WEBVTT NOTE 13. The Emergence of Benjamin Franklin 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.120 Volume 2, Chapter 13, The Emergence of Benjamin Franklin 2 00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:12.520 At this point there entered the scene a man whose historical reputation is perhaps the 3 00:00:12.520 --> 00:00:20.200 most overinflated of the entire colonial period in America, Benjamin Franklin. 4 00:00:20.200 --> 00:00:28.280 Franklin, a printer from Philadelphia, a writer, inventor, and clerk of the assembly, decided 5 00:00:28.280 --> 00:00:36.080 to circumvent the assembly's refusal to establish a militia by creating one himself. 6 00:00:36.080 --> 00:00:44.640 He began his campaign by publishing a pamphlet, Plain Truth, 1747, which proved highly influential 7 00:00:44.640 --> 00:00:48.220 in whipping up war hysteria. 8 00:00:48.220 --> 00:00:56.480 He painted the menace and horrors of armed invasion in blurred colors and demagogically 9 00:00:56.480 --> 00:01:03.800 appealed to the supposed fighting qualities of each ethnic group in the colony. Alarmist 10 00:01:03.800 --> 00:01:10.680 rumors were spread of a supposed enemy attack in the spring of 1748. In the midst of this 11 00:01:10.680 --> 00:01:17.840 fervid atmosphere, Franklin launched a voluntary militia association, which quickly gained 12 00:01:17.840 --> 00:01:24.940 over 10,000 adherents in the colony. The men formed themselves into companies and regiments 13 00:01:24.940 --> 00:01:28.300 and Elected Their Own Officers. 14 00:01:28.300 --> 00:01:34.000 Franklin then used a lottery to finance this private army and used the funds to purchase 15 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:36.200 cannons. 16 00:01:36.200 --> 00:01:43.380 While voluntarily financed, Franklin's association was not truly private, for Franklin worked 17 00:01:43.380 --> 00:01:48.260 hand in hand with the delighted proprietary administration. 18 00:01:48.260 --> 00:01:53.840 Reverend Mr. Peters wrote to Thomas Penn that the association movement was in the interest 19 00:02:23.840 --> 00:02:53.840 The State itself. But Peters, as well as the Council, hastened to assure Penn that the Association was really a governmental body, taking orders from them, and that they were in complete control of the appointment of officers, and of all the orders directed to them. Apprised of these facts, Penn relented and expressed his warm approval of the institution as a necessity of the time. 20 00:02:53.840 --> 00:03:00.360 Franklin displayed his cunning in the affair by having a fast day proclaimed in honor of 21 00:03:00.360 --> 00:03:07.920 the association in order to bring the clergy and God in on the side of the scheme. 22 00:03:07.920 --> 00:03:15.480 As Franklin himself boasted in his autobiography, calling in the aid of religion, I proposed 23 00:03:15.480 --> 00:03:22.680 to them, the governor and council, the proclaiming of fast to implore the blessing of heaven 24 00:03:22.680 --> 00:03:30.200 on Our Undertaking. This gave the clergy of the different sects an opportunity of influencing 25 00:03:30.200 --> 00:03:37.080 their congregation to join in the association, and it would probably have been general among all, 26 00:03:37.720 --> 00:03:47.480 but Quakers, if the peace had not soon intervened. Indeed, peace intervened, and disproved all the 27 00:03:47.480 --> 00:03:54.200 All the nonsensical claims and fears perpetrated by Franklin and the ruling war party. 28 00:03:54.200 --> 00:03:59.680 The Quakers emerged from the war more honored and entrenched than ever. 29 00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:05.680 They needed to retain only their unity and principle to continue the peace policy. 30 00:04:05.680 --> 00:04:11.600 As we shall soon see, however, this proved impossible, and a good part of the responsibility 31 00:04:11.600 --> 00:04:18.600 for the Collapse of Quaker Peace Principles belongs to Benjamin Franklin. 32 00:04:18.600 --> 00:04:25.200 Franklin was, indeed, a man of many and versatile attainments, but he lived, it must be remembered, 33 00:04:25.200 --> 00:04:31.200 in a versatile and unspecialized age when learned men were familiar with most of the 34 00:04:31.200 --> 00:04:38.200 ranges of human thought. Moreover, he was the opportunist par excellence. 