he wrote the essay common sense

• History Classics
• Your Profile
• Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window)
• This Day In History
• History Podcasts
• History Vault

This Day In History : January 10

Changing the day will navigate the page to that given day in history. You can navigate days by using left and right arrows

Thomas Paine publishes “Common Sense”

On January 10, 1776, writer Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet “Common Sense,” setting forth his arguments in favor of American independence. Although little used today, pamphlets were an important medium for the spread of ideas in the 16th through 19th centuries.

Originally published anonymously, “Common Sense” advocated independence for the American colonies from Britain and is considered one of the most influential pamphlets in American history.  Credited with uniting average citizens and political leaders behind the idea of independence, “Common Sense” played a remarkable role in transforming a colonial squabble into the American Revolution .

At the time Paine wrote “Common Sense,” most colonists considered themselves to be aggrieved Britons.  Paine fundamentally changed the tenor of colonists’ argument with the crown when he wrote the following:  “Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America.  This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe.  Hither they have fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.”

Paine was born in England in 1737 and worked as a corset maker in his teens and, later, as a sailor and schoolteacher before becoming a prominent pamphleteer. In 1774, Paine arrived in Philadelphia and soon came to support American independence.  Two years later, his 47-page pamphlet sold some 500,000 copies, powerfully influencing American opinion. Paine went on to serve in the U.S. Army and to work for the Committee of Foreign Affairs before returning to Europe in 1787.  Back in England, he continued writing pamphlets in support of revolution. He released “The Rights of Man,” supporting the French Revolution in 1791-92, in answer to Edmund Burke’s famous “Reflections on the Revolution in France” (1790). His sentiments were highly unpopular with the still-monarchal British government, so he fled to France, where he was later arrested for his political opinions.  He returned to the United States in 1802 and died in New York in 1809.

Also on This Day in History January | 10

This Day in History Video: What Happened on January 10

First meeting of the united nations, league of nations instituted, gusher signals new era of u.s. oil industry, president harding orders u.s. troops home from germany, president johnson asks for more funding for vietnam war.

Wake Up to This Day in History

Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. Get all of today's events in just one email featuring a range of topics.

By submitting your information, you agree to receive emails from HISTORY and A+E Networks. You can opt out at any time. You must be 16 years or older and a resident of the United States.

More details : Privacy Notice | Terms of Use | Contact Us

FDR introduces the lend-lease program

Outlaw frank james born in missouri, aol-time warner merger announced, avalanche kills thousands in peru, world’s cheapest car debuts in india.

Common Sense by Thomas Paine

As 1776 began, America’s rebellion against British colonial rule was not yet a revolution.  Less than half the projected number of volunteers had enlisted in the Continental army with desertions mounting.  George Washington was entrenched, but stalemated in Cambridge outside of Boston. The British Commander, General John Burgoyne, mocked the situation by writing and producing the satirical play, “The Blockade”, which portrayed Washington as an incompetent flailing a rusty sword.  Then something amazing happened.

“Common Sense” was published on January 9, 1776.  It remains one of the most indispensable documents of America’s founding.  In forty-eight pages, Thomas Paine accomplished three things fundamental to America.   He is the first to publically assert the only possible outcome of the rebellion is independence from Great Britain. He makes the case for American independence understandable and accessible to everyone.  He lays the ground work for the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Paine is both the most unlikely and likely person to accomplish this pivotal Trifecta.  He was born in rural England on January 29, 1737, the son of a Quaker father and an Anglican mother. This religious diversity formed a key part of his early writings on religious freedom. His career was a mixture of failed business ventures, failed marriages, and minor positions in British Excise (tax) offices. This mix of mundane activities masked the brilliant mind of an outstanding observer, thinker, and communicator.

In the summer of 1772, Paine wrote his first political article, The Case of the Officers of Excise , a twenty-one page brief for better pay and working conditions among Excise Officers. The work had little impact on Parliament, but did bring him to the attention of political thinkers in London, and ultimately to being introduced to Benjamin Franklin in September 1774. Franklin recommended that Paine immigrate to Pennsylvania and commence a publishing career.  Thomas Paine arrived in Philadelphia on November 30, 1774 and became editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine in January 1775.

Editing the magazine gave Paine two major opportunities.  He honed his writing skills for appealing to a mass audience and he befriended those opposing British colonial rule, including Benjamin Rush, an active member of the Sons of Liberty. After open rebellion erupted in April 1775, Rush was concerned that, “When the subject of American independence began to be agitated in conversation, I observed the public mind to be loaded with an immense mass of prejudice and error relative to it”.  He urged Paine to make the case for American independence understandable to common people.

Common Sense was just that. Paine laid out methodical and easily understood reasons for American independence in plain terms. Up until Common Sense those opposed to British rule did so only in lengthy philosophical letters circulated among intellectual elites.

Common Sense ushered in a new style of political writing, devoid of Latin phrases and complex concepts.  Historian Scott Liell asserts in Thomas Paine, Common Sense, and the Turning Point to Independence : “[B]y including all of the colonists in the discussion that would determine their future, Common Sense became not just a critical step in the journey toward American independence but also an important artifact in the foundation of American democracy.”

Paine’s simple prose promoted the premise that the rebellion was not about subjects wronged by their monarch, but a separate and independent people being oppressed by a foreign power:

“Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America.  This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe.  Hither they have fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.” Common Sense was an instant bestseller. It sold as many as 120,000 copies in the first three months, 500,000 in twelve months, going through twenty-five editions in the first year alone. This amazingly wide distribution was among a free population of only 2 million Americans.

Originally published anonymously as “Written by an Englishman”, word soon spread that Paine was the author.  His authorship known, Paine publically declared that all proceeds would go to the purchase of woolen mittens for Continental soldiers. General Washington ordered Paine’s pamphlet distributed among all his troops. Within the year, Paine became an aide-de-camp to Nathanael Greene, one of Washington’s top field commanders.

Common Sense was not only read by the masses, it was read to them. In countless taverns and local gatherings Paine’s case for American independence and for a unique American form of government was heard even by common folk who had never learned to read.

The masses heard and embraced the concept that, “A government of our own is our natural right”.  They also heard and understood the foundations of America: Government as a “necessary evil” formed and maintained by the will of the governed – “in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King”; and the need for an engaged electorate, “this frequent interchange will establish a common interest with every part of the community, they will mutually and naturally support each other, and on this, (not on the unmeaning name of king,) depends the  strength of government, and the   happiness of the governed.”

While the Declaration of Independence became the philosophical core of our Revolution, Common Sense initiated and broadened the public debate about independence, building the public commitment necessary to make our Revolution possible.

March 11, 2013 – Essay #16

Read Common Sense by Thomas Paine here: https://constitutingamerica.org/?p=3523

Scot Faulkner is Co-Founder of the George Washington Institute of Living Ethics, Shepherd University.  Follow him on Twitter @ScotFaulkner53

Maybe it’s time for a refresher course on “Common Sense”. That might be the spark that is needed to reclaim our Nation and remind those in office that government is through the consent of the governed. Unless the governed today don’t mind the near tyrannical government threatening our freedoms.

Remembering why America happened is about the underlying principles as well as the pivotal events, people, and documents. Our civic culture is at risk because so few people take the time to read and understand who we are.

This may be the heart of our national problem; “The more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered, and the easier repaired when disordered.” Our government has grown into such a complex monster that “we have to pass a law to find out what’s in it” and even then, no one can really understand what’s in it. Every reasonable citizen knows what the problems are, but it’s no longer easy to repair because there are so many advocates and beneficiaries for thousands of programs that it’s almost impossible to solve even one of the well-known problems without upsetting a large percentage of the citizens.

We need another “Common Sense” today. Even with it, we would need to reprint another set of Federalist Papers in language so simple that even those who buy into the Progressive agenda might understand how far that agenda is from the optimal structure that our founders left for us – and how that agenda is a path to destruction of our Republic. It reminds me of the book “Pilgrim’s Progress;” since our Republic’s journey began more than 200 years ago, we’ve found so many appealing paths to follow that we now have no idea how to get back to the path we were on. All these side paths seem so satisfying for the present that we don’t understand that we’ll never reach our ultimate, most satisfying, destination if we allow ourselves to keep getting diverted. We Constitutionalists have a lot of work to do!

We need another “Common Sense” today. Even with it, we would need to reprint another set of Federalist Papers in language so simple that even those who buy into the Progressive agenda might understand how far that agenda is from the optimal structure that our founders left for us – and how that agenda is a path to destruction of our Republic.

Many conservatives seem to think liberals are intellectually deficient compared to conservatives, but such egoism can only serve as a basis for grave strategic and tactical errors. Liberals don’t believe in absurdities because of any lack of intellectual capacity, but because their thinking has become emotionalized as a result of the increasing feminization of the American body politic.

Ron you are correct. America needs a 21st Century version of “Common Sense” to remind us that our founding principles are timeless and still very relevant today. This document also needs to make people aware of the fundamental threats to these principles (both foriegn and domestic).

I loved this guest essay! And, how very prescient his words are 200 plus years later…it seems that many of our culture’s failings have arisen out of this conflict between society and government with reference to their respective roles. Post modern America has bought into the same old lies as those in merry old England. Thomas Paine seemed to know and embrace “truth”…sadly, America has exchanged the “truth” for self-actualization and a culture of blame.

America needs another Thomas Paine – a person who can clearly communicate basic truths and make a compelling case for preserving our core principles of lberty.

As someone who has, over the past 5-6 years, begun to study the laws of nature that the Declaration of Independence centered around, around the concept that government is established for the purpose of protecting equally life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, not to rule over people, which is exaclty what the revolution was a fight against. When Paine wrote that the law is king, it is the laws of nature that he was referencing.

What our nation has become is the exact tyranny that the our founders fought against. They call ruling over us service, when it is really just code wording in order to sell themselves to the ignorant public, that they might retain their power and grow it.

The path that Ron speaks of is the path back to God, morality and virtue, which are the pillars of liberty, as well as the path to education based on the self-evident truths contained in the Declaration and within the laws of nature.

This essay was an eloquent and relevant reminder of Thomas Paine’s important work. Paine is responsible for boosting colonial morale during the Revolutionary War, setting the stage for American religious liberty and political freedom, and influencing the Founding Fathers in the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. His message remains fundamental to the very principles and values that the United States was built upon, and it is extremely important for today’s generation to be acquainted with his work. Maybe if every American citizen read “Common Sense” and an adept background / analysis such as the one by Scot Faulkner, they would be inspired to change the course our country is on today.

Dear Jared:

You are right on target. American education steers away from teaching the fundamental principles, documents, and events that made us who we are.

As important is Pop culture. The entertainment industry would rather clutter our movie theaters with films about car chases and drug dealers instead of “Lincoln”. Up through th 1950s, movies and television shows about American history were a staple. Now they are rare. The British get it right – in the last decade they have had wonderful historical films, like “The King’s Speech” and “Young Victoria”. They strike the right balance between personalizing and enobling their history. In America we mostly have the liberal agitprop of Quentin Tarrantino and Oliver Stone.

Every one of the 90 in 90 documents have amazing stories that would make compelling films.

Perhaps the producers of “The Bible” series currently airing could be convinced to produce such a series, perhaps based on Hillsdale’s Constitutional Reader

The full text of the final edition of “Common Sense” included the addendum of the subsequent letter exchanges that spilled over into a dialogue with Quakers. In there, Thomas Paine charges the Quakers not to play politics for their requesting colonists to refrain from meddling with the affairs with Parliament and the King of England. He retorts back why they do not complain then about the King’s meddling with the affairs of the colonists.

What strikes me most; however, is the common dialogue of the day made so much use of Bible reference, Bible stories, and Bible examples as part of the debate, which in this case Thomas Paine uses the Bible as a text for making a case against why the King is not have a Divine Right to rule the American Colonies. And yet, in these post modern times we have atheists and skeptics who laud Thomas Paine as being deist at best, and atheist at worst. But regardless of the religious views of Paine, which in another letter to the constitutional convention of France encouraged French schools to teach the science and nature of God who created all things and is the progenitor of the sciences (meaning knowledge), you simply could not make any debate in those days without being versed in Scripture. Because so often was Bible references made in writings that if you did not know the Bible references or stories, you would be at a disadvantage of context.

Nowadays, we have people churning out with PhDs who have not even read the Bible, and yet claim to be an authority on these classical documents supposing to be our historians. Back then, you could not even graduate from college anywhere in the American colonies without having the ability to give a sermon, read the Latin, Greek and maybe even Hebrew in the original texts, and cite classical authors from their original writings. Today, scholars are rather classically illiterate as they cannot read original classics and have to resort to hear-say of those who have translated original classics or wrote their paraphrases and interpretations about them. Higher education, in all of its lofty accolades, has become vulgar and where does that leave the commoner today but left to fend for themselves with the classics? It gets to the point where you cannot trust that you are getting good information from the education system and have to slog through a lot of misinformation to get to the real deal.

Ralph, I’ve always enjoyed the wisdom in your comments over the three years of these studies. What you say here is absolutely correct. I’ve been amazed at how frequently the Bible is quoted directly or indirectly. I would not have known that had I not started these studies.

It’s encouraged me to work more to connect the Bible and our founding documents. For example, I see strong connections between the Biblical Exodus and the exodus of Christians from Europe to America; later, the progressivism of the Israelites, leading to their destruction, being similar to the progressivism of Europeans and Americans today, ultimately leading to our destruction if we don’t reverse our course.

One connection I’ve recently made is to the Declaration of Independence: Life: Created by God in His image Liberty: Free Will Pursuit of Happiness: Eternal happiness, not ephemeral hedonistic pleasure

Looking forward to more of your wisdom.

