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Franklin and Washington had a 30-year friendship that helped shape American history. They worked together during the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, and the establishment of the new federal government. Franklin was known for his scientific achievements and entrepreneurial success, while Washington had a reputation for military prowess. Franklin's self-confidence and hard work allowed him to dominate the printing trade and become one of the richest colonists. He also founded various organizations and made significant contributions to science, including experiments with electricity. Washington, on the other hand, became a surveyor in hopes of building his fortune through land speculation. Their friendship and collaboration were essential to the success of the American Revolution and the founding of the nation. At the time, Franklin and Washington were two of the most admired individuals in the United States and the most famous Americans in the world. Their final letters to each other represented a fitting end to a three-decade-long partnership that more than any other pairing would forge the American nation. Their relationship began during the French and Indian War when Franklin supplied the wagons for British General Braddock's ill-fated assault on Fort Duquesne. And Washington buried that general's body under the dirt road traveled by those retreating wagons. Both had warned Braddock against this attack. Their friendship continued through the American Revolution, the Constitutional Convention, and the establishment of the new federal government. Perhaps because of the differences in their background, age, manner, and public image, their relationship was not widely commented on then, and it remains little discussed today. But it existed and helped to shape the course of American history. Both men have been called the first American, but they were friends first and never rivals. Their relationship gained historical significance during the American Revolution when Franklin led America's diplomatic mission in Europe, and Washington commanded the Continental Army. Victory required both of these efforts to succeed, and their success required coordination and cooperation. Their successful collaboration during the Revolution helped to found a nation and propel a global experiment. Leadership at this level is a rare quality and well worth study. That was an excerpt from the book I'm going to talk about today, which is Franklin and Washington, the founding partnership, and it was written by Edward J. Larson. I was not expecting to do this book. I was actually walking through a bookstore the other day, and the cover caught my eye. And I've done several podcasts on Ben Franklin. I did his autobiography back on Founders No. 62, and then Isaacson's fantastic biography of Franklin back on Founders 115. And even though I've read those two books on Franklin, I never thought about the partnership that he had with George Washington. So this book is a dual biography. It focuses on the 30-year friendship that Franklin and Washington had and how their lives intersected around three historical events, which is the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, and then the creation and the founding of a brand new government and nation. So I want to jump right into the beginning. The author is going to give us a brief overview of Franklin, a brief overview of George Washington's life. And the reason Benjamin Franklin is, in my opinion, extremely important to study, and I plan on continuing to read as many books on him as I can find, is because I think he's the single most influential American entrepreneur to ever live. If you factor in how many people were inspired by his life story, and then they, in turn, lived lives so remarkable that other people wrote books about them, and that inspiration continued to be passed down generation after generation, I think you could tie this all the way back to him. And so the author sets this up nicely for us by saying, by then Franklin was 50, talking about when he first met George Washington. George Washington is going to be, Franklin, I think, was 48. Washington was around 21, 22 years old. By then, Franklin was 50 and one of the most widely known and respected people in the Western world. Washington was less than half of Franklin's age, but already held a regional reputation for military prowess. Neither man was born to power or influence. Both had earned it. Franklin's international reputation rested on his scientific achievements in electricity. But he was best known locally as a printer, writer, reformer, postmaster, and pragmatic political leader. Given his humble origins, this represented a stunning achievement for the time and remains a lasting testament to his genius. He was born the 15th of 17 children to a working class family. He was bookish and inquisitive. Franklin quickly displayed a seemingly inexhaustible capability for hard work and was, in large part, self-taught by reading. So later on in the book, there's this fantastic story. Franklin's about to die. George Washington's on his way to the capital to begin his first term as president of a brand new nation. And he winds up paying a visit to Franklin at his home. And by that point, Franklin had this beautiful library. He had a personal library of over 4,000 books. So he talks about how Franklin started his business as a young man. And he gets to Philadelphia. He's going to be a printer by trade. And part of this is realizing, hey, there's two printers in this city and none of them are very good. And so you also see the self-confidence, the abundance of self-confidence that Benjamin Franklin had from a young age. Neither of Philadelphia's two printers was qualified for their trade. Franklin soon concluded. And when I got to this part, it reminded me of this video I saw of a young Larry Bird. And he was talking about when he was making the transition from playing college basketball to the NBA, how so many people doubted his ability because he came from a small school. They said, what is he going to do? He won't be able to get his jump shot off in the pros. He's not quick enough. He's not going to be able to rebound. And then Larry, in this interview, as a young man, says it took me three days of rookie camp. And I found out that this league is nothing. I can play in this league. And I will dominate in this league. That is exactly what happens in Ben Franklin's life. Soon, Franklin dominated the regional printing trade. And this is what he said about that. I took care not only to be in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to the contrary. He wrote of his early days as a sole proprietor. And then another demonstration of founder mentality here. He was convinced that acts mattered more than beliefs. And so over the next 20 years, he focuses on building his business. Says for the next two decades, Franklin was consumed by business and local civic affairs. As a printer, he published newspapers, had an annual almanac, which was Poor Richard's Almanac, that was filled with witty commentary and practical advice. Poor Richard's gained a wide readership. I think I remember reading that he was selling like 10,000 copies a year of Poor Richard's Almanac, which is just insane at the time. The way to wealth, if you desire it, Poor Richard would say, depends chiefly on two words, industry and frugality. Waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both. Franklin advised fellow tradesmen, what I wrote down to myself when I got to this point, think about this, Franklin was advising fellow tradesmen. He is still