Picture Benjamin Franklin. One more time. 

He is the ONLY Founding Father of our Republic that was able to add his emblematic signature to three fundamental documents that originated the United States of America over the intense 18 and 19th century, from a flame glowing in and blowing from our “City of Brotherly Love,” Philadelphia.

The man didn’t speak — but wrote, for that purpose —  too much, and a whole lot is what he might’ve ended up doing behind the scenes for the rest of us to enjoy these two and half centuries of prosperity and progress that has blessed America.

Ever since the wondrous nation in North America was conceived, a brand new Republic where public power was not only split into three branches of government — Executive, Legislative and Judiciary — but also, via the enlightened 1st amendment of the U.S. Constitution, issued the permanent warrant for a Free Press and Freedom of Expression in America.

All across the world — East and West, North and South — soon followed suit.  The so-called "4th-State" was born for America and the World, here in the original pit where that flame was sparked into life.

Benjamin Franklin

A brand new nation was born under the power of Franklin's Pen, literally, made out of the 13 British colonies turned now independent States, including, of course, our own, William Penn’s Pennsylvania.

Resolute as an entrepreneur, and creative as an inventor, Ben Framklin was also the consummate Diplomat who, so to speak, could literally wage war holding a sword in his right hand, while extending an olive branch with the left, knowing full well what hand he had, had to deal with— or had himself been dealt with.

On July 4, 1776, he exposed his neck to the most powerful army on Earth by signing the Declaration of Independence that he himself edited, after Thomas Jefferson wrote it, on a hot Philadelphia Summer Night, exactly 245 years ago.

On Nov. 30, 1782, barely 6 years later, the United States, represented by Mr. Franklin and others, and Britain, with his own British Crown's representatives, signed the preliminary articles of the Treaty of Paris that put a formal end to the war of independence in America — after the final defeat inflicted by General George Washington and the French Troops on the colonial troops of British General Charles Lord Cornwallis in Yorktown, VA,  sealed on October 19th, 1781.

That simple document Franklin negotiated in earnest (he asked Britain to grant Canada to the United States) called the “Treaty of Paris”, with powerful effects on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, Franklin and the other colonial counterparts ratified on Sept. 3, 1783, this time fully supported also by France and Spain. 

Not tired of so much dealing with seismic global settlements, Franklin also signed the U.S. Constitution, when our Magna Carta was ratified by all 13 States, after so much arguing over inevitable differences, again all those voices gathered here in Philadelphia, on June 21, 1788.

A brand new nation was born under the power of Franklin's Pen, literally, made out of the 13 British colonies turned now independent States, including, of course, our own, William Penn’s Pennsylvania.

It’s the place of origin of Amy Gutmann, David Cohen, Pedro Ramos, Nelson Diaz, and others with Philadelphia-made talents, from the Ben Franklin's School, that current President Joe Biden would do well putting at the service of so much-needed thoughtful and improved diplomacy from North America to nations all across the globe.