Join the discussion! Post your comments below.

Leave a reply cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Thomas Paine

February 9, 1737–June 8, 1809

Thomas Paine was a Founding Father, a philosopher of the American Revolution, and a true revolutionary. His essays and pamphlets, especially Common Sense, noted for its plain language, resonated with the common people of America and roused them to rally behind the movement for independence. Following the American Revolutionary War, Paine immigrated to Europe where the British government declared him an outlaw for his anti-monarchist views, and where he actively participated in the French Revolution.

This portrait of Thomas Paine was painted by Laurent Dabos around 1792. Image Source: Wikipedia.

Early Life and Education

Thomas Paine was born on February 9, 1737, in Thetford, a town in Norfolk, England. His parents were Joseph and Frances Pain.

From 1744 to 1749, Paine attended the Thetford Grammar School.

Around the time he was 12 or 13, he took on a 7-year apprenticeship working for his father making stays for corsets. He became a master stay-maker and opened his own shop in Sandwich, Kent.

Death of First Wife

On September 27, 1759, he married Mary Lambert. Mary became pregnant, went into labor and both she and the baby died.

Early Business and Political Career

During the next few years, he went from job to job, working as an excise officer,  stay-maker, servant, and minister. On February 19, 1768, he was hired as a schoolteacher in Lewes, East Sussex. He was introduced to the intellectual group Society of Twelve by Samuel Ollive. Ollive owned the Bull House, which was the tobacco shop that Paine was living above at the time. On March 6, 1771, Paine married Samuel’s daughter, Elizabeth.

Meeting Benjamin Franklin

In 1772, Paine published the 21-page pamphlet The Case of the Officers of Excise , which petitioned Parliament for better pay and working conditions for excise officers. On April 14 he sold his possessions to pay his debts and avoid debtor’s prison. On June 4 he separated from his wife and moved to London. Then, in September, he was introduced by a friend to Benjamin Franklin . Franklin suggested he should go to America and provided him with a letter of recommendation. Paine left for the Colonies in October and arrived in Philadelphia on November 30, 1774.

Common Sense

On January 10, 1776, he published the 47-page pamphlet, Common Sense , which urged Americans to declare their independence and to replace the monarchy with a republic. Paine believed that democracy is the only form of government that can guarantee the natural rights of man. Common Sense was an immediate success, selling 120,000 copies in the first three months, and three times that over the next three years. Later that same year, John Adam s published Thoughts on Government in response to Common Sense. Adams called Paine’s work a “crapulous mess” and disagreed with Paine on many points. Thoughts on Government  advocated a more conservative approach to republicanism.

The American Crisis

In December 1776, he began publishing his series of pamphlets called The American Crisis . The first of these pamphlets begins with the line, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Working as a clerk for the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1780, he wrote the preamble to the first bill emancipating slaves by an American legislature.

Life After the Revolutionary War

After the war, Paine worked as a civil engineer and designed an iron bridge. In 1787, he went to Europe to obtain the endorsement of his bridge from the scientific community. From 1787 to 1790 he traveled between England and France. In 1791, he published the first part of the Rights of Man in response to Edmund Burke’s criticism of the French Revolution. Paine’s hope was that Rights of Man would be a British version of Common Sense . He published the second part in February 1792, and by 1793 more than 200,000 copies had been sold. Because Rights of Man encourage the people to overthrow the British monarchy, he was tried and convicted for treason in December 1792.

In the National Convention, he aligned himself with the moderate Gironde group, but when the Jacobins seized power they revoked his citizenship. He was imprisoned from December 1793 until September 1794. During this time, he wrote the first part of the Age of Reason , which presented his thoughts on deism and renounced organized religion, especially Christianity. Paine was freed in 1794 due to the efforts of James Monroe , the U.S. Minister to France.

In 1796, Paine published the second part of Age of Reason, but he also wrote a letter to George Washington that attacked his fellow Founding Fathers and was highly critical of Washington’s dealings with France. When Paine returned to America in 1802, it was to a cool reception.

Paine died on June 8, 1809, at the age of 72 in Greenwich Village in New York City. The building that stands at 59 Grove Street today bears a plaque noting that it is on the site of the place where Paine died. His obituary in the New York Citizen included, “He had lived long, did some good and much harm.”Paine was originally buried in New Rochelle, New York, but his bones were dug up by William Corbett. Corbett took the bones back to England where he planned to give them a heroic reburial, but that never happened. The bones of Thomas Paine were in Cobbett’s possessions when he died.

Significance

Thomas Paine is significant because he wrote Common Sense , which was extremely popular and written in a way that most Americans could understand and identify with. He used a plain, straightforward style and often quoted verses from the Bible.

Paine also served in the Continental Army and served on committees during the Second Continental Congress .

Founding Father

Thomas Paine is a Founding Father because he wrote the influential pamphlet, Common Sense .

Thomas Paine: In Four Minutes

Thomas Paine — Quick Facts

• Thomas Paine was born on February 9, in Thetford, Norfolk, England.
• In 1772, he wrote, Case of the Officers of Excise , which is his earliest known prose composition, and first important pamphlet.

Move to the American Colonies

• Pained moved to Philadelphia in 1774.
• In 1775, he became editor of Pennsylvania Magazine .
• He wrote an anti-slavery essay, African Slavery in America, in 1775.
• In 1776, he wrote the influential pamphlet Common Sense , which advocated independence from Britain.

Continental Army

• Paine enlisted in Continental Army in 1776.
• Published American Crisis I, the first of 16 American Crisis papers, in 1776. This work contains the famous line, “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

Foreign Affairs Secretary

• Congress appointed Paine its Secretary to Committee on Foreign Affairs in 1777.
• Resigned as Foreign Affairs Secretary in 1779, as a result of the Silas Deane Affair.

Rights of Man and the Age of Reason

• Paine returned to Europe in 1787, dividing his time between England and France.
• He published part one of the Rights of Man , his reply to Edmund Burke’s denunciation of the French Revolution, in 1791.
• In 1792, he published part two of the Rights of Man .
• He was condemned for his radical views, declared an outlaw, and forced to leave England in 1792.
• He moved to France where he became a citizen and was elected as a member of the National Assembly in France, in 1792.
• He helped write the Constitution of the Republic of France in 1792.
• In 1793, he published part one of The Age of Reason .
• He was imprisoned by Jacobins in 1793, during the Reign of Terror, for his moderate views regarding the treatment of Louis XVI.
• He spent 11 months in prison and was released in 1793 with the help of James Monroe, the U.S. Ambassador to France.
• Paine published part two of The Age of Reason in 1795.

Return to America

• Paine returned to New York in 1802.
• He died June 8, 1809, in New York City.
• He was buried on his farm in New Rochelle, New York.
• His remains were lost in an ill-conceived effort to inter him in England in 1819.

Key Publications Written by Thomas Paine

• 1775 — The anti-slavery essay, African Slavery in America .
• 1776 — The pro-independence pamphlet Common Sense
• 1791 — Part one of The Rights of Man.
• 1792 — Part two of The Rights of Man.
• 1793 — Part one of The Age of Reason.
• 1795 — Part two of The Age of Reason.
• Written by Randal Rust

Thomas Paine's Common Sense

“These are the times that try men’s souls...” is one of the most recognizable lines of literature from the American Revolutionary War era. Penned by Thomas Paine during the dark days of the retreat of the Continental Army, in his treatise The American Crisis , after the devastating defeats around New York in 1776 . The cause of American independence was truly hanging in the balance.

Before the cause of American independence could be rallied by the powerful and persuasive message that emanated from the pen of Paine in late 1776, the cause had to be ignited. One of the tracts that coalesced and gave voice to the prospect of a rupture with Great Britain was due in part to the same Thomas Paine.

In fact, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, John Adams described the impact of Paine’s first and most wildly successful pamphlet Common Sense ; “Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.” Lofty praise for Paine and his literary contribution to the American Revolutionary War-era history.

First, who was the author? Born Thomas Pain in on January 29, 1736, in the old-style calendar (February 9, 1737, in the calendar used today) in Thetford, England, to a tenant farmer and stay-maker Joseph Pain and his wife Frances. By 1769, Pain added the vowel (e) at the end of his name. After numerous occupations in England, including a brief sojourn on the high seas as a privateer, and the death of one wife and separation from another, Paine took up residence in London. Through the connection with mathematician George Lewis Scott, he was introduced to Benjamin Franklin . A mention in conversation with Franklin led to Paine immigrating to Colonial America in October 1774.

Only two brief instances in Paine’s life prior to America gives one insight into any potential impact on what would transpire once his boots landed in Philadelphia on November 30, 1774. First, he had become active in civic engagements while living in the town of Lewes, which had a long tradition of pro-republican sentiments. Secondly, in the summer of 1772, he was the author of an article entitled, The Case of the Officers of Excise and had taken an active hand in helping distribute over 4,000 copies throughout London. Yet, even these brief windows into Paine’s past does not hint at what his pen would do in the colonies.

By the following March, Paine was the editor for the Pennsylvania Magazine and contributed two articles to the January 1775 to the inaugural magazine. As the publication was self-styled an “American magazine” the hope was that it would combine sentiment and gain readership throughout the 13-colonies. Paine became the editor and brought a political presence to the publication. Crafting a series of letters that would be farmed out to various papers in the city, once the quill touched parchment, Paine’s genius with words flowed forth under the title of Plain Truth. Dr. Benjamin Rush , a luminary in Philadelphia and soon to affix his signature on the Declaration of Independence, suggested the title Common Sense . The latter title, discarded for the pamphlet, did speak to the genesis behind the publication, as Paine’s motive was to spread the idea of independence from Great Britain, republican ideology, and recruitment for the military. Rush though also made the connection to the Philadelphia printer and publisher Robert Bell who quickly saw the potential and published the entire pamphlet.

Although demand ran high for and a second edition was advertised, Paine still could not remove himself from confrontation. When Paine requested people investigate what the profit was from Bell’s printing of the pamphlet in his publication, the startling sum of zero was what they found. Paine, who had begun writing a few appendices to the initial Common Sense, contacted the publishers of the Pennsylvania Evening-Post, the Bradford Brothers. This printer would go on and publish the new addition and follow-up appendices that Paine created. Bell remained obstinate and had advertised that another edition would be forthcoming from the anonymous author of the first pamphlet, which was a direct contradiction of Paine’s response to him. Both sides traded barbs, took to print to publish variations, and new additions as 1777 wore on.

The result of these initial publishing, according to estimates, exceeded 100,000 copies by the end of 1776 and from Paine himself, the estimate that over 120,000 in the first ninety-days from the original publication. Some estimates range as high as half-million copies within the first twelve months whereas other later historians put the number in the 75,000 range.

No matter the number, the reach was astronomical and was not confined to just one side of the Atlantic, as the pamphlet made its way into print in Great Britain and was widely read in France as well. The latter country’s publishers did omit the overt references to the evils of monarchy that Paine elaborated on in the pamphlet.

Paine, who forsook his copyright on the work, allowing the pamphlet to be printed freely and widely, never received any of the profits, especially from that initial printing in Bell’s paper. Amazingly, Paine was able to stay anonymous for the first three months after Common Sense was published, even though he had a public spat with Bell over the publication.

The pamphlet can be broken down into four main sections; origin and design of government based on the English Constitution, monarch and hereditary succession, thoughts on the current state of American affairs, and the present ability of America, paraphrasing the language used by Paine himself. Paine wrote with a style that was easily readable and relatable, no matter what strata of colonial society one’s station. Paine’s words were read with the power, drama, and vindictiveness, that emanated from the man himself, one who would struggle to harness that spirit at other times in his life. Yet, when funneled, like writing a politically motivated pamphlet, those traits were needed in order to inject emotion and belief, akin to a fresh breath, into the revolutionary movement. For instance, the opening sentences underscore that point and struck a chord with the colonists and reverberated from community to community across the landscape of North America.

“The cause of America is, in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all lovers of mankind are affected, and in the event of which, their affections are interested. The laying a country desolate with fire and sword, declaring war against the natural rights of mankind, and extirpating the defenders thereof from the face of the earth, it is the concern of every man to whom nature hath given the power of feeling; of which class, regardless of party censure is.”

Even Abigail Adams , who received a copy from her husband, was enthralled with the writing style and message Paine put forth. The hopefulness of the opportunity presented by the chance of rebelling against Great Britain was captured in whole, according to Abigail, in the following line.

“We have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest purest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”

Those two lines above underscored the messaging that Paine was trying to capture in this pamphlet. The chance to begin anew which does not come often, especially in the 18th-century world dominated by monarchs and despotic rulers. This appealed to the masses, the shopkeepers, farmers, and all strata of society, gave voice and a message for a rallying cry around the idea of revolution and change.

Even the top strata of the revolutionary movement stopped to take notice of Common Sense and its far-reaching positive effect. General George Washington , in Massachusetts, took quill to paper to echo Abigail’s sentiments, in a letter to a friend, “I find that Common Sense is working a powerful change there in the minds of many men. Few pamphlets have had so dramatic an effect on political events.”

The lasting effect of this 49-page pamphlet was to put into word and print the argument of why a rupture with Great Britain was not only necessary but as contemporaries and historians would agree, as inevitable. Secondly, Paine gave the reassurance that a victory was also achievable and possible for the colonists, which, without the benefit of hindsight, was a huge endorsement for the fledgling nation tackling the biggest empire currently in the world at that time. All for the hope to garner the “power to begin the world over again.”