35 00:04:38.200 --> 00:04:45.700 Amidst all the uncritical adulation for Franklin, probably Professor Joseph Dorfman has given 36 00:04:45.700 --> 00:04:49.400 the most just estimate. 37 00:04:49.400 --> 00:04:56.960 In an age where great flexibility of mind and action was called for, he, Franklin, was 38 00:04:56.960 --> 00:05:01.860 without peer in moving with the course of events. 39 00:05:01.860 --> 00:05:07.880 His inconsistencies were many, but they were the inevitable accompaniments of his diverse 40 00:05:07.880 --> 00:05:37.880 and his journalistic habits. Benjamin Franklin, the son of a Boston artisan, made his way to Philadelphia to work as a printer, setting up his own business in 1728 at the age of 22. Characteristic of Franklin, the popular and inveterate spouter of copybook maxims, was the way he repaid the venerable Andrew Bradford, Pennsylvania's first printer 41 00:05:37.880 --> 00:05:45.880 and his son William, who had befriended the young Franklin and had gotten him his first job as a printer. 42 00:05:45.880 --> 00:05:55.880 Anxious to obtain the highly lucrative patronage of being public printer and seeing that Bradford had printed an assembly address containing some errors, 43 00:05:55.880 --> 00:06:02.880 Franklin quickly prepared a correct printing and sent a copy to every member of the assembly. 44 00:06:02.880 --> 00:06:08.560 He was soon able to take the public printing business away from Bradford. Franklin was 45 00:06:08.560 --> 00:06:14.520 able to develop a lucrative printing business at so young an age, largely by keeping an 46 00:06:14.520 --> 00:06:20.780 eye to the main chance, that is, through an ability to win a favored place at the public 47 00:06:20.780 --> 00:06:27.780 trough by gaining the patronage of older and influential men. Hardly had Franklin launched 48 00:06:27.780 --> 00:06:40.920 The First and Most Important was his securing of the vital public printing business, won 49 00:06:40.920 --> 00:06:47.940 away not simply by the above device, but primarily by the influence of the venerable lawyer Andrew 50 00:06:47.940 --> 00:06:54.540 Hamilton, an extremely powerful member of the Assembly, whose son was soon to be governor 51 00:06:54.540 --> 00:06:56.420 of the colony. 52 00:06:56.420 --> 00:07:02.380 Hamilton had taken a liking to young Franklin and continued to lavish patronage upon him 53 00:07:02.380 --> 00:07:10.380 until his death. The second coup centered on paper money. In 1729 the question arose 54 00:07:10.380 --> 00:07:16.820 whether or not Pennsylvania should print another large issue of paper money. Franklin, spurred 55 00:07:16.820 --> 00:07:22.180 by the lucrative prize of the contract for printing the new money, wrote an anonymous 56 00:07:22.180 --> 00:07:29.000 Franklin's pamphlet, a modest inquiry into the nature and necessity of a paper currency, 57 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:34.240 that trumpeted the cause of paper money and played an important role in driving the scheme 58 00:07:34.240 --> 00:07:36.500 through the assembly. 59 00:07:36.500 --> 00:07:40.240 Let Franklin tell the happy ending to the story. 60 00:07:40.240 --> 00:07:46.200 My friends there in the assembly, who conceived I had been of some service, thought fit to 61 00:07:46.200 --> 00:07:53.200 to reward me by employing me in printing the money, a very profitable job and a great help 62 00:07:53.200 --> 00:08:00.900 to me. Some service, indeed, received its due reward, but whether this service was virtue 63 00:08:00.900 --> 00:08:07.600 is another matter. Hamilton followed this handsome subsidy by securing to his protege 64 00:08:07.600 --> 00:08:14.240 the public printing work in Delaware and its printing of paper money. With this enormous 65 00:08:14.240 --> 00:08:21.240 In 1736, he was chosen clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly, a highly important post that Franklin could use as a springboard to secure the privileges of his other governmental business. 66 00:08:21.240 --> 00:08:28.240 As Franklin later candidly admitted, besides the pay for the immediate services clerk, the place gave me a better opportunity of keeping up an interest among the members of the government. 