148

HOW CHINA HELPED TO SHAPE AMERICAN CULTURE: THE

FOUNDNG FATHERS AND CHINESE CIVILIZATION

Dave Wang
St. John’s University

“Americans know the richness of China's history because it helped to shape

the world and it helped to shape America. We know the talent of the
Chinese people because they have helped to create this great country."

-Barrack Obama in his remarks at U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue

on July 27, 2009

The transmission of Chinese culture to colonial North America, later to be the

United States, is one of the most significant examples of the spread of Chinese
civilization overseas where no significant direct contact existed. In the meantime, the
efforts from the eminent colonists and the founding fathers of the United States to draw
nourishments from the culture provide an excellent example of how American culture
was influenced by Chinese culture.

The impact of Chinese culture on cultural, economical and political development of

North America was evident. For instance, Confucius, who has been regarded as the very
emblem of Chinese civilization, was very influential in colonial North America. Some
eminent colonists, including Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), Thomas Jefferson (1743-
1826), Thomas Paine (1737-1809), John Bartram (1699-1777), and Jedidiah Morse
(1761-1826), the pioneer of American geography, expressed their respecting for
Confucius and his moral philosophy. Franklin followed Confucius’ procedure for moral
cultivation and started to cultivate his virtue as early as 1727.1 In order to promote
Confucius’s moral philosophy in the colonies, Franklin published some excerpts adopted
from Morals of Confucius2 in his widely circulated Pennsylvania Gazette in 1737. In
addition, Franklin made it clear that he regarded Confucius as his role model in 1749.3
Thomas Jefferson, who had been compared to Confucius, 4 regarded his example as the
Chinese prince who was regarded as the ideal ruler by Confucius.5 In his Age of Reason,
1791-1792, Thomas Paine listed Confucius with Jesus and the Greek philosophers as the
world's great moral teachers.6 In his American Universal Geography7 Jedidiah Morse
(1761-1826) cited The Great Learning and the Doctrine of Mean, the two of the four
classics of Confucianism.8 Morse extolled the two classics as “the most excellent precepts
of wisdom and virtue, expressed with the greatest eloquence, elegance and precision.”9
John Bartram, an outstanding scientist in the colonies, wrote a paper, “Life and Character
of the Chinese Philosopher Confucius,”10 where he introduced Confucius’ life to his
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readers. One author loved Confucius’ philosophy so much that he named his pen name as
Confucius Discipulus. In his paper in the New Hampshire Magazine in September 1793,
this author told his readers that Confucius was “a character so truly virtuous.”11

One of the most obvious direct economical and political influences of the Chinese
culture upon social development in North America was the tea from China that helped
trigger the American Revolution. On December 17, 1773, a week away from Christmas
Eve, some colonial patriots, disguised as Indians, secretly entered Boston Harbor under
the cover of night. They boarded three British ships in the harbor and dumped some 350
chests of Chinese tea into the water. Their action was a protestation of taxation without
representation and the monopoly granted the East India Company (among other
complaints against the British regime). The importance of tea had developed into such a
degree that it impacted the historical course of the world. Tea had become a basic element
in North American colonial society so that in the 18th century, drinking tea in the
morning at home and socially in the afternoon or early evening became an "established
custom". A contemporary estimated that one third of the population drank tea twice a day.
Some visitors left us vivid records about tea drinking in Pennsylvania and New York.
“The favorite drink, especially after dinner, is tea.” A Swedish traveler found that there
was “hardly a farmer’s wife or a poor woman, who does not drink tea in the morning.” In
Philadelphia the women would rather go without their dinners than without “a dish of
tea.” The tea ceremony, with tea drinking, became the core of family life.

Two weeks before the Boston Tea Party, Benjamin Franklin, then the representative
from North American colonies, found that the colonists’ “steady refusal to take tea from
hence for several years past has made its impressions” in the British Parliament. Franklin
worked hard to make the Parliament issue a temporary license from the treasury to export
tea to America free of duty, knowing that neither side could gain anything through
peaceful negotiations.

Outraged colonists, including merchants, shippers and general masses, started

demonstrations, shortly after the Boston Tea Party. Just a year and a half after the colonial
patriots dumped the tea in Boston Harbor, the first shots were fired at Lexington. The
conflict caused by the justified right to drink tea without extra economic burden led to
political hostilities and led to the American war for independence.

Chinese Porcelain, like tea, had been imported into the British colonies a long time
before the founding of the United States. Settlers in Albany used China porcelain as early
as 1662.12 Benjamin Franklin told a personal story in his well read autobiography that
reveals to us the chinaware’s popularity in the colonial society:

Being call’d one Morning to Breakfast, I [Benjamin Franklin—writer] found it in a

China Bowl with a Spoon of Silver. They had been bought for me without my
Knowledge by my Wife, and had cost her the enormous Sum of three and twenty
Shillings, for which she had no other Excuse or Apology to make, but that she thought
her Husband deserv’d a Silver Spoon and China Bowl as well as any of his Neighbours.
This was the first Appearance of Plate and China in our House, which afterwards in a
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Course of Years as our Wealth encreas’d augmented gradually to several Hundred Pounds
in Value.13

The demand for Chinese porcelain and the efforts to get rid of Great Britain’s control
over it helped to create the national conscience of the patriots.

