90 Choate: Franklin 



Adams were only verbal, but there can be no doubt that 

 their fame and weight of character added to its dignity 

 and general acceptance. And who will deny the happy 

 merit of Franklin's share in the signing, when he antic- 

 ipated Lincoln's faculty of relieving the most solemn and 

 critical moments by a timely jest, and when Hancock, 

 taking up the pen to sign first, declared, " We must be 

 unanimous; there must be no pulling different ways; we 

 must all hang together," Franklin made the reply which 

 will live in history as one of its happiest jests: " Yes, we 

 must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang 

 separately," which did in felicitous phrase express the 

 sober truth at that critical hour. 



But it was one thing to declare our independence and 

 quite another to make that declaration good, and unless 

 we could obtain foreign aid and alliance, the cause of 

 the revolted colonies was desperate indeed. Franklin 

 was the one man in all the world who could accomplish 

 this, if indeed it were possible at all, and I need not tell 

 you how perfectly, against what fearful odds, under what 

 mighty difficulties, he did accomplish it. Without Sara- 

 toga we should not have had the Alliance. Without 

 Yorktown we should have waited long for the Treaty of 

 Peace, but without Franklin, and Franklin in Paris, 

 those great treaties would have been far less effective 

 and full of benefit to America and to mankind than they 

 were. 



