My previous column invited selections for the “greatest American of all time.”
Responses came from women asking about females on such a list, from the “artistically-inclined” seeking culturally creative people beyond politics, and from Elders, (especially some with vivid memories of the 1930s Depression and World War II), boosting FDR for the top of the list (often with an accompanying nod to his cousin Theodore Roosevelt).
Several folks asked — some demanded ‚ that I reveal my personal top 10 list (at some point, I hope to do that).
For now, I continue to welcome your own lists and your reasons for making selections.
I participated in my first Great Americans rating in 1976, during my highly active academic role in the American Revolution Bicentennial Celebration. It is legitimate to inquire of everyone what short or long term factors may have influenced their choices.
Looming large for me was the time I had spent in England in 1975.
The “defeated” nation of Great Britain did hold its own recognition of what most scholars consider one of the truly influential developments in world history.
Significantly, they called their program: “The American War for Independence.”
That might seem a small matter, but it wasn’t. Their focus was 1775 to 1975 because they believed the battles at Lexington and Concord in April 1775 were the key in defining the nature of separation.
The focus on a title of “War” deliberately diminished what the great scholar, Gordon Wood, calls: “The Radicalism of the American Revolution.”
Columbia historian Carl Becker had written that The American Revolution was more than “Redcoats Go Home,” much more than a battle for “Home Rule.”
Like R.R. Palmer and most others, he showed that it was also a “battle over who should rule at home,” and in that dimension, at the time, was the singular, most transformative democratic movement in the history of the world.
Indeed, as Harvard’s Bernard Bailyn has argued, the truly new American principles and practices of politics, government, liberty and human rights sparked a “contagion of liberty” that immediately stirred other peoples and nations, and, to this day, serves as a reference point for radical steps toward democracy.
Most of the Brits from the 1770s into the 1970s (and probably to this day) had little to no understanding of the magnitude of the American Revolution. [as illustrated from my Pub focus groups in England, from studying with Cambridge scholar, J.H. Plumb, and from my research at London’s “PRO” (Public Record Office), where scores of manuscripts dismissed the American colonists as “disrespectful,” as “unappreciative,” and as “irresponsible rebels.”]
Not just Brits, but Americans preparing for the 2016 elections (see my coming column themes) would have a deeper sense of the precious U.S. democratic heritage if they had a better understanding, not of fighting “The War for Independence,” but of implementing “The Radicalism of the American Revolution.”
I especially celebrated Benjamin Franklin because he was among the three most radical leaders of the American Revolution.
It is no simple task to try to do a rating of a nation’s greatest leaders, and, as will be shown — at a future date— there are many men and women to admire and to celebrate as models for our society and for humanity.
Historians have argued that special accord should be given to the “Founders” of any nation because they have the most challenging, creative tasks.
Their legacy is all the greater if their institutions and values continue, and if their views are flexible enough to foster progress.
Scholars identify Franklin, Jefferson and Thomas Paine as America’s most radical leaders ± men of vision who also championed continuing democratic reforms and revolutionary ideas.
Among the three, Paine has been most neglected, as Ron, a perspicacious reader of my previous column, emphasized.
Not only was “Common Sense” the best-selling book in America (to that point), but it was a clarion call for human rights that truly signaled the best of “American exceptionalism.”
Paine wrote: “We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand.”
It is no accident that Paine’s closest booster was Franklin, who keenly shared Paine’s idealistic view: “The cause of America is in great measure the cause of all mankind,” that universal principles for humanity were at stake that would affect “posterity.”
Democratic visionaries of the Revolution were not perfect, but as the great historian Edmund Morgan concludes, “In most questions relating to human dignity, and especially in ways to protect and nourish human dignity,” men like Jefferson, Franklin and Paine were not only ahead of their time, but also “ahead of ours.”
The historian Arnold Toynbee argued there is no greatness without great challenges – a significant perspective when evaluating leaders in “calm” times. The unique circumstances of the American Revolution summoned the best in many outstanding people (men and women) whose lives were transformed by leadership experiences they never could have anticipated.
Morgan’s highest praise goes to two men: ‘Franklin, and perhaps Jefferson, would have attained a large stature in any century or any country” (my italics added). These two men did not rise to greatness solely, or primarily, because of the circumstances and challenges of their times.
Franklin’s genius was evident from his teenage years when he began writing social criticism for his brother’s newspaper. As the 15th or 17 children, and the 10th of 10 sons, Franklin became the exemplar of “The American Dream of Success.”
I put Franklin at the top of my list during the 1976 ratings because he was a genius who continually applied his mind and creativity toward extraordinary service to society and to humanity.
Well before the 1770s, he was justifiably the most famous American in the world, and was acclaimed as a genius at home and abroad. From his teens until the week he died at age 84 (in 1790), not even Jefferson matched his sustained and ever expanding creativity.
Franklin also dramatized centuries ago that “older could be bolder” — a particularly encouraging role model during our own era of the “Age Wave.”
Marvelous books have been written about Franklin’s genius and exceptionalism. Two of the best are by Edmund Morgan and Walter Isaacson.
Part 2 of my Benjamin Franklin column will strive to highlight some of the aspects of his greatness — and why he is still highly relevant today (especially in an election year).
D’innocenzo was a founder of the Hofstra Center for Civic Engagement. His website is: michaeldinnocenzo.com
