A reprint of the 1965 Bobbs-Merrill edition. Too often dismissed as the least philosophic of the Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin had a deep and lasting impact on the shape of American political thought. In this substantial collection of Franklin's letters, essays, and lesser-known papers, Ralph Ketcham traces the development of Franklin's practical -- and distinctly American -- political thought from his earliest Silence Dogood essays to his final writings on the Constitution and The Evils of the Slave Trade.