Benjamin Rush (1745-1813), one of the founding fathers of the United States, was
among the first group of colonists who put forward the concept of building a porcelain
factory in North America.14 Dr. Rush’s intention was to overcome the colonies’
dependence on Great Britain for goods and trade. The endeavor of building such a factory
was far beyond the porcelain only. It demonstrated the colonists’ determination to be
independent from their motherland.

Go on in encouraging American manufactures. I have many schemes in view with regard

to these things. I have made those mechanical arts which are connected with chemistry
the particular objects of my study and not without hopes of seeing a china manufactory
established in Philadelphia in the course of a few years. Yes, we will be revenged by the
mother country. For my part, I am resolved to devote my head, my heart, and my pen
entirely to the service of America, and promise myself much assistance from you in
everything of this kind that I shall attempt through life. 15

The Americans wanted to diminish their reliance on taxed imports and ultimately
their need for other goods controlled by England. Their pursuing self supply of Chinese
porcelain ware became a powerful call for the patriotic support of American economical
independence. Some colonists attempted to establish a porcelain manufactory company in
Philadelphia in 1769. They established the factory on Prime Street “near the present day
navy yard, intended to make china at a savings of 15,000 £. “16 Benjamin Franklin, who
was in London at the time, showed his happiness seeing the achievement made by his
countrymen. He said, “I am pleased to find so good progress made in the China
Manufactory. I wish it Success most heartily.”17

The American China Manufactory became noted for the porcelain ware it produced.
More importantly, it succeeded in cultivating patriotic support. It set in motion “an
intense competition between the young American factory and its English
contemporaries.”18 Although the porcelain factory lasted to 1772, it challenged Britain’s
monopoly of the Chinese products and ultimately contributed to the winning of American
independence. Benjamin Rush stated clearly that he had regarded the manufacture as an
important means to mobilize the Americans to build a new nation in North America:
“There is but one expedient left whereby we can save our sinking country, and that is by
encouraging American manufactures. Unless we do this, we shall be undone forever.” 19

In the wake of America’s victory in the revolution, some veterans of the

Revolutionary War wanted to establish a hereditary aristocracy in order to “distinguish
themselves and their posterity from their fellow citizens.” They wanted to form an order
of hereditary knights and organized the Society of Cincinnatus20, hoping to let their
posterity to inherit the honor. Franklin opposed the idea immediately, vowing: “Perhaps I
should not myself object to their wearing their ribbons and badges according to their
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fancy, tho’ I certainly should object to the entailing it as an honor of their posterity. For
honor worthily obtained, is in nature a personal thing, and incommunicable to any but
those who had some share in obtaining it.”21 Then he used an example from China to
combat the idea:

Thus among the Chinese, the most antient, and, from long Experience, the wisest of
Nations, Honour does not descend but ascends. If a Man from his Learning, his Wisdom
or his Valour, is promoted by the Emperor to the Rank of Mandarin, his Parents are
immediately intitled to all the same Ceremonies of Respect from the People, that are
establish’d as due to the Mandarin himself; on this Supposition, that it must have been
owing to the Education, Instruction, and good Example afforded him by his Parents that
he was rendered capable of Serving the Publick. This ascending Honour is therefore
useful to the State as it encourages Parents to give their Children a good and virtuous
Education. But the descending Honour, to Posterity who could have had no Share in
obtaining it, is not only groundless and absurd, but often hurtful to that Posterity, since it
is apt to make them proud, disdaining to be employed in useful Arts, and thence falling
into Poverty and all the Meannesses, Servility and Wretchedness attending it; which is the
present case with much of what is called the Noblesse in Europe. Or if, to keep up the
Dignity of the Family, Estates are entailed entire on the Eldest Male Heir, another Pest to
Industry and Improvement of the Country is introduced, which will be follow’d by all the
odious Mixture of Pride and Beggary, and Idleness that have half depopulated Spain,
occasioning continual Extinction of Families by the Discouragements of Marriage and
improvement of Estates. I wish therefore that the Cincinnati, if they must go on with their
Project, would direct the Badges of their Order to be worn by their Parents instead of
handing them down to their Children. It would be a good Precedent, and might have good
Effects.22

In 1783 the British signed the Treaty of Paris23 with the colonial representatives. The
colonists celebrated and enjoyed their hard won victory. However, the hilarious feeling of
victory was quickly shadowed by economic difficulties. The economy did not go along
with the political victory, but marched towards the opposite direction. Depression and
inflation seemed to grab the happy feeling away from the founding fathers and the
fighters of the Revolutionary War. Britain, which had just lost the war, was trying hard to
win the colonists over through economic coercion. All old trade routes were forced to
close to the Americans. Britain adopted the strategy of seeking to put enough economic
pressure on individual states to force them, one by one, to return to Mother England.24