advising his fellow tradesmen 275 years later. And it talks about the media business that he was building. He practiced what he preached, integrating forward and backward from the printing business. He owned or had an interest in some two dozen other print shops and almost as many paper mills. He championed the issuance of paper money that he was subsequently paid to print. He won the contract to print legislative documents for Pennsylvania, became its postmaster to facilitate delivery of his newspaper and served as a clerk of its assembly to gain a leg up in getting the news. He became one of the richest American colonists living north of the Mason-Dixon line. Yet wealth was never his chief goal in life. This is such a great advice from Franklin. The years roll around and the last one will come, Franklin wrote. When it does, I would rather have it said that he lived usefully than he died rich. That reminds me of this fantastic quote from Steve Jobs that is expressing, I think, the same idea. Steve said, being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me. Going to bed at night, saying that we've done something wonderful, that is what matters to me. And Franklin, not one to rest on his morals, just keeps racking up accomplishment after accomplishment. He founded a self-improvement club for up-and-coming tradesmen called the Junto. Might be the Junto, I can't remember exactly. He also founded a subscription library, the firefighting brigade, an academy that grew into the University of Pennsylvania. Bren, leave some achievements for the rest of us, why don't you? A 10,000-man volunteer militia to defend Pennsylvania when its Quaker leaders would not. He was open-minded and curious. He could see fundamental relationships in nature that eluded others. Unencumbered by preconceived notions about the nature of electricity, Franklin conducted a series of brilliantly designed and easily explained experiments. He provided the first step towards both the modern physics of energy conservation and the transforming technology of electrical circuits, all flowing from a tradesman with little formal education. And this is just a fantastic description of his experiments with electricity. He found electricity a curiosity and left it a science. And all of this is happening over several pages, I'm still not done. Franklin also created the first electric battery and developed the lightning rod. And then this was just fantastic. We're gonna get into Washington now, but I wanted to pull this one part out to you because it was really smart about what he wished for himself. In his autobiography, when Franklin proposed the ideal prayer, it was for wisdom that discovers my true interests. Okay, so now here's an introduction into a young George Washington. He was around 17, 18 years old at the time. With the hope of building his fortune in land speculation on the frontier, he opted to become a surveyor. Virginia still had a vast Western wilderness. Surveyors were needed to inventory and divide it. Through their inside information, they could get in on the ground floor by acquiring some of the best parcels of land. So the introduction, the reason I was interested in reading more about George Washington, and all the way back on Founders Number 226, I read this book, Heroes, by Paul Johnson, which profiles a bunch of different people. I think I picked up, I think there's like 30 people in the book, and maybe I picked six or eight of them to talk about in that episode. But one of those people was George Washington. And that book was unique because it gives you like, like I think of him like almost like a 10-page overview or a 10-page miniature biography of all these heroes throughout history. And there's a sentence or two sentences in that book that was really interesting to me. And so it says, George Washington was a vigorous and active man, an early riser about his business all day, and by no means intellectually idle. He accumulated a library of over 800 books. And then when he led people into battle, obviously he was America's most famous general. His strategy was clear, intelligent, absolutely consistent, and maintained with an iron will from start to finish. And so at this point in his life, he's out on the frontier, he just finds it adventurous. Washington found his first foray into the wilderness exhilarating. He talks about later in life that he hated war, but for some reason was drawn to it. Comfortable in the salons of Mount Vernon, Washington was also at home on the frontier and proved immune to its physical hazards. And this knowledge that he's building up is gonna be really useful later on when the French and Indian War starts, when the American Revolution starts as well. But right now he's just using it to make money. Using income and insights from these jobs, Washington bought his first pieces of property, and within two years had acquired more than 2,000 acres. That's incredible. Sizable holding for a youth of only 20. He looked up to his older brother. His older brother's unfortunately gonna die of tuberculosis. Says George Washington suffered a morbid propensity to benefit from family tragedy. As a second son, he was not expected to inherit anything. The fact that his brother died early leads Washington to get, not only to inherit Mount Vernon, but also his older brother's name was Lawrence. Lawrence's death created a vacancy in the Virginia military. And so he gets the colony's top military post without a lot of experience at all. And his first few battles is gonna prove disastrous. Well, I'll get there in a minute. He just talks about, he made every single mistake he could possibly make. And so now we go to Washington's first military assignment. He's 21 years old. Remember, he's serving under, like it's a British colony, right? And so they hear that out West, the French have set up forts. So the governor of Virginia sends a 21 year old George Washington to go tell the French to get out of here. So it says upon learning of the French forts, Governor Dinwiddie asked his government back in London how he should respond. And this is what they said. If the French did not leave, we do hereby strictly charge and command you to drive them off by force of arms. That is going to be Washington's job. Dinwiddie chose 21 year old George Washington to deliver this message. The same day that he received his order, Washington departed for the frontier. This mission would make his reputation. So it takes him six weeks of an arduous journey to go meet up with the French. He met with the French commander. He gives them the letter that he's commanded by Governor Dinwiddie to deliver to him. This French commander says, I do not think myself obliged to obey this. And it was kind of funny because they talk about how formal, like the European, the way they would engage in war. It's almost like gentlemanly, if you could think about that, and how different it was when you're fighting, especially with like Native Americans are involved. And this sentence kind of like gives you a summary of that. The forms of 18th century European style war had been satisfied. The fighting could begin. And the first notion that this may be different, that this is not gonna be like a gentlemanly campaign, is on his way back. So on Washington's way back to Virginia, there is this group of Native Americans, there's a Native American assassin that is allied with the French that first comes to Washington and is like, hey, we'll guide you on your way back. And so it says, there was a single man, a single male who offered to serve as their guy. At some point, the native turned and fired at Washington and his like second in command. He