Further Readings

• Common Sense  By: Thomas Paine 
• Common Sense, Rights of Man, and Other Essential Writings of Thomas Paine   By: Thomas Paine
• American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804   By: Alan Taylor

"Negro, Mulatto, or Indian man slave[s]": African Americans in the Rhode Island Regiments, 1775-1783

The Cost of War

Lost & Bewildered: Dealing With Mental Wounds After the American Revolution

You may also like.

Explore the Constitution

The constitution.

• Read the Full Text

Dive Deeper

Constitution 101 course.

• The Drafting Table
• Supreme Court Cases Library
• Founders' Library
• Constitutional Rights: Origins & Travels

Start your constitutional learning journey

• News & Debate Overview
• Constitution Daily Blog
• America's Town Hall Programs
• Special Projects
• Media Library

America’s Town Hall

Watch videos of recent programs.

• Education Overview

Constitution 101 Curriculum

• Classroom Resources by Topic
• Classroom Resources Library
• Live Online Events
• Professional Learning Opportunities
• Constitution Day Resources

Explore our new 15-unit high school curriculum.

• Explore the Museum
• Plan Your Visit
• Exhibits & Programs
• Field Trips & Group Visits
• Host Your Event
• Buy Tickets

New exhibit

The first amendment, historic document, common sense (1776).

Thomas Paine | 1776

 One of the all-time American bestsellers, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense exploded on the scene in January 1776, at a precarious moment when reconciliation with Great Britain seemed unlikely yet, to many, independence still seemed unthinkable. In electric prose, Paine, a recent English immigrant, made a forceful case in defense of separation. On multiple scores, the pamphlet radiated a radical democratic spirit. In plain, unadorned writing, it appealed to the common capacities of all people to evaluate the case for independence. It left few traditional hierarchies untouched, meanwhile, nowhere more strikingly than its vigorous condemnation of the institution of monarchy, which Paine claimed was in fact an affront to God. Common Sense seized public opinion, propelling American colonists toward independence.

Selected by

William B. Allen

Emeritus Dean of James Madison College and Emeritus Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University

Jonathan Gienapp

Associate Professor of History at Stanford University

“But there is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is the distinction of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS. Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of Heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth inquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.

These portions of scripture are direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal construction. That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchical government is true, or the scripture is false. And a man hath good reason to believe that there is as much of kingcraft as priestcraft in withholding the scripture from the public in popish countries. For monarchy in every instance is the popery of government.

To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and tho’ himself might deserve some decent degree of honours of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in Kings, is that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule, by giving mankind an  Ass for a Lion .

In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense: and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves: that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day.

Small islands not capable of protecting themselves are the proper objects for government to take under their care; but there is something absurd, in supposing a Continent to be perpetually governed by an island. In no instance hath nature made the satellite larger than its primary planet; and as England and America, with respect to each other, reverse the common order of nature, it is evident that they belong to different systems. England to Europe: America to itself.

I shall conclude these remarks, with the following timely and well-intended hints. We ought to reflect, that there are three different ways by which an independancy may hereafter be effected; and that one of those  three , will, one day or other, be the fate of America, viz. By the legal voice of the people in Congress; by a military power; or by a mob: It may not always happen that our soldiers are citizens, and the multitude a body of reasonable men; virtue, as I have already remarked, is not hereditary, neither is it perpetual. Should an independancy be brought about by the first of those means, we have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest, purest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom from the events of a few months. The reflection is awful, and in this point of view, how trifling, how ridiculous, do the little paltry cavilings of a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed against the business of a world.

WHEREFORE, instead of gazing at each other with suspicious or doubtful curiosity, let each of us hold out to his neighbor the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line, which, like an act of oblivion, shall bury in forgetfulness every former dissention. Let the names of Whig and Tory be extinct; and let none other be heard among us, than those of a good citizen; an open and resolute friend;  and  a virtuous supporter of the  RIGHTS  of  MANKIND,  and of the  FREE AND INDEPENDANT STATES OF AMERICA.”

Explore the full document

Modal title.

Modal body text goes here.

Share with Students

Open Yale Courses

You are here, hist 116: the american revolution,  - common sense.

This lecture focuses on the best-selling pamphlet of the American Revolution: Thomas Paine’s Common Sense , discussing Paine’s life and the events that led him to write his pamphlet. Published in January of 1776, it condemned monarchy as a bad form of government, and urged the colonies to declare independence and establish their own form of republican government. Its incendiary language and simple format made it popular throughout the colonies, helping to radicalize many Americans and pushing them to seriously consider the idea of declaring independence from Britain.

Lecture Chapters

• Introduction: Voting on Voting
• On Paine's Burial
• Colonial Mindset during the Second Continental Congress
• Serendipity and Passion: The Early Life of Thomas Paine
• Major Arguments and Rhetorical Styles in "Common Sense"
• "Common Sense's" Popularity and Founders' Reactions
• Social Impact of the Pamphlet and Conclusion

Common Sense by Thomas Paine – Significance and Influence

“Common Sense” by Thomas Paine is a timeless and influential pamphlet that played a pivotal role in shaping the course of history.

Published in 1776 during the American Revolution, Paine’s persuasive writing and revolutionary ideas captivated the minds of the American colonists, sparking a fervent call for independence from British rule.

This brief exploration delves into the significance of “Common Sense,” its impact on the American Revolution, its role in fostering unity among the colonies, and its enduring influence on political thought both in the United States and beyond.

The Significance of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense

1. advocated for american independence.

“Common Sense” was a groundbreaking pamphlet published by Thomas Paine in 1776, during a critical time in American history. Paine’s central argument was for the complete independence of the American colonies from British rule.

Also Read: Thomas Paine Timeline

He eloquently and passionately challenged the notion of a hereditary monarchy and questioned the legitimacy of the British monarchy’s authority over the distant colonies.

Paine argued that it was only natural for the American people to govern themselves, free from the control of a distant and unresponsive government across the Atlantic.

2. Played a crucial role in the American Revolution

The publication of “Common Sense” had an extraordinary impact on the American Revolution. At the time of its release, there was considerable debate within the colonies regarding the path they should take in response to British policies.

Also Read: Thomas Paine Facts

Paine’s pamphlet struck a chord with the general public, as it presented a compelling case for outright independence. The pamphlet was widely read and discussed, reaching people from all walks of life, including ordinary citizens, soldiers, and political leaders.

“Common Sense” helped galvanize public sentiment and mobilized support for the revolutionary cause. It provided a clear and powerful argument for why breaking away from British rule was not only justified but necessary for the preservation of liberty and self-determination.

3. Influenced the formation of the United States as a democratic republic

Beyond advocating for independence, “Common Sense” also laid out Paine’s vision for a new form of government for the American colonies.

Paine promoted the idea of a democratic republic, where the power to govern would be vested in the hands of the people, rather than in the hands of a monarch or ruling elite.

His ideas helped to shape the thinking of the Founding Fathers, such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams, who played instrumental roles in drafting the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.

Paine’s call for a government based on the consent of the governed and the protection of individual rights echoed throughout the founding documents of the United States, making a lasting impact on the country’s political structure and principles.

4. Written in a clear and accessible style

One of the key reasons for the immense impact of “Common Sense” was Thomas Paine’s ability to convey complex political ideas in a clear and straightforward manner.

Unlike many other political writings of the time, which were often dense and filled with formal language, Paine wrote in simple and accessible prose. He deliberately used everyday language that could be easily understood by common people, ensuring that his arguments reached a wide audience.

This approach was revolutionary in itself, as it made political discourse more inclusive and helped bridge the gap between the educated elite and ordinary citizens.

Paine’s writing style set a precedent for future political communication, emphasizing the importance of clarity and accessibility in conveying ideas to the masses.

5. Widely distributed throughout the American colonies

Despite the limited means of communication and printing technology in the 18th century, “Common Sense” achieved remarkable distribution and dissemination.

Paine initially published the pamphlet anonymously, but its authorship was soon revealed. It was printed and distributed in various cities and towns throughout the American colonies.

Due to its affordable price and easy-to-read format, many copies were sold and shared among people from all walks of life.

The pamphlet’s widespread availability ensured that its message reached a vast audience and contributed to its significant influence on public opinion. Paine’s work also inspired others to write responses and engage in a broader public debate about independence and self-governance.

6. Popularized republican ideology

“Common Sense” played a crucial role in popularizing republican ideals among the American colonists. Paine argued for a government based on the consent of the governed and advocated for the abolishment of monarchy and aristocracy.

He proposed a representative democracy, where elected officials would act in the best interest of the people and uphold their rights and freedoms. Paine’s promotion of these republican principles resonated with many colonists who were seeking a new and just form of government.

His ideas reinforced the belief that the power to govern should come from the people themselves, not from a distant and unaccountable monarchy.

This popularization of republican ideology helped solidify the concept of sovereignty residing with the people and contributed to the formation of democratic institutions in the emerging United States.

7. Contributed to the drafting of the Declaration of Independence

The ideas presented in “Common Sense” had a profound influence on the thinking of the Founding Fathers, many of whom were already sympathetic to the cause of independence. Thomas Paine’s arguments reinforced their beliefs and provided additional support for the case for separation from Britain.

Some of Paine’s language and concepts found their way into the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, which was adopted on July 4, 1776.

Notably, the Declaration emphasized the principles of natural rights, the consent of the governed, and the right to alter or abolish an oppressive government, ideas that were already prominent in “Common Sense.”

While Paine himself was not directly involved in the drafting of the Declaration, his pamphlet played a significant role in shaping the intellectual climate that led to its creation.

8. Fostered unity among the American colonies

In the years leading up to the American Revolution, the thirteen colonies were diverse in terms of their backgrounds, economies, and political structures. They did not always see eye-to-eye on matters of governance and resistance to British policies.

“Common Sense” helped bridge these divides and fostered a sense of unity among the colonies. By providing a coherent argument for independence and republican government, Paine encouraged the colonies to work together in their struggle against British rule.

The pamphlet made the case that the shared cause of independence was more important than any regional differences or disagreements. As a result, “Common Sense” played a vital role in consolidating the colonies’ efforts and building a collective sense of identity that would prove crucial during the American Revolution.

9. Enduring influence on political thought

Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” remains an enduring and celebrated work in the history of political thought. Its impact extended far beyond the American Revolution.

The pamphlet’s articulation of democratic principles, advocacy for independence, and criticisms of monarchy and tyranny have continued to inspire generations of thinkers, politicians, and activists around the world.

Paine’s ideas on the rights of individuals and the legitimacy of government have become foundational concepts in political theory and have shaped discussions on governance, liberty, and democracy for centuries. “Common Sense” stands as a testament to the power of persuasive writing and the ability of one individual to profoundly influence the course of history.

10. Inspired independence movements worldwide

Beyond its impact on the American Revolution and the formation of the United States, “Common Sense” had a broader influence on the global stage. Translations and excerpts of the pamphlet spread to other countries, inspiring independence movements and political revolutions in various parts of the world.

Paine’s ideas on the rights of people to govern themselves and the need to challenge oppressive authority resonated with individuals and groups seeking freedom and self-determination in different contexts. “Common Sense” became a symbol of the transformative power of ideas, inspiring movements for liberty and independence throughout the ages and across continents.

• Art History
• U.S. History
• World History

Common Sense (Pamphlet)

Common Sense was written by Thomas Paine on January 10, 1776. The 48-page pamphlet presented an argument for freedom from British rule. Paine wrote in such a style that common people could easily understand, using Biblical quotes which Protestants understood. The document played a major part in uniting colonists before the Revolutionary War for freedom from the British. Common Sense also led to the Declaration of Independence later that year.

The Author, Thomas Paine

Ironically, Thomas Paine was born in England. Dropping out of school at age 13, he developed interests in science, religion, and ethics. He tried working in his father’s corset shop, and also worked as a grocer, teacher, and tax collector. His rebellious ideas and political ideas led him to write about various human inequities. In 1774, Paine met Benjamin Franklin in London, where Franklin convinced him to move to America at a time when the colonists were on the brink of revolution. He saw independence as a great cause, declaring his opposition to the British monarchy.

Common Sense presented two main points: independence from England, and the creation of a democratic republic. Because of its treasonous content, Paine wrote Common Sense anonymously. He wrote in a language colonists used every day, making a more significant impact in spelling out the inequities which colonists faced under British rule. The clearly defined reasoning in his writing led colonists to unite in the patriotic cause of freedom.  Volcanoes. At a time when American colonists were on the brink of revolution, Common Sense focused on reasons for independence from Britain. Paine pointed out that there was no sense for an island to rule a continent. He reminded the colonists that America was not a British nation, but a nation composed of many different people, of varied influences. He also posed a moral question, asking, “If Britain was the true ‘mother’ country, would a mother burden her children, and treat them badly?” A more practical and less emotional topic was that the distance between the two nations prevented timely correspondence of governing petitions and issues. The charge was that Britain did not consider the best interests of the colonies that represented it. Being a part of Britain would also involve America in unnecessary wars. This would prevent the colonists from foreign trade. Paine pointed out that colonists were oppressed and persecuted under British rule.

Thomas Paine’s pamphlet supposedly sold 500,000 copies in its first year of circulation. Because Paine was intent in pointing out an alternative to British rule, he donated any royalties from Common Sense to George Washington’s Continental Army . He intended to assist the oppressed colonists and a fair and worthwhile cause, the American Revolutionary War. To the American colonists, Paine’s straightforward and simply-written expressions made political ideas real to the people. He targeted the deeply felt sentiments of the colonists, presenting reasons for breaking free in a manner that they understood. Common Sense made the war for freedom an individual choice, which could be attained in a united manner by the colonists. Continue to the Full Text »

Newest Additions

• The Beheading of John the Baptist
• Jesus Sends Out His Twelve Apostles
• The Miracle of Healing: Jesus and the Paralytic
• Parables of Wisdom: The Teachings of Jesus
• Jesus’ Response to John’s Disciples

Copyright © 2020 · Totallyhistory.com · All Rights Reserved. | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Contact Us

"Common Sense" and its Meaning Today by Jack Fruchtman

by Jack Fruchtman Jr., Towson University

Prepared for Delivery to the Thomas Paine National Historical Association and the Thomas Paine Foundation, Philadelphia, Pa,, January 26, 2001 .

