mountains, on both sides of the Ohio” by interweaving hostility to France with population theories:

“1. Our people, being confined to the country between the sea and the mountains, cannot much more increase in number; people increasing in proportion to their room and means of subsistence.

2. The French will increase much more, but that acquired room and plenty of subsistence, and become a great people behind us.

3. Many of our debtors, and loose English people, our German servants, and slaves, will probably desert to them; and increase their numbers and strength, to the lessening and weakening of ours……

5. They will both in time of peace and war (as they have always done against New England) set the Indians on to harass our frontiers, kill and scalp our people, and drive in the advanced settlers; and so, in preventing our obtaining more subsistence by cultivating of new lands, they discourage our marriages, and keep our people from increasing; thus (if the expression may be allowed) killing thousands of our children before they are born.”[27]

Depicting the French was seeking to fill America’s empty spaces, Franklin was very worry about this tendency, which made him to argue that colonial expansion was an urgent necessity. Otherwise, the French would occupied the empty spaces that should be preserved by the colonial people.

Franklin advocated that colonies should cooperate with the British Empire, that’s because both of them could benefit a lot:

“1. They would be a great security to the frontiers of our other colonies;

2. The dreaded junction of the French settlements in Canada, with those of Louisiana would be prevented.

3. ……confine the French within narrower limits.

4. Further, by means of the lakes, the Ohio, and the Mississippi, our trade might be extended through a vast country among many numerous and distant nations, greatly to the benefit of Britain.

5. The settlement of all the intermediate lands, between the present Frontiers of our colonies on one side, and the lakes and Mississippi on the other; would be facilitated and speedily executed, to the great increase of Englishmen, English trade, and English power.”[28]

 

He skillfully superseded the conflict of interest between colonies and the Mother Country with a unity of purpose. New colonies would lead to “the great increase of Englishmen, English trade, and English power” and would thwart the French, things desired by Englishmen everywhere.

      

Although Franklin supported the population policies of the British Empire, he also criticized its policies on northern colonies:

“In the past 20 years, Britain had settled families in America and would go on their settling, so many as 10 families a year; the new settlers are either the offspring of the old, or emigrants from Germany or the north of Ireland. It is often said we have plenty of sugar-land still unemployed in Jamaica: but those who are well acquainted with that island, know, that the remaining vacant land in it is generally situated among mountains, rocks and gullies, that make carriage impracticable, so that no profitable use can be made of it……[29]

Describing the “remaining vacant land” was impractically to exploit, he thought that new settlers, who came from the Britain, Germany or the north of Ireland would compete with colonial people for surviving resources. It was so implausible for colonial people to exploit the “remaining vacant land” that he argued so rapid a colonial population increase would beyond the supply of colonies. Although declaiming the colonies as “a glorious Market wholly in the Power of Britain, in which Foreigners cannot interfere,” he also implied that exploiting this market would be harmful to Britain.[30]

    Franklin adopted the stance of an expert advisor who outlined the laws governing the increase of mankind so that wise policy might be implemented.[31] He presumed that population policies of the Britain were of great significance and the growth of colonial population could strengthen its power. However, as Britain made policies to restrict the development of the colonies, Franklin gradually changed his own standpoint from supporting the Mother Country’s interests to advance colonial interests and to assuage British fears.

    As open rebellion approaching closer in the 1760s, Franklin in­creasingly contradicted his public contentions in his private letters. In a letter to his friend Lord Karnes, he unfolded a vision of a soon-independent America:

“But Amer­ica, an immense Territory, favour'd by Nature with all Advantages of Climate, Soil, great navigable Rivers and Lakes, &c. must become a great Country, populous and mighty; and will in a less time than is generally conceiv'd be able to shake off any Shackles that may be impos'd on her, and perhaps place them on the Imposers.. . . [T]he Seeds of Liberty are universally sown there, and nothing can eradicate them.”[32]

Franklin clearly believed that expan­sion of the colonies in territory and population increased their “might” and made independence more feasible. And he thought that the colonies should to throw off their “Shackles” and free themselves from a “selfish” British trade policy.

