It’s easy for us to sort of relegate our Founders to the past and forget just how completely amazing they were. These guys were true liberals. Revolutionaries. And this letter that Benjamin Franklin wrote to a former friend proves just how dang cool he was.
From Letters of Note:
From the pen of Benjamin Franklin comes a furious letter, written in 1775 to William Strahan???a British Member of Parliament who had, until that point, been a friend of thirty years???as the American Revolutionary War?took hold. Franklin quickly had a change of mind after penning it, and it was never sent; however, word of its content later circulated and it soon become famous.
Here is the letter:
Here is the transcript, in case you can’t read his beautiful handwriting:
Philada. July 5. 1775
Mr. Strahan
You are a Member of Parliament, and one of that Majority which has doomed my Country to Destruction. You have begun to burn our Towns and murder our People. ? Look upon your hands! They are stained with the Blood of your Relations! ? You and I were long Friends: You are now my Enemy, ? and
I am,
Yours.
B. Franklin
We found this at Twisted Sifter. Original image from the?Library of Congress via Letters of Note.
