Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at The
Federalist and your experienced Shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at FDR LST,
make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and
of course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is Mark Skousen. He is the eighth generation.
I believe we'll get the full details on this, but
he is a descendant of one of the greatest Americans,
one of the greatest founders of this great republic, and
Mark would argue the greatest American. Indeed, he does so
in his new book of the same title, The Greatest
American History's Most Versatile Genius, An Exploration of the life
and legacy of Benjamin Franklin. Mark, thank you so much
for joining us on this edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
Speaker 2: Man, it's a pleasure to talk about my favorite ancestor.
Speaker 1: I would say, so, you know, I think about the
Kittle family tree, and we haven't fully explored it, but
you know, we have explored it enough to be concerned
about where it ultimatelys. But you have quite a descendant
in Benjamin Franklin. Let's begin there. That has to be
something that your family absolutely cherishes and certainly talks about it.
Get togethers.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, this was a long standing tradition in
our family that we were somehow related to Benjamin Franklin.
It was through my mother's side, who was from Pennsylvania,
and going back we didn't know how many generations, but
we just knew that we were related somehow. So my
wife and I decided to do some genealogy work in
the seventies, and we struggled because there was a missing
link for our connection. But we discovered there was a
private will that was published that we found in the
American Philosophical Society that Franklin had established, and the story
is of Ben Franklin's grandson, Lewis Bates, Sr. Who had
two natural children. It said in his last will he
gave he identified two natural children, now natural children meant
back then illegitimate, and in fact one of them is
Lewis Bates Junior. And that was the missing link, and
so we were able to tie together our entire eight generations,
which was really quite a cool discovery, and we broadcast
it to all our family members that we actually found
exactly how we were related. But I thought it was
ironic because Franklin is actually famous for having an illegitimate son, William,
and this tradition continued because William also had an illegitimate child,
and we see Lewis Bates, the grandchild, also had a
legitimate illegitimate child, So kind of reflective on Franklin's that
old tradition that he was. I call him a ladies man.
Others would say a womanizer, but he he actually one
of the things I liked about Franklin is that he's
very modern in the sense that he respected women's rights
and thought that they were equal to him. And he
had many wonderful intellectual, not just social relationships with women,
both in America and in France.
Speaker 1: He was a bit of a lothario, as the history dictates,
as we have learned over the years, that is a
It is interesting to me. That is a long line
of distinguished illegitimacy, I have to say, And it's that's
the interesting point, because this is, you know, this is
a complicated man. This is a Renaissance man, certainly, a
man who had dalliences, obviously a man who was not
all that concerned.
Speaker 3: About protection, although the idea of that in the eighteenth
century was complicated as well.
Speaker 1: But what to you makes Benjamin Franklin? There are so
many facets here? What makes him the greatest American? Standing
against Americans like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and a
whole line of signers of the Declaration of Independence and
those who engaged at the Continental Conventions.
Speaker 2: Well, there are certainly many great men, and our founding fathers,
founding mothers, if you will, I mean, they all played
a very significant role and were great in a great generation.
There's no question about that. What distinguishes Franklin from all
the others, including Thomas Jefferson, is the sub title of
the book. So the title is the Greatest American? Why?
Because he's history's most versatile genius. By that wey I
came up with a list of twenty two careers that Franklin,
at one time or another had professionally and really was
a remarkable came up with I mean, printer, postmaster, diplomat, governor, author, humorist, inventor, scientist,
financial guru, fundraiser, military leader, delegate or legislator, clerk, economist,
land speculator, club president, musician, city planner, Justice of the peace, banker,
and university founder. I mean, when you come up with
a list like that, you say, my gosh, that's I mean.
Thomas Jefferson would be the second closest because he he
had some eclectic interests as well, but you can only
list four or five of careers that he had compared
to twenty two for Ben Franklin. So these titles are
not from me. They are from historians who have written
that Franklin was in so many ways advanced for his
generation and virtually all generations. So if you wanted to
compare them, maybe Leonardo da Vinci or somebody like that
in Europe would have these eclectic interests. But you know,
you look at some great Americans like Thomas Edison or
Elon Musk and what have you, they still have a
hard time comparing comparing them to the incredible interests that
Franklin had. And he was self educated. You know, here's
a man who lived the American dream, went from poverty
to riches in his lifetime through his own ability and
skills and willingness to be self educated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt about it. And you know, as you
note an extremely busy, busy man, it gets us back
to our original point. How the hell did he have
time for his talliences? This guy was doing so much,
you know, the inventor portion of alone is intriguing enough,
is time consuming enough for Benjamin Franklin, who was, at
his core, you know, a very very curious man.
