Benjamin Franklin Turns 300

Today marks the 300th birthday of Benjamin Franklin. Nothing I can write one way or another could either add or detract from the man's impact on American, and by extension world, history. Christopher Hitchens, in the Wall Street Journal, called Benjamin Franklin "the Socrates of Philadelphia". Franklin was a wit, an innovator, a bon vivant, a pillar of society, and a lovable con man, but more than that, he was indispensable to the cause of American republican democracy.