67 00:08:44.240 --> 00:09:14.240 Franklin lets us in on some of the ways in which he was able to attract patronage. When opposed as clerk by one of the members of the Assembly, Franklin took the trouble to borrow a rare book of the Assemblyman's and quickly to write him a note of profuse thanks. He proudly penned a letter to the Assemblyman. 68 00:09:14.240 --> 00:09:21.400 Thanks to the copybook lesson in his autobiography that this incident shows how much more profitable 69 00:09:21.400 --> 00:09:30.200 it is prudently to remove, then to resent, return and continue inimical proceedings. 70 00:09:30.200 --> 00:09:36.520 And notes how this confirms the old maxim, he that has once done you a kindness will 71 00:09:36.520 --> 00:09:42.680 be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged. 72 00:09:42.680 --> 00:09:48.260 The following year, young Franklin was further rewarded with the important job of postmaster 73 00:09:48.260 --> 00:09:55.020 of Philadelphia, again taken away from Bradford. Here again, Franklin notes the post to be 74 00:09:55.020 --> 00:10:01.700 of great advantage, for, though the salary was small, it facilitated the correspondence 75 00:10:01.700 --> 00:10:08.380 and improved my newspaper, increased the numbers demanded, as well as the advertisements to 76 00:10:08.380 --> 00:10:13.960 to be inserted so that it came to afford me a considerable income. My old competitor's 77 00:10:13.960 --> 00:10:18.100 newspaper declined proportionately. 78 00:10:18.100 --> 00:10:23.380 With his business success thus assured, Benjamin Franklin had the leisure to turn more attention 79 00:10:23.380 --> 00:10:30.200 to public affairs. Here he was helped by the Junto, a club of young men Franklin had founded 80 00:10:30.200 --> 00:10:37.340 in 1727. Members of the Junto formed for philosophical discussion and later transformed 81 00:10:37.340 --> 00:10:44.000 into the American Philosophical Society formed their own clubs and thus the Junto became 82 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:47.820 a center of intellectual life in Philadelphia. 83 00:10:47.820 --> 00:10:53.700 Franklin was able to tap the Junto for financial aid and to mobilize it for help in his various 84 00:10:53.700 --> 00:10:56.340 public projects. 85 00:10:56.340 --> 00:11:01.400 Franklin's first meddling in public affairs set the model for what was to follow. 86 00:11:01.400 --> 00:11:07.700 The police force of Philadelphia was financed by a uniform tax of six shillings a year on 87 00:11:07.700 --> 00:11:13.640 each householder. The bulk of the duties of the force were undertaken by householders 88 00:11:13.640 --> 00:11:19.400 themselves, serving unpaid, in lieu of tax payment. Franklin decided that it would be 89 00:11:19.400 --> 00:11:25.800 better to hire a full-time police bureaucracy and to pay for it by a proportional tax on 90 00:11:25.800 --> 00:11:32.260 and Property. Franklin never bothered to explain why it should be perfectly common and proper 91 00:11:32.260 --> 00:11:40.300 for a wealthy man and a poor man to pay the same price for every other conceivable commodity, 92 00:11:40.300 --> 00:11:47.040 but that morality suddenly shifted its answers regarding the service of police protection. 93 00:11:47.040 --> 00:11:52.860 Working through his unto and its numerous front clubs, Franklin was able to change public 94 00:11:52.860 --> 00:11:58.860 and then to win acceptance of a change in the law a few years later. 95 00:11:58.860 --> 00:12:05.860 By the end of the war, Franklin had assumed a leading role in Pennsylvania politics through his association movement. 96 00:12:05.860 --> 00:12:14.860 Having accumulated a sufficient fortune as printer and publisher, Franklin turned more zealously to the quest for political power. 97 00:12:14.860 --> 00:12:20.860 From being a clerk of the assembly, Franklin now became an assemblyman. 98 00:12:20.860 --> 00:12:26.860 In the assembly, Franklin continued to push for government intervention in urban affairs. 99 00:12:26.860 --> 00:12:32.860 For example, he sponsored a grant in aid of £4,000 for constructing a local hospital, 100 00:12:32.860 --> 00:12:37.860 conditioned on the hospitals raising a matching sum among the public. 