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Constitution of the United States. He was now in his eighty- 

 second year and at the height of his fame. Every ship brought 

 him letters from the most renowned men Europe could pro- 

 duce. Not a traveler came to America but he turned aside to 

 see Dr. Franklin. Pamphleteers did him honor in fullsome dedi- 

 cations. Towns were proud to bear his name. No newspapers 

 ever mentioned him without some grateful remark. He 

 was the venerable Dr. Franklin, " our illustrious countryman 

 and friend of man," " the Father of American independence." 

 To his house came regularly the Philosophical Society, the 

 Abolition Society, the Society for Political Education. 



Thus surrounded by friends and admirers, the closing years 

 of his life passed quietly away. He died on the 17th of April, 

 1790. To say that his life is the most interesting, the most 

 uniformly successful yet lived by any American is bold. Yet 

 it is strictly true. Our country has, indeed, produced many 

 men who have gathered greater fortunes ; who have been 

 more successful as philanthropists ; who have made greater 

 discoveries in physics. But it has produced none who have 

 acquired greatness in so many ways, or have made so lasting 

 an impression on the mass of his countrymen. His face is 

 known all over the world. His writings are to be read in 

 every tongue. His maxims arein every man's mouth. His name 

 is all over the United States bestowed on counties, on towns, on 

 streets, on societies, on corporations. The lightning rod and 

 the papers on electricity give him no mean place among men 

 of science. The Autobiography, " The Way to Wealth," the 

 Bagatelles entitle him to a place among our men of letters. 

 But his success was greatest as a statesman and his name is 

 bound up with many of the most famous documents of our 

 Revolutionary history. Indeed, it is the only one which appears 

 alike at the foot of the Declaration of Independence, at the 