At first, the British policy seemed to be effective. The Americans were feeling bitter
over the victory. They hardly had time to enjoy their freedom from Britain when the
national fiscal system was on the brink of collapse. Inflation was unbearable. For
example, a pound of tea cost $100, while an army private’s salary was $4 per month.
People were using paper money as wallpaper. In the streets of Philadelphia, men were
seen in a procession wearing the bills as cockades in their hats accompanied by a dog
covered with a coat of tar in which the paper money was thickly set. When Congress
demanded people pay tax, it was paid in its own money, a worthless paper from its own
printing machine.25
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There was no encouraging news from continental Europe. American representative

Benjamin Franklin wasn’t able to secure any more loans from the French government.
There was no good news from John Jay (1745-1829), the American representative in
Madrid, and John Adams (1797-1801), the American representative in the Netherlands.26

Americans desperately needed to trade. Political independence without economic

independence might well prove an unfruitful victory. As the first Minister of Finance of
the United States, Robert Morris (1734-1806) worked hard to find a new trade partner,
that was beyond Britain’s control. China became his first choice. The Empress of China
left New York on February 22, 1784 and returned triumphantly to New York on May 11,
1785.27 Her successful voyage brought a measure of prosperity and was seen as an
American economic salvation. The voyage had been a remarkable financial success. It
was a win-win two-way trade between China and the United States. The ship profited on
her investment about thirty percent.28 The success of the ship stimulated American
merchants. Other merchants were quick to see the value of the trade. In 1795, ten years
after the maiden voyage of the Empress of China, the United States became second to
Great Britain in the China trade.29 The Empress of China’s great success aroused so much
attention that the report about her sail was read in Congress. Since then, the US
government encouraged trade with China by maintaining favorable tariff policies.30
Under the support of the political leaders of the nation, American trade with China grew
rapidly. In 1820, a business leader who had engaged in the China trade remarked that it
had become “a profit source of emolument to our merchants and revenue to our
government.”31 By the first half of the 19th century, the Chinese port saw about 40
American ships a year loading and unloading. America’s purpose to win a place in
international commerce was successful.32 The sail of the Empress of China has been
claimed as “the brightest chapter in the maritime history of the United States.” 33

The Empress of China was by no means a purely commercial activity. Its political
symbol is significant: her sail to China made it clear to the world that the United States
was no longer the British colonies and was now an independent country. In celebration of
the sail of the Empress of China, Philip Freneau (1752-1832), an iconic poet of the
American Revolution, well known for his patriotism, explained the nature of the sail in
his widely circulated poem, “With clearance from BELLONA won/ She spreads her
wings to meet the Sun/ Those golden regions to explore/ Where George forbade to sail
before….To that old track no more confin’d/ By Britain’s jealous court assign’d/ She
round the STORMY CAPE shall sail/ And eastward, catch the odorous gale.”34 On May
19, 1785, as soon as the Empress of China returned, John Jay, the secretary of foreign
affairs of the Congress, expressed “a peculiar satisfaction in the successful issue of this
effort of the citizens of America to establish a direct trade with China, which does so
much honor to its undertakers and conductors.”35 In the meantime, the commercial
success generated by the trade had an impact on the political map of the nascent United
States. Three years after the success of the Empress of China, George Washington wanted
to induce the trade to southern United States in order to make political balance by induce
the China trade to the south. He sent David Stuart to survey the Potomac River to locate
an ideal place to build a warehouse for American trade with China.36 When Alexander
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Hamilton (1755/57-1804) planned a national bank, it was not a coincidence that he

planned for it to be in New York, one of the most important centers for trade with China.

The founding fathers regarded China as a place where they could find important
resources to promoting agricultural and industrial development in North America. They
made their exertion to transplant valuable plants from China to North America. Benjamin
Franklin obtained rhubarb seeds and sent them to John Bartram in 1772.37 George
Washington made his own experiments to plant Chinese flowers in his garden on
Mountain Vernon.38 Thomas Jefferson made long time commitment to transplant the dry
rice to southern United States.39 Samuel Bowen introduced soybeans from China into
Savannah, Georgia in 1765.40 Franklin also sent soybean seeds from London to John
Bartram in Philadelphia in 1770.41 Franklin expressed his great interest in Chinese
industrial technologies, such as heating house in the winter, ship building, paper making,
candle and mill and other technologies.42 Gouverneur Morris (1752-1816)43 was
influenced by the literature on the Grand Canal of China. The Chinese canal construction
technologies had an impact on the New Yorkers, who wanted to build the Erie Canal,
which could help in making New York one of the great cities in the United States.44
Jefferson borrowed elements from Chinese architecture in his effort to create a new style
of building.45 Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush also promoted the sericulture in
North America.46

The examination of the above historical facts leads to some significant discoveries.
Before the significant direct connection between China and the United States was
established, information and knowledge on China reached North America through
Europe. Books on China and the personal contact between Europe and North America
were main channels that Chinese culture reached North America. During this period the
main books introducing China and its civilization published in Europe were also available
in North America. Americans could learn all manner of subjects from agriculture,
science, philosophy, art and technology from these books.

