Penn legacy: A totally new construct for government

Posted by Unknown on October 13, 2017

William Penn receives a colonial charter from Charles II

After Columbus discovered the New World, Spain grew in power to surpass Portugal as the largest global empire, giving rise the saying, the sun never set on the Spanish Empire. From Madrid, the Spanish Holy Roman Emperor Charles V ruled territories in Europe, North America, Central America, South America, Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and all the way to the Philippines.

Catholic Spain was instrumental in beating back the attacks of the Muslim Ottoman Turks from taking over Europe, most notably at the Battle of Lepanto on Oct. 7, 1571. Rather than following up on this astounding victory and freeing the rest of the Mediterranean from Muslim control, Spain turned its attention to stemming the Protestant Reformation in England. Unfortunately for Spain, its famed Spanish Armada was destroyed in 1588 by the combined efforts of the British and Dutch navies, aided by a hurricane.

Following this, the British and the Dutch competed with each other as to who would be the largest maritime power. This erupted into the Anglo-Dutch Wars of 1652-54, and 1665-67.

A notable British commander during the Anglo-Dutch Wars was William Penn Sr. During Britain’s Civil War, Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell had King Charles I beheaded in 1649. Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell then sent Admiral William Penn Sr., to the Caribbean, where Penn captured Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655.

Being so far from England, British inhabitants of Jamaica turned to privateers, pirates and buccaneers for protection, resulting in the city of Port Royal becoming infamous as “the Sodom of the New World,” till it was destroyed in an earthquake in 1692.

King Charles II was restored to the throne of his father in 1660, and Admiral Sir William Penn Sr., pledged loyalty to him.

His son was William Penn, born Oct. 14, 1644. It was a major embarrassment for Admiral Sir William Penn Sr. to have his son expelled from Oxford for associating with a dissenting religious group, the Quakers, which refused to submit to the king’s church.

At age 24, young William Penn converted to the Society of Friends, or Quakers, and wrote the “The Sandy Foundation Shaken,” for which he was imprisoned in the Tower of London for eight months. While in prison, William Penn wrote his classic book, No Cross, No Crown, stating: “Christ’s cross is Christ’s way to Christ’s crown. … The unmortified Christian and the heathen are of the same religion, and the deity they truly worship is the god of this world.”

William Penn continued: “It is a false notion that they may be children of God while in a state of disobedience to his holy commandments, and disciples of Jesus though they revolt from his cross.”

Several times, Admiral Sir William Penn Sr. paid the fine for young Penn to be released from prison. William Penn urged his father: “I intreat thee not to purchase my liberty.”

Dying, the Admiral insisted on once again paying the fine, telling his son: “Let nothing in this world tempt you to wrong your conscience.”

Admiral Sir William Penn Sr. secured from the king, due to his lifetime of faithful service to England, a promise to have favor shown to his son. After his father died, young William Penn used his inheritance to buy West Jersey with the intention of having Quakers emigrate there from England.

When Penn appealed to the King King Charles II for more land, the King surprised Penn by granting him a charter for 45,000 square miles, naming it “Pennsylvania.” This made William Penn the largest non-royal landowner in the world.

William Penn’s “Frame of Government” for his Colony became a model not only for most state governments, but also for the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. The Continental Congress met in Pennsylvania, and both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were written there.

Regarding his colony of Pennsylvania, William Penn wrote to a friend, Jan. 1, 1681, declaring he would: “… make and establish such laws as shall best preserve true Christian and civil liberty, in all opposition to all unchristian … practices. … God that has given it to me, through many difficulties, will, I believe, bless and make it the seed of a nation.”

William Penn wrote the preface for “Pennsylvania’s Frame of Government,” May 5, 1682: “When the great and wise God had made the world, of all his creatures, it pleased him to choose man his Deputy to rule it: and to fit him for so great a charge and trust, he did not only qualify him with skill and power, but with integrity to use them justly. This native goodness was equally his honor and his happiness, and whilst he stood here, all went well; there was no need of coercive or compulsive means; the precept of Divine love and truth, in his bosom, was the guide and keeper of his innocency. But lust prevailing against duty, made a lamentable breach upon it; and the law, that before had no power over him, took place upon him, and his disobedient posterity, that such as would not live conformable to the Holy law within, should fall under the reproof and correction of the just law without, in a Judicial administration. …”

