WikiQuote lists 11 variations of Benjamin Franklin's quote. Today I found the
original wording (attributed to Franklin):
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
SUMMARY - ORIGINAL INTENT
"Liberty", in this case, refers to the question of whether the 1755 Pennsylvania Assembly, which included Benjamin Franklin, had the authority to tax lands owned by the Penn family, the legal landowners of the Province of Pennsylvania, per the charter granted by English king Charles II.
"Safety", in this case, refers to frontier defense against attacks during the French and Indian War, which had started the previous year, in 1754.
In brief, the Pennsylvania Assembly members seemed to have two choices:
- Choose Safety over Liberty: the Assembly could immediately create a tax to raise funds for frontier defense, with the condition that they could not tax the Penn family's lands
- Choose Liberty over Safety: by re-asserting the Assembly's right to tax lands owned by the Penn family, an administrative delay might occur in getting authorization to create a tax to raise funds, for frontier defense
From below:
"Franklin was thus complaining of the choice facing the legislature between being able to make funds available for frontier defense and maintaining its right of self-governance--and he was criticizing the governor for suggesting it should be willing to give up the latter to ensure the former."
SOURCE
From
WikiQuote: "This was first written by Franklin for the Pennsylvania Assembly in its
Reply to the Governor (11 Nov. 1755)", which, in part, reads:
"In fine, we have the most sensible Concern for the poor distressed Inhabitants of the Frontiers. We have taken every Step in our Power, consistent with the just Rights of the Freemen of Pennsylvania, for their Relief, and we have Reason to believe, that in the Midst of their Distresses they themselves do not wish us to go farther. Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Such as were inclined to defend themselves, but unable to purchase Arms and Ammunition, have, as we are informed, been supplied with both, as far as Arms could be procured, out of Monies given by the last Assembly for the King’s Use; and the large Supply of Money offered by this Bill, might enable the Governor to do every Thing else that should be judged necessary for their farther Security, if he shall think fit to accept it. Whether he could, as he supposes, “if his Hands had been properly strengthened, have put the Province into such a Posture of Defence, as might have prevented the present Mischiefs,” seems to us uncertain; since late Experience in our neighbouring Colony of Virginia (which had every Advantage for that Purpose that could be desired) shows clearly, that it is next to impossible to guard effectually an extended Frontier, settled by scattered single Families at two or three Miles Distance, so as to secure them from the insiduous Attacks of small Parties of skulking Murderers: But thus much is certain, that by refusing our Bills from Time to Time, by which great Sums were seasonably offered, he has rejected all the Strength that Money could afford him; and if his Hands are still weak or unable, he ought only to blame himself, or those who have tied them."
ADDITIONAL CONTEXT
In pre-American Revolution 1755, at the time of first use, Franklin and company, as members of the Pennsylvania Assembly, found themselves in an ongoing dispute with the Pennsylvania Colonial Deputy Governor,
Robert Hunter Morris, who served at the pleasure of members of the Penn family, who lived abroad, in England.
The Penn family was led by
Thomas Penn, the son of
William Penn. William Penn had founded the Province of Pennsylvania, in 1681, initially owning all 120,000 square kilometers, via king Charles II of England, who granted the charter transferring the lands to Penn, in part to satisfy a debt owed by Charles II to William Penn's father, the sea admiral Sir William Penn.
Thomas, unlike his father, ruled from afar, in aristocratic fashion, perhaps in an attempt to salvage the family's finances, as his father had died penniless.
The dispute centered around the determination of whether a proposed tax, created by the Pennsylvania Assembly, for "Safety" (that is, frontier defense), could tax the lands owned by the Penn family, or not.
Franklin and company argued the Pennsylvania Assembly had the "Liberty" to tax the Penn family lands. The Pennsylvania Colonial Governor, who served at the pleasure of the Penn family, disagreed. No surprise, there.
The quotation arises in a letter Franklin and company have written to the Governor. They seem fired up. It seems the Governor has given them two options:
- Immediately obtain the Pennsylvania Governor's permission to create a tax, for "Safety" (that is, frontier defense), by accepting the Governor's poison-pill condition: the loss of the Assembly's "Liberty" to tax the Penn family's lands
- Assert the Assembly's "Liberty" to tax the Penn family's lands, via joint letter to the Governor, at the risk of delays in raising funds for "Safety" (again, frontier defense)
By writing the letter, the Pennsylvania Assembly members chose the latter option, using Franklin's quote, for emphasis.
