Benjamin Franklin

by Jr. John T. Morse

With reference to the enforcement of claims in the courts, he was asked whether the people would not use the stamps "rather than remain ... unable to obtain any right or recover by law any debt?" He replied: "It is hard to say what they would do. I can only judge what other people will think, and how they will act, by what I feel within myself. I have a great many debts due to me in America, and I would rather they should remain unrecoverable by any law than submit to the Stamp Act."

A few weeks later he wrote: "I have some little property in America. I will freely spend nineteen shillings in the pound to defend my right of giving or refusing the other shilling. And, after all, if I cannot defend that right, I can retire cheerfully with my family into the boundless woods of America, which are sure to afford freedom and subsistence to any man who can bait a hook or pull a trigger." The picture of Dr. Franklin, the philosopher, at the age of sixty-one, "cheerfully" sustaining his family in the wilderness by the winnings of his rod and his rifle stirs one's sense of humor; but the paragraph indicates that he was in strict harmony with his countrymen, who were expressing serious resolution with some rhetorical exaggeration, in the American fashion.

The main argument of the colonies, that under the British constitution there could be no taxation without representation, was of course introduced into the examination; and Franklin seized the occasion to express his theory very ingeniously. Referring to the fact that, by the Declaration of Rights, no money could "be raised on the subject but by consent of Parliament," the subtle question was put: How the colonists could think that they themselves had a right to levy money for the crown? Franklin replied: "They understand that clause to relate only to subjects within the realm; that no money can be levied on them for the crown but by consent of Parliament. The colonies are not supposed to be within the realm; they have assemblies of their own, which are their parliaments." This was a favorite theory with him, in expounding which he likened the colonies to Ireland, and to Scotland before the union. Many sentences to the same purport occur in his writings; for example: "These writers against the colonies all bewilder themselves by supposing the colonies within the realm, which is not the case, nor ever was." "If an Englishman goes into a foreign country, he is subject to the laws and government he finds there. If he finds no government or laws there, he is subject there to none, till he and his companions, if he has any, make laws for themselves; and this was the case of the first settlers in America. Otherwise, if they carried the English laws and power of Parliament with them, what advantage could the Puritans propose to themselves by going?" "The colonists carried no law with them; they carried only a power of making laws, or adopting such parts of the English law or of any other law as they should think suitable to their circumstances."[21] Radical doctrines these, which he could not reasonably expect would find favor under any principles of government then known in the world. To the like effect were other assertions of his, made somewhat later: "In fact, the British Empire is not a single state; it comprehends many." "The sovereignty of the crown I understand. The sovereignty of the British legislature out of Britain I do not understand." "The king, and not the King, Lords, and Commons collectively, is their sovereign; and the king with their respective parliaments is their only legislator."[22] "The Parliament of Great Britain has not, never had, and of right never can have, without consent given either before or after, power to make laws of sufficient force to bind the subjects of America in any case whatever, and particularly in taxation." The singular phrase "the subjects of America" is worth noting. In 1769, still reiterating the same principle, he said: "We are free subjects of the king; and fellow subjects of one part of his dominions are not sovereigns over fellow subjects in any other part."

It is a singular fact that Franklin long cherished a personal regard towards the king, and a faith in his friendly and liberal purposes towards the colonies. Indignation against the Parliament was offset by confidence in George III. Even so late as the spring of 1769, he writes to a friend in America: "I hope nothing that has happened, or may happen, will diminish in the least our loyalty to our sovereign, or affection for this nation in general. I can scarcely conceive a king of better disposition, of more exemplary virtues, or more truly desirous of promoting the welfare of all his subjects. The experience we have had of the family in the two preceding mild reigns, and the good temper of our young princes, so far as can yet be discovered, promise us a continuance of this felicity." Of the British people too he thought kindly. But for the Parliament he could find no excuse. He admitted that it might be "decent" indeed to speak in the "public papers" of the "wisdom and the justice of Parliament;" nevertheless, the ascription of these qualities to the present Parliament certainly was not true, whatever might be the case as to any future one. The next year found him still counseling that the colonies should hold fast to their allegiance to their king, who had the best disposition towards them, and was their most efficient bulwark against "the arbitrary power of a corrupt Parliament." In the summer of 1773, he was seeking excuses for the king's adherence to the principle that Parliament could legally tax the colonies: "when one considers the king's situation," with all his ministers, advisers, judges, and the great majority of both houses holding this view, when "one reflects how necessary it is for him to be well with his Parliament," and that any action of his countenancing a doctrine contrary to that of both the Lords and the Commons "would hazard his embroiling himself with those powerful bodies," Franklin was of opinion that it seemed "hardly to be expected from him that he should take any step of that kind." But this was the last apology which he uttered for George III. He was about to reach the same estimation of that monarch which has been adopted by posterity. Only a very little later he writes: "Between you and me, the late measures have been, I suspect, very much the king's own, and he has in some cases a great share of what his friends call firmness." Thus tardily, reluctantly, and at first gently, the kindly philosopher began to admit to himself and others the truth as to his Majesty's disposition and character.

