The Revolutionary Portfolio: Constitution-Making and the Wider World in the American Revolution

ion of rights as natural, equal, and universal. 814 SUFFOLK UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. XLVII:759 now claimed a spot at Versailles was playing a role in a tale almost everyone wanted to believe. Franklin regaled his hosts with descriptions of the new American institutions. He also presented the portfolio to foreign ministers and envoys from across Europe as part of the American Commissioners’ credentials. The documents themselves were the first reliable reports of governmental behavior in the revolutionary states (stylized reports of course) and ones that even Franklin and the rest of the commissioners could not elaborate much upon because they too had limited information about what was transpiring at home. News took at least five or six weeks to reach Paris from America. Consequently, the portfolio was, for a while, the only source of information for European observers. During his fourth month in Paris, Franklin reported the following to the Continental Congress: All Europe is for us. Our Articles of Confederation being by our means translated and published here, have given an appearance of consistence and firmness to the American States and Government that begins to make them considerable. The separate constitutions of the several States are also translating and publishing here, which afford abundance of speculation to the politicians of Europe, and it is a very general opinion that if we succeed in establishing our liberties, we shall, as soon as peace is restored, receive an immense addition of numbers and wealth from Europe, by the families who will come over to participate in our privileges, and bring their estates with them. Tyranny is so generally established in the rest of the world, that the prospect of an asylum in America for those who love liberty, gives general joy, and our cause is esteemed the cause of all mankind. Slaves naturally become base, as well as wretched. We are fighting for the dignity and happiness of human nature. Glorious is it for the Americans to be called by Providence to this post of honor. Cursed and detested will every one be that deserts or betrays 306. See generally SCHIFF, supra note 217. 307. See Letter from the American Commissioners to Baron de Schulenburg (Feb. 14, 1777), available at http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-23-02-0205 (presenting Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and Model Treaty to envoy of Frederick the Great of Prussia). We have the honor of inclosing the Declaration of the Independancy of the United States of North America, with the Articles of their Confederation; which we desire you to take the earliest Opportunity of laying before his Majesty, the King of Prussia; At the same time We wish he may be assured of the earnest desire of the United States to obtain his Friendship; and by a free Commerce, to establish an intercourse between their distant Countries, which they are Confident must be mutually beneficial. Id. 308. See 2 THE REVOLUTIONARY DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES 283 (Francis Wharton ed., 1889) (“Our total ignorance of the truth or falsehood of facts, when questions are asked of us concerning them, makes us appear small in the eyes of the people here, and is prejudicial to our negotiations.”). 2014] THE REVOLUTIONARY PORTFOLIO 815