Americans like many other people are lovers of anniversaries, especially when there is a zero or a five at the end of the heralded date (which is maybe why we celebrated the millennium in 2000 rather than 2001). Thomas Paine’s first real splash in the public eye occurred when his Common Sense appeared 225 years ago on January 10, 1776, a date which, we must remember, was nearly six months before Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence. In many respects, Paine was ahead of his compatriots in demanding separation from Britain. In any case, it is easy to argue that while many Americans talked among themselves of independence, Paine was the first to write about it in clear, lucid, stirring terms that were immediately accessible to anyone who either read his pamphlet or had it read to them.

Now I have been accused of citing Paine too much to comment on modern social and political problems. Some folks hold that historical figures obviously lived in particular periods, spoke a language that was peculiar to their time and place, and that the role of the historian is to try to figure out the intentions and meaning of their language on their terms, not ours. In other words, they say, you cannot take a person from his historical context, move him into the twenty-first century and expect to have him say reasonable things about our problems and issues. Well, in fact, they are right: I have found what I claim to be “a usable Paine,” as they charge, and will continue to use his wisdom, his observations, and his approach to problem-solving until they are no longer usable.

So what does Common Sense tell us today 225 years after its first appearance in this city-when America’s relationships with Britain were seriously deteriorating? Certainly, we have no such problems with Britain today. Indeed, we have no such problems with any nation. There is no doubt that the United States of America (a term that I still say Paine coined in the second essay in his American Crisis series, despite the arguments by William Safire of the New York Times) is the strongest country in the world from an economic and military perspective.2 What we may not be is the most ethical, and this is the lesson we may first learn from Paine’s work.

First. what is “common sense” and how do we know what it is when we see it (as Potter Stewart said of pornography in 1964)?3 Here’s story that while Paine did not use it. He would have, had he known it. A knight was riding through a forest one day when he came upon an arrow right in the middle of bull’s eye in a tree. Since this was not particularly unusual, he didn’t think much of it, but he became increasingly astounded when he came across several of them. They must have numbered ten or fifteen, and each arrow was perfectly centered in the bull’s eye. At last the knight came upon a young boy with a bow and arrow, and so he asked the lad whether he had been the one who had shot all those arrows. The boy answered, yes, it was he who had done the deed. But how did you learn to do it so well, asked the knight. The boy replied that he used common sense: he simply first shot the arrow into the tree, and then painted the target around it. . . . This is not because he was either lazy or unskilled, but that he just used “common sense.”

If only everything could be so clear.

For Paine, one thing was in fact clear (and a reflection of common sense): he knew that human beings had a “natural love of liberty.”4 And he knew too that people considered “freedom as personal property,” property of which no person could deprive others without violating nature.5 These phrases are Paine’s (though not from Common Sense, but rather from his later writings in 1778 and 1782). The problem for Americans in 1776 was how to capitalize on these two observations, which he drew from common sense? How should (or could) he make them realize that there really was no longer any alternative to separation?

His response was to figure out a way to tell them just that in irrefutable and indeed absolutist terms. He did just that by arguing in ways that immediately grabbed their attention. Fewer words during the revolutionary era are greater than these from his great pamphlet (though I’d argue that maybe some of Jefferson’s in the Declaration come close): “We have it in our power to begin the world over again” and “now is the seed-time of continental union, faith, and honor.”6 His intention was clear: to move America forward toward independence, and to do it now. More often than not, he thought that it took a great man, one actually like himself, Thomas Paine, to stimulate them to act. When this reawakening happened, they exercised “common sense.”

Some commentators have defined common sense as being coequal with a person’s moral powers.7 This interpretation, though essentially correct, is incomplete. Common sense was certainly part of human affections, our innate moral sensibilities. But common sense also included our ability to reason. Now, Paine was no epistemologist. He never set forth a lucid, cogent argument, as for example had Locke or Hume, to determine how the mind operated or how man knew anything at all. But he did have definitive ideas about how people knew how to conduct their lives. They do so through both their affections and their reason-through passion and reason.

Paine was not the first writer to use the phrase common sense as a faculty for understanding, nor was he the first to use it as a corollary to human moral sensibilities. Lord Shaftesbury though clearly an elitist, had, as did the eighteenth-century Scottish Common Sense philosophers, such as Thomas Reid. Although these philosophers’ works were available to him, Paine probably never read Shaftesbury’s Characteristicks (1711) or Reid’s Inquiry (1764). Even so, common sense, as a sensory faculty, a kind of sixth sense, encapsulated his idea of what a natural human being was and ought to be.8 The term was well known and obviously in broad usage at the end of the eighteenth century, including America.

For Shaftesbury, Reid, and Paine, common sense was an all-encompassing faculty of mind and feeling that gave people the power of immediate discernment.9 The Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid observed that common sense forced him to “to take my own existence, and the existence of other things upon trust,” and to believe that snow was cold and honey sweet.10 These things were knowable spontaneously when people first encountered them. For the skeptic to deny this phenomenon undermined the true basis of human knowledge.

But how did common sense operate? Although epistemologically vague, Paine used it to express both reason and sensibility.11 Common sense was the means by which the mind understood the way the heart felt about reality. It had nothing to do with abstract reasoning or metaphysical concepts. It was wholly empirical, since it was based only on sensory perceptions. After all, the Americans did not need abstract ideas of freedom to convince them that the British oppressed them. They needed only to listen to the dictates of their common sense. As Paine noted, “common sense will tell us.”12 It will tell us because the powers of the mind and the heart are like lightning bolts of spontaneous discernment. The mind knew and the heart felt that “however our eyes may be dazzled with snow, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and our reason will say, it is right.”13 To see how this works, it is imperative, in short, to analyze the linguistic and epistemological roots of the expression common sense.

First, common sense by necessity included a person’s ability to reason. As Paine said in The Age of Reason, “the most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall.”14 As for America’s relationship to England prior to 1776, “it is repugnant to reason. . . to suppose that this continent can longer remain subject to any external power.”15 Indeed, he once declared that the new era of politics in which he lived was “the age of reason.”16 Paine did not say it was “the age of common sense!” And of course, he named one of his books with that very title. Common sense was, therefore, clearly a function of man’s rational capabilities, his ability to reason.

But common sense included affection as well. It did not feel right to men, that relationship with Britain, because it violated their moral sensibilities. All one must do to gauge whether the colonies ought to remain linked to Britain was to judge the relationship by “those feelings and affections which nature justifies.. . . Examine the passions and feelings of mankind,” he said, and judge that relationship by the standards that nature supplied.17 During the war with Britain, as the military situation deteriorated, “what we have to do,” said Paine, “is as clear as light, and the way to do it as straight as a line.”18 This light - this clarity - was what common sense provided to people. Such clarity, if one could follow one’s true nature, gave them two options.

First, they could achieve positive political and social changes. They would know by both reason and affection, what was right, what was wrong in society and government. Second, common sense was the vehicle for people’s inventiveness. As common sense informed them when and how to make or invent revolutions, by extension it was also the creative spark that moved them to enhance progress. Human inventions improved life for everyone. When Paine was struggling with the design of his iron bridge, he realized he had to moderate his “ambition with a little ‘common sense’ in order to make the necessary modifications.”19 It was a powerful turn of phrase that Paine undoubtedly knew would deeply impress his wide American audience.

Every person, he taught, possessed common sense. The problem was that it became impaired when brute force enslaved the people, when kings and lords (ruffians and their banditti) made their subjects do their will.20 They deprived them of their freedom to choose, and they destroyed or badly compromised their sense of self. When that happened, common sense was distorted. People no longer thought straight (as a line), and nothing was clear (as light). Such force had a numbing effect on their minds and hearts. They might never even feel the pain of that force and might never be aware of it.

This state of affairs violated man’s nature as a creature with the ability to reason. “Men,” said Paine, “have a right to reason for themselves.”21 When kings and their cohorts stole this right from their subjects, these subjects were no longer whole persons. They were slaves, the puppets of others who used them as they saw fit. They lost their sense of self and became objects-indeed, the property-of others. For Paine, human beings universally shared this same nature. How then did he explain that some men like himself were indeed different?

Here Paine used his natural vs. unnatural theme in a linguistically powerful way, convincing his readers, though with an argument less certain to persuade those more philosophically inclined. He defined the characteristics of the thieves of common sense and human freedom by virtually defining them out of humanity itself. These denatured creatures were usurpers, these kings, these aristocrats, their followers, and later the Federalists, too. They were unable to use their natural powers of common sense. Their desire for dominance and violence proscribed them from living a life of reason and moral affection. “A mind habituated to actions of meanness and injustice, commits them without reflection, or with a very partial one,” he told the Abby Raynal just a few years later.22 They relied only on their basest instincts, not common sense, to seek power over others. Thus, base instinct (in this case, seeking power and dominion) opposed common sense (reason and sensibility).

The British government, especially George III (whom he never specifically named in Common Sense because his target was kingship generally and not individual kings), was such a creature. He once noted in regard to the king’s cabinet that a universal human characteristic was the inability to change once intellectual patterns and habits were firmly set. “Once the mind loses the sense of its own dignity,” he said to Raynal, “it loses, likewise, the ability of judging it in another.”23 Several years later, while in France, Paine modified his view when he advocated that Louis XVI’s life be spared. But in 1776, the Americans had no choice.24

The British government had failed to use its collective common sense to deal fairly with the Americans. Such a failure meant that Britain distorted America’s well-being because the British viewed the Americans in Britain’s own image. Addressing Raynal again, Paine wrote that “the American war has thrown Britain into such a variety of absurd situations, that, in arguing from herself she sees not in what conduct national dignity consists in other countries.”25 For the same reason, the British wanted to plunder the Dutch. They figured that the Netherlands would never resist them, only to find themselves eventually at war anyway. Once a nation no longer used common sense, no matter what that nation did, its actions were illogical, wrong, and immoral. Its actions defied, in short, its natural inclination to do good. This was both affectively and rationally true.

Common sense was in part rooted in a person’s affective nature because implanted in him were “unextinguishable feelings” to do good. These feelings, he wrote in Common Sense, “distinguish us from the herd of common animals,” he said. “Otherwise, the social compact would dissolve, and justice be extirpated from the earth, or have only a casual existence.”26 Man’s affections drove him into the social realm in the first place. This was a result of common sense. He lived with his fellows in a cooperative arrangement for the benefit of all.

A social contract existed between men outside the realm of the sovereign and his lords. “There necessarily was a time when government did not exist, and consequently there could exist no governors to form such a compact with.”27 Although Paine did not identify Locke explicitly, his language describing the social contract was Lockean, and he was never loathe giving a Lockean lesson.28 “The fact therefore must be, that the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.”29 A man was fully conscious of the self in this decision-making so that he consciously came together with his fellows to form society for reasons having to do with his natural affections toward others.

As he wrote of these “unextinguishable feelings” and the historic ideal of the social contract, he knew full well that George III and his ministry did not possess such feelings and never would, nor would they ever fully understand the implications of the contract. They felt no sense of justice because they were in fact different. Common sense informed the Americans that a continued relationship with Britain was doomed. “To talk of friendship with those in whom our reason forbids us to have faith . . . is madness and folly”, i.e., it was against reason and sensibility.30 The people themselves must use their common sense to assert their right to participate in governmental decision-making.

Monarchical government in England had distorted the proper relationship between the people and their government. This distortion arose because common sense was lacking. Kings and lords and people like them were inhuman. He avoided having to clarify why he thought human nature was universal by literally reading them out of the human race. It was a powerful argument to hear, one linguistically encapsulated in a highly didactic, imperative tone, even if it were logically bewildering to read of a human being who lacked human nature. Then again, Paine was not addressing an audience of philosophers, but rather an audience of lower and middle class Americans who, he thought, would respond to this imagery in a way that would convince them to support America’s separation from Britain.

So now, what does all this tell us today? How does Paine’s great pamphlet speak to us in the twenty-first century? The answer is not hard to fathom, and it will lead us directly to the reasons why Philadelphia should honor Thomas Paine. First, let’s look at how he might evaluate the latest folly of the American people, the election of George W. Bush to the presidency of the United States. And we need not look far. Among the many famous lines in Common Sense appears these: “Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”31 I think we may safely say that while we will not have the worst possible government for the next four years, we will have one that Paine would have absolutely adored because it would have given him such fodder for his literary cannon (and I do mean with the double “n”) to attack for its misaligned policies. And to have a know-nothing president, a man who has probably never read a book much less a newspaper, and who has to rely on advisors to make decisions because his knowledge is so weak is something Paine would have found both amusing and maddening. Here is a president without common sense, without any understanding at all, and who could do only mischief in office.

