Benjamin Franklin

If the agent and his deputies, and the commissaries, are not to trade, should it not be a part of their oath, that they will have no concern in such trade, directly or indirectly?

And it seems contrary to the nature of commerce, for government to interfere in the prices of commodities.

Trade is a voluntary thing between buyer and seller; in every article of which, each exercises his own judgment, and is to please himself.

Where there are a number of different traders, the separate desire of each to get more custom will operate in bringing down their goods to a reasonable price.

It therefore seems to me, that trade will best find and make its own rates; and that government cannot well interfere, unless it will take the whole trade into its own hands (as in some colonies it does) and manage it by its own servants…

Where no compulsion can be used, it is more disgraceful to be dishonest.

If the trader thinks his risque greater in trusting any particular Indian, he will either not do it, or proportion his price to his risque.

It has been thought wisdom in a government exercising sovereignty over different kinds of people, to have some regard to prevailing and established opinions among the people to be governed, wherever such opinions might in their effects…

If they tend to obstruct public service, they are to be changed, if possible, before we attempt to act against them; and they can only be changed by reason and persuasion.

But if public business can be carried on without thwarting those opinions, if they can be, on the contrary, made subservient to it; they are not unnecessarily to be thwarted, how absurd such popular opinions may be in their nature.

But as these opinions did not hinder their granting money voluntarily and amply, whenever the crown, by its servants, came into their assemblies (as it does into its parliaments of Britain or Ireland) and demanded aids; therefore that…

The news of which greatly alarmed the people every where in America, as the language of such an act seemed to them to be--obey implicitly laws made by the parliament of Great Britain to raise money on you without your consent, or you shall…

There cannot be a stronger natural right than that of a man's making the best profit he can of the natural produce of his lands, provided he does not thereby hurt the state in general.

They are not content with the high prices at which they sell us their goods, but have now begun to enhance those prices by new duties, and by the expensive apparatus of a new set of officers, appear to intend an augmentation and…

Thus they get all our money from us by trade; and every profit we can any where make by our fisheries, our produce, or our commerce, centres finally with them;--but this does not satisfy.--It is time then to take care of ourselves by the…

Let us unite in solemn resolution and engagements with and to each other, that we will give these new officers as little trouble as possible, by not consuming the British manufactures on which they are to levy the duties.

We were separated too far from Britain by the ocean, but we were united to it by respect and love; so that we could at any time freely have spent our lives and little fortunes in its cause: but this unhappy new system of politics tends to…

I have attentively perused the paper you sent me, and am of opinion, that the measure it proposes, of an union with the colonies, is a wise one: but I doubt it will hardly be thought so here, till it is too late to attempt it.

The time has been, when the colonies would have esteemed it a great advantage, as well as honour to them, to be permitted to send members to parliament; and would have asked for that privilege, if they could have had the least hopes of…

This people, however, is too proud, and too much despises the Americans, to bear the thought of admitting them to such an equitable participation in the government of the whole.

Wherewith, they say, shall we show our loyalty to our gracious king, if our money is to be given by others, without asking our consent?

And if the parliament has a right thus to take from us a penny in the pound, where is the line drawn that bounds that right, and what shall hinder their calling whenever they please for the other nineteen shillings and eleven pence?

But the suspension, though it might continue their fears and anxieties, would at the same time keep up their resolutions of industry and frugality; which in two or three years would grow into habits, to their lasting advantage.

If the colonies are fitter for a particular trade than Britain, they should have it, and Britain apply to what it is more fit for.

Our legal method of compulsion is by imprisonment: the Indians cannot and will not imprison one another; and if we attempt to imprison them, I apprehend it would be generally disliked by the nations, and occasion breaches.