    On the eve of American Revolution, in The Colonist’s Advocate: IV, Franklin stated that the colonist’s interest was in totally conflict with British Empire, which could not be conciliated any more. In order to preserve the seeds of sacred fire of freedom and against tyranny, he openly pointed out colonial people should work together and against a wrong-headed Ministry:

 “To assume the Title of the Colonist’s Advocate, is to undertake the Defense of Three Millions of the most valuable Subjects of the British Empire, against Tyranny and Oppression, brought upon them by a wrong-headed Ministry. It is to call the Attention of Government to the Injuries of the brave and free Emigrants from these Realms, who first, without the least Charge to us, obtained, and have, for many Years, at the Expense of their Sweat and their Blood, secured for themselves, and the Mother Country, an unmeasurable Territory, from whence Riches, Power, and Honour have, for many Centuries, been flowing in upon us;”[33]

Accusing the tyranny and oppression of the Mother Country, Franklin actively advocated colonial people to defense their own interests. Although it was hard for him to make the final decision, ultimately, he changed his own identification from a subject of British Empire to an outstanding representative of colonial people.

    From 1757 to 1775 Franklin spent nearly all his time in London, serving as colonial agent for the Pennsylvania Assembly, and later for Georgia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Much of Franklin’s public writing during this period, including his population theorizing, focused on convincing British officials that pursuing policies detrimental to the interests of the colonies was “unnecessary, impracticable, impolitic, and unjust.”[34] When open conflict broke out with Great Britain ultimately, Franklin overtly used demographic analysis as a weapon with which to fight for independence. He asked a British friend to calculate “the time and expense necessary to kill us all,” using statistics from the 1775 British military cam­paign: three million pounds expended to kill “150 Yankies,” while “during the same time 60,000 children have been born in America.”[35] Then Franklin finally adopted a rather different stance: friend of the mass, not advisor to the Prince any more.[36] Franklin's own preferences were clear: America's values were his own, and early Americans should make their own decisions rather than forced or interfered by the Britain.

Conclusion

Since Franklin began his career as a statesman for the colonies in the 1750s, he spent a long time in Europe, which offered him lots of opportunities to go on his interest on population. Based on European thinking of population he familiarized with, he advanced treatises on population as a means of influencing British Empire’s colonial policies. Among them, the most notable examples were his Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, Etc. (1751), A Plan for Settling Two Western Colonies (1754), The Canada Pamphlet (1760), and etc.[37]

In interpreting Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, Etc., historian Gordon S. Wood has explained that “Franklin was not anticipating the separation of the colonies from Great Britain. Quite the contrary: he was a true-blue Englishman; he had no thought that America should not be a part of England, at least as connected to England as Scotland was. He thought the colonists were as much British subjects as those in Britain itself. They spoke the same language, possessed the same manners, read the same books, and shared the same religion. The growth of British subjects in America could only benefit the entire empire.”[38]        Moreover, in helping us to understand Franklin’s advice on reprinting a pamphlet entitled The Importance of Gaining and Preserving the Friendship of the Indians to the British Interest Considered, Professor Wood has thought that Franklin advocated “an imperial union.”[39]

Professor Wood believes that Franklin had five kinds of image in all his life, “a gentleman,” “a British Imperialist,” “a patriot,” “a diplomat” and finally became “an American.” And he stated that during the early 1750s, Franklin was “a British imperialist” and advocated “an imperial union”. “By the early 1760s Franklin had become a thoroughgoing imperialist and royalist. He had developed an emotional commitment to the Crown’s empire, a vision of a pan-British world that was rivaled in its grandeur only by that of William Pitt.”[40] After closing scrutiny of his statements, I find his arguments are not convincing as they might be.