was only 15 feet away and his bullet was missed. And so there's like this legend around Washington, how many times he came so close to death and was able to escape. This is the first example of that. They both then set upon their assailant. Gist, which was Washington's partner, wanted to kill him. Washington instead held him until dark and then pretending to make camp, set him free. Once the assailant was some distance away, they made a dash towards the river, walking all night and for the entire next day until they felt safe enough to make camp. This was the first of many of such brushes with death at close quarters for George Washington. And so on this long, difficult journey back, Washington is jotting all this down, writing it in his diary. This is gonna become important because this is how Franklin learns of George Washington. So this is something that happened on their way back. They met a party of friendly natives who had recently come across a scene of a massacre of a British settler's family with the parents and five children scalped and their bodies left to be eaten by their hogs. It was the sort of tragedy that had often occurred on the frontier during the last war between the French and the British and would become common again during the coming war. And this is also the historical event that's gonna throw Franklin and Washington together for the first time. Within a year, Pennsylvania and Virginia would stand at the center of a widening war. Their citizens would turn to Franklin and Washington for leadership and by doing so, would bring together these two men. So Washington gets back to Virginia. The governor sees Washington's diary or journal and decides to have it published recognizing the propaganda value of Washington's account. Then Whitty immediately ordered it published for wide distribution. It was named the Journal of Major George Washington. Almost overnight, this publication transformed the young militia officer into a frontier hero. And why is that important? Because Franklin is going to read this. The published version of Washington's journal reached Philadelphia and found an interested reader in Ben Franklin. And this is why, a gifted advocate for any cause that he favored, Franklin saw an ally in Washington and recognized the value of his journal in alerting Pennsylvanians to the threat posed by the French. Franklin clearly endorsed Washington's efforts and embraced his call to arms. The lives of Franklin and Washington began intertwining and they would not stop intertwining until the death of Ben Franklin. Keep in mind this time, Franklin is 48 years old, Washington is 22. And the reason that is important is because, so the pictures that we primarily know them as, so I'm thinking of the one that's on the dollar, that Washington being on the dollar bill and Washington, or excuse me, and Franklin on the hundred dollar bill. At that point, Washington's 64 years old and Franklin is almost 80. That is not what they look like when they start, I mean, they're, in the case of Washington, he's an extremely young man and Franklin still has almost 40 years left of life. I think he dies when he's 84 years old. And so I have a bunch of notes about this book, just trying to figure out, okay, how old are they at this point in history? And because there's a lot of points where like, I remember just the idea, I remember what it was like to be 21 years old, right? And so the idea that the governor of Virginia is like, yeah, go six weeks on a six week crazy journey, go confront the French and if so, like engage them in battle. And then him being only 21 and put in charge of this operation is just mind blowing. And we see some of the mistakes that Washington makes and he calls them mistakes throughout his entire life. It's just, he's a brash 22 year old. What would you possibly expect? This is an example. Washington's troops drew first blood in what would become the global Seven Years War between the British and French empires. The British colonists called this the French and Indian War and they had never seen such carnage. And so Washington is default aggressive. This winds up not benefiting him at this point. With ill-advised bravado, Washington led his small band relentlessly forward, even into a battle where you clearly can't win. And so the note I was thinking about when I got to this point in the book is like it's interesting to think of Washington as a brash 22 year old instead of the old man that's on the dollar. And since a large part of this book has to do with the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War, you could imagine there's an insane amount of violence in it. Here's an example. They wind up winning this small battle against the French. And so both sides are fighting with, they both have Native American allies. And so this is what happens when Washington wins this small battle. The Native Americans split the officer's skull with a tomahawk and scooped out his brains. The Native warriors then scalped all the following Frenchmen. Washington stopped them from scalping the survivors. So two things come to mind at this point in the book. One, imagine if you saw such carnage up close at such a young age, that is going to affect you for the rest of your life. You literally saw somebody get their head split open with a tomahawk and then their brain scooped out of their skull. And then the second thing is, as I'm reading this book during the day, about a year or two ago, I read Cormac McCarthy's novel, Blood Meridian. And so for the past like week or two, I've been listening to the audio book in like 30 minute chunks. And that is, it's a novel, but it's based on historical events that happened about 100 years after where we are in this book at this point in history, right? And it's following a group of scalp hunters. And this entire book is just constantly talking about the carnage that you're seeing, the scalping. And that made me research, I was like, why is this, like, what is happening here? Like, why is, why was this so prevalent? And so I went back and looked and I had no idea before that, but like there is substantial archeological evidence of scalping in like North America that goes back as early as 600 AD. So over a thousand years earlier than where we are in the story. And then they found evidence of scalping 5,000 years ago in parts of Europe. And so I'm not gonna keep reading all the examples of this going on in the book, just know it's prevalent. I think you get the idea by this point, but it is something that is in human nature and that is seen throughout history over and over again, not just in this French and Indian War. The French are going to rebound. They're gonna wind up routing Washington. This is his first defeat. And at this point, keep in mind, Washington obviously does not have the leadership skills that he's gonna possess later on. And this example of that, a third of his defenders were dead or wounded. Many of the survivors were drunk and all of their horses and cattle had been slaughtered by enemy fire. When the French commander offered reasonable terms for capitulation, Washington had little choice but to accept them. And this is what I referenced earlier where Washington will reference this later on in his life. He's like, listen, I made every mistake possible. He did so poorly, he thought his military career was over. And so Franklin had a different interpretation. He went to reading about these reports and realized, okay, we have a gigantic problem on the Western frontier. This could lead to danger in our colonies. We have to group together. And so Franklin saw Washington's on the ground reports from the frontier as proof