Update:
This is an example of how we lost the Republic. We have no understanding of history, no reading comprehension and speak without reading.
WITTES: The exact quotation, which is from a letter that Franklin is believed to have written on behalf of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, reads, those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
SIEGEL: And what was the context of this remark?
WITTES: He was writing about a tax dispute between the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the family of the Penns, the proprietary family of the Pennsylvania colony who ruled it from afar. And the legislature was trying to tax the Penn family lands to pay for frontier defense during the French and Indian War. And the Penn family kept instructing the governor to veto. Franklin felt that this was a great affront to the ability of the legislature to govern. And so he actually meant purchase a little temporary safety very literally. The Penn family was trying to give a lump sum of money in exchange for the General Assembly’s acknowledging that it did not have the authority to tax it.
SIEGEL: So far from being a pro-privacy quotation, if anything, it’s a pro-taxation and pro-defense spending quotation.
WITTES: It is a quotation that defends the authority of a legislature to govern in the interests of collective security. It means, in context, not quite the opposite of what it’s almost always quoted as saying but much closer to the opposite than to the thing that people think it means.
Absolutely – they will come for you -eventually since they know your not a threat – they can wait on you – but it will happen
The wolves are taking the compliant sheep as we talk, the ones taking the kill shot, they have not come for us yet, and the word is YET.
The only question today is, do you prefer slavery or do you want freedom? Today we are under marxist rule, our freedom has been stolen, freedom is never given it is taken, so let us take it.
Pick the time . Pick the fight . Secure liberty for your kin . If they dare tread upon Holy Ground judgement shall be swift .
I want to thank all of the superior intellects at the National Propaganda Radio (NPR) for setting me straight as to the true meaning of Mr. Franklin’s quote. Gee, where would all of us uneducated, “deplorables” (remember Hillary?”) be without them and their kind? Free, prosperous, healthy and happy; I would suppose.
God has got this!
Damned straight He does!
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
-Ben Franklin
CITATION: “Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 11 November 1755,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed September 29, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-06-02-0107. [Original source: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 6, April 1, 1755, through September 30, 1756, ed. Leonard W. Labaree. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1963, pp. 238–243.]
“Your love of liberty—your respect for the laws—your habits of industry—and your practice of the moral and religious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness, and they will, I trust, be firmly and lastingly established.”
-George Washington
CITATION: “From George Washington to the Citizens of Boston, 27 October 1789,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed September 29, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-04-02-0165. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 4, 8 September 1789 – 15 January 1790, ed. Dorothy Twohig. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993, pp. 235–238.]
“But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”
-John Adams
CITATION: “John Adams to Abigail Adams, 7 July 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-01-02-0160. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 1, December 1761 – May 1776, ed. Lyman H. Butterfield. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963, pp. 241–243.]
“Posterity! You will never know, how much it cost the present Generation, to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make a good Use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it.”
-John Adams
CITATION: “John Adams to Abigail Adams, 26 April 1777,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-02-02-0169. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 2, June 1776 – March 1778, ed. L. H. Butterfield. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963, pp. 223–224.]
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
-John Adams
CITATION: “From John Adams to John Taylor, 17 December 1814,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-6371. [This is an Early Access document from The Adams Papers. It is not an authoritative final version.]
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”
-Sam Adams
CITATION: Speech, Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.”
-Patrick Henry
CITATION: Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, June 5, 1788, in Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.3 p.45 (Philadelphia, 1836)
“If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation [sic], it expects what never was & never will be.”
-Thomas Jefferson
CITATION: “Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 6 January 1816,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed September 29, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-09-02-0209. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 9, September 1815 to April 1816, ed. J. Jefferson Looney. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012, pp. 328–331.]
“A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government; and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.”
-Thomas Jefferson
CITATION: “III. First Inaugural Address, 4 March 1801,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed September 29, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-33-02-0116-0004. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 33, 17 February–30 April 1801, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006, pp. 148–152.]
“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed [sic], or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
-James Madison
CITATION: The Federalist Papers, No. 47, February 1, 1788, http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fedpapers.html.
“It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”
-James Madison
CITATION: The Federalist Papers, No. 51, February 6, 1788, http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fedpapers.html
“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people, by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations: but on a candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, violence and abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions, which, in republics, have more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism.”
-James Madison
CITATION: “General Defense of the Constitution, [6 June] 1788,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed September 29, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-11-02-0062. [Original source: The Papers of James Madison, vol. 11, 7 March 1788–1 March 1789, ed. Robert A. Rutland and Charles F. Hobson. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1977, pp. 78–88.]
“Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
-James Madison
CITATION: The Federalist Papers, No. 10, November 22, 1787, http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fedpapers.html
“We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.”
