Woodie Holton is a historian who has been active in defending the 1619 Project, which led me to read his new book: Liberty Is Sweet, If I don't write further on it (it's good), I want to note this nice quote from Ben Franklin, which the Democrats could use:
All Property indeed, except the Savage’s temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents & all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity & the Uses of it. All the Property that is necessary to a Man for the Conservation of the Individual & the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who by their Laws have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire & live among Savages.— He can have no right to the Benefits of Society who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.
From Benjamin Franklin to Robert Morris, 25 December 1783
[Updated-corrected the author's name. See this Hogeland post on the related issue.'
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