that the 13 colonies needed to join in common cause. And so this is where Franklin, Washington and a bunch of other people were going to. They're the ones convincing him, hey, we gotta group together here or we're in big trouble. Franklin began shopping around an idea earlier, an earlier idea from an intercolonial defensive confederation. That is what they were calling it. This was the first step towards a sort of union that Franklin would later work on with Washington to craft. And before I get to Ben Franklin making the first meme, think about this, he's almost 50. He's already a successful entrepreneur, successful scientist, writer. And now he focuses his talent on the most important project of his life and something he will be working on in one form or another for the next 34 years until he dies. So this is what I mean about he made the first meme. Beneath this appeal, so he's printing, he's writing, he's saying that we need to band together, we're gonna be in trouble. Beneath this appeal, he printed the first original editorial cartoon in any American newspaper and perhaps the most famous ever published. It showed a rattlesnake cut into pieces with the name of a colony on each severed part. Join or die, the caption read. And what's fascinating is this idea that Franklin is proposing right now, it is the rough outline, right? This is an idea that is going to actually lead to the founding of America. And so it says, though he was sometimes dismissed as more of a practitioner than a visionary, Franklin's biographer, Walter Isaacson later wrote, Franklin had helped to devise a federal concept, one that was orderly, balanced and enlightened that would eventually form the basis of a unified nation, a unified American nation. He never gave up on this vision. He carried this idea all the way to the Constitutional Convention. The Constitutional Convention does not take place from 30 more years into the future than where we are in the story. That's insane. Franklin remained convinced that the plan would have sufficed to defend the colonies against the French, but instead Britain, now they're fast forwarding like why he applied that same idea against the French, he's eventually gonna apply that same idea against Britain, right? It says, he remained convinced that the plan would have sufficed to defend the colonies against the French, but instead Britain was forced to intervene at such great cost that it led to the taxes that touched off a revolution. And so why is that important? Because obviously Franklin has deep historical knowledge and this is what Franklin later said, but such mistakes are not new. Franklin later sighed, history is full of the errors of states and princes. And so obviously from Franklin's perspective was, if you guys didn't push this, we would have been fine and loyal colonists to the British crown. But the fact that you abused us, you taxed us without representation, that you essentially treated us as unfree people, forced our hand and led to a bloody revolution. So much to Washington's surprise, even though what he considered failed disastrously, the British are sending more people back out to fight the French and they put this guy, General Braddock in charge of that. Braddock said, hey, Washington, you know the land, not only because you were a surveyor, but you've also gone out here. I need you to come and advise me. And this Braddock guy is going to be arrogant and the arrogance is gonna cause his own death. Their work with Braddock brought Franklin and Washington together for the first time. So as we'll see like that in the division of labor between these two, Washington's gonna be on the battlefield, Franklin's gonna be the one getting the supplies for them, doing all the treaties, like essentially like making sure they have everything they need. Franklin's the one that got Braddock and Washington these wagons that they needed, which I mentioned at the very beginning. By this time, each man knew each other by reputation. Washington must have read about Franklin, who was by then the most famous colonist in the British Empire. And so Franklin's going to talk to Braddock. And this is something that's come up over and over again in the history of entrepreneurship. And I don't understand why we keep making the same mistake. Never underestimate your opponent. It is all downside and no upside. There's example after example of this. It seems to me like if you're going to compete head to head with somebody, don't assume that they're smarter than you, more well equipped than you, that they're better than you in some way, even if it's not true. But the idea that you should underestimate your opponent is silly. Franklin is warning Braddock. Listen, and Washington warns him too. Franklin warned, Franklin later commented, when he warned the general about the risk of ambush by native warriors on the long march to the fort, he recalled Braddock smugly replying, listen to this. These savages may indeed be a formidable enemy to your raw American militias, but upon the king's regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible that they should make an impression. They're going to kill this dude. Washington would later give Braddock a similar warning to the same effect. So again, underestimating your opponents, all downside, no upside. Braddock is going to get killed because of this. And so they get right into this battle with the French and their Native American allies. This is going to go on for like four or five pages. There is just so many lessons on here. And it's important to note, these lessons are coming from yet another defeat. Washington became invaluable as a frontier military guide who best knew the terrain ahead. Braddock invited Washington onto his personal staff. So the reason that's important is because Washington is going to witness everything that's about to happen here. And that's important because about 25, about 20, 25 years into the future, he's going to be the one in charge of the army during the American Revolution and avoid a lot of these same mistakes. And so Braddock's like, hey, we have nothing to worry about. We're more disciplined. Yeah, but you're going into an environment that you're not trained for. The Native Americans, in this case, have been living and hunting and warring in this environment for generations. And so when I got to this part of the book, I'm going to read this quote from Charlie Munger that made me think, because like in the business context of what's happening here. And it's really about the fact that Braddock and the rest of his troops, they got outside of their circle of competence. And so Charlie says, if you play games where other people have the aptitudes and you don't, you're going to lose. That's as close to certain as any prediction that you can make. And so the British have been traveling to this area to fight the Native Americans. The Native Americans have been posted up there for a while. They're tired. It says the British were tired from their march and anxious in their surroundings while the natives were fresh and at home in the forest. They are well within their circle of competence and they're about to roll right through you. Here, the two armies met without warning. The natives found the British to be easy targets. The British were trained to stand together and fire at a similarly ordered enemy, a similarly ordered enemy soldiers. The British in turn, excuse me, instead found themselves exposed. And worse, there were no obvious targets for return fire. So it's like, listen, when you're fighting in Europe, you might, you guys might agree to meet up in a field and then have this like orderly gentlemanly