Even worse is the mixture, or what he would have called the admixture, of politics and religion. John Ashcroft has told his audience at Bob Jones University that Jesus is the king of America. For Paine, this is pure arrogance (and of course absolutely wrong). Even in 1776 when we might say that there was a pinch of faith still ingrained in Paine’s heart, he never argued, like Ashcroft, that Jesus is the king of America. In fact, it was the opposite: “the world may know, that . . . in American THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute government the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.”32 Ashcroft, who is to be the top law enforcement officer in the United States, hardly understands this when he proclaims that.Jesus is king of America. In the meantime, in his celebrated interview with the Southern Partisan Quarterly Review, a well-known racist journal (a “sick magazine”, according to Bob Herbert of the New York Times), he proclaimed the fight against slavery as “the perverted agenda” of those who fought to end that horrid practice.33 He wants Americans to pray - privately and in all public institutions, including schools and other government buildings - but when he announces that the attempt to end slavery was “perverted,” how can we possibly believe that he is a man of any faith at all? His attempts to convince us that he didn’t know what Bob Jones University or the Southern Partisan were all about are pretty disingenuous. He is a man without credibility - how could he possibly be otherwise? If he were a man of principle, true principle, he would never have claimed that he would enforce laws that deny those principles. Like his president, he is an opportunist, one of those denatured creatures Paine attacked in Common Sense.

In the meantime, maybe we could say that Paine would favor President Bush’s intentions to cut taxes, even if the vast majority of taxes go to the wealthiest eight percent. As a man of the eighteenth-century as we’ve indicated, he believed that the best government is that government which governs the least, it is but “a necessary evil.” On the other hand, when he outlined in the Rights of Man a full-scale welfare program, including one of the first social security proposals ever set forth, it is clear that he thought there are lots of things a “good” government could do to help its people.34 He also must have known that government had to have the financial wherewithal to handle such major programs and that taxes would have to be levied on Americans. In fact, even those Americans who fought the imperial Britain for independence were not opposed to paying taxes in general - they thought that everyone should pay them, including the aristocracy (and certainly the Penns on their estates in America). Americans regarded taxes as voluntary gifts to the crown - they were not to be imposed by a distant Parliament, but levied on themselves to be sent to London because they, the Americans, wanted to pay them. So when taxes are cut, and they may well be soon, we can be certain that if the Bush administration has anything to do with it, the agencies that will be most hurt will not be defense, but the social programs that cannot stand up to the perils of “compassionate conservatism.”

But should we be doing something about the surplus in terms of paying down the national debt, as the Clinton administration and Gore campaign had proposed? I should think that Paine would have thought that a debt the size of ours (nearing $5 trillion) would easily bankrupt the nation. It has always been a curiosity to many Paine observers that in Common Sense he actually advocated a debt. “Debts we have none,” he wrote, “and whatever we may contract on this account will serve as a glorious memento of our virtue. . . . No nation ought to be without a debt. A national debt is a national bond.”35 But Paine was talking about a new nation - one that needed the massive expenditures to insure that tyranny was not only to die, but would not revive. Thus it was that the debt was to stimulate, as he put it, a national bond: a unity of the people as they paid for their defense, especially, in his view, a navy. America in 2001 is not America in 1776. I suspect he would be horrified to see how the debt has gone way beyond creating national unity and leading to bankruptcy for any other country.

Finally, what would Paine have said about the fact that the United States has become one of the most regulated, if not over regulated, societies in the world? Again, we refer to his observation that government is a necessary evil. When power is concentrated in the hands of the few that, by very definition, is an example of tyranny. To allow, for example, oil companies, the trucking industry, or whatever to do whatever they want because we naively believe that they will always do the right thing is to fall into the trap of denying the reality of human nature. Already the trucking and oil industry has demanded the Bush administration relax, if not terminate, the strict clean air regulations the Clinton administration put in effect last year.36 And who has the president nominated to become the new Secretary of the Interiror, but none other than the chief non-regulator of the environment, Gail Norton, whose years as Attorney General of Colorado saw industry get away with just about anything and everything it desired. There is probably no law enforcement in America, past or present, who sought to undo the Endangered Species Act as much as she did while in Colorado. She would be expected to do as much as a protege of James Watt, who had been her boss at the Mountain States Legal Foundation, which sought to give industry a larger, if not complete, say over the disposition of public lands. Like John Ashcroft, however, she promised to enforce the very laws she opposed for so many years. Again, so much for principle.

I could go on and on, but I won’t bore you with what I think you already know, even if you disagree with some of my observations. I will conclude by saying why I think Philadelphia should honor Thomas Paine. Just last October, a new biography of Benjamin Franklin appeared with the title “The First American.”37 I don’t wish to draw anything from Franklin, even if I possibly could, or to insult those among you who [are], as I am, a lover of Ben Franklin. But I have to say that I originally was going to title my Paine biography “the first American.” I decided not to because I thought it had a bit of a racist ring to it in that the native Americans were really the first Americans, although someone argued that they were not Americans since that concept did not exist until the English first arrived on these shores. But just as Philadelphia and Franklin are so uniquely united in the imagination of most people so are Philadelphia and Paine. (And don’t forget that Franklin was born in Boston and went to Philadelphia when he was seventeen.) Philadelphia without Paine is, to me, a hand without fingers: useless and ugly. I hope that the city honors him, and soon. Thanks for having me here tonight, and thanks so much for listening. I’ll be happy to take questions.

• Many of the ideas in this presentation were first published in Jack Fruchtman Jr., Thomas Paine and the Religion of Nature (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), chpt. two.
• Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. II (13 January 1777), in Philip Foner, ed., The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine, 2 vols. (New York: Citadel Press, 1945) ,I:59. For Safire’s position, see William Safire, On Language: Name that Nation, The New York Times Magazine, 5 July
• Justice Potter Stewart made his famous remark, I know it [pornography] when I see it,” in a concurring opinion in the 1964 case of Jacobellis v. Ohio.
• Thomas Paine, Letter to the Abbe Raynal (I782), in ibid., II, 258.
• Thomas Paine, “A Serious Address to the People of Pennsylvania on the Present Situation of Their Affairs,” Pennsylvania Packet (1 December 1778), in ibid., II,286.
• Thomas Paine, Common Sense, ed. Isaac Kramnick (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976),82, 120.
• See, for example, Jay Fliegelman, Prodigals and Pilgrims: The American Revolution Against Patriarchal Authority, 1750-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982),103,289,
• As is well known, Benjamin Rush took credit for suggesting the title of Common Sense for Paine’s pamphlet. Said Rush in his autobiography, “when Mr. Paine had finished his pamphlet, I advised him to shew it to Dr. Franklin, Mr. Rittenhouse, and Saml. Adams, all of whom I knew were decided friends to American independence. I mention these facts to refute a report that Mr. Paine was assisted in composing his pamphlet by one or more of the above gentlemen. They never saw it till it was written, and then only by my advice. I gave it at his request the title of ‘Common Sense.”’ George W. Corner, ed., The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948), ll4.
• Shaftesbury’s elitism, which would have been wholly anathema to Paine, was outlined in Lois Whitney, Primitivism and the Idea of Progress in English Popular Literature of the Eighteenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1934),33. For this reason, he receives but a mention here. For a revisionist view, see Michelle Buchanan, “Savages, Noble and Otherwise, and the French Enlightenment,” Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture,15 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986), 97-109. See also Lawrence E. Klein, Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness: Moral Discourse and Cultural Politeness in Early Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) and Robert Voitle, The Third Earl of Shaftesbury, I67I-1713 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984). For a useful, but somewhat dated work, see Alfred Owen Aldridge, Shaftesbury and the Deist Manifesto (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, TransactionsV, ol. 41, Pt. 2, l95l).
• Thomas Reid, An Inquiry into the Human Mind, ed. Timothy Duggan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970),19.
• For Rousseau’s notion of common sense, which is quite close to Paine’s, see the passage in Emile, where Rousseau recounted the “Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar.” “I am not a great philosopher,” the Vicar said, “and I care little to be one. But I sometimes have good sense, and I always love the truth. . . - Reason is common to us, and we have the same interest in listening to it. If I think well, why would you not think as do I?” “Bon sens” is indeed, for Rousseau here, reason as a universal attribute of men. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or On Education, Allan Bloom, trans. (New York: Basic Books, 1979), 266 (emphasis added). See the entire “Profession of Faith”, 266-313.
• Paine, Common Sense, 105.
• Ibid., 68. When Fliegelman speaks of Paine’s idea of sensibility, he relates it to nature by saying, “it is nature, not reason, that cannot forgive England.” He thus makes clear the conjunction between nature and affection (in common sense), but he does not cite Paine’s last quoted statement in full when Paine himself conjoined nature with both moral affection and reason. See Fliegelman, Prodigals and Pilgrims,103.
• Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, in The Complete Writings,I,463.
• Paine, Common Sense, 89 (emphasis added).
• Paine, Rights of Man,268.
• Ibid (emphasis added). See Wilson Carey McWilliams, The Idea of Fraternity in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973),
• Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. V (21March 1778), in The Complete Writings, I, I25.
• Thomas Paine to Sir George Staunton, Etq., Spring 1789, in The Complete Writings,II, 1041.
• Paine used the term banditti when referring to William the Conqueror as that “French bastard landing with an armed banditti . . . is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original.” Paine, Common Sense, 78.
• Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. VII (21 November 1778), in The Complete Writings,I, 143.
• Paine, Letter to Abbe Raynal, in The Complete Writings,Il, 252.
• Thomas Paine, “Reasons for Preserving the Life of Louis Capet,” (16 January l793), in The Complete Writings, II, 551-55; “Should Louis XVI be Respited?” (19 January 1793), in The Complete Writings, II, 556-58 (the latter includes Marat’s interruptions of Paine’s speech). Paine’s impassioned plea for the life of Louis XVI may be attributable to a number of things: Paine’s maturity by 1793, his realization that the French under Louis were quite helpful during the American war against Britain, or perhaps his awareness that the revolution itself was potentially heading toward a negative end.
• Paine, Letter to Abbe Raynal, in The Complete Writings,II, 253.
• Common Sense, 99-100.
• See Caroline Robbins,“The Lifelong Education of Thomas Paine,1737-1809: Some Reflections of His Acquaintance Among Books,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 127 (June 1983) : l4l-42.
• Paine, Common Sense, 92.
• 30 Ibid., 99 (emphasis added).
• Ibid., 98. Emphasis in the original.
• See the column by Bob Herbert, “Unseemly Alliances,” New York Times, l8 January 2001.
• The program is to be found in the second part of the Rights of Man (see chpt. five, “Of Ways and Means” in that work).
• Paine, Common Sense, 10l-02.
• See Douglas Jehl, “Oil Industry Seeks Softening of Clinton Clean-Air Rules”, in The New York Times,25 January 2001A 20.
• H. W. Brands, The First American:The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin (New York: Doubleday, 2000).

COMMON SENSE;

addressed to the

INHABITANTS

On the following interesting

• Of the Origin and Design of Government in general, with concise Remarks on the English Constitution.
• Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession
• Thoughts on the present State of American Affairs
• Of the present Ability of America, with some miscellaneous Reflections

A new edition, with several additions in the body of the work. To which is added an appendix ; together with an address to the people called Quakers .

Man knows no Master save creating Heaven Or those whom choice and common good ordain.

PHILADELPHIA

Printed and sold by W. & T. Bradford, February 14, 1776.

Common Sense

By thomas paine, introduction..

Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong , gives it a superficial appearance of being right , and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

2 As a long and violent abuse of power, is generally the Means of calling the right of it in question (and in Matters too which might never have been thought of, had not the Sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry) and as the King of England hath undertaken in his own Right , to support the Parliament in what he calls Theirs , and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpation of either.

3 In the following sheets, the author hath studiously avoided every thing which is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof. The wise, and the worthy, need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious, or unfriendly, will cease of themselves unless too much pains are bestowed upon their conversion.

4 The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested. The laying a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censure, is the

P.S. The Publication of this new Edition hath been delayed, with a View of taking notice (had it been necessary) of any Attempt to refute the Doctrine of Independance: As no Answer hath yet appeared, it is now presumed that none will, the Time needful for getting such a Performance ready for the Public being considerably past.

Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the Doctrine itself , not the Man . Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any Party, and under no sort of Influence public or private, but the influence of reason and principle.

Philadelphia, February 14, 1776

OF THE ORIGIN AND DESIGN OF GOVERNMENT IN GENERAL, WITH CONCISE REMARKS ON THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION.

Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher.

6 Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government , which we might expect in a country without government , our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore , security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expence and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.

7 In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end of government, let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest, they will then represent the first peopling of any country, or of the world. In this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought. A thousand motives will excite them thereto, the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and his mind so unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek assistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires the same. Four or five united would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness, but one man might labour out of the common period of life without accomplishing any thing; when he had felled his timber he could not remove it, nor erect it after it was removed; hunger in the mean time would urge him from his work, and every different want call him a different way. Disease, nay even misfortune would be death, for though neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from living, and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said to perish than to die.

8 Thus necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our newly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessings of which, would supersede, and render the obligations of law and government unnecessary while they remained perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but heaven is impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably happen, that in proportion as they surmount the first difficulties of emigration, which bound them together in a common cause, they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other; and this remissness, will point out the necessity, of establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue.

9 Some convenient tree will afford them a State-House, under the branches of which, the whole colony may assemble to deliberate on public matters. It is more than probable that their first laws will have the title only of Regulations , and be enforced by no other penalty than public disesteem. In this first parliament every man, by natural right, will have a seat.

