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This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (center, color, defense, realize, traveled) and some terms may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Benjamin Franklin was a History good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
October 9, 2010	Peer review	Reviewed
June 28, 2015	Good article nominee	Not listed

Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on June 15, 2005, June 15, 2006, October 19, 2021, and April 17, 2022.

Current status: Former good article nominee

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This article has been mentioned by a media organization:

Mike Vago (2014-09-08). "This week's Wiki Wormhole is all about the Benjamin (Franklin, that is)". The A.V. Club.

Text or other creative content from this version of Benjamin Franklin was copied or moved into Gulf Stream with this edit. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists.

This article has been viewed enough times in a single week to appear in the Top 25 Report. The week in which this happened:

August 28 to September 3, 2016 (22nd)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 August 2026

Latest comment: 1 month ago2 comments2 people in discussion

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Please change "Benjamin Franklin thought that slavery was "an atrocious debasement of human nature" and "a source of serious evils."" to "Benjamin Franklin thought that slavery was "an atrocious debasement of human nature.""

The latter part of the current sentence implies Franklin referred to slavery as "a source of serious evils"; however, the quote is from the 1789 "Address to the Public" in which Franklin wrote "Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils."

In other words, Franklin was saying that the abolition of slavery, if not done with "care," would be a source of serious evils - it was not a characterization of slavery itself. Aaronbcowan (talk) 19:19, 1 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Done DrOrinScrivello (talk) 15:18, 3 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Semi-protected edit request on 1 October 2026

Latest comment: 1 day ago2 comments2 people in discussion

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Can you please give me the sources you got this information from i need it to make sure it a trusted website Geraldplapper (talk) 14:47, 1 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

Not done: This isn't what edit requests are for. If you want to read the references of an article, you can either click the superscript blue numbers in the article body, or scroll down to the section of the article titled "References". From there, you can click to read the original source. crtbob@talk:~$ ls contribs 15:42, 1 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

A page that knows where it met you.

Semi-protected edit request on 1 August 2026

Semi-protected edit request on 1 October 2026