battle, but you can't, the Native Americans and the French that are with them are hiding behind trees. Like they're attacking not from the front, they're flanking them from the left, flanking them from the right, they get behind them. And what's worse is the British were relying on their supreme discipline, right? Well, what happens is when you see a lot of your friends and leaders dying right in front of you, what happens? They ran away. The survivors retreated in an even more panicked state. Washington, however, remained remarkably calm under fire. And this is what he said about this time later on. I had been protected beyond all probability and expectation. What does that mean? I had four bullets through my coat and two horses shot under me, yet I escaped unhurt. How bad was this battle? The British lost 976 people and the other side lost 40. And this is a great description about how lopsided this was. You might as well send a cow in pursuit of a rabbit. The Indians were accustomed to these woods. So Braddock is shot. He knows he's dying. He gives Washington an order. Braddock ordered Washington to ride through the night to their support column and instruct its commander to cover their retreat. And then this is another example. Just remember, Washington's super young and imagine having all the stuff he's already seen. Now it's like a year or two later and he's got to go do this shocking, just graphic. There's people dying everywhere. There's a description of that. The shocking scenes, this is Washington's description of that, I should say. The shocking scenes which presented themselves in this night's march are not to be described. The dead, the dying, the groans, and cries along the road of the wounded for help were enough to pierce the heart. All of those unable to walk were left to die or to be killed. I think it's important to pause right here and think about that. This is going to be the most decorated military leader in early American history. And so far, everything we've seen from his early career is just one failure after another. So word is going to spread of this defeat. That's going to freak out all the people in the colony. They're worried that they are a superior military force right on the Western frontier. We need to prepare our cities for the eventual attack. This brings Franklin and Washington into close working contact. And so I just want to pull out one paragraph here because it really just demonstrates, Franklin was like one of these rare universal geniuses. He's successful at tasks like he has no experience with. And so he's put in charge. So Washington is going to be put in charge of Virginia's defenses and Franklin's going to be put in charge of Pennsylvania's defenses. It says, taking extreme precautions against ambush, Franklin oversaw the construction of a stockade. When finished, he directed the erection of two more stockades, one 15 miles east and one 15 miles west, resulting in a line of forts that were garrisoned by some 500 men securing Pennsylvania's northern frontier. Confronted with a military crisis unprecedented in Pennsylvania's history, Franklin's strategy worked. So George Washington gets to Philadelphia. Franklin makes sure to meet with him because he's like, listen, you have knowledge that I value. I need to know what the opponent is, what you saw there. So it says that you met often and would discuss frontier defenses. And this part was especially interesting because they have similar jobs. And yet we get to compare and contrast how they go about doing that. During these months when each commanded forces in their own colony, Franklin exhibited a different style of leadership from Washington. Franklin spent his time on the frontier, sleeping with his men on cabin floors and sharing food. He would describe himself as totally ignorant of military ceremonies and above all, above all, averse to making a show and parade even though he was the leader. Washington was described as a political actor. He would look the part. He wouldn't tell you what he was thinking. He definitely wouldn't fraternize with the men. He would lead them. But Franklin was hanging out with them. And Franklin also, there's so many examples in this book, but really, any time you study Ben Franklin, it's just like, he's just so clever and had a very adept understanding of human nature and what motivated people and how to get, how to convince you and get you to do what he wanted done by understanding what you were motivated by. And so Washington was all about discipline and punishment. Franklin didn't take that approach at all. Franklin, in contrast, gained cooperation by reasoned appeals and pragmatic solutions such as when he boosted chapel attendance, right, he's like, we want more of our troops to go to church, he boosted chapel attendance by authorizing the military to distribute rum after the divine services. That made me laugh. Where Washington's regiment was chronically undermanned, Franklin's was oversubscribed. They had precisely the same job, secure the frontier. But Franklin also respected Washington because he knew he couldn't do, like he couldn't dedicate his life to doing what Washington's doing. He says, for his part, Franklin always saw Washington as the better commander. And so I'm gonna skip over a lot of the war. Obviously, we know that Britain is going to win. It takes, you know, seven or nine years, whatever the case was, they're eventually gonna win the French and Indian War, but there's a lesson that both Franklin and Washington learned during this part that is going to eventually ripple throughout history. Says, a final shared lesson carried weight. Despite the war's ultimate outcome, the British were beatable in new world combat. This gave us Americans the first suspicion that the exalted ideas of the prowess of British soldiers was not well founded. So it's like you have this reputation because you're this gigantic superpower, this world empire, and yet we're seeing on the battlefields like, oh, wait a minute, they're beatable. Franklin wrote of Braddock's defeat. Washington had been there to see it and to report that in frontier fighting, Virginia soldiers actually outperformed British troops. If put to the test, they might do so again, which is exactly what's going to happen with like a decade or two into the future. And the author does a great job of describing why this is so important, why these lessons were so important. These shared lessons helped to nurture the revolutionary spirit that would bring Franklin and Washington back together a quarter century later to fight for and forge a new American nation. I think that also demonstrates why it's so important to constantly learn and read every day. Like I read every day. I have no idea when I'll use this information. I just know that it's likely to come in handy at some point in the future. That's not very different from the lessons from the shared experience that both Washington and Franklin had that's going to come in handy 25 years into the future. Okay, so after the war, they go their separate ways and they're actually brought back together by an event that they had no control over. It says their paths might have never crossed again except for the Stamp Act crisis, which erupted in 1765 after parliament imposed taxes directly on the colonists. It jarred their interests back into alignment and set them on parallel political courses, yet neither of them saw it coming. So there's a few ideas that are starting to combine. One I already told you about, which is the fact that they thought British troops were probably overrated. And then there's going to be an economic depression that makes them