Benjamin Franklin existed as a person who advocated.
Benjamin Franklin . Franklin was a renowned polymath and a leading author , printer , political theorist , politician , freemason , postmaster , scientist , inventor , civic activist , statesman , and diplomat . Franklin earned the title of `` The First American '' for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity , initially as an author and spokesman in London for several colonies . Franklin was foundational in defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical values of thrift , hard work , education , community spirit , self-governing institutions , and opposition to authoritarianism both political and religious , with the scientific and tolerant values of the Enlightenment . He initially owned and dealt in slaves but , by the 1750s , he argued against slavery from an economic perspective and became one of the most prominent abolitionists . Benjamin Franklin (clergyman) . He is notable as the early and lifelong mentor of Daniel Sommer , whose support of the 1889 Sand Creek Declaration set in motion events which led to the formal division of the Churches of Christ from the Disciples of Christ in 1906 .