This volume covers the five-month period ending January 20, 1783, when Britain signed preliminary articles of peace with France and Spain, and Britain and the United States declared a cessation of hostilities, effectively ending the American Revolution. Most of the volume deals with the deliberations that brought about this momentous turn of events.
Franklin had worked tirelessly since the previous April to negotiate a peace treaty, employing his diplomatic arts so as to mollify both the British and the French. For the final rounds of negotiations conducted in the fall of 1782—a day-by-day drama of difficult discussions and not infrequent setbacks—he was joined by John Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurens. Finally, on November 30, the Americans signed a preliminary peace treaty with Britain that would take effect when Britain, France, and Spain signed treaties of their own.
Benjamin Franklin was an important conservative figure in the American Restoration Movement, especially as the leading antebellum conservative in the northern United States branch of the movement. He is notable as the early and lifelong mentor of Daniel Sommer, whose support of the 1889 Sand Creek Declaration set in motion events which led to the formal division of the Churches of Christ from the Disciples of Christ in 1906.
According to contemporary biographies "His early religious training was according to the Methodist faith, though he never belonged to any church until he united with the Disciples."
In 1856, Franklin began to publish the ultra-conservative American Christian Review, which he published until his death in 1878. Its influence, initially considerable, was said to have waned following the American Civil War. Franklin undertook a rigorous program of publication correspondence, and traveling lectures which took him to "many" U. S. states and Canada.
Franklin's last move was to Anderson, Indiana, where he lived from 1864 until his death.
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