The True Benjamin Franklin

by Sydney George Fisher

Another right for which the Pennsylvania Assembly always strenuously contended was that any bill passed by it for raising money for the crown must be simply accepted or rejected by the governor. He was not to attempt to force its amendment by threats of rejection, or to interfere in any way with the manner of raising the money, and was to have no control over its disbursement. The king had a right to ask for aid, but the colony reserved the right to use its own methods in furnishing it.

These rights the proprietors were constantly trying to break down by instructing their governors to assent to money and other bills only on certain conditions, among which was the stipulation that they should not go into effect until the king’s pleasure was known. They sent out their governors with secret instructions, and compelled them to give bonds for their faithful performance. When the governors declined to reveal these instructions, the Assembly thought it had another grievance, for it had always refused to be governed in this manner; and was now more determined than ever to maintain this point because several bills had been introduced in Parliament for the purpose of making royal instructions to governors binding on all the colonial assemblies without regard to their charters or constitutions.

These were all very serious designs on liberty, and the proprietors took advantage of the war necessities and Braddock’s defeat to carry them out in the most extreme form. The home government was calling on all the colonies for war supplies, and Pennsylvania must comply not only to secure her own safety but under fear of displeasing the Parliament and king. If under such pressure she could be induced to pass some of the supply bills at the dictation of the governor, or with an admission of the validity of his secret instructions, a precedent would be established and the proprietary hold on the province greatly strengthened.

The Quakers, especially those comprising the majority in the Assembly, were not at heart opposed to war or to granting war supplies. As they expressed it in the preamble to one of their laws, they had no objection to others bearing arms, but were themselves principled against it. If the others wished to fight, or if it was necessary for the province to fight, they, as the governing body, would furnish the means. Franklin relates how, when he was organizing the Associators, it was proposed in the Union Fire Company that sixty pounds should be expended in buying tickets in a lottery, the object of which was to raise money for the purchase of cannon. There were twenty-two Quakers in the fire company and eight others; but the twenty-two, by purposely absenting themselves, allowed the proposition to be carried.

The Quaker Assembly voted money for war supplies as liberally and as loyally as the Assembly of any other colony; but at every step it was met by the designs of the governor to force upon it those conditions which would be equivalent to a surrender of the liberties of the colony. Thus, in 1754 it voted a war supply of twenty thousand pounds, which was the same amount as Virginia, the most active of the colonies against the French, had just subscribed, and was much more than other colonies gave. New York gave only five thousand pounds, Maryland six thousand pounds, and New Jersey nothing. But the governor refused his assent to the bill unless a clause was inserted suspending it until the approval of the king had been obtained, and this condition the Assembly felt bound to reject.

During the whole seven years of the war these contests with the governor continued; and the members of the Assembly, to show their zeal for the war, were obliged at times to raise the money on their own credit without submitting their bill to the governor for his approval. In these struggles Franklin bore a prominent part, drafting the replies which the Assembly made to the governor’s messages, and acquiring a most thorough knowledge of all the principles of colonial liberty. At the same time he continued to enjoy jovial personal relations with the governors whom he resisted so vigorously in the Assembly, and was often invited to dine with them, when they would joke with him about his support of the Quakers.

The disputes were increased about the time of Braddock’s defeat by a new subject of controversy. As the Assembly was passing bills for war supplies which had to be raised by taxation, it was thought to be no more than right that the proprietary estates should also bear their share of the tax. The proprietors owned vast tracts of land which they had not yet sold to the people, and as the war was being waged for the defence of these as well as all the other property of the country, the Assembly and the people in general were naturally very indignant when the governor refused his consent to any bill which did not expressly exempt these lands from taxation. The amount assessed on the proprietary land was trifling,—only five hundred pounds; but both parties felt that they were contending for a principle, and when some gentlemen offered to pay the whole amount in order to stop the dispute, it was rejected.

The proprietors, through the governor, offered a sort of indirect bribe in the form of large gifts of land,—a thousand acres to every colonel, five hundred to every captain, and so on down to two hundred to each private,—which seemed very liberal, and was an attempt to put the Assembly in an unpatriotic position if it should refuse to exempt the estates after such a generous offer. But the Assembly was unmoved, and declined to vote any more money for the purposes of the war, if it involved a sacrifice of the liberties of the people or enabled the proprietors to escape taxation. “Those,” said Franklin, “who would give up essential liberty for the sake of a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

But the proprietors were determined to carry the point of exemption of their estates, and as a clamor was being raised against them in England for defeating, through their governor, the efforts of the Assembly to raise money for the war, they sent over word that they would subscribe five thousand pounds for the protection of the colony. Such munificence took the Assembly by surprise, and an appropriation bill was passed without taxing the proprietary estates. But popular resentment against the proprietors was raised to a high pitch when it was discovered that the five thousand pounds was to be collected out of the arrears of quit-rents due the proprietors. It was merely a clever trick on their part to saddle their bad debts on the province, have their estates exempted from taxation, and at the same time give themselves a reputation for generosity.

The defeat of Braddock in July, 1755, was followed in September and October by a terrible invasion of the Indians, who massacred the farmers almost as far east as Philadelphia. Evidently something more was necessary to protect the province than the mere loose organization of the Associators, and a militia law drafted by Franklin was passed by the Quaker Assembly. The law had a long preamble attached, which he had prepared with great ingenuity to satisfy Quaker scruples. It was made up largely of previous Quaker utterances on war, and declared that while it would be persecution, and therefore unlawful in Pennsylvania, to compel Quakers to bear arms against their consciences, so it would be wrong to prohibit from engaging in war those who thought it their duty. The Quaker Assembly, as representing all the people of the province, would accordingly furnish to those who wanted to fight the legal means for carrying out their wish; and the law then went on to show how they should be organized as soldiers.