Speaker 2: He was.
Speaker 1: A scientific mind of his times, but also at his
core he was an entrepreneur. And you, as an economist,
must very much appreciate that aspect of Benjamin Franklin.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I had a number of blurbs done on
the book, and one was by John Mackie, the former
CEO and founder of Whole Food's Market, and he wrote
a book called conscious Capitalism, and what he meant by
that was that, in the case of Franklin, he was
conscientiously trying to fulfill the needs of his consumers and
did so well that he was able to retire at
age forty two. But then instead of just collecting his
interest and dividends, which in play golf all day like
a lot of wealthy people do today, he engaged in
civic duties. He established the first hospital, the first library,
the established the University of Pennsylvania. He engaged in improving
the city of Philadelphia, and then he went on to
be the colonial agent represent his colony and four other
colonies in London. Then he became ambassador to France, the
first ambassador, came back and was a governor of the
first governor of Pennsylvania, and then went on to be
the going a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. So he
had a remarkable career. But you know, he was a
little bit that people said that he didn't really say much.
He didn't speak that much at the Constitutional Convention or
the Declaration of Independence. He only made one change to
the Declaration of Independence. Let's see if you and your
audience can figure this out. So fill in the blank.
We hold these truths to.
Speaker 1: Be self evident, of course.
Speaker 2: Oh but that is not the Thomas Jefferson said, sacred
and undeniable. We hold these two sacred and undeniable. Ekland,
being a secular humanist, with his left hand, scratched out
the words sacred and undoniowa and put above it self evident.
Speaker 1: Well, he was, after all, originally an editor and through
his life he was an editor, and that like it
reminds me of Abraham Lincoln, you know, and how he
approached his you know, first inaugural address and the flourishes,
the beautiful flourishes as they were put in by Seward,
but nonetheless they were more flowery than they were ultimately poetic.
And Abraham Lincoln, same kind of thing. But Benjamin Franklin,
you know, must have looked at that from his perspective
as well, but also from the perspective of a longtime
newspaper guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. Although I think he was making
just an editorial reduction from sacred and undeniable to self evident,
but also making a point of his religious skepticism at
the time. I will say one of the things I
learned in writing this book, The Greatest American, is that
Franklin's views on religion actually changed because he was a skeptic.
He was a deist, I mean, he believed in God,
but did not particularly He was not a churchgoer. He
had his own liturgy. He was considered a skeptic an heretic,
even by John Adams and others who complained that he
didn't attend church on a regular basis. Nevertheless, at the
end of his life he changed his views from adist
to an active theist because of what he witnessed, where
God intervened over and over again to assure the Americans
they would win this revolution against the greatest military in
the world, the British. So Branklin said at the end
of his life that you know, God were governed in
the affairs of man, and he asked that we have
prayers in the Constitutional Convention. So it was quite a
remarkable change in the attitude. So I actually think that Franklin,
if he had to do it over again, would keep
Thomas Jefferson's own phraseology, we hold these Jews to be
sacred and undeniable. I think it's a more powerful phrase
than self evident.
Speaker 1: I do too, I think it and certainly captures the
mood and the moment at the time, one of defiance
but also one of humility. Knowing that this founding, this
new Nason country, was going to need all the help
it could possibly get and was a long way off
from fulfilling that assistance. They were going to need something
much greater than themselves, and I think the founding fathers
understood that. So Franklin goes from God is clockmaker to
God as though, as you know, the Supreme being interested
in the affairs of men. How did he begin his life,
because he certainly didn't begin his life as the Benjamin Franklin.