The prominent colonists, including the founding fathers, who made their efforts to
draw nourishments from Chinese civilization, were those who stayed in Europe for a
period of time and maintained close contact with the Europeans who studied Chinese
culture and had information on China. They were the most important agents by whom
Chinese culture were transmitted to North America. Benjamin Franklin stayed and
worked in Europe for a good part of his life. In addition to a brief stay in England as a
young man, he stayed in London, a center of China studies in the world, from 1757 to
1775 and later went to Paris, another center of China studies, to be ambassador from
1776 to 1785. Thomas Jefferson, an important China lover, lived in Europe 1785-1789. In
Europe, both men contacted some main elements of Chinese cultures. It was by no
coincidence that they became main promoters of Chinese culture.

As opposed to direct transmission of Chinese civilization, there existed two

characters of the indirect transmitting: voluntary and selective. Their adoption of the
elements from Chinese culture was voluntary and carefully controlled. No one forced
Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson to learn from Chinese culture; they were self-
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starters. Instead of taking everything from the culture, they made their own selections and
took the elements which they thought would be useful in helping develop North America
into a strong and flourishing society. The enthusiasm and wisdom the founding fathers
possessed to adopt from Chinese culture distinguished them from those who expelled
other cultures than the European culture they inherited.

The spread of Chinese cultures into North America started with the efforts of the
eminent colonists, such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, who were mainly
responsible for broadening of Chinese civilization in North America. They used positive
elements from the civilization to answer the economical, social and political issues in
North America. Their efforts actually created a special pattern for integration of elements
from other cultures into the main culture. By incorporating elements from Chinese
culture into the European culture they carried over the Atlantic Ocean, the colonists took
significant steps toward the creation of a civilization of their own. Thomas Jefferson’s
incorporation of the design of Chinese railing into his own design of Italian style of
architectures, gave rise to a unique style of American architecture that persists to the
present day and has had a considerable impact on architecture in contemporary world.47

Why did the founding fathers put so much energy to learn from Chinese culture?
One simple answer is that China, as the most developed country in the time, could
provide what they needed in their endeavor to build a strong nation in North America.
Franklin told his fellow Americans, “The Chinese are an enlightened people, the most
antiently [anciently] civilized of any existing, and their arts are antient [ancient], a
presumption in their favour [favor]:”48 Thomas Paine also told Americans the Chinese
“are also a people of mild manners and of good morals.”49 Franklin regarded China as a
role model for North America. He stated, “Could we be so fortunate as to introduce the
industry of the Chinese, their arts of living and improvements in husbandry, as well as
their native plants, America might be in time become as populous as China, which is
allowed to contain more inhabitants than any other country, of the same extent, in the
world.”50 To help the northern colonists keep their houses warm in the winter, Franklin
borrowed from heating technology of warming house practiced in northern China and
invented a furnace based on the Chinese design.51 Franklin also applied his knowledge in
Chinese ship building to a proposal to institute passenger service between France and the
United States. 52 In 1771 Thomas Jefferson recommended to Robert Skipwith, his
brother-in-law, to read Chinese books, which he regarded as among the best books on
general subject available in America.53 Like Franklin, Jefferson had an open mind
concerning Chinese technologies and told his subordinates that Chinese products offered
“a better idea of the state of science in China than the relations of travelers have
effected.”54 Ezra Stile (1727-1795), president of Yale University, maintained that China,
“the greatest, the richest & most populous kingdom now known in the world.”55

These distinguished colonists maintained their interest in China for a long time from
the colonial era to the aftermath of the founding of the United States. In the eyes of an
author in New England, the newly established United States should “look beyond Europe
and to take China as model in agriculture, in government, and in personal liberty.”56
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Turn your eyes, to the eastern extremity of the Asiatic continent in habited by the
Chinese, and there you will be conceive a ravishing idea of the happiness the world might
enjoy, were the laws of this empire the model of other countries. This great nation unites
under the shade of agriculture, founded on liberty and reason, all the advantages
possessed by whatever nation, civilized or savage. The blessing pronounced on man, at
the moment of this creation, seems not to have had its full effect, but in favor of this
people, who have multiplied as the sands on the shore.
Princes, who rule over nations! Arbiters of their fat! View well this perspective: it is
worthy your attention. Would you wish abundance to flourish in your domains, would
you favor population, and make your people happy; behold those innumerable multitudes
which cover the territories of China, who leave not a shred of ground uncultivated; it is
liberty, it is their undisturbed right of property that has established a cultivation so
flourishing, under the auspices of which this people have increased as the grains which
cover their fields.
Does the glory of being the most powerful, the richest, and the happiest of sovereign
touch your ambition, turn your eyes towards Pekin, and behold the most powerful of
mortal beings seated on a throne of reason; he does not command, he instructs; his words
are not decrees, they are maxims of justice and wisdom; his people obey him, because his
orders are dictated by equity alone.
He is the most powerful of men, reigning over hearts of the most numerous society
in the world. He is the richest of the sovereigns, drawing from an extent o territory six
hundred leagues square cultivated even no summits of the mountains, the tenth of those
abundant harvests it increasingly produces: this he considers as the wealth of his
children\, and he husbands it with care.57

