D.H Lawrence vs Franklin

When Lawrence says that Franklin is the first "dummy American," he means that Franklin is disregarding God, creating his own deity for his own purposes. Which is funny, because Lawrence is doing the same with Franklin's words. Franklin wasn't telling people not to go to Church and to believe in God when he said they should be "master unto himself, and don't even let the Lord put His spoke in." What was obviously meant here was to not let oneself be bogged down by such things. The reason many people came to America was religious freedom and quite a few found more prosecution when they went to an area that wasn't pleased by their ideas. Franklin was obviously a forward thinker and far from a dummy.