Unless one is prepared to set Franklin down as an Englishman, which would be as reasonable as to say that Daniel Webster was a fine example of the Slavic race, it must be admitted that it was possible for the thirteen colonies to produce in the eighteenth century a genuine American who won immortal fame.
Lodge argues against the notion of categorizing Franklin as an Englishman, asserting the possibility of American identity in the colonies.
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So Valiant-for-Truth passed over and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.
The blood of some ancestral Scotch covenanter or of some Dutch reformed preacher facing the tyranny of Philip of Spain was in his veins, and with his large opportunities and his vast audiences he was always ready to appeal for justice and…
He was unfailingly attractive, because he was always perfectly natural and his own unconscious self.
He was also--and this is very revealing and explanatory, too, of his vast popularity--a man of ideals.