-Alexander Hamilton
CITATION: “Constitutional Convention. Remarks on the Term of Office for Members of the Second Branch of the Legislature, [26 June 1787],” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-04-02-0108. [Original source: The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, vol. 4, January 1787 – May 1788, ed. Harold C. Syrett. New York: Columbia University Press, 1962, pp. 218–220.]
Thank you for taking the time to post this. You have done your fellow liberty-loving brothers and sisters a great service. These ideals are what we live for, and if necessary, will die for.
Sorry, Witles over at NPR, that is an abject lie.
There were two types of estates: proprietary estates, and non-proprietary. The differences between the two types are unimportant to understanding the conflict between the Assembly and the Governor. The people on the frontier, and the people of Pennsylvania generally, had non-proprietary estates.
This was 1855. The frontier was under attack by French and Indians who had sided with the French. The Assembly drafted a bill to pay for the frontier’s defense which included taxing proprietary estates. The Governor refused to assent to taxing the proprietary estates.
The Assembly, The People, and those on the frontier specifically, did not want so much “help” from the Governor that they would be massively overburdened by taxes for many years. So, if the proprietary estates could not be taxed to pay for military aid from Philadelphia, they would want a different bill, a lesser amount of military aid or, possibly, to forego any assistance and make do on their own … so as not to give up their future liberty (via over-taxation), in exchange for immediate help from the Governor. I.e., liberty for security.
Freedom FROM burdensome taxation is what Franklin was talking about.
Rifleman1775 posted the link. Here are the relevant quotes:
First, the dispute about taxing proprietary estates:
Second, the persons whose liberty and security are being discussed are the “poor distressed inhabitants of the frontier”:
THEY THEMSELVES DO NOT WISH US TO GO FARTHER. They being those poor distressed inhabitants.
(note: Franklin doesn’t use the word poor in the modern pathetic sense of sarcastically saying “you poor, poor baby!” He means poor. Poverty-stricken and unable to bear too much taxation)
Yeah, I guess some people do lack reading comprehension, have little understanding of history BECAUSE they lack reading comprehension (or can’t be bothered to read), and do speak without thinking (likely because they cannot).
This part of the first “quote” was included by mistake:
The Assembly wanted the question of whether proprietary estates could be taxed to be definitively answered by the King.
That’s my description of the italicized part above it. I accidentally italicized that description as well.
Going by NPR as the unequivocal arbiters of truth, history, reality and fact is a BAD plan.
h/t Rifleman1775
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
-Ben Franklin
CITATION: “Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, 11 November 1755,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed September 29, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-06-02-0107. [Original source: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 6, April 1, 1755, through September 30, 1756, ed. Leonard W. Labaree. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1963, pp. 238–243.]
You can believe NPR, or you could actually READ IT YOURSELF!
https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/united-states-and-canada/us-history/proprietary-colonies
To add a little context to your comment, the Braddock Expedition had just resulted in a disaster at the Battle of the Monongahela on July 8, 1755. Therefore, the American colonists of Pennsylvania and those on the frontier were very concerned and uncertain of the outcome of the present conflict now known as the French and Indian War or the Seven Years War. Fear of an American Indian attack with no regard for age or sex was a constant source of anxiety and stress for frontier colonial Americans.
The Braddock Expedition:
An attempt to capture Fort Duquesne (present-day Pittsburgh at the forks/head of the Ohio River – the “gateway to the west”) but ends in a major defeat for the British.
Battle of the Monongahela: July 8, 1755.
General Braddock dies during the retreat from wounds received during the French and American Indian ambush.
British strength: ~2,100 regulars and militia with 10 pieces of artillery
British Casualties:
French & Indian strength: ~900, ~650 American Indians, ~150 French militia, and ~100 regulars
French & Indian Casualties:
Colonel Washington serves as an unpaid Aide de Camp to General Braddock. Washington’s advice about not fighting in the European style in the American wilderness is ignored.
Washington leads courageously during the battle with two horses shot from under him and according to multiple accounts four bullet holes in his coat and one in his hat. He also leads the rear guard and retreat which saves many British and American lives. This is a defining moment in Washington’s life. A moment and extremely harsh lesson he will never forget. A lesson he will apply to his time as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army.
Following the disastrous Battle of the Monongahela, Colonel Washington seeks a British Commission but is denied. As a result, Washington doesn’t respect the British as much and begins to view himself as an American rather than as a British subject. Washington will serve out the war as a Colonel of Virginia militia on the frontier.
France’s American Indian Allies during the French and Indian War:
These tribes fight to keep the British and Americans out of their territory.
*Note: I do not fault the American Indians for what they did. I would have done the same thing had I been in their precarious position. I will never fault anyone who believes they are defending their home, and when it comes to any American vs American Indian conflict, both sides, right or wrong, believe they are defending their home. God bless all American Indians. They are true Americans and true American warriors, as much as anyone in our illustrious history.