Benjamin Franklin; Self-Revealed, Volume 2 (of 2): A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own WritingsBruce, Wiliam Cabell
History
Benjamin Franklin; Self-Revealed, Volume 2 (of 2): A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own Writings
Bruce, Wiliam Cabell
Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790
In a still later letter to the same correspondent, Franklin asserted that
there was no reason for excluding Quakers from the House, since, though
unwilling to fight themselves, they had been brought to unite in voting the
sums necessary to enable the Province to defend itself. Then, after
referring to the defamation, that was being heaped upon him by the
Proprietary Party, in the place of the court paid to him when he had
exerted himself to secure aids from the House for Braddock and Shirley, he
said, "Let me know if you learn that any of their Slanders reach England. I
abhor these Altercations and if I did not love the Country and the People
would remove immediately into a more quiet Government, Connecticut, where I
am also happy enough to have many Friends."
However, there was too much fuel for the fire to die down. The claim of the
Proprietaries to exemption from taxation was only the most aggravated
result of their efforts, by their instructions to their Governors, to
shape the legislation of the Province in accordance with their own personal
aims and pecuniary interests instead of in the spirit of the royal charter,
which gave to William Penn, and his heirs, and his, or their, deputies or
lieutenants, free, full and absolute power, for the good and happy
government of Pennsylvania, to make and enact any laws, according to their
best discretion, by and with the advice, assent and approbation of the
freemen of the said country, or of their delegates or deputies. In the
report of the Committee of Aggrievances of the Assembly, drawn by Franklin,
the case of the freemen of the Province against the Penns, which led to
Franklin's first mission to England, is clearly stated. They are arraigned
not only for seeking to exempt the bulk of their estate from the common
burden of taxation, but also, apart from this, for stripping, by their
instructions, their governors, and thereby the People themselves, of all
real discretion in fixing by legislation the measure and manner in which,
and the time at which, aids and supplies should be furnished for the
defence of the Province. They had even, the report charged, prohibited
their governors, by their instructions, from assenting to laws disposing of
interest arising from the loan of bills of credit or money raised by excise
taxes--forms of revenue to which the Proprietary estate did not contribute
at all--unless the laws contained a clause giving their governors the right
to negative a particular application of the sums. Another grievance was the
issuance by the governor of commissions to provincial judges, to be held
during the will and pleasure of the governors instead of during good
behavior, as covenanted by William Penn--a practice which gave the
Proprietaries control of the judicial as well as the executive Branch of
the provincial government.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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