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The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is arguably one most significant and influential books in the American intellectual horizon. Franklin tells us of his life, work, loves, and morals. He starts chronologically from his modest beginnings to his transformation as a principal player in the American colonies. In the course of his trials and tribulations, Franklin creates the ideal of the entrepreneurial American (this book stands as juxtaposition to the Jeffersonian counter ideal of the landed manager of the land). Through this piece, Franklin stand as one of several iconic figures and his central work is not just a story of personal triumph it is aimed at giving us in the contemporary an understanding of Franklin and a framework to understanding America. One way to examine the tensions of the public versus the private is to juxtapose Benjamin Franklin?s Autobiography and Thomas Jefferson?s Notes on the State of Virginia. First, one of the more interesting looks at the binary of public versus private is in the person of Thomas Jefferson himself. On the one hand, the public persona is well situated in the ideology of the day ? preserving the institution of slavery. On the other hand, Jefferson was rumored to be having an affair with Monticello slave Sally Hemings. Jefferson?s guiding principle was to avoid offering any sort of public response to personal attacks. Furthermore, Jefferson made no unambiguous public or private comment on this question. One could easily dismiss the rumors as such due to Jefferson?s silence. However, on the odd chance that the rumors were true, situate Jefferson´s response to the charges, as a clear indicator of the binary of the public and private is real. Despite the very public pronouncement that slavery was an institution that was nearing its end and the threat to the society in the event of its quick demise, the absence of private musings leaves this writer with the sense that a clear distinction has been drawn vis-à-vis what is private and what is public.
Edited Leonard W. Labaree, Ralph L. Ketcham, Helen C. Boatfield and Helene H. Fineman. Foreword Edmund S. Morgan