What Zelenskyy Can Learn From Ben Franklin

After the United States declared its independence from Great Britain in 1776, this nation sent diplomats to France—seeking an alliance with a country then led by King Louis XVI.

One of these diplomats was Benjamin Franklin.

In 1778, France signed a treaty of alliance with the United States and Franklin would later write a letter to Congress, arguing it was in America’s interest to express gratitude to the French king for his support.

“The King, a young and virtuous prince, has, I am persuaded, a pleasure in reflecting on the generous benevolence of the action in assisting an oppressed people, and proposes it as a part of the glory of his reign,” he wrote in the letter quoted in Walter Isaacson’s “Benjamin Franklin: An American Life.” “I think it right to increase this pleasure by our thankful acknowledgments, and that such expression of gratitude is not only our duty, but our interest.”

In 1782, Franklin did send a letter of thanks to Louis XVI.

“It is with great Satisfaction,” he wrote in a letter posted online by the National Archives, “that I obey the Commands of the Congress of the United States of America, in assuring your Majesty, that they have the most grateful Sense of your Majesty’s exertions in their Favour; that the States they represent have not in the least abated in their firm Resolution of maintaining their Independence; that they are determined faithfully to perform all their Engagements; and that, tho’ desirous of sparing the farther Effusion of human Blood, by an honourable Peace, they will continue to prosecute the War with all possible Vigour, till that End can be obtained.”

“Your Majesty,” wrote Franklin, “by your Magnanimity and Goodness, in succouring the Distress’d, has won the Hearts of a great and growing People.”

The next year, Great Britain signed the Treaty of Paris, recognizing American independence.

A decade later, in January 1793, during a significantly different revolution in France itself, Louis XVI was paraded through Paris and beheaded.

“Ten days later,” notes the Mount Vernon website, “revolutionary France, already fighting Austria and Prussia, declared war on England, Holland and Spain, embroiling the entire European continent in conflict.”

Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton then wrote a letter rejecting the proposition that the French Revolution was like the American Revolution. “I acknowledge,” he wrote, “that I am glad to believe, there is no real resemblance between what was the cause of America & what is the cause of France—that the difference is no less great than that between Liberty & Licentiousness.”

After the beheading of Louis XVI, revolutionary France sent Edmond Genet as an emissary to the United States. He was not like Benjamin Franklin.

Two weeks after Genet arrived in South Carolina on April 8, 1793, President George Washington issued his Neutrality Proclamation. It said that “the duty and interest of the United States require, that they should with sincerity and good faith adopt and pursue a conduct friendly and impartial toward the belligerent Powers.”

What had Genet done when he had arrived in South Carolina?

Hamilton summarized some of Genet’s actions in a memorandum dated May 15, 1793.

In Charlestown, wrote Hamilton according to the National Archives, “he causes two privateers to be fitted out, to which he issues Commissions, to cruise against the enemies of France. There also, the Privateers are manned and partly with citizens of the United States, who are enlisted or engaged for the purpose, without the privity or permission of the Government of this Country; before even Mr. Jenet has delivered his credentials and been recognized as a public Minister. One or both these Privateers make captures of British Vessels, in the neighborhood of our Coasts, and bring or send their prizes into our Ports.”

“The injury and insult to our Government then, under the facts stated, cannot be doubted,” said Hamilton.

The Office of the Historian at the State Department has chronicled what happened next.

“Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson informed him that the United States Cabinet considered the outfitting of French privateers in American ports to be a violation of the U.S. policy of neutrality,” it said. “Genet ignored American warnings and allowed the outfitting of another French privateer, the Little Democrat.”

“Washington’s Cabinet met to consider a response to Genet’s defiant actions,” it said. “All members agreed to request Genet’s recall.”

In the meantime, however, control of revolutionary France had passed from the Girondins, who had sent Genet, to the Jacobins.

“President Washington and Attorney General Edmund Randolph, aware that Genet’s return to France would almost certainly result in his execution, allowed Genet to remain in the United States,” said the Office of the Historian.

And the Washington administration continued its policy of neutrality.

Six weeks before last November’s election, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took swipes at President Donald Trump and then-Sen. JD Vance.

“He is too radical,” Zelenskyy said of Vance in an interview with The New Yorker as reported by Fox News. His “message seems to be that Ukraine must make a sacrifice.”

“My feeling is that Trump doesn’t really know how to stop the war, even if he might think he knows how,” Zelenskyy said then.

Zelenskyy that month also visited a munitions plant in the swing state of Pennsylvania with three Democratic politicians—Gov. Josh Shapiro, then-Sen. Bob Casey, and then-Rep. Matt Cartwright.

House Speaker Mike Johnson sent Zelenskyy a letter condemning this event. “The tour was a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference,” Johnson said.

Casey and Cartwright lost their reelection bids—and in the aftermath of Zelenskyy’s disastrous meeting with Trump last week, an unnamed White House official told CNN: “We are pausing and reviewing our [military] aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution.”

Going forward, Zelenskyy should try to behave more like Ben Franklin than Edmond Genet.

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