Vastly different men, Benjamin Franklin-- an abolitionist freethinker from the urban north-- and George Washington--a slaveholding general from the agrarian south-- were the indispensable authors of American independence and the two key partners in the attempt to craft a more perfect union at the Constitutional Convention. Their teamwork has been little remarked upon in the centuries since, but Larson illuminates Franklin and Washington's relationship. He shows that theirs was truly an intimate working friendship that amplified the talents of each for collective advancement of the American project. Both men-- the most revered figures in the early republic-- staked their lives and fortunes on the American experiment in liberty and were committed to its preservation. adapted from jacket
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