We know he didn't begin it in Philadelphia that he
is so associated with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he got started in Boston. He was born in
Boston from a family of thirteen fifteen seventeen children, and
that was from two wives, and he was with the
second wife, so that he was a tense child of
several generations. It's kind of an interesting story. But he
basically very poor and became an apprentice to his older brother,
James in a in a publication at the time, and
he had falling out with his older brother and he
didn't want to stick around for the seven year apprentice,
so he ran away, and he poverty stricken, ran away
and ended up in Philadelphia, and there he pursued printing
again and became very successful at it, to the point
where when he returned several years later to see the family,
who was well dressed, he had gold coins in his pockets.
James was extremely envious of his success, but Franklin was
self educated and he only had a couple a few
years of formal education and was a voracious readers. Is
very much a key point that he always believed in
the value of the printed word and became very much
a part of that. So he was very successful, as
it's kind of like the publisher of the New York
Times in its day. The Pennsylvania Gazette was the most
successful newspaper of its time. And then he put out
the Almanac as well, which was an annual of publication
that had all these great sayings and that you like
a penny saved as a penny earned. This sort of
thing became very popular, and he franchised his newspaper around
the country, so he was able to retire at age
forty two, and then pursued these civic interests, including being
a military leader and a clerk for the the Pennsylvania Legislature.
He was really quite an interesting person. He helped establish
the Negro school in the area an early time period,
discovered that blacks were just as smart as whites, and
so his prejudice declined. One of the things I point
out in this book The Greatest American, is that Franklin
he owned slaves for a couple of years, a couple
of slaves, not many, not like Jefferson or Washington, but
he eventually gave up on slavery and realized that this
was a major mark on our history. And he became
the president of the first Pennsylvania Society to abolish slavery.
So it's nice to see a founding father whose views
changed over time and wasn't stuck in the past.
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Speaker 1: Yes, and there certainly are some founding members who who
went through such changes, but not many. Again, we have
to look at history and you know, as a matter
of people of their times, and that's what Franklin was.
But obviously over a very long life his ideas about
these basic tenant tenants of of the of humanity and
of self governance, they they evolved with all of that.
He retired at forty two. In that time period he
was considered an older man, was he not? So he
has he has all of this wealth that he secrued.
He really is the story of, you know, of the
American dream, the self made man. Does he at this
time then he has the ability to pursue all of
these different things. One of those interest lifelong had been
in the field of the sciences, particularly in invention. How
does he get to that point where you know, he
becomes such a you know, a powerful part of where
we are today, how we are talking today in this
zoom call through the power of electricity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting because he was really the first scientific American,
if we can use that term. In fact, there's a
book by that title, the First Scientific America, and it
is the story of Benjamin Franklin his scientific contributions and
starting with the Franklin Stowe but also the discovery that
lightning was electricity, and he came up with certain words
like positive and negative reaction, the battery. The term battery
is his. He's considered one of the top scientists of
his age, and he became so famous he won the
Copley Medal in Britain, and when he went to France
as ambassador, he was hailed as one of the great
scientists of his age and was quite famous because of it.
Bifocal invention, the stream of you know, going back. He
went back and forth eight times across the seas, so
he was not just enjoying the fair weather and so forth,
but was noticing the gulf stream, how it was faster
to go one way than the other. Things like that
were really remarkable inventions. And he never patented any of
his inventions, which is interesting because he could have made
considerable amount of money, but he thought, no, this is
It's kind of like Elon Musk who says, I don't
patent any of my inventions and breakthroughs in Tesla. This
is something we want everybody to use. And Franklin had
a very liberal position when it came to his patents.
Speaker 1: Such an amazing departure from where we are in America
and believe me, Americans inventors have every right in the
world to claim their intellectual property. We, of course, these days,
have experienced a barrage of assaults in that intellectual property
from one nation in particular. But it happens at every turn.
Franklin said, I give this the science. He also gave
himself eventually to revolution. He eventually gave himself to the
formation the foundation of a new nation conceived in liberty
and self governance. But he wasn't always He didn't begin
a revolutionary, did he.
Speaker 2: No, that's correct, he was. He considered himself a British citizen.
And when he was colonial agent in Britain, he loved England,
he loved Scotland. He just he enjoyed it far more
than his own country. When he went back to Pennsylvania,
he said, oh see, this is just this is nothing
compared to the buzz that you feel when you're in
a big city like London. And then when he went
to Paris, he fell in love with Paris. And he
was very much a global citizen in many ways. In fact,
one time he said this following statement. And you can
contrast this with the attitude that our current president has
so Franklin said, our cause is the cause of all mankind.