Unlike Europe where the societies had been established already, the Americans
worked to build a brand new society in North America. They started their endeavor from
scratch so their need for the elements from Chinese culture were different from that of
Europe. That is why we see that some Chinese books were largely ignored in Europe but
the same books were treated as treasures in America. The three books on China written
by the Swedish---A Voyage to China and the East Indies, by Peter Osbeck, a chaplain on
a voyage of the Swedish East India Company; A Voyage to Suratte, by Olaf Toreen,
another chaplain in the same service as Osbeck; and an Account of the Chinese
Husbandry, by Charles Gustavus Eckeberg, the captain of one of the company’s ships---
were published as a unit in Swedish in 1757. They were translated into German in 1765
and into English in 1771. However, the original Swedish and their German and English
translations “have been neglected by all the major histories of China in the European
Enlightenment.”58 Conversely, they were treated as treasures in North America. The
Pennsylvania Magazine edited by Thomas Paine introduced and recommended to
Americans the three books in August 1775. The magazine brought the following quote to
its readers from A Voyage to China and the East Indies;

Their observations on the heavens and earth, and their history are remarkable, on account
of their antiquity. (According to their accounts, they go as high as the times of Noah.)
Their morals are looked upon as a master-piece; their laws are considered as excellent
maxims of life; their medicine and natural history are both of them founded on long
experience; and their husbandry is admired for the perfection it has risen to. 59
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However, indirect borrowing from Chinese culture was influenced by the attitudes
of places where they borrowed the civilization. Starting from the 19th century, the
Europeans started to focus on the negative side of Chinese civilization. With the
development of modern science and technology in Europe, the European looked down on
the Chinese culture. This change of attitudes had an impact on the Americans. That
explains the receding of the trend that drew nourishments from Chinese civilization
started by the founding fathers in the modern United States.

I want also to point out that the positive attitudes of the founding fathers and other
eminent colonists never darkened the existence of the negative opinions on China in
North America. The negative opinions existed in the same time of the positive opinions
represented by the founding fathers with great wisdom. However, in the formative period
of American culture, the influence of negative attitudes never became a significant factor.

Nevertheless, the remarkable story of the effort to draw nourishments from Chinese
culture has served as an excellent case study of the creation of a new civilization by
adopting selected positive elements from other cultures and assimilating the elements into
the main culture. The colonists’ efforts have provided us with an ideal way of dealing
with other civilizations.