101 00:12:37.860 --> 00:12:43.860 His grant in aid device enabled Franklin to override the opposition of the country members, 102 00:12:43.860 --> 00:12:49.780 members who did not relish subsidizing the rich city of Philadelphia by paying for a 103 00:12:49.780 --> 00:12:55.780 hospital there. He also drove through a bill providing for governmental paving and lighting 104 00:12:55.780 --> 00:13:03.060 of the city's streets. Franklin added to his power and income by linking himself to 105 00:13:03.060 --> 00:13:08.900 the proprietary party in the assembly and securing its patronage, particularly that 106 00:13:08.900 --> 00:13:16.220 of the Powerful Chief Justice William Allen. In 1753, Allen used his influence to gain 107 00:13:16.220 --> 00:13:23.620 Franklin the appointment of Joint Deputy Postmaster General of the Colonies, a lucrative post 108 00:13:23.620 --> 00:13:29.900 for its own sake and for aiding the circulation of Franklin's newspaper. Franklin had begun 109 00:13:29.900 --> 00:13:36.000 to scramble for the post two years before the death of the previous ailing Deputy Postmaster 110 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:43.160 General, Chief Justice Allen put up 300 pounds to purchase the post for Franklin. 111 00:13:43.160 --> 00:13:48.040 Despite the fact that peace had hardly yet broken out, Great Britain was getting ready 112 00:13:48.040 --> 00:13:52.000 to strike a mortal blow at the French Empire. 113 00:13:52.000 --> 00:14:00.460 It began to attack French territory in the Ohio Valley in 1754, and in 1756 the war was 114 00:14:00.460 --> 00:14:06.420 was made official and generalized into the Seven Years War, known in America as the French 115 00:14:06.420 --> 00:14:13.380 and Indian War. Once again, Quaker Pennsylvania was faced with a crucial decision on support 116 00:14:13.380 --> 00:14:20.380 of a war, a more important decision since the scale of the new war was far greater. 117 00:14:20.380 --> 00:14:27.340 During the early 1750s, the proprietary party favoring the war was led by provincial and 118 00:14:27.340 --> 00:14:33.580 The Proprietary Secretary Richard Peters, an Anglican priest, the Reverend William Smith, 119 00:14:33.580 --> 00:14:40.060 another Anglican priest, Chief Justice William Allen, and the appointed Governor. 120 00:14:40.060 --> 00:14:46.260 The proprietary clique was dismayed to find itself in an unpopular minority, and Governor 121 00:14:46.260 --> 00:14:52.200 James Hamilton despaired at the general public hatred toward appointed magistrates, whom 122 00:15:22.200 --> 00:15:30.800 Now, as a great new war was brewing, an increasing number of Quakers desired to join the conflict. 123 00:15:30.800 --> 00:15:35.740 The Quakers were ripe for crumbling from internal weakness. 124 00:15:35.740 --> 00:15:42.160 The culminating Quaker crisis began in late 1754, when the newly appointed Governor Robert 125 00:15:42.160 --> 00:15:49.080 Hunter Morris, a staunch partisan of the proprietary, openly urged the Assembly to appropriate 126 00:15:49.080 --> 00:15:55.360 a huge amount of funds for military purposes. Before this appropriations had been carefully 127 00:15:55.360 --> 00:16:02.360 designed to appear non-military. But so far were the Quakers from pacifist purity that 128 00:16:02.360 --> 00:16:09.360 they promptly voted to raise the enormous sum of 20,000 pounds for the king's use in 129 00:16:09.880 --> 00:16:16.680 paper money issue ultimately repayable from existing taxation. Governor Morris, however, 130 00:16:16.680 --> 00:16:23.520 was forced by Royal Instruction's restricting paper money issue to veto the bill. 131 00:16:23.520 --> 00:16:29.320 Morris also blocked a bill for issuing £20,000 of paper money to finance a British military 132 00:16:29.320 --> 00:16:34.680 expedition under General Edward Braddock in the Ohio Valley. 