Franklin and Bache: Envisioning the Enlightened Republic

Fostering the "pursuit of happiness" was an avowed purpose of the American Revolution, but what was the phrase to mean in practice? How would the new society being created achieve what Enlightenment egalitarians called the "common good"? In this dual biography of Benjamin Franklin and his grandson Benjamin Franklin Bache, Jeffery A. Smith examines the careers of two of the most prominent journalists to advocate what became known as Jeffersonian republicanism. Franklin used his writings to e...