Some persons in England, affected by the powerful argument of non-representation, proposed that the colonies should be represented in Parliament; and about the time of the Stamp Act the possibility of such an arrangement was seriously discussed. Franklin was willing to speak kindly of a plan which was logically unobjectionable, and which involved the admission that the existing condition was unjust; but he knew very well that it would never develop into a practicable solution of the problem, and in fact it soon dropped out of men's minds. January 6, 1766, he wrote that in his opinion the measure of an Union, as he shrewdly called it, was a wise one; "but," he said, "I doubt it will hardly be thought so here until it is too late to attempt it. The time has been when the colonies would have esteemed it a great advantage, as well as honor, to be permitted to send members to Parliament, and would have asked for that privilege if they could have had the least hopes of obtaining it. The time is now come when they are indifferent about it, and will probably not ask it, though they might accept it, if offered them; and the time will come when they will certainly refuse it. But if such an Union were now established (which methinks it highly imports this country to establish), it would probably subsist so long as Britain shall continue a nation. This people, however, is too proud, and too much despises the Americans to bear the thought of admitting them to such an equitable participation in the government of the whole."[23]

Haughty words these, though so tranquilly spoken, and which must have startled many a dignified Briton: behold! a mere colonist, the son of a tallow chandler, is actually declaring that those puny colonies of simple "farmers, husbandmen, and planters" were already "indifferent" about, and would soon feel in condition to "refuse," representation in such a body as the Parliament of England; also that it "highly imported" Great Britain to seek amalgamation while yet it could be had! But Franklin meant what he said, and he repeated it more than once, very earnestly. He resented that temper, of which he saw so much on every side, and which he clearly described by saying that every individual in England felt himself to be "part of a sovereign over America."

Men of a different habit of mind of course reiterated the shallow and threadbare nonsense about "virtual," or as it would be called nowadays constructive, representation of the colonies, likening them to Birmingham, Manchester, and other towns which sent no members to Parliament—as if problems in politics followed the rule of algebra, that negative quantities, multiplied, produce a positive quantity. But Franklin concerned himself little about this unreasonable reasoning, which indeed soon had an effect eminently disagreeable to the class of men who stupidly uttered it. For it was promptly replied that if there were such large bodies of unrepresented Englishmen, it betokened a wrong state of affairs in England also. If English freeholders have not the right of suffrage, said Franklin, "they are injured. Then rectify what is amiss among yourselves, and do not make it a justification of more wrong."[24] Thus that movement began which in time brought about parliamentary reform, another result of this American disturbance which was extremely distasteful to that stratum of English society which was most strenuous against the colonists.

Still another point which demanded elucidation was, why Parliament should not have the power to lay internal taxes just as much as to levy duties. Grenville said: "External and internal taxes are the same in effect, and only differ in name;" and the authority of Parliament to lay external taxes had never been called in question. Franklin's examiners tried him upon this matter: Can you show that there is any kind of difference between the two taxes, to the colony on which they are laid? He answered: "I think the difference is very great. An external tax is a duty laid on commodities imported; that duty is added to the first cost and other charges on the commodity, and, when it is offered for sale, makes a part of the price. If the people do not like it at that price, they refuse it; they are not obliged to pay for it. But an internal tax is forced from the people without their consent, if not laid by their own representatives. The Stamp Act says, we shall have no commerce, make no exchange of property with each other, neither purchase, nor grant, nor recover debts; we shall neither marry nor make our wills; unless we pay such and such sums." It was suggested that an external tax might be laid on the necessaries of life, which the people must have; but Franklin said that the colonies were, or very soon would be, in a position to produce for themselves all necessaries. He was then asked what was the difference "between a duty on the importation of goods and an excise on their consumption?" He replied that there was a very material one; the excise, for reasons given, seemed unlawful. "But the sea is yours; you maintain by your fleets the safety of navigation in it, and keep it clear of pirates; you may have, therefore, a natural and equitable right to some toll or duty on merchandises carried through that part of your dominions, towards defraying the expense you are at in ships to maintain the safety of that carriage." This was a rather narrow basis on which to build the broad and weighty superstructure of the British Custom House; but it was not to be expected that Franklin should supply any better arguments upon that side of the question. It was obvious that Grenville's proposition might lead to two conclusions. He said: External and internal taxation are in principle substantially identical; we have the right to the former; therefore we must have the right to the latter. It was a quick reply: Since you have not a right to the latter, you cannot have a right to the former. But Franklin, being a prudent man, kept within his intrenchments, and would not hazard increasing the opposition to the colonial claims by occupying this advanced ground. He hinted at it, nevertheless: "At present the colonists do not reason so; but in time they possibly may be convinced by these arguments;" and so they were.

Franklin also in his examination, and at many other times and places, had something to say as to the willingness of the colonies to bear their full share of public burdens. He spoke with warmth and feeling, but with an entire absence of boastfulness or rodomontade. He achieved his purpose by simply recalling such facts as that the colonies in the late war had kept 25,000 troops in the field; that they had raised sums of money so large that even the English Parliament had seen that they were exceeding any reasonable estimate of their capacity, and had voted some partial restitution to them; and that they had received thanks, official and formal yet apparently sincere, for their zeal and their services. Few Englishmen knew these things. So, too, he said, the Americans would help the mother country in an European war, so far as they could; for they regarded themselves as a part of the empire, and really had an affection and loyalty towards England.