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This essay was inspired by a graduate student from the University of London. In April 2009, I was invited
by the Benjamin Franklin House at London to deliver my speech, “Benjamin Franklin and the Great Wall
of China,” After my presentation, a graduate student raised the question, “Chinese civilization was
transmitted from Europe to North America. Then, why Chinese civilization had such a big impact there?” It
wasn’t the first time that I was asked such a question. Back to 2005 in Rome, an Italian graduate student
from University of Rome asked me the same question in the wake of my presentation, “Benjamin Franklin
and Confucius Moral Philosophy.” I am sure that similar questions will be asked over and over again with
my future presentations in other places of the world. With this essay, I attempt to answer them and probably
future audience of my presentations on the influence of traditional Chinese culture on the early
development of the United States. This is the question I must answer before I examine Chinese cultural
influence on North America.
1
Dave Wang, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Chinese Civilization, Virginia Review of
Asian Studies 2009. http://virginiareviewofasianstudies.com/current3.html ;Exploring Benjamin Franklin’s Moral Life,
Franklin Gazette, Volume. 17, No. 1, Spring 2007 .
2
http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/Confucius.html
3
Franklin told Whitefield, “I am glad to hear that you have frequent opportunities of preaching among the great. If you can
gain them to a good and exemplary life, wonderful changes will follow in the manners of the lower ranks; for, Ad
Exemplum Regis, &c. On this principle Confucius, the famous eastern reformer, proceeded. When he saw his country sunk
in vice, and wickedness of all kinds triumphant, he applied himself first to the grandees; and having by his doctrine won
them to the cause of virtue, the commons followed in multitudes. The mode has a wonderful influence on mankind; and
there are numbers that perhaps fear less the being in Hell, than out of the fashion. Our more western reformations began
with the ignorant mob; and when numbers of them were gained, interest and party-views drew in the wise and great. Where
both methods can be used, reformations are like to be more speedy. O that some method could be found to make them
lasting! He that shall discover that, will, in my opinion, deserve more, ten thousand times, than the inventor of the
longtitude.” To George Whitefield, Philadelphia July 6, 1649. Reprinted from The Evangelical Magazine, XI (1803), 27-8; also AL
(fragment): American Philosophical Society. It is available on line at http://www.franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp
4
Professor Creel, a well-known scholar of Confucius said, “it is interesting to compare the thought of Thomas Jefferson
with that of Confucius. They were alike in their impatience with metaphysics, in their concern for the poor as against the
rich, in their insistence on basic human equality, in their belief in the essential decency of all men (including savages), and
in their appeal not to authority but to ‘the head and hart of every honest man.’ Jefferson’s statement that ‘the whole art of
government consists in the art of being honest’ is amazingly similar to Analects 12.7, and other such examples could be
cited.” H.G. Creel, Confucius: The Man and the Myth, New York, The John Day Company, p.275.
5
Dave Wang, All Posterity Will Remember My Legacy: Thomas Jefferson and a Legendary Chinese Prince, Huaren E-
Magazine (Australia) September, 2008, It is available on line at
6
Charlotte Allen, Confucius and Scholar, It is available on line at
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99apr/9904confucius.htm In The Prospect, 31 March 1804, Thomas Paine remarked, “As
a book of morals there are several parts of the New Testament that are good, but they are no other than what had been
preached in the Eastern world hundred years before Christ was born.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_the_MeanConfucius, the Chinese philosopher, who lived five hundred years
before the time of Christ, says, acknowledge thy benefits by the return of benefits, but never revenge injuries.” Philip S.
Foner, ed., Complete Writings of Thomas Paine, 2. vol. New York: Garden City, 1945, p.805.
7
http://www.archive.org/stream/americanuniversa02morsiala#page/n5/mode/2up
8
The four classics include, The Great Learning, The Doctrine of Mean, Analects and Mencious.
9
Jedidiah Morse, The American Universal Geography; or a View of the Present Situation of the United States and of all the
Empire, Kingdoms, States, and Republics in the Known World, 2 vols. Part II. Second edition of this volume. Boston: Isaiah
Thomas and Ebenezer Andrews.
10
According to John Bartram, Confucius “was born in the reign of the Emperor Ling Wang 551 years before the birth of
Christ. He was justly esteemed the Prince of Chinese philosophers and was the reformer of a sect of literati and the best and
wisest man that this or any other nation was ever blessed with. He applied himself to the study of moral philosophy at
fifteen years of age and soon became the most learned man of the empire; he had 3,000 disciples, 500 of whom bore public
officers in the state and were eminent for their learning.” Confucius “seems to have been the greatest moral as well as
practical philosopher that ever lived, and he excelled Pythagoras (570-495 BC--writer) in pursuit of religion and morals. He
was of the most exemplary sobriety and chastity of life, was endured with every virtue and free from every vice, and
showed the greatest equableness and magnanimity of temper even under the most unworthy treatment. His whole doctrine
tended to restore human nature to its original dignity and that first purity and luster which it had received from heaven and
which had been sullied and corrupted. He taught as means to obtain this end to honor and fear the Lord of Heaven, to love
our neighbor as ourselves, to subdue irregular passions and inclinations, to listen to reason in all things, and to do or say
nothing contrary to it. He taught kings and princes to be fathers to their subjects, to love them as their children, and he
taught subjects to reverence and obey their kings and governors with the honor and affection due to their parents….In short,
he was the original ultimate end of all things and the one supreme holy, intelligent, and invisible being”
See A. Owen Aldridge, The Dragon and the Eagle: The Presence of China in the American Enlightenment, Detroit: Wayne
State University Press, 1993, p. 32. The manuscript of the paper now is in The Morgan Library in New York.
11
According the author, Confucius “recommended the contempt of riches and outward pomp; he endeavored to inspire
magnanimity and greatness of soul” and to reclaim his countrymen from voluptuousness to reason and sobriety. “Kings
were governed by his counsels, and people reverenced his as saint.” See A. Owen Aldridge, The Dragon and the Eagle:
The Presence of China in the American Enlightenment, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1993, p. 36.
12
David Sanctuary Howard, New York and the China Trade, New York: New York Historical Society, 1984, pp. 61.
13
Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Part Eight, in the Papers of Benjamin Franklin. It is
available on line at http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp ,
14
Michael K. Brown, Piecing Together the Past: Recent research on the American China Manufactory, 1769-1772, in
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 133, no. 4, 1989, p.557.
15
Benjamin Rush to Thomas Bradford, 15 April 1768, in L. H. Butterfield ed., Letters of Benjamin Rush, Princeton
University Press, vol. 1, p. 54.
16
John Fanning Watson ed. Annals of Philadelphia. See also Michael K. Brown, Piecing Together the Past: Recent research