Franklin’s attitudes toward Observation was that he worried about the Britain’s population policies toward the North America, then he claimed that colonies should not follow their corrupted mother country, although he, to some degree, was still loyal to the British Empire. Even so, when he made his own comments toward the publication of the pamphlet—— The Importance of Gaining and Preserving the Friendship of the Indians to the British Interest Considered, his intention was to plan “a Union of the Colonies” rather than “an imperial union.”[41] Here, Wood misunderstands Franklin’s statements, that’s because, as a representative of “Republican Synthesis,” he overemphasizes the difference of Franklin’s image as “a British Imperialist” and “a republican American” in order to defense his republican interpretation of the Americanization of Franklin.[42]

Putting Franklin’s points of view concerning population into the “new English history” and the “Atlantic republican tradition”, we can see clearly that his attitudes toward British population policies were closely connected with his self-identity. As the fall of British Empire was inescapable in North America, and the tendency of colonial states was more independent and autonomous both economically and politically, Franklin’s perception toward the relationships between British Empire and colonies was interweaved together. Before the 1750s, he saw himself as unequivocally a British subject and supported British policies in colonies. But after early 1750s, his self-identity shifted as relations between Britain and the colonies changed. Once early Americans could not tolerate Britain’s policies and political administration in colonial states and political conflicts between them could not be conciliated any more, Franklin advocated the cutting of the colonial people’s links with corrupted Britain, signing the Declaration of Independence along with other founding fathers. Franklin’s response to Britain’s population and other policies on early America states, reflected, challenged, and in some ways, reinforced his own identity as one member of a new republic rather than a British subject. When the American Revolution broke out, Franklin finally formed a new sense for himself and radicalized his population theories. By setting himself up as an example, Franklin encouraged colonial people to fight for their new identities and for the creation a new republic.

References

Primary Sources 

The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. 1-39(including two unpublished volumes), sponsored by The American Philosophical Society and Yale University, Digital Edition by The Packard Humanities Institute, see http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp.

Achenwall, Gottfried. 1766. “Some Observations on North America from Oral Information by Dr. Franklin,” in The Papers, Vol. 13, pp. 346-76.

Franklin. 1722, “Silence Dogood, No. 10,” in The Papers, Vol.1, pp.32-6.

______. 1735, "Reply to a piece of advice," and published in The Pennsylvania Gazette. See The Papers, Vol. 2, pp. 21-4.

______. 1748, A Plan for Settling Two Western Colonies,” The Papers, Vol. 5, pp. 456-62.

______. 1751, “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, &c. (1751),” in The Papers, Vol. 4, pp. 225-34.

______. 1751, “To James Parker,” The Papers, Vol. 4, pp. 117-21.

______. 1752, “The Albany Plan of Union,” The Papers, Vol. 5, pp. 374-391.

______. 1752, “Reasons and Motives for the Albany Plan of Union,” The Papers, Vol. 5, pp. 397-416.

______. 1752, “Reasons and Motives for the Albany Plan of Union,” The Papers, Vol. 5, p. 417.

______. 1760, “The Canada Pamphlet (also known as “The Interest of Great Britain Considered, with Regard to Her Colonies, and the Acquisitions of Canada and Guadaloupe”),” The Papers, Vol. 9, pp. 47-99.

______. 1766, “Examination before the Committee of the Whole of the House of Commons,” The Papers, Vol.13, pp. 124-58.

______. 1767, “Letter to Lord Karnes,” The Papers, Vol. 14, pp. 62-70.

______. 1768, “To John Alleyne,” The Papers, Vol. 15, p. 182-84.

______. 1770, “The Colonist’s Advocate: IV,” in The Papers, Vol. 17, pp. 28-9.

______. 1773, “On a Proposed Act to Prevent Emigration,” The Papers, Vol. 20, pp. 522-7.

______. 1775, "To Joseph Priestley,". The Papers, Vol. 22, p. 217.

______. 1783, “To John Sargent (unpublished),” The Papers (unpublished, 1782-83), Vol. 38, p. 667.

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Bailyn, Bernard. 2005. Atlantic History: Concepts and Contours. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Carey, Lewis J. 1928. Franklin's Economic Views. New York: Doubleday, Doran and Co.

Cassedy, James H. 1969. Demography in Early America: Beginnings of the Statistical Mind, 1600-1800. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Conner, Paul W. 1965. Poor Richard's Politicks: Benjamin Franklin and His New American Order. New York: Oxford University Press.