10 But as the colony increases, the public concerns will increase likewise, and the distance at which the members may be separated, will render it too inconvenient for all of them to meet on every occasion as at first, when their number was small, their habitations near, and the public concerns few and trifling. This will point out the convenience of their consenting to leave the legislative part to be managed by a select number chosen from the whole body, who are supposed to have the same concerns at stake which those who appointed them, and who will act in the same manner as the whole body would act were they present. If the colony continue increasing, it will become necessary to augment the number of the representatives, and that the interest of every part of the colony may be attended to, it will be found best to divide the whole into convenient parts, each part sending its proper number; and that the elected might never form to themselves an interest separate from the electors , prudence will point out the propriety of having elections often; because as the elected might by that means return and mix again with the general body of the electors in a few months, their fidelity to the public will be secured by the prudent reflexion of not making a rod for themselves. And as this frequent interchange will establish a common interest with every part of the community, they will mutually and naturally support each other, and on this (not on the unmeaning name of king) depends the strength of government, and the happiness of the governed.

11 Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. freedom and security. And however our eyes may be dazzled with show, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and of reason will say, it is right.

12 I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered; and the easier repaired when disordered; and with this maxim in view, I offer a few remarks on the so much boasted constitution of England. That it was noble for the dark and slavish times in which it was erected, is granted. When the world was over run with tyranny the least remove therefrom was a glorious rescue. But that it is imperfect, subject to convulsions, and incapable of producing what it seems to promise, is easily demonstrated.

13 Absolute governments (tho’ the disgrace of human nature) have this advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springs, know likewise the remedy, and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures. But the constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together without being able to discover in which part the fault lies, some will say in one and some in another, and every political physician will advise a different medicine.

14 I know it is difficult to get over local or long standing prejudices, yet if we will suffer ourselves to examine the component parts of the English constitution, we shall find them to be the base remains of two ancient tyrannies, compounded with some new republican materials.

15 First. —The remains of monarchical tyranny in the person of the king.

16 Secondly. —The remains of aristocratical tyranny in the persons of the peers.

17 Thirdly. —The new republican materials, in the persons of the commons, on whose virtue depends the freedom of England.

18 The two first, by being hereditary, are independent of the people; wherefore in a constitutional sense they contribute nothing towards the freedom of the state.

19 To say that the constitution of England is a union of three powers reciprocally checking each other, is farcical, either the words have no meaning, or they are flat contradictions.

20 To say that the commons is a check upon the king, presupposes two things:

21 First. —That the king is not to be trusted without being looked after, or in other words, that a thirst for absolute power is the natural disease of monarchy.

22 Secondly. —That the commons, by being appointed for that purpose, are either wiser or more worthy of confidence than the crown.

23 But as the same constitution which gives the commons a power to check the king by withholding the supplies, gives afterwards the king a power to check the commons, by empowering him to reject their other bills; it again supposes that the king is wiser than those whom it has already supposed to be wiser than him. A mere absurdity!

24 There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required. The state of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly; wherefore the different parts, by unnaturally opposing and destroying each other, prove the whole character to be absurd and useless.

25 Some writers have explained the English constitution thus; the king, say they, is one, the people another; the peers are an house in behalf of the king; the commons in behalf of the people; but this hath all the distinctions of a house divided against itself; and though the expressions be pleasantly arranged, yet when examined they appear idle and ambiguous; and it will always happen, that the nicest construction that words are capable of, when applied to the description of some thing which either cannot exist, or is too incomprehensible to be within the compass of description, will be words of sound only, and though they may amuse the ear, they cannot inform the mind, for this explanation includes a previous question, viz. How came the king by a power which the people are afraid to trust, and always obliged to check? Such a power could not be the gift of a wise people, neither can any power, which needs checking , be from God; yet the provision, which the constitution makes, supposes such a power to exist.

26 But the provision is unequal to the task; the means either cannot or will not accomplish the end, and the whole affair is a felo de se; for as the greater weight will always carry up the less, and as all the wheels of a machine are put in motion by one, it only remains to know which power in the constitution has the most weight, for that will govern; and though the others, or a part of them, may clog, or, as the phrase is, check the rapidity of its motion, yet so long as they cannot stop it, their endeavors will be ineffectual; the first moving power will at last have its way, and what it wants in speed is supplied by time.

27 That the crown is this overbearing part in the English constitution needs not be mentioned, and that it derives its whole consequence merely from being the giver of places and pensions is self-evident, wherefore, though we have been wise enough to shut and lock a door against absolute monarchy, we at the same time have been foolish enough to put the crown in possession of the key.

28 The prejudice of Englishmen, in favour of their own government by king, lords and commons, arises as much or more from national pride than reason. Individuals are undoubtedly safer in England than in some other countries, but the will of the king is as much the law of the land in Britain as in France, with this difference, that instead of proceeding directly from his mouth, it is handed to the people under the more formidable shape of an act of parliament. For the fate of Charles the first, hath only made kings more subtle—not more just.

29 Wherefore, laying aside all national pride and prejudice in favour of modes and forms, the plain truth is, that it is wholly owing to the constitution of the people, and not to the constitution of the government that the crown is not as oppressive in England as in Turkey.

30 An inquiry into the constitutional errors in the English form of government is at this time highly necessary, for as we are never in a proper condition of doing justice to others, while we continue under the influence of some leading partiality, so neither are we capable of doing it to ourselves while we remain fettered by any obstinate prejudice. And as a man, who is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge of a wife, so any prepossession in favour of a rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning a good one.

OF MONARCHY AND HEREDITARY SUCCESSION.

Mankind being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could only be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance; the distinctions of rich, and poor, may in a great measure be accounted for, and that without having recourse to the harsh ill sounding names of oppression and avarice. Oppression is often the consequence , but seldom or never the means of riches; and though avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.

32 But there is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is, the distinction of men into kings and subjects . Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth enquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.

33 In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology, there were no kings; the consequence of which was there were no wars; it is the pride of kings which throw mankind into confusion. Holland without a king hath enjoyed more peace for this last century than any of the monarchial governments in Europe. Antiquity favors the same remark; for the quiet and rural lives of the first patriarchs hath a happy something in them, which vanishes away when we come to the history of Jewish royalty.

34 Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens paid divine honors to their deceased kings, and the christian world hath improved on the plan by doing the same to their living ones. How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!

35 As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the equal rights of nature, so neither can it be defended on the authority of scripture; for the will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproves of government by kings. All anti-monarchical parts of scripture have been very smoothly glossed over in monarchical governments, but they undoubtedly merit the attention of countries which have their governments yet to form. “ Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s ” is the scripture doctrine of courts, yet it is no support of monarchical government, for the Jews at that time were without a king, and in a state of vassalage to the Romans.

36 Near three thousand years passed away from the Mosaic account of the creation, till the Jews under a national delusion requested a king. Till then their form of government (except in extraordinary cases, where the Almighty interposed) was a kind of republic administred by a judge and the elders of the tribes. Kings they had none, and it was held sinful to acknowledge any being under that title but the Lord of Hosts. And when a man seriously reflects on the idolatrous homage which is paid to the persons of Kings, he need not wonder, that the Almighty ever jealous of his honor, should disapprove of a form of government which so impiously invades the prerogative of heaven.

37 Monarchy is ranked in scripture as one of the sins of the Jews, for which a curse in reserve is denounced against them. The history of that transaction is worth attending to.

38 The children of Israel being oppressed by the Midianites, Gideon marched against them with a small army, and victory, thro’ the divine interposition, decided in his favour. The Jews elate with success, and attributing it to the generalship of Gideon, proposed making him a king, saying, Rule thou over us, thou and thy son and thy son’s son. Here was temptation in its fullest extent; not a kingdom only, but an hereditary one, but Gideon in the piety of his soul replied, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you. The Lord shall rule over you. Words need not be more explicit; Gideon doth not decline the honor, but denieth their right to give it; neither doth he compliment them with invented declarations of his thanks, but in the positive stile of a prophet charges them with disaffection to their proper Sovereign, the King of heaven.

39 About one hundred and thirty years after this, they fell again into the same error. The hankering which the Jews had for the idolatrous customs of the Heathens, is something exceedingly unaccountable; but so it was, that laying hold of the misconduct of Samuel’s two sons, who were entrusted with some secular concerns, they came in an abrupt and clamorous manner to Samuel, saying, Behold thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways, now make us a king to judge us like all other nations. And here we cannot but observe that their motives were bad, viz. that they might be like unto other nations, i.e. the Heathens, whereas their true glory laid in being as much unlike them as possible. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, Give us a king to judge us; and Samuel prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee, for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me , THAT I SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even unto this day; wherewith they have forsaken me and served other Gods; so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice, howbeit, protest solemnly unto them and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them, i.e. not of any particular king, but the general manner of the kings of the earth, whom Israel was so eagerly copying after. And notwithstanding the great distance of time and difference of manners, the character is still in fashion. And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people, that asked of him a king. And he said, This shall be the manner of the king that shall reign over you; he will take your sons and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariots (this description agrees with the present mode of impressing men) and he will appoint him captains over thousands and captains over fifties, and will set them to ear his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots; and he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks and to be bakers (this describes the expence and luxury as well as the oppression of kings) and he will take your fields and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants; and he will take the tenth of your feed, and of your vineyards, and give them to his officers and to his servants (by which we see that bribery, corruption and favoritism are the standing vices of kings) and he will take the tenth of your men servants, and your maid servants, and your goodliest young men and your asses, and put them to his work; and he will take the tenth of your sheep, and ye shall be his servants, and ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen, and the Lord will not hear you in that day . This accounts for the continuation of monarchy; neither do the characters of the few good kings which have lived since, either sanctify the title, or blot out the sinfulness of the origin; the high encomium given of David takes no notice of him officially as a king , but only as a man after God’s own heart. Nevertheless the People refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay, but we will have a king over us, that we may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles. Samuel continued to reason with them, but to no purpose; he set before them their ingratitude, but all would not avail; and seeing them fully bent on their folly, he cried out, I will call unto the Lord, and he shall send thunder and rain (which then was a punishment, being in the time of wheat harvest) that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking you a king . So Samuel called unto the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God that we die not, for we have added unto our sins this evil, to ask a king. These portions of scripture are direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal construction. That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchical government is true, or the scripture is false. And a man hath good reason to believe that there is as much of king-craft, as priest-craft, in withholding the scripture from the public in Popish countries. For monarchy in every instance is the Popery of government.

40 To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and though himself might deserve some decent degree of honors of his cotemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion .

41 Secondly, as no man at first could possess any other public honors than were bestowed upon him, so the givers of those honors could have no power to give away the right of posterity, and though they might say “We choose you for our head,” they could not, without manifest injustice to their children, say “that your children and your children’s children shall reign over ours for ever.” Because such an unwise, unjust, unnatural compact might (perhaps) in the next succession put them under the government of a rogue or a fool. Most wise men, in their private sentiments, have ever treated hereditary right with contempt; yet it is one of those evils, which when once established is not easily removed; many submit from fear, others from superstition, and the more powerful part shares with the king the plunder of the rest.

42 This is supposing the present race of kings in the world to have had an honorable origin; whereas it is more than probable, that could we take off the dark covering of antiquity, and trace them to their first rise, that we should find the first of them nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose savage manners or pre-eminence in subtility obtained him the title of chief among plunderers; and who by increasing in power, and extending his depredations, over-awed the quiet and defenceless to purchase their safety by frequent contributions. Yet his electors could have no idea of giving hereditary right to his descendants, because such a perpetual exclusion of themselves was incompatible with the free and unrestrained principles they professed to live by. Wherefore, hereditary succession in the early ages of monarchy could not take place as a matter of claim, but as something casual or complimental; but as few or no records were extant in those days, and traditional history stuffed with fables, it was very easy, after the lapse of a few generations, to trump up some superstitious tale, conveniently timed, Mahomet like, to cram hereditary right down the throats of the vulgar. Perhaps the disorders which threatened, or seemed to threaten, on the decease of a leader and the choice of a new one (for elections among ruffians could not be very orderly) induced many at first to favor hereditary pretensions; by which means it happened, as it hath happened since, that what at first was submitted to as a convenience, was afterwards claimed as a right.

43 England, since the conquest, hath known some few good monarchs, but groaned beneath a much larger number of bad ones; yet no man in his senses can say that their claim under William the Conqueror is a very honorable one. A French bastard landing with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original.—It certainly hath no divinity in it. However, it is needless to spend much time in exposing the folly of hereditary right; if there are any so weak as to believe it, let them promiscuously worship the ass and lion, and welcome. I shall neither copy their humility, nor disturb their devotion.

44 Yet I should be glad to ask how they suppose kings came at first? The question admits but of three answers, viz. either by lot, by election, or by usurpation. If the first king was taken by lot, it establishes a precedent for the next, which excludes hereditary succession. Saul was by lot, yet the succession was not hereditary, neither does it appear from that transaction there was any intention it ever should. If the first king of any country was by election, that likewise establishes a precedent for the next; for to say, that the right of all future generations is taken away, by the act of the first electors, in their choice not only of a king, but of a family of kings for ever, hath no parrallel in or out of scripture but the doctrine of original sin, which supposes the free will of all men lost in Adam; and from such comparison, and it will admit of no other, hereditary succession can derive no glory. For as in Adam all sinned, and as in the first electors all men obeyed; as in the one all mankind were subjected to Satan, and in the other to Sovereignty; as our innocence was lost in the first, and our authority in the last; and as both disable us from reassuming some former state and privilege, it unanswerably follows that original sin and hereditary succession are parellels. Dishonorable rank! Inglorious connexion! Yet the most subtile sophist cannot produce a juster simile.

45 As to usurpation, no man will be so hardy as to defend it; and that William the Conqueror was an usurper is a fact not to be contradicted. The plain truth is, that the antiquity of English monarchy will not bear looking into.

46 But it is not so much the absurdity as the evil of hereditary succession which concerns mankind. Did it ensure a race of good and wise men it would have the seal of divine authority, but as it opens a door to the foolish , the wicked , and the improper , it hath in it the nature of oppression. Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.

