On this July 4 weekend, it’s worth remembering one of the earliest points at which an American made a vital contribution to world intellectual discourse by pointing out the value of the American experience and how it was opening new perspectives.
Twenty-one years before he signed the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin published a short essay, first drafted in 1751, titled “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind” on what his work as a postmaster had taught him about population growth in the American colonies.
‘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?’
Franklin had already been making a name for himself in Europe as a physicist by synthesizing knowledge of electricity into a coherent whole (for example, naming the positive and negative charges). The year before, he’d become a world hero by publishing for free (he could have sought patent license fees) his design for an improved pointed lightning rod, a sizeable boon to humanity that much reduced how often churches, sailing ships, and other noble structures burned down.