God grant us not only the love of liberty, but
a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade
all nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may
set his foot anywhere on its surface and say, this
is my country. He was a very much globalist. He
was an advocate, like Adam Smith, of free trade. He
said no nation was ever ruined by trade, So he
would have even though he was a diplomat, and he
did engage and compromise, and he didn't believe in fair trade,
not just free trade. So there are some elements that
we can relate to. But I admire him for his
attitude toward foreigners. He was not xenophobic like many of
our leaders are today. I really admire Franklin for his
love of country and love of humanity.
Speaker 1: When did he become sold on the revolution? Because you know,
that's the interesting thing about how we got to the
Revolutionary War. As Franklin, you know, John Adams, George Washington,
all of these others considered themselves citizens of England until
that was no longer tenable, until that was no longer
It was just such a corrosive and toxic relationship, to
put it in the parlance of the day, that it
could no longer continue. But Franklin didn't he argue for
mediation and moderation early on.
Speaker 2: Yes, in fact, he didn't really fight the Stamp Act initially,
and he was heavily criticized for this, And then he
realized that he made a major blunder, so he changed
rather quickly and fought for the abolition of the Stamp
Act and was successful in doing that. So he was
reluctant to give up his citizenship of the greatest nation
in the world, which was Britain at the time. However,
as early as seventeen seventy one, he recognized that there
was going to be a break with this beautiful ivory
sculpture that had been built a British empire, and they
were going to break from his early seventeen seventy one
and then, of course, when the Hutchison letters came out,
which was these letters from the colonial agent in America
that spoke very negatively about Americans, Franklin had that revealed
generally was he became pursua non grata. They cut off
his salary of eighteen hundred pounds a year that he
was earning as the colonial agent, so he was forced
to leave basically the country before he was arrested and
returned in seventeen seventy five, helped Common Sense be published
and became a radical at his old age in the seventies.
Can you imagine that? So I admire him for doing that.
And he was old generation older than the other Founding fathers,
Thomas Jefferson, George Washington is over. He was thirty years
older than all of those people.
Speaker 1: He's a radical in the sense of the sovereignty of man,
of all of the things that we cherish obviously in
this republic. Would he have been well, I guess that
is a question for how radical he was at the time,
at his age. Would he have identified with the radical
left in America today, because some radicals have on the
left have tried to claim him over the years.
Speaker 2: Well, Frankly, one of the things that I like about
the Founding Fathers is they didn't have that kind of
divisive labeling that they did either you or for independence
or against independence. There was nearly no left or right
in that respect. But they did advocate the rights of man,
and that included free speech, freedom of assembly, you had
to you know, the Fourth Amendment. All those things in
the Bill of Rights, Uh, came out of that era.
So I don't think you can divide that into left
or right today's rhetoric. In that respect, he was very
much worried that America would eventually see a king take
take a monarchy, would would would come back in the
United States. He did warn about that, and I think
we are everybody is concerned that our current president is
using these executive orders to the extreme and Congress is
not passing hardly any legislation. Franklin was a firm believer
in the diverse powers and making sure that that there's
a balance of power between the legislature and the executive
and the judicial branch of government. That was one of
the key points of the Constitution. So he would he
would be concerned about what's happening today. The imbalance has
taking place, for the executive is far more powerful than Congress.
Speaker 1: Our guest today is Mark Skousen, author of the Greatest
American History's Most Versatile Genius. It's an exploration of the
life and legacy of Benjamin Franklin. I would say this
perhaps Benjamin Franklin would be concerned because he was there
in the Constitutional Convention room in Philadelphia, and it is not,
as you have mentioned before, not a apocryphal. He came
out of the convention hall and when asked by Philadelphia
woman doctor Franklin, what sort of government do we have?
A republic if you can keep it, he meant absolutely that.
And while he may have misgivings about executive orders, he
would have misgivings about executive orders that were used very
liberally during the Biden administration as well, and let's face it,
multiple administrations over the course of history of this country's history.
He would also be very concerned. I would assume of
the power, the outsized power we've seen from the federal
judiciary in trying to claim the powers that it arguably
does not have when it comes to nationwide injunctions. What
say you about that? And how Franklin would feel in
this resistance movement against the current administration and president.