realize, hey, maybe the American economy could actually be self-sufficient. So it says the end of wartime military spending coupled with a European bank panic triggered a business downturn that engulfed all the colonies in an economic depression that persisted for most of the decade. And so that throws Washington into debt. And this is what he tried to do to get out of it. Washington began the process of turning his plantation from raising tobacco for export to growing wheat for domestic sale. America could get along with less reliance on Britain, he started to grasp. And so you have an economic depression, then you have the British trying to tax the American colonists, and Franklin, rightly so, saw their decision just as really stupid and costly. Franklin cared more about doing what was right than defending abstract rights. To him, the Stamp Act's predictable adverse impact on commerce and imperial relations made it wrong for Britain and the colonies. And so what does Franklin mean by adverse imperial relations? Well, when you have anger over unfair economic conditions is one, completely predictable, and two, if it's unresolved, it's going to lead to violence, which is exactly what happens. And so there's a mob of American colonists that go and try to target the people in power who they saw as agents for the British. Boston exploded first. Organized working-class mobs destroyed the homes of Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver. The protesters threatened worse if Oliver did not resign. He did. Taking refuge in an offshore British fort, the colony's royal governor ordered drummers to call out the local militia to restore order, only to learn that their drummers had joined the mob. So had much of the militia. The sheriff refused to intervene. Similar scenarios started to play out everywhere. And so I'm going to skip over a bunch of events that are going to lead to the war between America and Britain but really, I want to get to the punchline because I think this part is the most important part and it's also, I think the principle can apply to a bunch of different domains. It says, for the first time, the colonists began thinking of themselves more as citizens of their colonies than as subjects of parliament. Franklin and Washington observed this important shift in others and felt it within themselves. And really the principle there is like, if you could understand it, understanding what people believe is pivotal to understanding why they do what they do. And so at this point in the story, this is when Ben Franklin and George Washington become partners in a revolution. Think of Franklin as the wise old statesman. Pennsylvania added him to its congressional delegation. At age 69, he was the oldest delegate from any colony. Washington is 43. America's most experienced diplomat and its best known soldier brought the skills that other delegates now knew were needed. They would work closely until the war's end. And so there's two things that are happening here that's really interesting. One is, how did Washington view this? Like, at this point in history, what did he think? And it says, one of Washington's biographers captured his view of the American Revolution. Essentially, he saw the conflict as a struggle for power in which the colonists, if victorious, destroyed British pretensions of superiority and won control over half a continent. And then the second thing is a thought that was spawned from these two sentences. Washington was the obvious pick. He had more military experience than any other member of Congress. So they're talking about he's the obvious pick to lead the Continental Army. And that made me jot down, the obvious pick. And so for our purposes, we're not fighting war, but we are building products and services for other people. So how do we make it obvious that we are the one that they should choose? And then something jumped out at me when you read about all the things that Franklin was asked to do by Congress. And what I wrote down is that Franklin's like a Swiss Army knife. Congress asked Franklin, its sole scientist, to serve on a committee to divide ways to manufacture saltpeter for gunpowder. He also chaired a committee to reestablish postal services among the colonies, which led to his appointment as Postmaster General. Franklin was also a master communicator in a times of war. You could think of him as a master propagandist. This is an example of that. So Franklin writes this piece that is meant to be read back in Britain. And it says, Britain, at the expense of $3 million, has killed 150 Yankees this campaign, which is 20,000 ahead. And for this battle, she gained a mile of ground. From this data, he asked readers to calculate the time and expense necessary to kill us all and conquer our whole territory. And one of the things that's so remarkable about Ben Franklin during this time period, and really for the rest of his life, he's got another 14 years of living, is how much he sacrificed for the American Revolution because he was old at the time. He would turn 70 during this period and doubted whether he would survive the war. Yet he took on a staggering number of tasks for Congress and his colony. No delegate had a wider range of expertise and experience to bring to the effort. This is what Franklin said, I am immersed in so much business that I have scarce time to eat or sleep. My time has never been more fully employed. This is more on the sacrifices that Franklin and Washington both have to make. And they knew they're burning the boats at this point. Like if we fail, they're gonna die. They're gonna kill us. The revolution utterly disordered domestic life for both families. After leaving his estate in 1775, Washington did not see it again until 1781. And then only briefly, so that's six years. Franklin ultimately spent more time away from his home for wartime service in Washington because he's gotta go to Europe. And they knew it was life or death. We have taken up arms in defense of our liberty, our property, our wives, and our children. We are determined to preserve them or die. And this is something that Franklin repeated in memorable ways multiple times. This is an example of when they're signing the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776, when Congress's President John Hancock signed a parchment copy with a stern warning to his fellow delegates. We must all hang together, Franklin added the pithy retort, or most assuredly, we will all hang separately. And what's remarkable about this book, it's like a very compact, so not only is it a dual biography of Washington and Franklin at certain points in their life, but it's like a very compact history of the Revolutionary War and just how bad it was going for so long. And there's just many examples where like, oh, they lost. Here's one, it says, so far the Americans had been outmanned, outgunned, and outgeneraled at every turn, with worse to come. You ever seen the musical Hamilton? It's on Disney Plus now. But it's a fantastic line from Hamilton that made me think of this part of the book, where it's like, how does a ragtag volunteer army in need of a shower somehow defeat a global superpower? And it's this idea, like up until this point, they were outmanned, outgunned, and outgeneraled at every turn. And this is where the previous few decades of experience that Washington had comes in handy, because it's like, this strategy's not working. We're gonna die. Since between captures, casualties, disease, and desertion, Washington's army had dwindled to scarcely a few thousand soldiers fit for duty. I think the game is pretty near up, he said. So he decides to be bold. The impending