47 Another evil which attends hereditary succession is, that the throne is subject to be possessed by a minor at any age; all which time the regency, acting under the cover of a king, have every opportunity and inducement to betray their trust. The same national misfortune happens, when a king worn out with age and infirmity, enters the last stage of human weakness. In both these cases the public becomes a prey to every miscreant, who can tamper successfully with the follies either of age or infancy.

48 The most plausible plea, which hath ever been offered in favour of hereditary succession, is, that it preserves a nation from civil wars; and were this true, it would be weighty; whereas, it is the most barefaced falsity ever imposed upon mankind. The whole history of England disowns the fact. Thirty kings and two minors have reigned in that distracted kingdom since the conquest, in which time there have been (including the Revolution) no less than eight civil wars and nineteen rebellions. Wherefore instead of making for peace, it makes against it, and destroys the very foundation it seems to stand on.

49 The contest for monarchy and succession, between the houses of York and Lancaster, laid England in a scene of blood for many years. Twelve pitched battles, besides skirmishes and sieges, were fought between Henry and Edward. Twice was Henry prisoner to Edward, who in his turn was prisoner to Henry. And so uncertain is the fate of war and the temper of a nation, when nothing but personal matters are the ground of a quarrel, that Henry was taken in triumph from a prison to a palace, and Edward obliged to fly from a palace to a foreign land; yet, as sudden transitions of temper are seldom lasting, Henry in his turn was driven from the throne, and Edward recalled to succeed him. The parliament always following the strongest side.

50 This contest began in the reign of Henry the Sixth, and was not entirely extinguished till Henry the Seventh, in whom the families were united. Including a period of 67 years, viz. from 1422 to 1489.

51 In short, monarchy and succession have laid (not this or that kingdom only) but the world in blood and ashes. ’Tis a form of government which the word of God bears testimony against, and blood will attend it.

52 If we inquire into the business of a king, we shall find that in some countries they have none; and after sauntering away their lives without pleasure to themselves or advantage to the nation, withdraw from the scene, and leave their successors to tread the same idle round. In absolute monarchies the whole weight of business, civil and military, lies on the king; the children of Israel in their request for a king, urged this plea “that he may judge us, and go out before us and fight our battles.” But in countries where he is neither a judge nor a general, as in England, a man would be puzzled to know what is his business.

53 The nearer any government approaches to a republic the less business there is for a king. It is somewhat difficult to find a proper name for the government of England. Sir William Meredith calls it a republic; but in its present state it is unworthy of the name, because the corrupt influence of the crown, by having all the places in its disposal, hath so effectually swallowed up the power, and eaten out the virtue of the house of commons (the republican part in the constitution) that the government of England is nearly as monarchical as that of France or Spain. Men fall out with names without understanding them. For it is the republican and not the monarchical part of the constitution of England which Englishmen glory in, viz. the liberty of choosing a house of commons from out of their own body—and it is easy to see that when republican virtue fails, slavery ensues. Why is the constitution of England sickly, but because monarchy hath poisoned the republic, the crown hath engrossed the commons?

54 In England a king hath little more to do than to make war and give away places; which in plain terms, is to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears. A pretty business indeed for a man to be allowed eight hundred thousand sterling a year for, and worshipped into the bargain! Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.

THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF AMERICAN AFFAIRS.

In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves; that he will put on , or rather that he will not put off , the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day.

56 Volumes have been written on the subject of the struggle between England and America. Men of all ranks have embarked in the controversy, from different motives, and with various designs; but all have been ineffectual, and the period of debate is closed. Arms, as the last resource, decide the contest; the appeal was the choice of the king, and the continent hath accepted the challenge.

57 It hath been reported of the late Mr. Pelham (who tho’ an able minister was not without his faults) that on his being attacked in the house of commons, on the score, that his measures were only of a temporary kind, replied “ they will last my time. ” Should a thought so fatal and unmanly possess the colonies in the present contest, the name of ancestors will be remembered by future generations with detestation.

58 The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. ’Tis not the affair of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent—of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe. ’Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters.

59 By referring the matter from argument to arms, a new æra for politics is struck; a new method of thinking hath arisen. All plans, proposals, &c. prior to the nineteenth of April, i.e. to the commencement of hostilities, are like the almanacks of the last year; which, though proper then, are superseded and useless now. Whatever was advanced by the advocates on either side of the question then, terminated in one and the same point, viz. a union with Great-Britain; the only difference between the parties was the method of effecting it; the one proposing force, the other friendship; but it hath so far happened that the first hath failed, and the second hath withdrawn her influence.

60 As much hath been said of the advantages of reconciliation, which, like an agreeable dream, hath passed away and left us as we were, it is but right, that we should examine the contrary side of the argument, and inquire into some of the many material injuries which these colonies sustain, and always will sustain, by being connected with, and dependant on Great-Britain. To examine that connexion and dependance, on the principles of nature and common sense, to see what we have to trust to, if separated, and what we are to expect, if dependant.

61 I have heard it asserted by some, that as America hath flourished under her former connexion with Great-Britain, that the same connexion is necessary towards her future happiness, and will always have the same effect. Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of argument. We may as well assert that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat, or that the first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty. But even this is admitting more than is true, for I answer roundly, that America would have flourished as much, and probably much more, had no European power had any thing to do with her. The commerce, by which she hath enriched herself are the necessaries of life, and will always have a market while eating is the custom of Europe.

62 But she has protected us, say some. That she has engrossed us is true, and defended the continent at our expence as well as her own is admitted, and she would have defended Turkey from the same motive, viz. the sake of trade and dominion.

63 Alas, we have been long led away by ancient prejudices, and made large sacrifices to superstition. We have boasted the protection of Great-Britain, without considering, that her motive was interest not attachment ; that she did not protect us from our enemies on our account , but from her enemies on her own account , from those who had no quarrel with us on any other account , and who will always be our enemies on the same account . Let Britain wave her pretensions to the continent, or the continent throw off the dependance, and we should be at peace with France and Spain were they at war with Britain. The miseries of Hanover last war ought to warn us against connexions.

64 It has lately been asserted in parliament, that the colonies have no relation to each other but through the parent country, i.e. that Pennsylvania and the Jerseys, and so on for the rest, are sister colonies by the way of England; this is certainly a very round-about way of proving relationship, but it is the nearest and only true way of proving enemyship, if I may so call it. France and Spain never were, nor perhaps ever will be our enemies as Americans , but as our being the subjects of Great-Britain .

65 But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families; wherefore the assertion, if true, turns to her reproach; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so, and the phrase parent or mother country hath been jesuitically adopted by the king and his parasites, with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds. Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.

66 In this extensive quarter of the globe, we forget the narrow limits of three hundred and sixty miles (the extent of England) and carry our friendship on a larger scale; we claim brotherhood with every European christian, and triumph in the generosity of the sentiment.

67 It is pleasant to observe by what regular gradations we surmount the force of local prejudice, as we enlarge our acquaintance with the world. A man born in any town in England divided into parishes, will naturally associate most with his fellow parishioners (because their interests in many cases will be common) and distinguish him by the name of neighbour ; if he meet him but a few miles from home, he drops the narrow idea of a street, and salutes him by the name of townsman ; if he travel out of the county, and meet him in any other, he forgets the minor divisions of street and town, and calls him countryman , i.e. county-man ; but if in their foreign excursions they should associate in France or any other part of Europe , their local remembrance would be enlarged into that of Englishmen . And by a just parity of reasoning, all Europeans meeting in America, or any other quarter of the globe, are countrymen ; for England, Holland, Germany, or Sweden, when compared with the whole, stand in the same places on the larger scale, which the divisions of street, town, and county do on the smaller ones; distinctions too limited for continental minds. Not one third of the inhabitants, even of this province, are of English descent. Wherefore I reprobate the phrase of parent or mother country applied to England only, as being false, selfish, narrow and ungenerous.

68 But admitting, that we were all of English descent, what does it amount to? Nothing. Britain, being now an open enemy, extinguishes every other name and title: And to say that reconciliation is our duty, is truly farcical. The first king of England, of the present line (William the Conqueror) was a Frenchman, and half the Peers of England are descendants from the same country; therefore, by the same method of reasoning, England ought to be governed by France.

69 Much hath been said of the united strength of Britain and the colonies, that in conjunction they might bid defiance to the world. But this is mere presumption; the fate of war is uncertain, neither do the expressions mean any thing; for this continent would never suffer itself to be drained of inhabitants, to support the British arms in either Asia, Africa, or Europe.

70 Besides what have we to do with setting the world at defiance? Our plan is commerce, and that, well attended to, will secure us the peace and friendship of all Europe; because, it is the interest of all Europe to have America a free port . Her trade will always be a protection, and her barrenness of gold and silver secure her from invaders.

71 I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation, to shew, a single advantage that this continent can reap, by being connected with Great Britain. I repeat the challenge, not a single advantage is derived. Our corn will fetch its price in any market in Europe, and our imported goods must be paid for buy them where we will.

72 But the injuries and disadvantages we sustain by that connection, are without number; and our duty to mankind at large, as well as to ourselves, instruct us to renounce the alliance: Because, any submission to, or dependance on Great-Britain, tends directly to involve this continent in European wars and quarrels; and sets us at variance with nations, who would otherwise seek our friendship, and against whom, we have neither anger nor complaint. As Europe is our market for trade, we ought to form no partial connection with any part of it. It is the true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions, which she never can do, while by her dependence on Britain, she is made the make-weight in the scale of British politics.

73 Europe is too thickly planted with kingdoms to be long at peace, and whenever a war breaks out between England and any foreign power, the trade of America goes to ruin, because of her connection with Britain . The next war may not turn out like the last, and should it not, the advocates for reconciliation now will be wishing for separation then, because, neutrality in that case, would be a safer convoy than a man of war. Every thing that is right or natural pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, ’Tis time to part . Even the distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and America, is a strong and natural proof, that the authority of the one, over the other, was never the design of Heaven. The time likewise at which the continent was discovered, adds weight to the argument, and the manner in which it was peopled encreases the force of it. The reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety.

74 The authority of Great-Britain over this continent, is a form of government, which sooner or later must have an end: And a serious mind can draw no true pleasure by looking forward, under the painful and positive conviction, that what he calls “the present constitution” is merely temporary. As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover the line of our duty rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and fix our station a few years farther into life; that eminence will present a prospect, which a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our sight.

75 Though I would carefully avoid giving unnecessary offence, yet I am inclined to believe, that all those who espouse the doctrine of reconciliation, may be included within the following descriptions. Interested men, who are not to be trusted; weak men, who cannot see; prejudiced men, who will not see; and a certain set of moderate men, who think better of the European world than it deserves; and this last class, by an ill-judged deliberation, will be the cause of more calamities to this continent, than all the other three.

76 It is the good fortune of many to live distant from the scene of sorrow; the evil is not sufficient brought to their doors to make them feel the precariousness with which all American property is possessed. But let our imaginations transport us for a few moments to Boston, that seat of wretchedness will teach us wisdom, and instruct us for ever to renounce a power in whom we can have no trust. The inhabitants of that unfortunate city, who but a few months ago were in ease and affluence, have now, no other alternative than to stay and starve, or turn out to beg. Endangered by the fire of their friends if they continue within the city, and plundered by the soldiery if they leave it. In their present condition they are prisoners without the hope of redemption, and in a general attack for their relief, they would be exposed to the fury of both armies.

77 Men of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over the offences of Britain, and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out, “ Come, come, we shall be friends again, for all this. ” But examine the passions and feelings of mankind, Bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature, and then tell me, whether you can hereafter love, honour, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If you cannot do all these, then are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon posterity. Your future connection with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honour, will be forced and unnatural, and being formed only on the plan of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a relapse more wretched than the first. But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, Hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and still can shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy of the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.

78 This is not inflaming or exaggerating matters, but trying them by those feelings and affections which nature justifies, and without which, we should be incapable of discharging the social duties of life, or enjoying the felicities of it. I mean not to exhibit horror for the purpose of provoking revenge, but to awaken us from fatal and unmanly slumbers, that we may pursue determinately some fixed object. It is not in the power of Britain or of Europe to conquer America, if she do not conquer herself by delay and timidity . The present winter is worth an age if rightly employed, but if lost or neglected, the whole continent will partake of the misfortune; and there is no punishment which that man will not deserve, be he who, or what, or where he will, that may be the means of sacrificing a season so precious and useful.

79 It is repugnant to reason, to the universal order of things to all examples from former ages, to suppose, that this continent can longer remain subject to any external power. The most sanguine in Britain does not think so. The utmost stretch of human wisdom cannot, at this time, compass a plan short of separation, which can promise the continent even a year’s security. Reconciliation is now a fallacious dream. Nature hath deserted the connexion, and Art cannot supply her place. For, as Milton wisely expresses, “never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep.”

80 Every quiet method for peace hath been ineffectual. Our prayers have been rejected with disdain; and only tended to convince us, that nothing flatters vanity, or confirms obstinacy in Kings more than repeated petitioning—and nothing hath contributed more than that very measure to make the Kings of Europe absolute: Witness Denmark and Sweden. Wherefore, since nothing but blows will do, for God’s sake, let us come to a final separation, and not leave the next generation to be cutting throats, under the violated unmeaning names of parent and child.

81 To say, they will never attempt it again is idle and visionary, we thought so at the repeal of the stamp-act, yet a year or two undeceived us; as well may we suppose that nations, which have been once defeated, will never renew the quarrel.