133 00:16:34.680 --> 00:16:41.440 Into this situation, shrewd Benjamin Franklin now stepped and took a hand. 134 00:16:41.440 --> 00:16:48.440 and saw that Quaker devotion to pacifist principle was now largely pro forma and saw also that 135 00:16:48.440 --> 00:16:53.840 he could take the leadership of the Quaker party in the assembly by leading it into a 136 00:16:53.840 --> 00:17:01.120 constitutional and political fight against the proprietary. In particular, he could desert 137 00:17:01.120 --> 00:17:07.280 the proprietary party on the issue of tax exemption for the proprietor's lands, an 138 00:17:07.280 --> 00:17:13.280 was an issue that became very important as heavy taxes had to be levied for military affairs. 139 00:17:13.280 --> 00:17:21.280 By leading a fight by the Quaker assembly on this issue, Franklin was to become a popular hero, 140 00:17:21.280 --> 00:17:28.280 while at the same time indirectly but effectively scuttling Quaker opposition to the war effort. 141 00:17:28.280 --> 00:17:32.280 Franklin's opportunity came in 1755. 142 00:17:32.280 --> 00:17:39.280 In the spring, Massachusetts had asked Pennsylvania for help in financing an expedition against Canada. 143 00:17:39.280 --> 00:17:47.280 Franklin went so far as to write the request and to push through the assembly an aid appropriation of £10,000, 144 00:17:47.280 --> 00:17:51.280 thus earning the praise and gratitude of the British Crown. 145 00:17:51.280 --> 00:17:58.280 General Braddock's appropriation, however, had been defeated on the rock of the paper money dispute. 146 00:17:58.280 --> 00:18:04.680 Braddock's disastrous defeat at Fort Duquesne now forced Governor Morris to summon a special 147 00:18:04.680 --> 00:18:11.000 session of the Assembly in the summer to renew a request for aid. Subsequent to Braddock's 148 00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:18.280 attack and rout, the Delaware Indians, allied to the French, retaliated by turning on their 149 00:18:18.280 --> 00:18:24.440 tormentors the frontier Scots, as well as against the Pennsylvania government that had 150 00:18:24.440 --> 00:18:30.960 had driven them off their lands. Pennsylvania was beginning to reap the reward for its aggression 151 00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:37.960 against the Delawares. The Scotch-Irish demanded arms and ammunition from the Assembly under 152 00:18:37.960 --> 00:18:45.140 virtual threat of mob invasion of Philadelphia. Under this pressure, the Assembly now decided 153 00:18:45.140 --> 00:18:51.740 to grant no less than fifty thousand pounds to be raised by twelve pence per pound and 154 00:18:51.740 --> 00:18:58.740 and 20 shilling per person tax for two years on all real and personal property in Pennsylvania. 155 00:18:58.740 --> 00:19:06.280 Morris, however, was again forced to reject the bill, this time because there was no exemption 156 00:19:06.280 --> 00:19:09.460 for the proprietor's estates. 157 00:19:09.460 --> 00:19:14.220 Here was the perfect issue for Franklin to exploit. 158 00:19:14.220 --> 00:19:21.380 Now Franklin, carrying the Quakers along with him, could quite cogently berate the proprietary 159 00:19:21.380 --> 00:19:27.900 for endangering the war effort by refusing to pay the very taxes that it sought to impose 160 00:19:27.900 --> 00:19:30.300 on its subjects. 161 00:19:30.300 --> 00:19:36.260 The frame of reference of the debate had been shifted away from problems of pacifism and 162 00:19:36.260 --> 00:19:42.760 indeed of old-fashioned Quaker individualism and opposition to taxation. 163 00:19:42.760 --> 00:19:50.540 As Morris shrewdly wrote at the end of 1755, Franklin has views that they, the Quakers, 164 00:19:50.540 --> 00:19:57.100 know nothing of. The truth, I believe, is that he is courting them in order to distress 165 00:19:57.100 --> 00:20:03.380 you, the proprietary, and at the same time leading them into measures that will in the 166 00:20:03.380 --> 00:20:10.980 end deprive them of any share in the administration. At the end of the year, Franklin reintroduced 167 00:20:10.980 --> 00:20:18.700 a war fund bill of sixty thousand pounds to be issued in paper money and redeemed in property 168 00:20:18.700 --> 00:20:26.800 Taxes, with no exemption for pens property. A group of principled Quakers rallied to protest 169 00:20:26.800 --> 00:20:33.260 the measure as inconsistent with peaceable testimony, but they could muster only seven 170 00:20:33.260 --> 00:20:40.500 dissenting votes against passage in the assembly. Franklin's purposes were greatly aided by 171 00:20:40.500 --> 00:20:47.860 the renegade of the Quaker speaker Isaac Norris, who had completely abandoned the peace policy. 