deadline forced Washington to gamble. On Christmas night, 1776, in a desperate effort to restore morale and regain the initiative, Washington took his army back across the ice-choked Delaware River and captured the Hessian garrison at Trenton, New Jersey, buying more time by paying each man who would take it a $10 bounty for an extra six-week service, because their contracts with the Continental Army were set to expire New Year's Day, 1777. So he had less than a week when he did this. Washington then held off a British counterattack and routed a British force in Princeton. And then this is where one of these weird European military war customs actually worked to the advantage of the Americans. At the time, European armies typically spent the winter in quarters, a custom both sides followed throughout the American Revolution. And so that was important, because now, even if you have a little bit of momentum at the very end there, Britain's winning the war. And now you have a several-month break to figure out your strategy. And so he realizes, like, we're trying to fight them on their terms. We need to use almost like guerrilla warfare. Washington used the winter to reassess and revise his army structure and strategy, because both were faulty. And so he's gonna pull an idea from history and copy it. Washington now favored adopting a so-called Fabian military strategy, which was named after the Roman general Quintus Fabius, who wore down a superior Carthaginian army through a war of attrition. Desperate diseases require desperate remedies, Washington said. So just think of this as like guerrilla warfare. We're gonna pick our battles. We're not gonna meet you in open field. We're gonna hit you real hard. We're gonna disappear. We're gonna disrupt your supply lines. We're gonna try to focus on destroying morale. And the other side doesn't realize that the game has changed so they're being led by this guy named Howe. Howe dithered, trying to lure Washington into an open fight, and this failed. And Howe is also gonna compound this mistake by focusing on the wrong thing. And this was a mistake that was obvious to Franklin at the time. Howe failed to recognize that armies and not cities were critical in this war. Howe would focus on, hey, let's try to take Philadelphia. Let's try to take these different cities. Howe had bypassed Washington's force to assault Philadelphia. Franklin immediately recognized the shortsightedness of Howe's occupying a city with little strategic importance, no established defensive perimeter, and many indifferent residents. And this is what Franklin said. You mistake the matter. Instead of Howe taking Philadelphia, Philadelphia has taken Howe. And then Franklin also does something really smart here because, again, this is very difficult on Washington, and Franklin writes him a letter. And really, words of encouragement are valuable, and their power should not be underestimated by any means. I always think of, many people don't know that Henry Ford's first two companies went bankrupt, and he idolized Thomas Edison. He wound up being able to meet Edison, and when he told Edison about his invention of the internal combustion engine and his desire to make an inexpensive car for every person, Edison said, you have it. You have the thing, young man. Keep at it. And Ford would talk about for the rest of his life how he was energized by Edison's words of encouragement, and it really helped him persevere and not give up. We're seeing a similar dynamic here by Franklin. Edison was much older than Franklin. Or, excuse me, Edison was much older than Ford, and now Franklin's much older than Washington. And he says, you enjoy a great reputation that you have acquired. He's talking about people in France being impressed with what Washington has been able to do, given the meager army and resources he's been given. He wrote in words that surely cheered Washington up during a dark period of the war. I frequently hear the old generals of this country, who study the maps of America and mark upon them all of your operations, speak with great applause at your conduct. With experience and through mistakes, Washington was learning how to lead soldiers in battle and armies in war, and Franklin wanted him to know that it was recognized and appreciated. And what's remarkable is right before they win, the last year of the war might have been the worst. All, we always talk about Marc Andreessen's quote, where he said, like, when you're running a startup, you only have two, you only experience two emotions, euphoria and terror. Well, Washington's experiencing all terror and no euphoria. His army was chronically undermanned, poorly clothed, short on equipment and supplies, and sometimes near starvation. Soldiers and officers alike often went without pay. They had survived on half rations since the fall, but by winter, the army's exhausted stores could not supply even this reduced amount. With heavy snows blocking access, hunger thinned the troops. By spring, desertion was rampant and mutiny was in the air. The 1780 to 1781 winter came close to breaking the army. And it's as if things can't get worse, they always can. Then one of Washington's most trusted officers, Benedict Arnold, offered to sell out the American defensive line around New York for $20,000 and a commission in the Royal Army. The plot shocked soldiers and officers alike. And then this is one of the craziest sentences in the entire book. By soldiering on for one more year, Washington's army, destitute and half naked, turned the world upside down. Imagine the difference in world history if they had quit before this point. And this is detail about what Franklin did to cover George Washington's back. Franklin did as much as anyone to bring the momentous events of 1781. He held the alliance together despite his advanced age and crippling bouts with gout and gall and kidney stones. He provided financial aid, naval support, arms, equipment, and troops. He arranged shipments of uniforms for the poorly clothed and partly shoeless American army. He purchased war material from European suppliers and negotiated for the care and release of prisoners of war that were currently held in Britain. Franklin also oversaw American Navy ships operating from France. He vetted European military officers seeking commissions in the American army, helped American states secure loans from France, and conducted back-channeled peace talks with British contacts. Franklin reported that he had never worked harder in his life. Certainly no one else could have represented America abroad as Franklin did, the historian Gordon Wood concluded. He was the greatest diplomat that America has ever had. Less than 12 months later, America was an independent country. Absolutely incredible. And then Washington writes this letter, this very famous letter. I'm gonna read my note first, and then I'll read what he wrote. It's an empire in idea only. He is not describing America as it is now, but as it could be one day. It says, Americans could forge, this is Washington writing, Americans could forge a more perfect union, an empire of states capable of taking its place among the great nations of the world. He viewed the United States in that way, regularly calling it an empire rather than a league of states during the Confederation period. The term was singular, not plural. This letter, which Washington depicted, now he's gonna describe himself, this letter, which Washington depicted as the legacy of one man who has ardently wished to be useful to his country, read as his farewell to the people. Then he was gone, racing toward Mount Vernon. Unlike countless revolutionary generals