Benjamin Franklin Quotes

There is no alternative. Either the colonies are a part of the community of Great Britain, or they are in a state of nature with respect to her, and in no case can be subject to that legislative power which represents her community, which is the British Parliament…. They [the American colonists] ought to reflect, that whatever may be their condition, they cannot apply to parliament to better it. If they reject the jurisdiction of parliament, they must not in any case sue for its interposition on their behalf.

The sudden and abrupt departure of his Excellency John Wentworth, Esq., our late Governor, and several of the Council, leaving us destitute of legislation, and no executive courts being open to punish criminal offenders; whereby the lives and properties of the honest people of this colony are liable to the machinations and evil designs of wicked men, Therefore, for the preservation of peace and good order, and for the security of the lives and properties of the inhabitants of this colony, we conceive ourselves reduced to the necessity of establishing A FORM OF GOVERNMENT to continue during the present unhappy and unnatural contest with Great Britain

I am free to confess that the exercise of that (Britain’s), authority is not perfectly constitutional in respect to the Colonies. We know that the whole landed interest of Britain is represented in that body (Parliament), while neither the land nor the people of America hold the least participation in the legislative authority of the State. Representation, or a participation in the supreme councils of the State, is the great principle upon which the freedom of the British Government is established and secured.

The various American charters were entered into and granted by the king for himself only …. No mention is made in them of the parliament.

America was not annexed to the realm, and … it was not fitting that Parliament should make laws for those countries.

You Americans have wrong ideas of the nature of your constitution. The instructions given to colonial governors were the law of the land and colonial legislatures have no right to ignore them.

Had the rest of America passively looked on, while a sister colony was subjugated, the same fate would gradually have overtaken all. The safety of the whole depends upon the mutual protection of every part. If the sword of oppression be permitted to lop off one limb without opposition, reiterated strokes will soon dismember the whole body. Hence it was the duty and interest of all the colonies to succor and support the one which was suffering.

My idea, therefore, without considering whether we yield as matter of right or grant as matter of favor, is to admit the people of our colonies into an interest in the constitution; and, by recording that admission in the journals of Parliament, to give them as strong an assurance as the nature of the thing will admit that we mean forever to adhere to that solemn declaration of systematic indulgence.

… no line … can be drawn between the supreme authority of Parliament and the total independence of the colonies: it is impossible that there should be two independent legislatures in one and the same state.

In the 1770s the primary threat to American rights seemed to lie less with the King than with the Parliament that claimed a right to bind the colonists “in all cases whatsoever”.

When was America emancipated? This kingdom has the sovereign, the supreme legislative power over America; this is granted; it cannot be denied: taxation is a part of that sovereign power, is one branch of the legislative; it is, and it has been, exercised over those who are not, and who never were represented: the Indian company; the merchants of London; the proprietors of stock, and men of great manufacturing towns; the palatinate of Chester; the bishopric of Durham, before they ever sent any representatives to parliament. Great Britain protects America; America is bound to yield obedience; if not, tell me when the Americans were emancipated The nation has run itself into an immense debt to give them protection; and now, when called upon to contribute to the public expense, an expense arising from themselves, they renounce your authority, insult your officers, and almost break out into open rebellion. The seditious spirit of the colonies owes its birth to the factions in this house. Gentlemen are careless of the consequences of what they say, provided it answers the purposes of opposition I have been abused as an enemy to the trade of America; I discouraged no trade but what was illicit, and what was prohibited by act of parliament.

The repeal of a few acts of parliament, would at this time have satisfied America. But confident of victory, the ministers were deaf to petitions and remonstrances

Join or Die

The authority of Parliament is valid in all laws, except such as should lay internal taxes; it was never disputed in laying duties to regulate commerce; The Americans would never submit to the Stamp Act, or to any other tax on the same principle; North America would contribute to the support of Great Britain if engaged in a war in Europe

The House of Commons, refused to receive the addresses of the colonies, when the matter was pending; besides, we hold our rights neither from them nor from the Lords.

No representation of the Colonies in parliament alone, would however be equivalent to a subordinate legislative among themselves; nor so well answer the ends of increasing their prosperity and the commerce of Great-Britain. It would be impossible for the Parliament to judge so well, of their abilities to bear taxes, impositions on trade, and other duties and burdens, or of the local laws that might be really needful, as a legislative here.

When two countries are connected together, like England and her colonies, without being incorporated, the one must necessarily govern; the greater must rule the less; but so rule it, as not to contradict the fundamental principles that are common to both.

We had carefully to avoid any infringement of the prerogative of the crown and the power of parliament—and yet in duty bound fully to assert the rights and privileges of the colonies.

That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

Resolved, that whoever shall aid or abet, or in any manner assist, in the introduction of tea from any place whatsoever, into this colony, while it is subject, by a British Act of Parliament, to the payment of a duty, for the purpose of raising a revenue in America, he shall be deemed an enemy to the liberties of America.

The only representatives of the people of these colonies are persons chosen therein, by themselves; and that no taxes ever have been, or can be constitutionally imposed on them, but by their respective legislatures.

For what would it signify to risk our possessions and shed our blood to set ourselves free from the encroachments and oppression of Great Britain—with a certainty as soon as peace was settled with them of a more lasting war, a more unnatural, more bloody, and much more hopeless war, among the colonies themselves? Some of us consider ourselves as acting for posterity at present, having little expectation of living to see all things fully settled and the good consequences of liberty taking effect. But how much more uncertain the hope of seeing the internal contests of the colonies settled upon a lasting and equitable footing?

If the colonies are independent states, separate and disunited, after this war, we may be sure of coming off by the worse. We are in no condition to contend with several of them. Our trade in general, and our trade with them, must be upon such terms as they shall be pleased to prescribe. What will be the consequence of this? Will they not be ready to prefer putting themselves under the protection of Great Britain, France, or Holland, rather than submit to the tyranny of their neighbors, who were lately their equals? Nor would it be at all impossible that they should enter into such rash engagements as would prove their own destruction from a mixture of apprehended necessity and real resentment.

Where is the man to be found at this day, when we see … bishops with indifference. Who will believe that the apprehension of Episcopy contributed 50 years ago, as much as any other cause to arouse the attention, not only of the inquiring mind, but of the common people, and urge them to close thinking on the constitutional authority of Parliament over the colonies.

Whereas in his Majesty's province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England, an attempt hath lately been made to throw off the authority of the parliament of Great Britain over the said province, and an actual and avowed resistance, by open force, to the execution of certain acts of parliament, hath been suffered to take place, uncontrolled and unpunished, ...: and whereas, in the present disordered state of the said province, it is of the utmost importance ... to the reestablishment of lawful authority throughout the same, that neither the magistrates acting in support of the laws, nor any of his Majesty's subjects aiding and assisting them therein, or in the suppression of riots and tumults, ... should be discouraged from the proper discharge of their duty, by an apprehension, that in case of their being questioned for any acts done therein, they may be liable to be brought to trial for the same before persons who do not acknowledge the validity of the laws …