172 00:20:47.860 --> 00:20:53.580 The purest in the assembly were led by James Pemberton, brother of the beloved King of 173 00:20:53.580 --> 00:20:58.540 the Quakers, the prominent merchant, Israel Pemberton. 174 00:20:58.540 --> 00:21:03.620 Apart from this handful, the Quakers had been taken into camp. 175 00:21:03.620 --> 00:21:09.740 Eventually, when Norris again objected, Franklin had the bill repassed without taxing the 176 00:21:09.740 --> 00:21:10.740 proprietary. 177 00:21:10.740 --> 00:21:17.220 However, the Crown was now stimulated to force the proprietor to contribute £5,000 178 00:21:17.220 --> 00:21:47.220 The Upshot of the Quakers 179 00:21:47.220 --> 00:21:51.780 The Quaker Assembly increased its own appropriation by 5,000 pounds. 180 00:21:51.780 --> 00:21:59.540 The Quaker Assembly not only ascended supinely to a huge military program, but also was induced 181 00:21:59.540 --> 00:22:05.420 to agree for the first time to an official government militia for Pennsylvania. 182 00:22:05.420 --> 00:22:11.020 The militia bill was introduced by Franklin at the end of 1755. 183 00:22:11.020 --> 00:22:16.980 Franklin won Quaker support by proclaiming the volunteerism of the militia. 184 00:22:16.980 --> 00:22:24.460 No one Quaker or non-Quaker was to be conscripted into its service who might be conscientiously 185 00:22:24.460 --> 00:22:32.220 scrupulous. Furthermore, the volunteer soldiers could democratically choose their own officers. 186 00:22:32.220 --> 00:22:37.460 The Quakers, however, seemed to have forgotten that their principle was to oppose any government 187 00:22:37.460 --> 00:22:46.340 militia, any coercive body imposed by the State. So shrewdly did Franklin maneuver that this 188 00:22:46.340 --> 00:22:52.860 This unprecedented bill passed the assembly in two days, with only four pacifist Quakers 189 00:22:52.860 --> 00:22:57.940 in opposition, again led by the courageous James Pemberton. 190 00:22:57.940 --> 00:23:05.020 Thus, in less than a year's time, Benjamin Franklin had succeeded in radically transforming 191 00:23:05.020 --> 00:23:11.300 the politics and policies of the Quaker party and of the assembly. 192 00:23:11.300 --> 00:23:16.580 He had managed to work himself into the party leadership on a program of war expenditures 193 00:23:16.580 --> 00:23:22.020 and a militia, by leading the assembly into a political struggle with the proprietary 194 00:23:22.020 --> 00:23:24.820 and its appointed executive. 195 00:23:24.820 --> 00:23:30.820 The pure Quakers, devoted to the principle of peace and individualism, had been isolated 196 00:23:30.820 --> 00:23:32.380 and routed. 197 00:23:32.380 --> 00:23:38.900 The Pembertons organized a petition urging that Quakers suffer rather than pay war taxes, 198 00:23:38.900 --> 00:23:44.540 But this scarcely succeeded in turning the tide. In the meanwhile, the proprietary party 199 00:23:44.540 --> 00:23:50.820 was pursuing an old dream of the younger pens, the barring of the Quakers and their supporters 200 00:23:50.820 --> 00:23:56.820 from the assembly in Pennsylvania. The new campaign to gain parliamentary legislation 201 00:23:56.820 --> 00:24:04.300 to this effect was launched in London in early 1755 by the Reverend William Smith, who urged 202 00:24:04.300 --> 00:24:12.780 a test oath for willingness to fight, as well as a disenfranchisement for all Germans until 203 00:24:12.780 --> 00:24:19.540 they have a sufficient knowledge of our language and constitution. He also proposed the outlawing 204 00:24:19.540 --> 00:24:26.340 of all newspapers or journals printed in any foreign language. In the fall, a petition 205 00:24:26.340 --> 00:24:31.380 for barring Quakers from the assembly was circulated in Pennsylvania led by William 206 00:24:31.380 --> 00:24:38.940 from Alan. Alarmed, the English Quakers, a group prominent in English affairs, counterattacked 207 00:24:38.940 --> 00:24:44.920 with sustained pressure. In hearings before the Board of Trade, the successful war supply 208 00:24:44.920 --> 00:24:52.720 and militia bills were used as evidence that the Quakers were no longer pacifist, and therefore 209 00:24:52.720 --> 00:24:59.140 no longer a source of worry. The Board and the Privy Council, however, disallowed the 210 00:24:59.140 --> 00:25:06.860 The Pennsylvania Militia Bill in the summer of 1756 because it dared to allow exemptions 211 00:25:06.860 --> 00:25:09.640 to conscientious objectors. 