Speaker 2: Well, my wife and I completed Franklin's autobiography. That's another
thing we did prior to the publishing publishing at this book.
So Franklin his original autobiography that's very popular. It's in
all the bookstores he went up to seventeen fifty seven,
and did not include anything about the American Revolution, or
his ambassador to France, or the Constitutional Convention. And when
we completed his autobiography and went through his writings and
stuff like that, we came across two quotes that I
think are I think representative of his views regarding some
of these questions that you've asked. First, on domestic policy,
he said, a virtuous and industrious people may be cheaply
government governed. And so the question is do we have
cheap government today? No, we have big government. And both
Republicans and Democrats would agree that we have big government today.
And it's not cheap, it's very expensive. And what does
that say to about us as a virtuous and industrious people.
I throw that out. The second quote is Franklin's foreign
policy is also can be used in one word, and
it's very similar to George Washington's Farewell Addrests, except it's
one sentence. Franklin said, the system of America is commerce
withal and war with none. Very idealistic, but one that
again I find when I speak on Benjamin Franklin, no
matter what your political persuasion, you're not in agreement. That
really is the ideal. So I don't know what to
say about the excesses. I think he would be critical
of the excesses of both Republicans and Democrats, both Biden
and Trump to I mean, I think he actually at
one point he I actually advocated twelve presidents at the
same time. I mean, they wanted to disperse power by
having twelve of these men out there, you know, I
mean it's crazy. I mean you go back to the
Roman times where they had two leaders at the same time.
Then we went to president vice president at the same time.
Opposite parties, by the way, and now of course it's
either one party or nothing. It seems like we're very
party oridyent. And Franklin not really a fan of party politics.
And he spoke out against the growth of the power
of power and money playing excessive roles in this and
so he's a firm believer in representative government. I wouldn't
call it democracy because back then that was viewed negatively
that you wanted an educated representative government. You don't want
him a monarchy, but you also don't want pure democracy
where the mob runs thing. So his was a balanced
approach of educated individual representatives of the people elected from
time to time, and he was very optimistic about America.
He thought America had a great future. And in fact,
on your on the American Eagle gold or the silver
coins that are minted every year by the US Mint
on the covers on the front part of his Lady Liberty,
the statement in God we trust and the rising Sun,
and the rising Sun is Franklin's symbol of America.
Speaker 1: Well, I have often lamented that I was born during
this time. I was a child born in the summer
of the water great Watergate break ins. That's to give
it some historical concept. But I've often lamented that I
am a of this time. And it's amazing, not amazing
to me, but interesting to me that Benjamin Franklin lamented
that he was not a citizen of a far future time.
I think about that. Can only imagine how much worse
the music could be several centuries from now. But you
said he was a modern man. He actually wanted to
be part of the next modern age.
Speaker 2: Yes, indeed he was. He felt bad that he had
not been born two or three generations later, which should
be nowaday period. So you can look at is the
glass half full or half empty? He would love the
modern gadgetry and technology and the standard of living in
the internet. He would have a cell phone, He would
be into AI, he would be into all of these
wonderful things that we enjoy.
Speaker 1: Those are interesting images. I have to tell you watching
Benjamin Franklin on a small art phone and then you
complaining at movie theaters that he's not getting a good reception.
Speaker 2: Indeed, I think that would be the case. But I
think he would be so fascinated with the speed in
which we traveled. I mean, it would take a whole
month for him to go from Philadelphia to London. It
took that long. Instead we fly and get there in
five or six hours. But at the same time, he
would be moaned the size of government national debt, the
government intrusion in our personal lives. Those things he would
not be happy with. So on that balance, I'm sure
he would still be delighted to be alive today and
to enjoy the debates, enjoy the lifestyle, enjoy the lady
and their intellectual interests and not just their sexuality. I
think there's a lot to be said. He would like
the fact that all men are created equal. All men
and women are created equal, and now with their creator
with certain in leble rights. Among those are life, liberty
and the pursuit of money. No, I'm sorry, the pursuit
of happiness.
