Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor John Winthrop, 1630

Read and annotate the documents. Consider the following questions:

Consider point of view and context for both documents.
What are a few key values both Winthrop and Franklin convey?
Why are these documents still seen as significant today?

“City Upon A Hill Sermon”, 1630

by Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor John Winthrop

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... Now the only way to avoid [doom] and provide for our posterity is to ... do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together in this work as one man, we must entertain each other in brotherly affection.
... We must uphold commerce together in gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other, rejoice together, mourn, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes the welfare of our community above others so the Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us so we shall see more of his wisdom, power and goodness.
... We shall find that God is among us when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemy [and they] shall say the Lord [favors] New England. For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story [of shame] through the world.
But if our hearts shall turn away so that we do not obey the Lord, but shall worship other gods or our pleasures and profits, we shall surely perish of this good land we possess. Therefore, let us choose [God’s path] that we and our seed may live, by obeying his voice and clinging to him, for he is our life and our prosperity.

Emigration to America -- Information for those Who Would Move to America, 1782

by Benjamin Franklin

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Who then is the kind of person to whom an emigration to America may be advantageous? And what may these persons reasonably expect?
Land is cheap in that country with vast forests still void of inhabitants and not likely to be occupied for an age to come. Property of a hundred acres of fertile soil full of wood may be obtained near the frontiers, in many places for eight or ten guineas. Hearty young laboring men who understand the husbandry of corn and cattle, which is nearly the same as in America as in Europe, will easily establish themselves. A little money saved from the good wages they will receive there while they work for others enables them to buy the land and begin their [farm]. They may expect the good will of neighbors and some credit as well. Multitudes of poor people from England, Ireland, Scotland, Sweden and Germany have by this means in a few years become wealthy farmers, who, in their own countries, where the land is fully occupied and wages low, could never emerge from the poor condition wherein they were born.
From the [cleanliness] of the air, the healthiness of the climate, the multitude of good provisions and the encouragement of early marriages by the certainty of subsistence from the cultivation of the earth, as well as the addition of strangers, the increase in population is very rapid in America. Hence there is a continual demand for more skilled laborers of every kind to supply those cultivators of the earth with houses, furniture and all the utensils of life that cannot be brought from Europe. Even tolerably good workmen in any mechanic art are sure to find employ, and be well paid for their work, there being no restraint on preventing newcomers from holding any job they wish. If they are poor, they begin at first as servants or journeymen; and if they are sober, industrious and frugal, they soon become masters of their craft, establish themselves in business, marry, raise families and become respectable citizens.
Also, persons of moderate fortunes and capital who may have a large number of children to provide for and to secure estates for their posterity have the opportunities of doing it in America that Europe does not afford. There are many schools where they may be taught to practice profitable mechanical arts. Also, when small capitals is laid out for land that daily becomes more valuable by the increase of people, a solid prospect of ample fortune in the coming years is available for those children. I know of several instances of large tracts of Pennsylvania frontier land bought for ten pounds per hundred acres, which 20 years later after settlement had passed them sold readily, without any improvement at three pounds per acre.
However, there are few in America who are more than moderately wealthy so nearly all must follow some business for subsistence and idleness is in a great measure prevented. Industriousness and employment are great preservations of the morals and virtues of a nation. Hence, bad examples to youth are rare in America, which is good news to parents who consider coming. To this may be added that serious religion under its various denominations, is not only tolerated, but also practiced widely and respected. Atheism and infidelity are rare and secret. Different sects treat each other with mutual forbearance and kindness. It seems that the Divine Being has manifested an appreciation and favorupon this land with which he has not bestowed upon Europe.