Let
men be good and government cannot be bad. If it be ill they will cure
it. But if men be bad, let the government be ever so good, they will
endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn. —William Penn
Most
people think of William Penn as a pious, contemplative man, a
peace-loving Quaker in a broad brim hat and plain drab clothes, who
founded Pennsylvania on benevolent principles.
But the real Penn, though very religious, was essentially a man of
action, restless and enterprising, at times a courtier and a
politician, who loved handsome dress, lived well and lavishly, and
although he undoubtedly kept his faith with the Indians, Pennsylvania
became the torment of his life. His life was full of contests,
imprisonments, disasters, and suffering. Few, if any, Quakers have
shown so much energy as he.
However, William Penn wasn't always a Quaker. Born in London in
1644, the son of Sir William Penn, an admiral in the British Navy, he
enjoyed the advantages of wealth and privilege. Like all gentlemen of
his time, he wore a sword at his side and looked like the consummate
cavalier.
After attending grammar school at Chigwell, the reign of Oliver
Cromwell forced the Penn family into exile in Ireland until he died.
While in Ireland, William Penn heard Thomas Loe, a Quaker, speak. He
never forgot what Loe said.
At age 16, Penn enrolled in Oxford University. However, after two
years, the University expelled him for not attending chapel. His
father sent him on a Grand Tour of Europe, where he completed his
studies in France.
In 1667, Penn's life changed forever. He joined the followers of
George Fox and soon realized that carrying a sword went against his
new beliefs of love and nonviolence. By putting his sword down, he
also broke with his father and his old way of life.
The Quaker refusal to take human life influenced all of Penn's
actions from then on. During the following year, he became an active
Quaker minister and helped many persecuted Quakers and was imprisoned
for the first time for his religious beliefs.
When he founded the new colony of Pennsylvania, Penn instituted a
penal code which reduced the application of the death penalty from
nearly 200 offenses to only two--murder and treason. And the Quaker
belief in nonviolence led to a new and gentler treatment of the
mentally disturbed, who formerly has been victims of unbelievable
cruelty.
As a young Quaker in England, Penn suffered frequent arrest and
imprisonment because he attended meetings for worship in defiance of
the Anglican Church. In 1670, the police arrested Penn and his friend,
linen-draper William Mead, for creating an unlawful assembly and
disturbing the peace by holding a worship service in the street
outside a padlocked meeting house. The judge tried to force a verdict
of "guilty" from the jury by withholding food and drink from
them for two days and nights. When the judge again threatened the jury
to find Penn guilty, Penn cried out, "Ye are Englishmen, mind
your privilege, give not away your right," to which the jury
answered, "Nor will we ever do it." Penn's defense so
inspired them that they stood firm in their decision that Penn and
Mead were innocent. The trial became famous in England’s legal
history.
As William Penn struggled to win religious freedom for himself and
others in England, he dreamed of the possibility of a colony in the
New World–a Holy Experiment to prove that a state could be founded
on principles of civil and religious liberty. This dream came true
when King Charles II of England, who had borrowed money from Admiral
Penn, repaid it by giving the Admiral's son and heir a large tract of
land in America, which he called "Penn Sylvania" or high
woods since Penn meant "high" in Welsh. For a time the King
considered New Wales Sylvania, but decided to honor Admiral Penn by
adding Penn, instead. When the new colony became a reality, men and
women of all creeds hastened to the new port of Philadelphia to seek
freedom from oppression.
As a builder of representative government, Penn was way ahead of
his time. He suggested a plan of union for the American colonies–a
plan that contained proposals similar to those actually adopted over
100 years later. He believed the truest means to peace is justice, not
war.
Penn prepared an ambitious but careful plan for his new
city, Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, which he called Greene
Countrie Towne. Like most Quakers, He respected and loved nature.
He laid out his new city in blocks with an abundant number of
tree-shaded squares. In addition, the streets were named after trees.
He shared the thrill of colonists surging in, 4,000 in two years, many
of them Friends seeking freedom from persecution. He met with the
Indians of his territory, joined in their sports, purchased land from
them, and signed a treaty of friendship.
Penn called together an Assembly and placed before it his
"Frame of Government," which established freedom of
religion, democracy in government to a degree unusual at that time,
humanitarian laws about the education of children and the treatment of
criminals, and justice for the Indians. Everyone respected and loved
him. What excited him most were the riches of this new country and the
possibility of a real community of brotherly love in which men of all
races and religions might be happy. He realized that "governments
depend more upon men than men upon governments."
He demonstrated his clarity of reason and incision of logic in his
writings. Yet Penn possessed a passion that permeated even his most
reasoned documents. He stood in the forefront of those who resurrected
the principles of religious freedom, separation of Church and State,
and government recognition of the rights of conscience. He was among
the first to envision an inclusive organization of sovereign nations
for the preservation of peace in his essay "The Peace of
Europe," from which evolved the concept of the United Nations.
The Holy Experiment of Pennsylvania became the first notable modern
application of the ageless search for human freedom within the bounds
of a benevolent government.
Unfortunately, many problems--personal and political--made it
impossible for William Penn to settle down and live the rest of his
life among his friends the Indians in the colony he loved so dearly.
The King Charles recalled Penn back to England in 1684 where
circumstances forced him to remain until 1699 when, accompanied by his
family and his new wife, Hanna Callowhill, he made his second trip to
America.
In 1701, he again sailed for England, never to return. He died in
1718, and his family buried him at the meeting house in Jordans, 20
miles outside London. Although William Penn spent only four years in
the New World, the ideas and ideals of his Holy Experiment are with us
today as a heritage that can quicken our spirits and inspire our
actions.
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