212 00:25:09.640 --> 00:25:15.660 While the English Quakers were able to prevent a test oath, they too had no patience with 213 00:25:15.660 --> 00:25:22.820 peace or pacifism, and they insisted that the pacifist Quakers end all evidence of their 214 00:25:22.820 --> 00:25:29.340 principleed opposition to war by resigning en masse from the assembly. 215 00:25:29.340 --> 00:25:35.180 Unfortunately, Pemberton and his handful of colleagues did not believe the fight worth 216 00:25:35.180 --> 00:25:42.180 pursuing. With the bulk of their constituency and even their fellow Quakers swept into a 217 00:25:42.180 --> 00:25:50.780 war position, they decided in the summer of 1756 to abandon the effort and resign, using 218 00:25:50.780 --> 00:26:02.820 Franklin was overjoyed at the resignation of the stiff rump of the Quakers, his conquest 219 00:26:02.820 --> 00:26:10.140 of Quaker principle being now complete. Moreover, four more Quakers resigned in the fall, many 220 00:26:10.140 --> 00:26:16.980 others refused to be candidates, and others refused to vote. Yearly and monthly Quaker 221 00:26:16.980 --> 00:26:23.580 Quaker meetings urged resignations upon all Quaker officials. The sect had become politically 222 00:26:23.580 --> 00:26:30.420 demoralized. Many members felt it easier to evade the entire issue and passively permit 223 00:26:30.420 --> 00:26:37.380 non-Quakers to pursue the war effort. The result was that Benjamin Franklin was left 224 00:26:37.380 --> 00:26:43.440 in complete control of the Pennsylvania Assembly, the remaining Quakers now being thoroughly 225 00:26:43.440 --> 00:26:49.920 committed to the war effort and to Franklin's leadership. Thereafter, the political issues 226 00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:56.920 were constitutional ones, waged over proprietary rule versus the rights of the assembly. 227 00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:03.600 Of course, Governor Morris and the proprietary were unhappy at the result of the crisis, 228 00:27:03.600 --> 00:27:08.840 especially at Franklin's near-absolute control over the new Pennsylvania militia and its 229 00:27:08.840 --> 00:27:16.160 This democratic system of the soldiers electing their officers. In fact, Morris formed independent 230 00:27:16.160 --> 00:27:22.560 militia companies in Philadelphia under the rule of the proprietary. A near war broke 231 00:27:22.560 --> 00:27:29.740 out in the city in the spring of 1756 as Franklin, Colonel of the Philadelphia Militia, marched 232 00:27:29.740 --> 00:27:36.720 his regiment to a meeting of the independents and forced the participants to disperse. Franklin, 233 00:27:36.720 --> 00:27:41.720 Franklin, however, was not at all interested in a truly voluntary militia. 234 00:27:41.720 --> 00:27:45.720 With the Quakers having been cajoled into establishing the militia, 235 00:27:45.720 --> 00:27:53.720 Franklin soon felt the time ripe to extend the rigorously disciplinary mutiny act to Pennsylvania. 236 00:27:53.720 --> 00:27:58.720 The act made a mockery of the supposedly voluntary nature of the militia 237 00:27:58.720 --> 00:28:03.720 by decreeing a death penalty for mutiny or even desertion. 238 00:28:03.720 --> 00:28:10.440 The bill was temporarily blocked by the Quakers, who had not yet resigned, but an impassioned 239 00:28:10.440 --> 00:28:15.960 plea by Franklin again managed to dissipate their opposition. 