A TechCrunch
ariticle, from February 14, 2014, provides context, in part, via a July 15, 2011
article, from the Brookings Institute’s Benjamin Wittes' blog Lawfare:
“The letter was a salvo in a power struggle between the governor and the assembly over funding for security on the frontier, one in which the assembly wished to tax the lands of the Penn family."
From Wittes article:
"The words appear originally in a 1755 letter that Franklin is presumed to have written on behalf of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the colonial governor during the French and Indian War. The letter was a salvo in a power struggle between the governor and the Assembly over funding for security on the frontier, one in which the Assembly wished to tax the lands of the Penn family, which ruled Pennsylvania from afar, to raise money for defense against French and Indian attacks. The governor kept vetoing the Assembly’s efforts at the behest of the family, which had appointed him. So to start matters, Franklin was writing not as a subject being asked to cede his liberty to government, but in his capacity as a legislator being asked to renounce his power to tax lands notionally under his jurisdiction. In other words, the “essential liberty” to which Franklin referred was thus not what we would think of today as civil liberties but, rather, the right of self-governance of a legislature in the interests of collective security.
What's more the “purchase [of] a little temporary safety” of which Franklin complains was not the ceding of power to a government Leviathan in exchange for some promise of protection from external threat; for in Franklin’s letter, the word “purchase” does not appear to have been a metaphor. The governor was accusing the Assembly of stalling on appropriating money for frontier defense by insisting on including the Penn lands in its taxes--and thus triggering his intervention. And the Penn family later offered cash to fund defense of the frontier--as long as the Assembly would acknowledge that it lacked the power to tax the family’s lands. Franklin was thus complaining of the choice facing the legislature between being able to make funds available for frontier defense and maintaining its right of self-governance--and he was criticizing the governor for suggesting it should be willing to give up the latter to ensure the former.
In short, Franklin was not describing some tension between government power and individual liberty. He was describing, rather, effective self-government in the service of security as the very liberty it would be contemptible to trade. Notwithstanding the way the quotation has come down to us, Franklin saw the liberty and security interests of Pennsylvanians as aligned."
In the short-to-medium term, the Pennsylvania Assembly's effort failed, in two ways:
- The Pennsylvania deputy governor ultimately refused, stating the terms of his commission did not grant him the authority to tax the lands owned by the Penn family
- Franklin's subsequent effort, in 1757, to bypass the Pennsylvania governor, via travel to England and direct appeal to the English government, also failed, for lack of support in Whitehall
In the long term, after the American Revolution, Franklin lived to see the Penn family lose all their lands. Thomas Penn had died several years earlier, in 1771.
PRIOR USAGE
As noted, on WikiQuote, Franklin seems to have published an earlier variation, in
Poor Richard's Almanack (1738):
"Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power."
ADDITIONAL NOTES
I should note the ongoing discussion about whether contemporary usage of this quote reflects what Benjamin Franklin meant to imply, seems a topic of muddy value. Is it a quote limited to governmental taxation (liberty) and defense (safety)? Or, in more contemporary usage, does it refer to learned helplessness, by which citizens give away civil liberties to the Leviathan government, which promises to protect them?
Benjamin Franklin was a revolutionary. He overthrew governments and led a non-conformist life. The quote, as a part of him, seems quite of the same cloth.
He was also human, just like you and me. His usage in the 1755 letter reflected a spin on a phrase he had most likely long used. In my opinion, it reflected a means to an end.
In the big picture, the tension and trade-offs between anarchy and ossification represents a common theme stretching across thousands of years of human organization (hat tip, Bertrand Russell). Think: Renaissance Italy and European dark ages, respectively.
RESOURCES
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colonial_governors_of_Pennsylvania
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin#Quotes
http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp?vol=6&page=238a
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hunter_Morris
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Penn_(Royal_Navy_officer)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Penn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Penn
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2011/9/21%20platform%20security%20wittes/0921_platform_security_wittes.pdf
http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/14/how-the-world-butchered-benjamin-franklins-quote-on-liberty-vs-security/
