Plausibly Live! - The Official Podcast Of The Dave Bowman Show

In this episode of *Liberty 250*, we follow Benjamin Franklin’s journey from loyal servant of the British Crown to committed American revolutionary. It begins with the Hutchinson Letter Scandal, where Franklin’s attempt to ease tensions by quietly exposing colonial corruption backfires, igniting public fury and British outrage. Then comes the Boston Tea Party—a dramatic protest Franklin condemns as reckless vandalism. But the Crown’s overreaction, in the form of the Coercive Acts, makes clear to Franklin that reconciliation is a fantasy. Humiliated before the Privy Council, stripped of his post, and cast out of polite society, Franklin crosses a personal Rubicon. He returns to America not as a diplomat, but as a patriot. By 1776, he is helping draft the Declaration of Independence. Tune in as we trace the events that transformed one of the most reasonable men in the empire into a founding father of rebellion.