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Real Benjamin Franklin Quote?

phattonez

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I've seen this quote floating around but so far have only found this source.


https://books.google.com/books?id=z... we have no interest to pay to no one&f=false

Or if that link doesn't work, it's from this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Words-Founding-Fathers-Quotations-Washington/dp/0786458623

It then cites a letter written by Franklin in 1763, but I can't find this letter. Does anyone have insight into this? If it's a fake quote, it's not a common one.

Sent from my phone. Instaurare omnia in Christo.
 

Well a google search for the quote brings up almost exclusively anti-banking and anti-Jewish articles citing the quote. So I would say the quote is probably not authentic or at least not easily verifiable using just the internet
 

That is not anything Benjamin Franklin would have written. He was a good writer.
 

Phattonez:

The quote appears in the book Words of the Founding Fathers by Steve Coffman on page 129 as Item # 923. It is identified as coming from a letter written by Franklin to The Bank of England in 1763. I hope that helps in your search.

Here is a link to the text which works.

https://books.google.ca/books?id=Ps...rip. We issue it in proper proportion&f=false
 
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Crovax said:
Well a google search for the quote brings up almost exclusively anti-banking and anti-Jewish articles citing the quote. So I would say the quote is probably not authentic or at least not easily verifiable using just the internet
Click to expand...
Yes, I too can perform a Google search. This isn't helpful.

Sent from my phone. Instaurare omnia in Christo.
 
Yes I saw that too, but I wasn't able to find the letter. Thank you.

Sent from my phone. Instaurare omnia in Christo.
 
phattonez said:
Yes I saw that too, but I wasn't able to find the letter. Thank you.

Sent from my phone. Instaurare omnia in Christo.
Click to expand...

Phattonez:

Upon further research I don't think the quote is from a letter at all. It appears to be part of the testimony given by Franklin to the governors of The Bank of England or the examiners of the Board of Trade in December of 1763 (sources are contradictory). These hearing were likely conducted by Lord Hillsborough but I cannot find a transcript of the testimony which includes your cited quotation. Perhaps you'll have better luck than me.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
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Interesting. This is proving very difficult to find. The internet is nice, but it still doesn't compare to a library!

Sent from my phone. Instaurare omnia in Christo.
 
I've found something, though it's not the same quote, it expresses the same idea.


Benjamin Franklin A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of Paper Currency < 1701-1750 < Documents < American History From Revolution To Reconstruction and beyond

Sent from my phone. Instaurare omnia in Christo.
 
phattonez said:
Yes, I too can perform a Google search. This isn't helpful.

Sent from my phone. Instaurare omnia in Christo.
Click to expand...

Actually its pretty helpful if you have any common sense.

Do you think that a bunch of anti-Semites are privy to a rare Benjamin Franklin quote that historians are not?
 
Crovax said:
Actually its pretty helpful if you have any common sense.

Do you think that a bunch of anti-Semites are privy to a rare Benjamin Franklin quote that historians are not?
Click to expand...
Was that the only place where this quote was found? No. So does this help? No.

Sent from my phone. Instaurare omnia in Christo.
 
phattonez said:
Was that the only place where this quote was found? No. So does this help? No.

Sent from my phone. Instaurare omnia in Christo.
Click to expand...

It’s actually pretty helpful again this takes some common sense.

The top 10 google hits are mostly books and papers with the quote in it, a couple of anti-central banking articles and THIS THREAD. The quote is so obscure that just making a thread about it makes it into the top google results. If you go to the next page it’s a lot of conspiracy articles, anti-Semite articles and even a stormfront thread. So it’s pretty clear that the majority of people interested in this quote are interested in using it for extreme political views.

If you are really interested in the validity of this quote you should get in touch with John Train the author of “The Money Masters” which it seems the quote was first published in citing the 1793 letter.
 
That's actually where I heard the quote as well. He made a spectacular claim that the revolution was really about England imposing hard money on the colonies, which I wanted to look up because I'd never heard of this. I found that indeed Franklin was a proponent of the paper money, but I haven't found the specific quote.

The fact that certain people use the quote has no bearing on its validity. It's either real or it's not.

Sent from my phone. Instaurare omnia in Christo.
 
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