Daniels, Roger. 1990. Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life. New York: Harper Collins.

Gibson, James R. Jr. 1989. Americans Versus Malthus: The Population Debate in the Early Republic, 1790-1840. New York: Garland Publishing.

Haines, Michael R. and Richard H. Steckel, 2000. A Population History of North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hutchinson, Edward Prince. 1967. The Population Debate: The Development of Conflicting Theories up to 1900. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.

Jacobson, Matthew Frye. 1998. Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Malthus, Thomas. Donald Winch ed. 1992. An Essay on the Principle of Population. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

Morrill, John and Brendan Bradshaw, 1996. The British problem, c.1534-1707: State Formation in the Atlantic Archipelago. London: Macmillan.

Pocock, J. G. A. 2003[1975]. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Spengler, Joseph John. (December, 1935). “Malthusianism in Late Eighteenth Century America,” American Economic Review 25, no. 4, pp. 691-707.

Takaki, Ronald. 1979. Iron Cages: Race and Culture in Nineteenth-Century America. New York: Knopf.

Weber, Max. 2003. Talcott Parsons Tr. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Dover Value Editions.

Wood, Gordon S. 2004. The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin. New York: The Penguin Press.

Wright, Esmond. 1986. Franklin of Philadelphia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Periodicals

Aldridge, Alfred Owen. "Franklin as Demographer," Journal of Economic History, Vol. 9, no. 1 (May, 1949), pp. 29-44.

Detweiler, Robert. “An Observation on the Demographic Theories of Benjamin Franklin,” Population Review 19, nos. 1-2 (January- December, 1975), pp. 25-44.

Franklin, Benjamin. “Benjamin Franklin on the Causes and Consequences of Population Growth (also known as Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind (1751),” in Population and Development Review 11, No. 1 (March 1985), pp. 107-12.

Hodgson, Dennis. “Benjamin Franklin on Population: From Policy to Theory,” Population and Development Review, Vol. 17, No. 4, (Dec., 1991), pp. 639-661.

Houston, Alan. “Population Politics: Benjamin Franklin and the Peopling of North America,” presented at the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies Research Seminar, (December 2^nd, 2003), pp. 3-35. Downloaded from http://www.ccis-ucsd.org/PUBLICATIONS/wrkg88.pdf

Pocock, J. G. A. “The Limits and Divisions of British History: In Search of the Unknown Subject,” American Historical Review: 87 (1982), pp. 311-36.

_____. “British History: A Plea for a New Subject,” Journal of Modern History,

vol. 47 (1975), pp. 601-28.

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Shalhope, Robert E. “Toward a Republican Synthesis: The Emergence of an Understanding of Republicanism in American Historiography,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Jan., 1972), pp. 49-80.

_____. “Republicanism and Early American Historiography,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Apr., 1982), pp. 334-356.

Spengler, Joseph John. “Malthusianism in Late Eighteenth Century America,” American Economic Review 25, no. 4 (December, 1935), 691-707.

Wetzel, W. A. “Benjamin Franklin as an Economist,” in Herbert B. Adams (ed)., Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, 13th Series, no. 9, (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1895), pp. 426-76. Downloaded from www.achive.org.

Zirkle, Conway. “Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Malthus and the United States Census,” Isis 48, part 1, no. 151 (March, 1957), pp. 58-62.

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[1] Thomas Malthus, Donald Winch ed., An Essay on the Principle of Population (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 18, esp. note 13.

[2] Thomas Malthus, ibid, p. 14.

