Benjamin Franklin -- Writer, Inventor, Founding Father, and First True American George Washington may be the father of his country, but Ben Franklin is the first true American. While George Washington was born a wealthy and propertied Virginia landowner in the European aristocratic tradition, and made his fame as a highborn and commanding military general for the crown during the French and Indian Wars, Benjamin Franklin was born to a poor Boston tradesman. He had no name, title, or fortune to fall back on. Benjamin Franklin worked his way up in the world through his hard work and dedication alone.

Franklin became wealthy in his later life. He made money from his thrift, innate intelligence, and his wit. He was apprenticed as a young man, but ran away to sea and to work his own way, on his own terms at the printing trade. Even in his own early life, Franklin demanded his liberty, life, and his right to pursue his own form of happiness and secure his...

He embodied the virtues of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and made this virtues and principles profitable, and useful.
Franklin made his money through deploying and exploiting his personal freedom and independence -- but also by benefiting from the American colonies' freedom of the press and speech. Without freedom of speech and movement, there would have been no Franklin. Also, without a common reading public, Franklin would never have prospered. Franklin's publication Poor Richard's Almanac catered to the common farmer, not the gentleman farmer, and talked about humble things like the weather and seasonal news. It advocated thrift and clean living, such as 'early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.'

The almanac's use of aphorisms, or short moral teaching tools that are funny, witty, and to the point -- ideal reading for busy people is a very American style of prose. Also, the…