on the American China Manufactory, 1769-1772, in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 133, no. 4,
1989, p.555.
17
Benjamin Franklin to Deborah Franklin, 28 January 1772, in Franklin Papers. It is available on line at
http://www.franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp
18
Michael K. Brown, Piecing Together the Past: Recent research on the American China Manufactory, 1769-1772, in
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 133, no. 4, 1989, p.573.
19
Benjamin Rush to probably Jacob Rush, 26 January 1769, in L. H. Butterfield ed., Letters of Benjamin Rush, Princeton
University Press, vol. 1, p.74. Also in Pennsylvania Journal, no, 1374, 6 April 1769.
20
In the years soon after the revolution, membership continued to expand. Members have served in all the major offices of
the United States and many state governments. Some, including Thomas Jefferson, were alarmed at the apparent creation of
a hereditary elite; membership eligibility is inherited through primogeniture, and excludes enlisted men and in most cases
militia officers, unless they were placed under "State Line" or "Continental Line" forces for a substantial time period.
Benjamin Franklin was among the Society's earliest critics, though he would later accept its role in the Republic and join the
Society under honorary membership after the country stabilized. He voiced concerns not only about the apparent creation of
a noble order, but also the Society's use of the eagle in its emblem as evoking the traditions of heraldry. It was in his
writings on the Cincinnati Eagle that he also safely attacked its brother symbol, the Great Seal of the United States, without
having to do so directly. More about the city is available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Cincinnati
21
Benjamin Franklin, To Sarah Bache (unpublished) Passy, Jany. 26th. 1784, in The Papers of Benjamin Franklin,.ed. by
Yale University. It is also available on line at http://www.franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp
22
Benjamin Franklin, To Sarah Bache (unpublished) Passy, Jany. 26th. 1784, in The Papers of Benjamin Franklin,.ed. by
Yale University. It is also available on line at http://www.franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp; See also, Mark
Skousen, ed., The Completed Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin, Washington DC: Regnery Publishing Inc. 2006, pp.311-
312.
23
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1783)
24
Frank T. Reuter, Trials and Triumphs: George Washington’s Foreign Policy, Font Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1983, pp.17-
18.
25
Jim Powell, “The Man Who Financed the American Revolution,” available at
http://www.libertystory.net/LSACTIONROBERTMORRIS.htm .
26
Lisa Rogers, “Our Man in Paris,” Humanities, July/August 2002, vol. 23, issue 4, p. 12. See also
http://www.libertystory.net/LSACTIONROBERTMORRIS.htm.
27
Dave Wang, With China We Trade, Asia Times (Hong Kong), March 11, 2009, It is available on line at
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/KC11Cb01.html
28
Oscar Theodore Barck, New York City During the War for Independence: With Special Reference to the Period of British Occupation,
Port Washington: NY, 1931, p. 227.
29
David Sanctuary Howard, New York and the China Trade, New York: New York Historical Society, 1984, pp. 17-54.
30
“Thomas Jefferson to (Albert Gallatin) the Secretary of the Treasury, Monticello, August 1808,” in Jefferson’s Works Correspondence,
vol. XII, p. 134.
31
Robert Waln, Jr. Robert Waln Papers, Library Company of Philadelphia, vol. 3.
32
William Milburn, Oriental Commerce, London, 1813; Kenneth Scott Latourette, Voyages of American Ships to China, 1784-1844, and
Foster Rhea Dulles, The Old China Trade, Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1930.
33
Foster Rhea Dulles, The old China Trade, Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1930, p. 4.
34
Philip Freneau, Poems Written Between the Years 1768 & 1794 (Monmouth, New York, 1795).
35
In his letter of May 19 1785 to John Jay, Samuel Shaw (1754-1794), the supercargo of the Empress of China, reported,
“To every lover of his country as well as to those more immediately concerned in commerce, it must be a pleasing reflection
that a communication is thus happily opened between us and the eastern extremity of the globe.” Josiah Quincy, The
Journal of Major Samuel Shaw, Boston: Wm. Crosby and H. P. Nichols, 1847, p.341. John Jay’s remark was found in his
reply to Shaw.
36
George Washington, To David Stuart, May 5, 1787, Mr. Stuart wrote, “This letter relates to some observations I had
drawn up at the Genl request respecting the fitness of the Potomac for the China trade – as a place of deposit for the fur
trade.”
http://www.pbs.org/georgewashington/collection/pre-pres_1787may5.html
37
C. R. Woodward, Meet Dr. Franklin, Lancaster, PA, Lancaster Press, 1943, p.194.
38
Dave Wang, George Washington and Chinese Flowers Huanren E-Magazine(Australia), May 2009,
http://www.huaren.org/uploadedFiles/1245107218802-7790.pdf
39
Dave Wang, Asian Dry Rice and Slaves’ Living Environment: Thomas Jefferson’s Efforts to Transplant the Rice to the
United States, Huanren E-Magazine (Australia) September 2009.
40
Soybeans were introduced to the United States by Samuel Bowen, a seaman who brought the seeds from China. At
Bowen's request, Henry Yonge planted the first soybean crop on his farm in Thunderbolt, a few miles east of Savannah, in
1765. See The New Encycopedia of Georgia. It is available on line,
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Multimedia.jsp?id=m-3096; T. Hymowits and J. R. Harlan, Introduction of
Soybean to North America by Samuel Bowen in 1765, Economy Botany, Vol. 37, no. 4 (Oct.-Dec. 1983), p.371.
41
Dave Wang, Benjamin Franklin and China: A Survey of Benjamin Franklin’s Efforts at Drawing Positive Elements from
Chinese Civilization during the Formative Age of the United States, The Historical Review: A Biannual Journal of History
and Archaeology, Vol. XIII, no. 1 & 2, 2005, published by Indian Institute of Oriental Studies and research, pp.13-14. See
also Theodore Hymowitz, Introduction of the Soybean to Illinois, Economy Botany, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Jan-Mar. 1987), p.28.
42
Dave Wang, Benjamin Franklin and Chinese Civilization, Reset Dialogue on Civilizations, Well-known European
Website (Italy). http://www.resetdoc.org/EN/Franklin-Wang.php; Benjamin Franklin and China: A Survey of Benjamin
Franklin’s Efforts at Drawing Positive Elements from Chinese Civilization during the Formative Age of the United States,
which is published since 2005 by the Official Website of the Tercentenary Commission headed by Honorary Chairman,
President George W. Bush. http://www.benfranklin300.org/etc_essays.htm
43
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouverneur_Morris
44
Craig R. Hanyan, China and the Erie Canal, in Business Review, Winter 1961.
45
Dave Wang, Thomas Jefferson and Chinese Architecture: Chinese Culture in North America before the Founding of the
United States, Huanren E-Magazine (Auatralia), January 2009, Chinese New Year Edition
http://www.huaren.org/uploadedFiles/1235090967870-5421.pdf
46
Dave Wang, Benjamin Franklin’s Efforts to Promote Sericulture in North America, in Benjamin Franklin Gazette, Vol. 18,
no. 2, Summer 2008. Benjamin Rush told his fellow colonists “Mulberry trees are so plenty among us that we might raise
silkworms in a few years to supply us with all the silk we want, as oak leaves (when those of the mulberry are not to be had)
have been found in China to afford a food to the worms.” (Benjamin Rush to probably Jacob Rush, 26 January 1769, in L.
H. Butterfield ed., Letters of Benjamin Rush, Princeton University Press, vol. 1, p.74. Also in Pennsylvania Journal, no,
1374, 6 April 1769.)