William Penn continued: “This the Apostle teaches in divers of his epistles: ‘The law (says he) was added because of transgression.’ In another place, ‘Knowing that the law was not made for the righteous man; but for the disobedient and unGodly, for sinners, for unHoly and profane, for murderers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, and for man-stealers, for liars, for perjured persons,’ &c., but this is not all, he opens and carries the matter of government a little further: ‘Let every soul be subject to the higher powers; for there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God: whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil: wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same.’ ‘He is the minister of God to thee for good.’ ‘Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but for conscience sake. …’”

William Penn continued: “This settles the Divine right of government beyond exception, and that for two ends: First, to terrify evil doers: Secondly, to cherish those that do well; which gives government a life beyond corruption, and makes it as durable in the world, as good men shall be. So that government seems to me a part of religion itself, a filing sacred in its institution and end. For, if it does not directly remove the cause, it crushes the effects of evil, and is as such, (though a lower, yet) an emanation of the same Divine Power, that is both author and object of pure religion; the difference lying here, that the one is more free and mental, the other more corporal and compulsive in its operations: but that is only to evil doers; government itself being otherwise as capable of kindness, goodness and charity, as a more private society. They weakly err, that think there is no other use of government, than correction, which is the coarsest part of it: daily experience tells us, that the care and regulation of many other affairs, more soft, and daily necessary, make up much of the greatest part of government; and which must have followed the peopling of the world, had Adam never fell, and will continue among men, on earth, under the highest attainments they may arrive at, by the coming of the blessed Second Adam, the Lord from Heaven. Thus much of government in general, as to its rise and end. …”

Penn continued: “For particular frames and models, it will become me to say little; and comparatively I will say nothing. My reasons are: First. That the age is too nice and difficult for it; there being nothing the wits of men are more busy and divided upon. It is true, they seem to agree to the end, to wit, happiness; but, in the means, they differ, as to Divine, so to this human felicity; and the cause is much the same, not always want of light and knowledge, but want of using them rightly. Men side with their passions against their reason, and their sinister interests have so strong a bias upon their minds, that they lean to them against the good of the things they know. …”

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Penn added: “Secondly. I do not find a model in the world, that time, place, and some singular emergencies have not necessarily altered; nor is it easy to frame a civil government, that shall serve all places alike. Thirdly. I know what is said by the several admirers of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, which are the rule of one, a few, and many, and are the three common ideas of government, when men discourse on the subject. But I choose to solve the controversy with this small distinction, and it belongs to all three: Any government is free to the people under it (whatever be the frame) where the laws rule, and the people are a party to those laws, and more than this is tyranny, oligarchy, or confusion. But, lastly, when all is said, there is hardly one frame of government in the world so ill designed by its first founders, that, in good hands, would not do well enough; and story tells us, the best, in ill ones, can do nothing that is great or good; witness the Jewish and Roman states. Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too.

“Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But, if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn. I know some say, let us have good laws, and no matter for the men that execute them: but let them consider, that though good laws do well, good men do better: for good laws may want good men, and be abolished or evaded by ill men but good men will never want good laws, nor suffer ill ones. It is true, good laws have some awe upon-ill ministers, but that is where they have not power to escape or abolish them, and the people are generally wise and good: but a loose and depraved people (which is the question) love laws and an administration like themselves.

“That, therefore, which makes a good constitution, must keep it, vie: men of wisdom and virtue, qualities, that because they descend not with worldly inheritances, must be carefully propagated by a virtuous education of youth; for which after ages will owe more to the care and prudence of founders, and the successive magistracy, than to their parents, for their private patrimonies. These considerations of the weight of government, and the nice and various opinions about it, made it uneasy to me to think of publishing the ensuing frame and conditional laws, foreseeing both the censures, they will meet with, from melt of differing humors and engagements, and the occasion they may give of discourse beyond my design. …”

Penn stated further: “But, next to the power of necessity, (which is a solicitor, that will take no denial) this induced me to a compliance, that we have (with reverence to God, and good conscience to men) to the best of our skill, contrived and composed the frame and laws of this government, to the great end of all government, viz: To support power in reverence with the people, and to secure the people from the almost of power; that they may be free by their just obedience, and the magistrates honorable, for their just administration: for liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery. To carry this evenness is partly owing to the constitution, and partly to the magistracy: where either of these fail, government will be subject to convulsions; but where both are wanting, it must be totally subverted; then where both meet, the government is like to endure. Which I humbly pray and hope God will please to make the lot of this of Pennsylvania. Amen. William Penn.”

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