" The foundation of his firm resistance on behalf of
the colonies to the English Parliament was his impregnable conviction
that the love of liberty was the ruling passion of the people of the
colonies. In 1766 he said of the American people: "Every act of
oppression will sour their tempers, lessen greatly, if not annihilate,
the profits of your commerce with them, and hasten their final revolt;
for the seeds of liberty are universally found there, and nothing can
eradicate them." Because they loved liberty, they would not be taxed
without representation; they would not have soldiers quartered on them,
or their governors made independent of the people in regard to their
salaries; or their ports closed, or their commerce regulated by
Parliament. It is interesting to observe how Franklin's experiments and
speculations in natural science often had a favorable influence on
freedom of thought. His studies in economics had a strong tendency in
that direction. His views about religious toleration were founded on his
intense faith in civil liberty; and even his demonstration that
lightning was an electrical phenomenon brought deliverance for mankind
from an ancient terror. It removed from the domain of the supernatural a
manifestation of formidable power that had been supposed to be a weapon
of the arbitrary gods; and since it increased man's power over nature,
it increased his freedom.
This faith in freedom was fully developed in Franklin long before the
American Revolution and the French Revolution made the fundamental
principles of liberty familiar to civilized mankind.
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