Henretta6, Skemp I7-8,II6-8

Chapter 6 of Henretta describes the eventual declaration of independence by the American colonies and Revolutionary War itself. Thomas Paine was an important player in the persuasion of the American colonists towards separation from Britain through his writing called "Common Sense." This writing attacked King George III, and finally persuaded many colonists that both Parliament and the king were tyrannical. One might wonder if the American colonists might have been less united if "Common Sense" had never been written. Other important concepts from this particular reading include the alliance of the French with the American colonists in order to get back at England for the last war, and also the status of African-American slaves at this time: slavery was still allowed in the final draft of the Declaration of Independence, many thousands fled with British soldiers, and still thousands of others fought on the colonists' side.
Skemp readings discuss the same time period from the personal perspectives of the two Franklins who are this time started to differ considerably and also present documents written by them during this time period. Particularly moving was the letter from the elder Franklin to William in 1784 after the war was over. The two Franklins seem the perfect example of the civil war that occurred along with the Revolutionary War that split families apart, but at least the Franklins were not shooting at each other. In these chapters we view William Franklin condemning the Boston Tea Party and believing that the colonists should pay for the damages and reporting on his own father to Britain, and Benjamin Franklin on the other side refusing to send William's own son Temple to a "corrupt English school." How ironic that the position that Skemp says Benjamin probably helped William to obtain, the governorship of New Jersey would in later years create the largest chasm between them.