When Benjamin Franklin was 16 years old, the state of Massachusetts imprisoned his brother for criticizing the government. In response, Franklin used an alias to write a commentary about free speech in which he quoted the following words from a London newspaper: "Guilt only dreads Liberty of Speech, which drags it out of its lurking Holes, and exposes its Deformity and Horror to Daylight." Quoting the same source, Franklin also wrote, "Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing the Freeness of Speech," and in "those wretched Countries where a Man cannot call his Tongue his own, he can scarce call any Thing else his own."