Speaker 1: Well, he experienced both obviously in his lifetime, and certainly
plenty of happiness with the ladies, as we had talked
about earlier. Just a quick note on debt. So he
was not in agreement with another founder, Alexander Hamilton that debt. Again,
this has to be taken in context, but debt is
a blessing. He was not a big debt guy.
Speaker 2: Yes, but he was actually very much in Alexander Hamilton's
camp in the respect that he he thought that this
idea of creating a national debt to take over the
state debt was a good idea, even though it was
near the end of his life. He favored a central bank.
He actually thought inflation, a little inflation, was good. He
was a paper money guy more than gold and silver,
and the reason for that is because Britain denied the
use of silver and gold, or they limited their use
in the colonies, and so he wrote a pamphlet in
favor of issuing paper money. But again, I like Franklin
because he changed his mind over time and when he
witnessed the runaway inflation and not worth the continental during
that time period, the struggles he had in raising money
with the French because of inflation and the fact that
the Americans couldn't pay off their debts during the war,
that was he changed his mind. He said, a little
inflation's good, but a lot of inflation is bad.
Speaker 1: Moderation. Once again, close with this the two part question
from what you have learned about your relative Benjamin Franklin.
As we get near two hundred and fifty years of
this great Republic, the question is what do you think
Benjamin Franklin would make of it? Would he be proud
of the country he helped create.
Speaker 2: Very definitely, despite all of our problems and so over
the fact that we've lived under the constitution that he
helped develop is still with us to this day, even
though it is not has been abused over the years,
and so forth. On net balance, he would be very
pleased with what we see and the compromises that you
sometimes have to make. Don't let the don't let the
perfect get in the way of the good, so to speak.
I think would be his, his his looking down on
the earth with some happiness about what we have seen
and how we still celebrate July fourth. And also there's
another great quote which I actually created. I put into
a little poster, and it says, it's incredible the quantity
of good that a single man can do when he
makes a business out of it. And he's truly a
believer that business is really the key to success in
this life. I mean, does government create jobs not really, certainly,
not jobs that that are particularly productive and sober. No,
it's it's business. And when business is successful, they create jobs,
they higher standard of living, they create an increase in
the quantity, quality, and variety of goods and services. And
really the ultimate fact is that Franklin was America's first capitalist,
if you will, and defended the capitalist system. He said,
we have this welfare program. The British had this welfare program,
and he said, who funded that, Well, wealthy business people
funded that. You need a successful entrepreneurial America to achieve
this level of success. And this whole idea of the
American dream is certainly one that Franklin espoused. They have
been the first to really realize the American dream. And
that's a great contribution. So there's so many ways that
Franklin is really a good example, and even in the
case of women, as we were talking about how he
talks about his errata in life, and he actually became
a devoted husband with his wife Deborah, and these stories
of him having relations and affairs and so forth with
other women that occurred before he got married and then
after his wife died. So while they were married, they
were very close to each other. And at the beginning
of my book Degree American, I dedicate it to my
own wife, and I say, and I quote from Franklin,
it is the man and woman united that makes the
complete human being. Together they are more likely to succeed
in the world. And I thought that was a really
good summary of Franklin's views.
Speaker 1: I think so as well. Obviously, this is a man
who grew and changed and evolved in all of those
sorts of things, but he had some core principles that
he long held on to. As you point out in
this book. I see him perhaps as a single man
in Europe, or a single man years before in his youth,
how fascinated he might be with the concept of tinder.
Speaker 2: But he.
Speaker 1: Changed on that front, as he did with his faith
and with his spirituality and his religion. Over time he evolved,
as you mentioned before in that and this is what
I do know as a man of faith, is that
America is America because of Benjamin Franklin. In fact, I
believe God gave us Benjamin Franklin, among others, at a
very critical juncture in the creation of this country, and
I think your book reflects that very strongly. Thank you
so much for sharing the journey of writing the book
and the book itself well.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Matt. It's been a real pleasure.
And as Franklin always signed off, his name, b Free Franklin.
Speaker 1: Absolutely and we do as well. Thanks to my guest today,
Mark Skousen, author of the greatest American History's most Versatile Genius,
An exploration of the life and legacy of Benjamin Franklin.
You've been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
I'm Matt Kittle, senior elections correspondent at the Federalists. We'll
be back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers of
freedom and anxious for the frame
Speaker 2: Right