Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership

Larson's elegantly written dual biography reveals that the partnership of Franklin and Washington was indispensable to the success of the Revolution. Gordon S. Wood 

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian comes a masterful, first-of-its-kind dual biography of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, illuminating their partnership's enduring importance. 

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Theirs was a three-decade-long bond that, more than any other pairing, would forge the United States. Vastly different men, Benjamin Franklinan abolitionist freethinker from the urban northand George Washingtona slavehold­ing general from the agrarian southwere the indispensable authors of American independence and the two key partners in the attempt to craft a more perfect union at the Constitutional Convention, held in Franklins Philadelphia and presided over by Washington. And yet their teamwork has been little remarked upon in the centuries since.

Illuminating Franklin and Washingtons relationship with striking new detail and energy, Pulitzer Prizewinning historian Edward J. Larson shows that theirs was truly an intimate working friendship that amplified the talents of each for collective advancement of the American project.

After long sup­porting British rule, both Franklin and Washington became key early proponents of inde­pendence. Their friendship gained historical significance during the American Revolution, when Franklin led Americas diplomatic mission in Europe (securing money and an alliance with France) and Washington commanded the Continental Army. Victory required both of these efforts to succeed, and success, in turn, required their mutual coordination and cooperation. In the 1780s, the two sought to strengthen the union, leading to the framing and ratification of the Constitution, the founding document that bears their stamp.

Franklin and Washingtonthe two most revered figures in the early republicstaked their lives and fortunes on the American experiment in liberty and were committed to its preservation. Today the United States is the worlds great super­power, and yet we also wrestle with the government Franklin and Washington created more than two centuries agothe power of the executive branch, the principle of checks and balances, the electoral collegeas well as the wounds of their compromise over slavery. Now, as the founding institutions appear under new stress, it is time to understand their origins through the fresh lens of Larsons Franklin & Washington, a major addition to the literature of the founding era.