before and after him, Washington retired. So as Washington goes back to Mount Vernon, Franklin's still in France. He's gotta be there to make sure to get the things he's wrapped up. This is just unbelievable. Keep in mind, he's almost 80. As if to prove his comment in his 1784 letter about his mind still being sharp, during the period between the preliminary peace deal with Britain, which happens in November 1782, and when he leaves France in July 1785, so two and a half years later, in addition to negotiating treaties of friendship with various nations and performing his duties as ambassador, Franklin resumed his pursuits in science and technology. In a remarkably original deduction, he attributed the unusually cold winter of 1783 in Europe to the atmospheric impact of emissions from an Icelandic volcano. He also proposed the concept of daylight saving time, invented bifocals, and played a role in the origins of human flight via hydrogen-filled balloons. So eventually he gets back to Philadelphia. I've talked about this idea with you over and over again, the fact that books are the original links. They lead us from one person, they lead us from one idea to another, one person to another, one book to another. So I just found a biography on this guy named Robert Morris, who was actually the richest person in America at the time of the revolution. And this has really nothing to do with the story other than I thought it was interesting, so I just want to read this one quick paragraph. In 1785, a sailing ship that was built during the war and owned by a syndicate led by a Philadelphia merchant, Robert Morris, returned from China with the first direct commerce between the world's newest republic and its oldest empire. And really, most of my highlights for the rest of the book are just really about the unique way that Franklin thought in his approach to life. This is building for the sake of building, and then just him commenting that a lot can change in one lifetime. He added to his house a three-story wing featuring a first-floor dining area that could seat 24 people and a massive second-floor library and scientific study. All this might seem improper for someone of his age, Franklin acknowledged, but we are apt to forget that we have grown old, and building is an amusement. Then he wrote a letter to his sister that really demonstrates how much can change in a lifetime. Writing to his sister with his house complete, he marveled at his good fortune. When I look at this building, my dear sister, and compare it with that in which our good parents educated us, the difference strikes me with wonder. And so at this point, he's largely bedridden, but he's just got a fantastic perspective. When I consider how many terrible diseases the human body is liable to, I comfort myself that only three incurable ones have fallen to me, the gout, the stone, the kidney stone, and old age, and that these have not yet deprived me of my natural cheerfulness, my delight in books, and my enjoyment of social conversation. People who live long, who will drink the cup of life to the very bottom, must expect to meet with some of the usual dregs, he wrote. And this is Franklin on the importance of getting the executive right. And he knew from history that the clever ones will always find a way to expand their power. Four days later, with the discussion still raging, Franklin said, with reference to Washington and the presidency, the first man to be put at the helm will be a good one. Nobody knows what sort may come afterwards. The executive will always be increasing from here as elsewhere till it ends in a monarchy. Twice, Franklin defended the power to impeach corrupt presidents against those like Governor Morris who would put them above the law during their terms in office. It would be the best way, Franklin explained, to provide in the Constitution for the regular punishment of the executive when his misconduct should deserve it. And then it's only fitting that their last meeting ever occurs when Washington is on his way to serve as the first president and Franklin is dying. Infirm to the point of being virtually bedridden, Franklin could not attend public events for Washington but received him at his home. No record remains of what was said, even though both surely knew that it would be their last meeting. Franklin's mind was sharp until the very end. This is the death of Benjamin Franklin. Physically, he assured his daughter shortly before his death he was ready to go, but mentally, never. Franklin died at his home with his oldest grandchildren holding his hands. When news of Franklin's death reached France, the National Assembly decreed three days of mourning and a flood of tributes ensued. In Philadelphia, nearly 20,000 mourners turned out for Franklin's funeral procession, more than had ever gathered in the city. Franklin was the rare prophet honored both at home and abroad. And then Washington died shortly after his second term in office. Back at his beloved Mount Vernon in 1787, Washington threw himself into farming and even became a whiskey distiller. No product ever netted him a larger return on his investment than whiskey. His distillery became the largest in the United States. While out for a ride in the snow, Washington had contracted epiglottis, which no available medical treatment could cure. He accepted his fate. I die hard, but I'm not afraid to go, he said at dusk. The end came late that night. His final words were, it is well. And I'll close with how similar Franklin and Washington were. Focusing on their distinct public images obscures their fundamental similarities. Hardworking and entrepreneurial, Franklin and Washington had successful business careers outside of government and never viewed themselves primarily as politicians. Both prospered as colonists and supported royal rule until realizing that Britain would not extend basic rights to Americans. They turned against the crown and never looked back. Each nurtured deep, lifelong relationships. Natural leaders, people trusted them and they trusted others. Both men listened more than they talked, compromised on means to secure ends, relied on others, sacrificed for the common good, and never wavered on principle. And both were reformers. They saw problems and they tried to fix them. Franklin and Washington shared a faith that relied on human reason and divine providence rather than traditional ways and established dogmas. They sought truth and accepted facts. Life could get better, they believed, and theirs did. As the old order collapsed around them, they crafted a better one to replace it, one that has lasted for more than two centuries. They did not see it as perfect. The example of Franklin and Washington shows what individuals can do in times of faction, fracture, and failure to address problems and improve the state of affairs. We will not be driven by fear, the legendary broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow would later say about Americans. If we dig deep in our history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. Murrow surely had the likes of Franklin and Washington in mind. And that is where I'll leave it. For the full story, I recommend buying the book. If you buy the book using the link that's been shown us in your podcast player, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. The best way to support the podcast is by giving a gift subscription to a friend, family member, or colleague. There's a link down below to do that, and it's always available at funderspodcast.com. That is 251 books down, 1,000 to go, and I'll talk to you again soon.
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