47
Dave Wang, Thomas Jefferson and Chinese Architecture: Chinese Culture in North America before the Founding of the
United States, Huanren E-Magazine (Australia), January 2009, Chinese New Year Edition
http://www.huaren.org/uploadedFiles/1235090967870-5421.pdf
48
Benjamin Franklin, 1785: Benjamin Franklin's 'Sundry Maritime Observations'. It is available on line at
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/library/readings/gulf/gulf.html
49
Paine remarked, “The Chinese are a people who have all the appearance of far greater antiquity than the Jews, and in
point of permanency there is no comparison. They are also a people of mild manners and of good moral, except where they
have been corrupted by European commerce. Yet we take the word of a restless bloody-minded people, as the Jews of
Palestine were, when we would reject the same authority from a better people.” Philip S. Foner ed., Completed Writings of
Thomas Paine, vol 2, New York: Garden City, 1945, p.737.
50
Ellis Paxson Oberholzer, Franklin’s Philosophical Society, in The Popular Science Monthly, March 1902, p.432.
51
Dave Wang, Benjamin Franklin and China: A Survey of Benjamin Franklin’s Efforts at Drawing Positive Elements from
Chinese Civilization during the Formative Age of the United States, The Historical Review: A Biannual Journal of History
and Archaeology, Vol. XIII, no. 1 & 2, 2005, p.12
52
Dave Wang, Benjamin Franklin and China: A Survey of Benjamin Franklin’s Efforts at Drawing Positive Elements from
Chinese Civilization during the Formative Age of the United States, The Historical Review: A Biannual Journal of History
and Archaeology, Vol. XIII, no. 1 & 2, 2005, p.13.
53
Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, vol. 1, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950, p.76-81. The letter is
available on line at http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?
id=JefLett.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=5&division=div1
54
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Charles Jared Ingersoll, July 20, 1818, in Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. by A. A.
Lipscomb & A. E. Bergh, vol. 19, Washington D.C. Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, p.262.
55
Ezra Stiles, Letters and Papers of Ezra Stiles (microform), Isabel M. Calder, ed., New Haven: Yale University Press,
1933, Item 130.
56
A. Owen Aldridge, The Dragon and the Eagle: The Presence of China in the American Enlightenment, Detroit: Wayne
State University Press, 1993, p.156.
57
New Haven Gazette 21 June 1787, vol. 2, p.142.
58
A. Owen Aldridge, p.34.
59
Peter Osbeck, A Voyage to China and the West Indies by Peter Osbeck….A Voyage to Surette by Olafe Toren….An
Account of the Chinese Husbandry. By Captain Charles Gustavus Eckeberg. Translated from the Geran. By John Rheinhold
Foster. 2 vols. London: Benjamin White. See also A. Owen Aldridge, The Dragon and the Eagle: The Presence of China in
the American Enlightenment, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1993, p.35.