240 00:28:15.960 --> 00:28:21.280 With the decks of Pennsylvania cleared for war and coercion, Governor Morris and the 241 00:28:21.280 --> 00:28:29.160 Council in April 1756 declared all-out warfare against the Indians, including subsidies for 242 00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:36.480 for Scalps of Male and Female Indians alike. Morris and Franklin, to some extent, believed 243 00:28:36.480 --> 00:28:43.720 that the Indians needed a good drubbing. This illegal declaration by governor and council, 244 00:28:43.720 --> 00:28:51.360 bypassing the Quaker assembly, was the precipitant of the Quakers' block's decision to resign 245 00:28:51.360 --> 00:28:57.120 and to leave the prosecution of the war to others. The Scotch-Irish frontiersmen were, 246 00:28:57.120 --> 00:29:05.120 The Reds were, of course, happy to heed the call for murder and terror against the Indians, and their ministers joined the fight. 247 00:29:05.120 --> 00:29:13.120 The Pacific German farmers, in contrast, retired from their farms rather than fight the Indians. 248 00:29:13.120 --> 00:29:21.120 The Peace Quakers, led by Israel Pemberton, seeing the historic policy of peace with the Red Man abandoned, 249 00:29:21.120 --> 00:29:27.120 A restraining influence soon appeared on the Morris Proprietary Policy of Massive Annihilation of the Indians. 250 00:29:27.120 --> 00:29:37.120 General Sir William Johnson, the Chief British Official for Indian Affairs, was becoming dominant in setting Indian policy in the colonies. 251 00:29:37.120 --> 00:29:43.120 The keystone of Sir William's program was the old alliance with the Indians. 252 00:29:43.120 --> 00:29:47.720 was becoming dominant in setting Indian policy in the colonies. 253 00:29:47.720 --> 00:29:53.300 The keystone of Sir William's program was the old alliance with the Iroquois, and this 254 00:29:53.300 --> 00:29:58.640 could hardly be secured by exterminating their dependent tribes. 255 00:29:58.640 --> 00:30:05.180 Two forces now drew the teeth of Pennsylvania aggression against the Indians, protest by 256 00:30:05.180 --> 00:30:11.300 Johnson and the willingness of the Delawares to attend a peace conference proposed by their 257 00:30:11.300 --> 00:30:41.300 The Policy of Peace with the Indians was now coming to the fore, and led to a peace conference with the Delaware chief, Terioskang Euston. Terioskang placed the blame for his attacks upon Pennsylvania, and led to a peace conference with the Delaware chief, Terioskang Euston. 258 00:30:41.300 --> 00:31:02.340 While negotiations were proceeding, the build-up for war with New France continued in Pennsylvania. 259 00:31:02.340 --> 00:31:09.180 The Crown and the proprietary insisted, over the objections of the Assembly, on compulsorily 260 00:31:09.180 --> 00:31:16.180 The National Assembly was re-quartering over 1,000 British soldiers who were suffering from a smallpox epidemic with the citizens of Philadelphia. 261 00:31:16.180 --> 00:31:31.180 The following year a battle ensued over the Military Appropriations Bill, a huge sum of 100,000 pounds to be raised by a property tax. 262 00:31:31.180 --> 00:31:38.900 Again, the governor refused to agree to taxing the proprietor's estates, and the assembly, 263 00:31:38.900 --> 00:31:44.920 after being pressured to vote for funds with the exemption, sent Benjamin Franklin to England 264 00:31:44.920 --> 00:31:48.600 to argue its case with the proprietary. 265 00:31:48.600 --> 00:31:55.060 Franklin managed to persuade the pens to agree to be taxed, but the proprietors soon rescinded 266 00:31:55.060 --> 00:31:57.340 this agreement. 267 00:31:57.340 --> 00:32:04.980 The Delaware Indians proved more tractable, however. By 1758, the peace negotiations had 268 00:32:04.980 --> 00:32:12.420 borne fruit. Chief Teddy Uskung received recognition by the Pennsylvania government of the unfairness 269 00:32:12.420 --> 00:32:19.540 of the walking purchase, as well as compensation for his stolen land. The more westerly Indians 270 00:32:19.540 --> 00:32:28.300 were bought off by a gift of £5,000 loaned to the Assembly by the Friendly Association. 271 00:32:28.300 --> 00:32:36.120 By 1758 also, the tide of war with the French had turned decisively in favor of England, 272 00:32:36.120 --> 00:32:44.100 and this helped end any serious conflict with the Indians. The war with France ended in 1763 273 00:32:44.100 --> 00:32:51.060 With France forced to cede Canada and all of its colonial possessions in North America 274 00:32:51.060 --> 00:32:57.900 east of the Mississippi River, England had succeeded in crushing and eradicating New 275 00:32:57.900 --> 00:32:58.660 France.