Editing Benjamin Franklin (section)

== Later Life and Legacy ==

After returning from France in 1785, the 79-year-old Franklin served three one-year terms as President of Pennsylvania's Supreme Executive Council—effectively the state's governor. In 1787, he became president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, publicly reversing the position he had held earlier in life when he had owned enslaved people and published slave advertisements in his newspaper.

Franklin spent his final years at his Philadelphia home, suffering from gout and kidney stones but remaining intellectually active. He died on April 17, 1790, three months after his 84th birthday. His will provided for the City of Philadelphia and the City of Boston to receive £1,000 each, with instructions to lend the money at interest for 200 years—a gift that eventually provided millions for public works in both cities.