The Adamant Patriot: Benjamin Franklin Bache as Leader of the Opposition Press

Benjamin Franklin Bache, grandson of Benjamin Franklin, lived a life devoted to fulfilling the ideals of republicanism. Although he had supported the ratification of the Constitution [p.1/p.2/p.3/p.4] when it had circulated for debate at the different state conventions of 1787 and 1788, Bache’s interpretation of the newly-implemented Constitution in the 1790s was much more similar to that of those who had earlier opposed its ratification than to those who had previously advocated it. Having started a newspaper in 1790 that covered a wide variety of subjects, he increasingly devoted that newspaper to politics. Bache condemned the Federalists who were in power in the 1790s, especially denouncing the first two presidents, George Washington and John Adams, for their Federalist policies. However, Bache never considered himself as a partisan; in his view, he was fairly exposing the wrongs of those who were running the government, for it was integral for the citizens of a republic to be educated about their government – he was being a republican citizen of virtue and of public service. Throughout his life, as can be clearly seen in the newspaper for which he was editor, Bache championed the rights of the citizens of a republic (much akin to Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine) rather than those who governed a republic. Whereas many of his opponents of the 1790s had departed from the ideals of the American Revolution of 1776, Benjamin Franklin Bache always stayed true to them.

Early Years

Born on 12 August 1769, Bache was soon taken under the mentorship of his famous grandfather, Benjamin Franklin. In 1776, when Franklin went on a nine-year diplomatic mission to France, he took the seven-year-old Bache with him so that the child would get an enlightened education. Franklin then enrolled Bache in Le Coeur boarding school in Passy, a suburb of Paris – during this time, Franklin also arranged for the boy to meet Voltaire. By 1779, Franklin sent young Bache with Philibert Cramer, a diplomat from Geneva and the publisher of Voltaire, in order to continue his education in Geneva, Switzerland. For four years, while living with the poet Gabriel Louis Galissard de Marignac who also tutored the young boy, Bache studied at the college founded by John Calvin. During Bache’s years in Switzerland, those with whom he was closest noticed his calm demeanor, his ability to observe methodically, his reasonable thought process,