e between the
two countries which secured the independence of the colonies; and
finally as President of Pennsylvania and a member of the Constitutional
Convention. His last public act was to petition Congress to abolish
slavery in the United States. If one were asked to name the three men
who did most to secure the independence of their country, they would be
George Washington, who fought her battles, Robert Morris, who financed
them, and Benjamin Franklin, who secured the aid of France. When Thomas
Jefferson, who had been selected as minister to France, appeared at the
court of Louis XVI, he presented his papers to the Comte de Vergennes.

"You replace Mr. Franklin?" inquired the nobleman, glancing at the
papers.

"No, monsieur," Jefferson replied, "I succeed him. No one could replace
him."

And that answer had more truth than wit.

Honors came to Franklin such as no other American has ever received, but
he remained from first to last the same quiet, deep-hearted, and
unselfish man, whose chief motive was the promotion of human welfare. He
had his faults and made his mistakes; but time has sloughed them all
away, and there are few sources of inspiration which can compare with
the study of his life.

* * * * *

No family has loomed larger in American affairs than the Adams family of
Massachusetts. John Adams, President himself and living to see his own
son President--an experience which, probably no other man will ever
enjoy--had a second cousin who played a much more important part than he
did in securing the independence of the United States. His name was
Samuel Adams, and when he graduated from Harvard in 1740, at the age of
eighteen, his thesis discussed the question, "Whether it be lawful to
resist the supreme magistrate if the commonwealth cannot otherwise be
preserved," and answered it in the affirmative.

Samuel Adams was a silent, stern and deeply religious man, something of
a dreamer, a bad manager and constantly in debt; but he was perhaps the
first in America to conceive the idea of absolute independence from
Great Britain, and he worked for this end unceasingly and to good
purpose. The wealthy John Hancock was one of his converts, and it was
partly to warn these two of the troops sent out to capture them that
Paul Revere took that famous ride to Lexington on the night of April 18,
1775. A month later, when General Gage offered amnesty to all the
rebels, Hancock and Ad