. Some successful Americans . r better through a long life. No other American everexerted so great an influence for so long a time ; no othername is more thoroughly or more honorably interwovenwith his countrys history. If one now wonders at Claysapparently vacillating policy on the question of slavery, heshould not forget that it is difficult, if not impossible, forthose now living to appreciate the bitterness of those timesand the great danger of the disruption of the regarded the overthrow of the Union as the greatestpossible evil, and he was prepared to make any necessarysa
. Some successful Americans . r better through a long life. No other American everexerted so great an influence for so long a time ; no othername is more thoroughly or more honorably interwovenwith his countrys history. If one now wonders at Claysapparently vacillating policy on the question of slavery, heshould not forget that it is difficult, if not impossible, forthose now living to appreciate the bitterness of those timesand the great danger of the disruption of the regarded the overthrow of the Union as the greatestpossible evil, and he was prepared to make any necessarysacrifice to avert it. He said : , I owe a paramount allegiance to the whole Union, — a subordinateone to my own state. When my state is right—when it has causefor resistance, when tyranny and wrong and oppression insufferablearise— I will then share her fortunes ; but if she summons me to thebattlefield, or to support her in any cause which is unjust, against theUnion, never, never will 1 engage with her in such a Benjamin Franklin 172 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN I706-1790 For more than three centuries there Hved in the littlevillage of Ecton in Northamptonshire, England, a familyby the name of Franklin. In every generation the eldestson became a blacksmith. Josiah, the father of Benjamin,was a dyer, but on coming to America he became a tallowchandler and soap boiler. Benjamin was his fifteenth child. Franklins mother was Abiah Folger and was Josiahssecond wife. Her husband was a rather narrow-mindedPuritan, although a man of sterling character, and it is notsurprising, perhaps, that the young Franklin should haverevolted against the rigid beliefs of his father. The boys early life was a struggle with poverty, diffi-culties, and hardships. The house in which he was bornwas a two-story building of four rooms, — a kitchen, anattic, and two other rooms, each twenty feet square. Itis a little difficult to see how a family of the size ofFranklins could be made comfortable in su
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