Benjamin Franklin Similarities And Differences

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Benjamin's and William Franklin’s disagreements and commonalities represent a larger, metaphorical picture of Pennsylvania's internal struggles. They reveal a great deal about the relationship between the colonies and their mother country, prior to the Revolution. The two Franklin’s also represent a divided community of people faced with the option of either, staying Englishmen and a part of their homeland, or breaking away from their heritage and everything they knew. When most English people decided to make the long voyage to the colonies, none of them planned to one-day break away from their home country; the place where they grew up and their parents and ancestors had lived.
There was a multitude of reasons and emotions that determined …show more content…
With each of these, came a deeper realization of their discrepancy, as well as an awareness to people's opinions around them. Benjamin blamed people like his son for siding with corrupt English figureheads, and Franklin blamed people like his father for creating a trend of chaos and discrepancy among the colonies and the mother …show more content…
The pamphlet shows some of Franklin’s earlier thoughts about America’s status and potential (70). His support for independence developed surely, but slowly. But after the passage of the Townshend Acts in 1767 Benjamin’s political views shifted, and were reinforced with the passage of the Tea Act in 1773. As the crown became increasingly involved with taxation, and the implementation of troops Franklin and other colonists could see their rights as Englishmen were at risk. His personal experiences as well as different political events, helped shape these new opinions (71). Franklin was completely against Britain’s ‘right’ to tax the colonies and encouraged the boycott of English goods. By 1768 his thoughts began to form beginning with his point that all English people should be treated as equals whether they lived in Britain or America. Benjamin’s evolution of thought and attitude toward Britain and America’s place in the world mirrors what many colonists were facing at the
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