[3] This pamphlet, since its publication anonymously in 1755, became one of those rare instances in which ideas influenced not only European intellectuals, such as Adam smith, David Hume, Lord Kanes, Richard Price, Thomas Malthus, D. H. Lawrence, Max Webber and so on, but also nearly every American writing on population during the latter half of the 18^th century. Franklin’s influence on European intellectuals, see W. A. Wetzel, 1895. “Benjamin Franklin as an Economist,” in Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, 13th Series, no. 9.pp. 27-9; Lewis J. Carey, Franklin's Economic Views (New York: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1928), pp. 57-60; Joseph John Spengler, “Malthusianism in Late Eighteenth Century America,” American Economic Review 25, no. 4 (December, 1935.), footnote 23, pp. 698-9; Conway Zirkle, “Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Malthus and the United States Census,” Isis 48, part 1, no. 151 (March, 1957), pp. 59-60; James H. Cassedy, Demography in Early America: Beginnings of the Statistical Mind, 1600-1800 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), p. 154, p. 158, pp. 170-72, pp. 183-4; Alfred Owen Aldridge, “Franklin as demographer,” Journal of Economic History 9, no. 1(May, 1949), p. 25, and pp. 30-2; Max Weber, Talcott Parsons Tr. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Dover Value Editions, 2003), p. xxii, p. 48, pp. 50-6, pp. 64-5; Franklin’s influence on American writing of population, see Esmond Wright, Franklin of Philadelphia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), pp. 261-2, pp. 269-70; James H. Cassedy, ibid, p. 172; and Joseph John Spengler, “Malthusianism in late Eighteenth Century America,” ibid, p. 699.

[4] Dividing 18^th century population thought into “pessimistic” and “optimistic” schools, Hutchinson discussed Franklin’s pessimistic thought. See Edward Prince Hutchinson, The Population Debate: The Development of Conflicting Theories up to 1900 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1967), pp. 113-7, p. 134 and p. 141; Conner takes up the “optimistic” strand in Franklin’s thought, see Paul W. Conner, Poor Richard's Politicks: Benjamin Franklin and His New American Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 237.

[5] Michael R. Haines and Richard H. Steckel, A Population History of North America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 144and p. 305; Joseph J. Spengler, ibid, pp. 691-707; Conrad Zirkle, ibid, pp. 58-62.

[6] See Roger Daniels, Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life (New York: Harper Collins, 1990); Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998); Ronald Takaki, Iron Cages: Race and Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Knopf, 1979).

[7] James H. Cassedy, ibid, pp. 157-170; Robert Detweiler, “An Observation on the Demographic Theories of Benjamin Franklin,” Population Review 19, nos. 1-2 (January- December, 1975), pp.41-5; and James R. Gibson, Jr., Americans versus Malthus: The Population Debate in the Early Republic, 1790-1840 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1989), pp. 6-17.

[8] See Dennis Hodgson, “Benjamin Franklin on Population: From Policy to Theory,” Population and Development Review, Vol. 17, No. 4, (Dec., 1991), pp. 639-661; Also see Alan Houston, “Population Politics: Benjamin Franklin and the Peopling of North America,” presented at the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies Research Seminar, (December 2^nd, 2003), pp. 3-35.

[9] J. G. A. Pocock, “The Limits and Divisions of British History: In Search of the Unknown Subject,” American Historical review: 87 (1982), p. 317, “British History: A Plea for a New Subject,” Journal of Modern Histo91 47 (1975), pp. 601-21, and his The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003[1975]), especially part three.

[10] Morrill and Bradshaw, The British Problem, c.1534-1707: State formation in the Atlantic Archipelago (London: Macmillan, 1996), p. ix; Bernard Bailyn also advocates Atlantic history toward early American history. However, Bailyn’s Atlantic approach is different from J. G. A Pocock’s “Atlantic republican tradition” and “new British history.” See Bernard Bailyn, Atlantic History: Concepts and Contours (Harvard University Press, 2005).

[11] Franklin, “Silence Dogood, No. 10,” (13 August 1722), in The Papers, Vol.1, p. 32.

[12] Franklin, “To John Sargent (unpublished, Jan. 27, 1783),” The Papers(unpublished, 1782-83), Vol. 38, p. 257.

[13] Franklin, “To John Sargent,” ibid, p. 257.

[14] Franklin, “To John Alleyne,” (August 9, 1768), The Papers, Vol. 15, p. 182.

[15] Benjamin Franklin, “To John Alleyne (August 9, 1768),” The Papers, Vol. 15, pp. 183-4.

[16] Benjamin Franklin, “To John Alleyne,” ibid, pp. 183-4.

[17] Franklin, “Reply to a Piece of Advice (4 March, 1735),”, The Papers, Vol. 2, p. 22.

