Franklin’s Talmud: Hebraic Republicanism in the Constitutional Convention and the Debate Over Ratification, 1787-1788

Abstract

Hebraic republicanism, a tradition of political thought origi-nating in the sixteenth century, found in rabbinic Judaism a set of sources and ideas that made it possible to argue that constitutional republics, with powers limited by the rule of law, were the only le-gitimate form of government. This article demonstrates that He-braic republicanism had a profound influence on the founding of America, both during the debates over the ratification of the Con-stitution and at the Federal Convention, in particular in the for-mulation of the republican government Guarantee Clause of Article IV, Section 4. This article argues that a full understanding of the Constitution must account for this important but previously unexplored chapter in the history of American constitutional thought. The American writers sound-ing Hebraist themes included many of the most significant figures of the time, among them the framer Roger Sherman, the New York Anti-Federalist leader Melancton Smith, the Anti-Federalist essayist and historian Mercy Otis Warren, and, perhaps most re-markably, Benjamin Franklin, the founders’ elder statesman, who devoted most of the sole essay he contributed to the ratification controversy to a political analysis of biblical passages, basing his ar-gument on Josephus and the Talmud. Franklin’s essay is of particu-lar interest, as his innovative use of Judaic sources demonstrates that political Hebraism —the reliance on rabbinic interpretations for political thought—not only persisted but also continued to de-velop in new ways well into late eighteenth-century America. He-braic political thought gave structure to the risks and opportunities constitution-making presented, offered a powerful set of rhetorical framings that writers and speakers deployed in the ratification struggles in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Maryland, and Virginia, and supplied the central, antimonarchist meaning of the Constitution’s Guarantee Clause. This article argues that we cannot fully comprehend either the American founding or the his-tory of political Hebraism unless we understand the role of Hebra-ic republicanism in the creation of the American Constitution.