[18] Franklin, “Reply to a Piece of Advice,” ibid, p. 23.

[19] Franklin, “Letter to John Alleyne,” ibid, p. 184.

[20] Franklin, “Examination before the Committee of the Whole of the House of Commons (Thu, Feb 13, 1766),” The Papers, Vol.13, pp. 124-58. Also see http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp.

[21] Franklin, “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, &c. (1751),” in The Papers, Vol. 4, pp. 225-34.

[22] Franklin, “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, &c. (1751),” ibid, pp. 225-34. Esp. paragraph 15, 16 and 21.

[23] Franklin, “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind,” The Papers, Vol. 3, pp. 225-34, paragraph 22; also see Gottfried Achenwall, “Some Observations on North America from Oral Information by Dr. Franklin (1766),” in The Papers, Vol. 13, pp. 346-76. See http://www.franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp

[24] See Thomas Malthus, ibid, p. 14.

[25] Franklin, “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind,” ibid, p. 233

[26] Franklin, “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind,” ibid, p. 234.

[27] Franklin, “A Plan for Settling Two Western Colonies,” The Papers, Vol. 5, pp. 457-8.

[28] Franklin, “A Plan for Settling Two Western Colonies,” The Papers, Vol. 5, pp. 458-9.

[29] Franklin, “The Interest of Great Britain Considered, with Regard to Her Colonies, and the Acquisitions of Canada and Guadaloupe (also known as ‘The Canada Pamphlet’),” The Papers, Vol. 9, p. 99.

[30] Franklin, “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind,” ibid, p. 229.

[31] See Franklin, “The Interest of Great Britain Considered, with Regard to Her Colonies, and the Acquisitions of Canada and Guadaloupe,” ibid, p. 92; and “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind,” ibid, p. 231.

[32] Franklin, “Letter to Lord Karnes (25 February, 1767),” The Papers, Vol. 14, pp. 69-70.

[33] Franklin, “The Colonist’s Advocate: IV (Mon., Jan 15, 1770)” in The Papers, Vol. 17, p. 28.

[34] Franklin, “On a Proposed Act to Prevent Emigration (December, 1773),” The Papers, Vol. 20, pp. 522-7.

[35] Franklin, "Letter to Joseph Priestley (October 1775)," The Papers, Vol. 22, p. 218.

[36] Dennis Hodgson, “Benjamin Franklin on Population: From Policy to Theory,” Population and Development Review, Vol. 17, No. 4, (Dec., 1991), p. 653.

[37] Alfred Owen Aldridge, "Franklin as Demographer," Journal of Economic History, Vol. 9, no. 1 (May, 1949), pp. 26-28.

[38] Conyers Read, “The English Elements in Benjamin Franklin,” in Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 64(1940), p. 314. Cf Gordon S. Wood, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin (New York: The Penguin Press, 2004), p. 71.

[39] Wood, ibid, p72-3, and p. 77.

[40] Wood, ibid, p. 91.

[41] Franklin, “To James Parker (Mar. 20, 1751),” The Papers, Vol. 4, p. 117. In 1754, this plan caused him to advocate Albany Plan of Union, although finally it was proved implausible. Part of this Plan was used in writing the Articles of Confederation, which kept the States together from 1781 until the Constitution. Also see Benjamin Franklin, “The Albany Plan of Union,” The Papers, Vol. 5, pp. 374-391; Franklin, “Reasons and Motives for the Albany Plan of Union,” The Papers, Vol. 5, pp. 397-416 and “Reasons and Motives for the Albany Plan of Union,” The Papers, Vol. 5, p. 417.

[42] See Robert E. Shalhope, “Toward a Republican Synthesis: The Emergence of an Understanding of Republicanism in American Historiography,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Jan., 1972), pp. 70-2 and “Republicanism and Early American Historiography,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Apr., 1982), pp. 334-356; Daniel Rodgers, “Republicanism: the Career of a Concept,” The Journal of American History, Vol. 79, No. 1 (Jun., 1992), pp. 11-2, pp. 15-20, pp. 34-8.