82 As to government matters, it is not in the power of Britain to do this continent justice: The business of it will soon be too weighty, and intricate, to be managed with any tolerable degree of convenience, by a power, so distant from us, and so very ignorant of us; for if they cannot conquer us, they cannot govern us. To be always running three or four thousand miles with a tale or a petition, waiting four or five months for an answer, which when obtained requires five or six more to explain it in, will in a few years be looked upon as folly and childishness—There was a time when it was proper, and there is a proper time for it to cease.

83 Small islands not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island. In no instance hath nature made the satellite larger than its primary planet, and as England and America, with respect to each other, reverses the common order of nature, it is evident they belong to different systems: England to Europe, America to itself.

84 I am not induced by motives of pride, party, or resentment to espouse the doctrine of separation and independance; I am clearly, positively, and conscientiously persuaded that it is the true interest of this continent to be so; that every thing short of that is mere patchwork, that it can afford no lasting felicity,—that it is leaving the sword to our children, and shrinking back at a time, when, a little more, a little farther, would have rendered this continent the glory of the earth.

85 As Britain hath not manifested the least inclination towards a compromise, we may be assured that no terms can be obtained worthy the acceptance of the continent, or any ways equal to the expence of blood and treasure we have been already put to.

86 The object, contended for, ought always to bear some just proportion to the expence. The removal of North, or the whole detestable junto, is a matter unworthy the millions we have expended. A temporary stoppage of trade, was an inconvenience, which would have sufficiently ballanced the repeal of all the acts complained of, had such repeals been obtained; but if the whole continent must take up arms, if every man must be a soldier, it is scarcely worth our while to fight against a contemptible ministry only. Dearly, dearly, do we pay for the repeal of the acts, if that is all we fight for; for in a just estimation, it is as great a folly to pay a Bunker-hill price for law, as for land. As I have always considered the independancy of this continent, as an event, which sooner or later must arrive, so from the late rapid progress of the continent to maturity, the event could not be far off. Wherefore, on the breaking out of hostilities, it was not worth the while to have disputed a matter, which time would have finally redressed, unless we meant to be in earnest; otherwise, it is like wasting an estate on a suit at law, to regulate the trespasses of a tenant, whose lease is just expiring. No man was a warmer wisher for reconciliation than myself, before the fatal nineteenth of April 1775, but the moment the event of that day was made known, I rejected the hardened, sullen tempered Pharaoh of England for ever; and disdain the wretch, that with the pretended title of father of his people can unfeelingly hear of their slaughter, and composedly sleep with their blood upon his soul.

87 But admitting that matters were now made up, what would be the event? I answer, the ruin of the continent. And that for several reasons.

88 First . The powers of governing still remaining in the hands of the king, he will have a negative over the whole legislation of this continent. And as he hath shewn himself such an inveterate enemy to liberty, and discovered such a thirst for arbitrary power; is he, or is he not, a proper man to say to these colonies, “ You shall make no laws but what I please. ” And is there any inhabitant in America so ignorant, as not to know, that according to what is called the present constitution , that this continent can make no laws but what the king gives leave to; and is there any man so unwise, as not to see, that (considering what has happened) he will suffer no law to be made here, but such as suit his purpose. We may be as effectually enslaved by the want of laws in America, as by submitting to laws made for us in England. After matters are made up (as it is called) can there be any doubt, but the whole power of the crown will be exerted, to keep this continent as low and humble as possible? Instead of going forward we shall go backward, or be perpetually quarrelling or ridiculously petitioning.—We are already greater than the king wishes us to be, and will he not hereafter endeavour to make us less? To bring the matter to one point. Is the power who is jealous of our prosperity, a proper power to govern us? Whoever says No to this question is an independant , for independancy means no more, than, whether we shall make our own laws, or whether the king, the greatest enemy this continent hath, or can have, shall tell us “ there shall be no laws but such as I like. ”

89 But the king you will say has a negative in England; the people there can make no laws without his consent. In point of right and good order, there is something very ridiculous, that a youth of twenty-one (which hath often happened) shall say to several millions of people, older and wiser than himself, I forbid this or that act of yours to be law. But in this place I decline this sort of reply, though I will never cease to expose the absurdity of it, and only answer, that England being the King’s residence, and America not so, makes quite another case. The king’s negative here is ten times more dangerous and fatal than it can be in England, for there he will scarcely refuse his consent to a bill for putting England into as strong a state of defence as possible, and in America he would never suffer such a bill to be passed.

90 America is only a secondary object in the system of British politics, England consults the good of this country, no farther than it answers her own purpose. Wherefore, her own interest leads her to suppress the growth of ours in every case which doth not promote her advantage, or in the least interferes with it. A pretty state we should soon be in under such a second-hand government, considering what has happened! Men do not change from enemies to friends by the alteration of a name: And in order to shew that reconciliation now is a dangerous doctrine, I affirm, that it would be policy in the king at this time, to repeal the acts for the sake of reinstating himself in the government of the provinces; in order, that he may accomplish by craft and subtilty, in the long run, what he cannot do by force and violence in the short one. Reconciliation and ruin are nearly related.

91 Secondly . That as even the best terms, which we can expect to obtain, can amount to no more than a temporary expedient, or a kind of government by guardianship, which can last no longer than till the colonies come of age, so the general face and state of things, in the interim, will be unsettled and unpromising. Emigrants of property will not choose to come to a country whose form of government hangs but by a thread, and who is every day tottering on the brink of commotion and disturbance; and numbers of the present inhabitants would lay hold of the interval, to dispense of their effects, and quit the continent.

92 But the most powerful of all arguments, is, that nothing but independance, i.e. a continental form of government, can keep the peace of the continent and preserve it inviolate from civil wars. I dread the event of a reconciliation with Britain now, as it is more than probable, that it will be followed by a revolt somewhere or other, the consequences of which may be far more fatal than all the malice of Britain.

93 Thousands are already ruined by British barbarity; (thousands more will probably suffer the same fate) Those men have other feelings than us who have nothing suffered. All they now possess is liberty, what they before enjoyed is sacrificed to its service, and having nothing more to lose, they disdain submission. Besides, the general temper of the colonies, towards a British government, will be like that of a youth, who is nearly out of his time; they will care very little about her. And a government which cannot preserve the peace, is no government at all, and in that case we pay our money for nothing; and pray what is it that Britain can do, whose power will be wholly on paper, should a civil tumult break out the very day after reconciliation? I have heard some men say, many of whom I believe spoke without thinking, that they dreaded an independance, fearing that it would produce civil wars. It is but seldom that our first thoughts are truly correct, and that is the case here; for there are ten times more to dread from a patched up connexion than from independance. I make the sufferers case my own, and I protest, that were I driven from house and home, my property destroyed, and my circumstances ruined, that as man, sensible of injuries, I could never relish the doctrine of reconciliation, or consider myself bound thereby.

94 The colonies have manifested such a spirit of good order and obedience to continental government, as is sufficient to make every reasonable person easy and happy on that head. No man can assign the least pretence for his fears, on any other grounds, than such as are truly childish and ridiculous, viz. that one colony will be striving for superiority over another.

95 Where there are no distinctions there can be no superiority, perfect equality affords no temptation. The republics of Europe are all (and we may say always) in peace. Holland and Swisserland are without wars, foreign or domestic: Monarchical governments, it is true, are never long at rest; the crown itself is a temptation to enterprizing ruffians at home ; and that degree of pride and insolence ever attendant on regal authority, swells into a rupture with foreign powers, in instances, where a republican government, by being formed on more natural principles, would negociate the mistake.

96 If there is any true cause of fear respecting independance, it is because no plan is yet laid down. Men do not see their way out—Wherefore, as an opening into that business, I offer the following hints; at the same time modestly affirming, that I have no other opinion of them myself, than that they may be the means of giving rise to something better. Could the straggling thoughts of individuals be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise and able men to improve into useful matter.

97 Let the assemblies be annual, with a President only. The representation more equal. Their business wholly domestic, and subject to the authority of a Continental Congress.

98 Let each colony be divided into six, eight, or ten, convenient districts, each district to send a proper number of delegates to Congress, so that each colony send at least thirty. The whole number in Congress will be at least 390. Each Congress to sit and to choose a president by the following method. When the delegates are met, let a colony be taken from the whole thirteen colonies by lot, after which, let the whole Congress choose (by ballot) a president from out of the delegates of that province. In the next Congress, let a colony be taken by lot from twelve only, omitting that colony from which the president was taken in the former Congress, and so proceeding on till the whole thirteen shall have had their proper rotation. And in order that nothing may pass into a law but what is satisfactorily just, not less than three fifths of the Congress to be called a majority.—He that will promote discord, under a government so equally formed as this, would have joined Lucifer in his revolt.

99 But as there is a peculiar delicacy, from whom, or in what manner, this business must first arise, and as it seems most agreeable and consistent that it should come from some intermediate body between the governed and the governors, that is, between the Congress and the people, let a Continental Conference be held, in the following manner, and for the following purpose.

100 A committee of twenty-six members of Congress, viz. two for each colony. Two members from each House of Assembly, or Provincial Convention; and five representatives of the people at large, to be chosen in the capital city or town of each province, for, and in behalf of the whole province, by as many qualified voters as shall think proper to attend from all parts of the province for that purpose; or, if more convenient, the representatives may be chosen in two or three of the most populous parts thereof. In this conference, thus assembled, will be united, the two grand principles of business, knowledge and power . The members of Congress, Assemblies, or Conventions, by having had experience in national concerns, will be able and useful counsellors, and the whole, being impowered by the people, will have a truly legal authority.

101 The conferring members being met, let their business be to frame a Continental Charter , or Charter of the United Colonies; (answering to what is called the Magna Charta of England) fixing the number and manner of choosing members of Congress, members of Assembly, with their date of sitting, and drawing the line of business and jurisdiction between them: (Always remembering, that our strength is continental, not provincial:) Securing freedom and property to all men, and above all things, the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; with such other matter as is necessary for a charter to contain. Immediately after which, the said Conference to dissolve, and the bodies which shall be chosen comformable to the said charter, to be the legislators and governors of this continent for the time being: Whose peace and happiness, may God preserve, Amen.

102 Should any body of men be hereafter delegated for this or some similar purpose, I offer them the following extracts from that wise observer on governments Dragonetti . “The science” says he “of the politician consists in fixing the true point of happiness and freedom. Those men would deserve the gratitude of ages, who should discover a mode of government that contained the greatest sum of individual happiness, with the least national expense.

Dragonetti on virtue and rewards.”

103 But where says some is the King of America? I’ll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king . For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is.

104 A government of our own is our natural right: And when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance. If we omit it now, some Massanello ¹ may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge. Should the government of America return again into the hands of Britain, the tottering situation of things, will be a temptation for some desperate adventurer to try his fortune; and in such a case, what relief can Britain give? Ere she could hear the news, the fatal business might be done; and ourselves suffering like the wretched Britons under the oppression of the Conqueror. Ye that oppose independance now, ye know not what ye do; ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny, by keeping vacant the seat of government. There are thousands, and tens of thousands, who would think it glorious to expel from the continent, that barbarous and hellish power, which hath stirred up the Indians and Negroes to destroy us, the cruelty hath a double guilt, it is dealing brutally by us, and treacherously by them.

¹ Thomas Anello, otherwise Massanello, a fisherman of Naples, who after spiriting up his countrymen in the public market place, against the oppressions of the Spaniards, to whom the place was then subject, prompted them to revolt, and in the space of a day became king.

105 To talk of friendship with those in whom our reason forbids us to have faith, and our affections wounded through a thousand pores instruct us to detest, is madness and folly. Every day wears out the little remains of kindred between us and them, and can there be any reason to hope, that as the relationship expires, the affection will increase, or that we shall agree better, when we have ten times more and greater concerns to quarrel over than ever?

106 Ye that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, can ye restore to us the time that is past? Can ye give to prostitution its former innocence? Neither can ye reconcile Britain and America. The last cord now is broken, the people of England are presenting addresses against us. There are injuries which nature cannot forgive; she would cease to be nature if she did. As well can the lover forgive the ravisher of his mistress, as the continent forgive the murders of Britain. The Almighty hath implanted in us these unextinguishable feelings for good and wise purposes. They are the guardians of his image in our hearts. They distinguish us from the herd of common animals. The social compact would dissolve, and justice be extirpated the earth, or have only a casual existence were we callous to the touches of affection. The robber, and the murderer, would often escape unpunished, did not the injuries which our tempers sustain, provoke us into justice.

107 O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her—Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.

OF THE PRESENT ABILITY OF AMERICA, WITH SOME MISCELLANEOUS REFLEXIONS.

I have never met with a man, either in England or America, who hath not confessed his opinion, that a separation between the countries, would take place one time or other: And there is no instance, in which we have shewn less judgment, than in endeavouring to describe, what we call, the ripeness or fitness of the Continent for independance.

109 As all men allow the measure, and vary only in their opinion of the time, let us, in order to remove mistakes, take a general survey of things, and endeavour, if possible, to find out the very time. But we need not go far, the inquiry ceases at once, for, the time hath found us . The general concurrence, the glorious union of all things prove the fact.

110 It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies; yet our present numbers are sufficient to repel the force of all the world. The Continent hath, at this time, the largest body of armed and disciplined men of any power under Heaven; and is just arrived at that pitch of strength, in which no single colony is able to support itself, and the whole, when united, can accomplish the matter, and either more, or, less than this, might be fatal in its effects. Our land force is already sufficient, and as to naval affairs, we cannot be insensible, that Britain would never suffer an American man of war to be built, while the continent remained in her hands. Wherefore, we should be no forwarder an hundred years hence in that branch, than we are now; but the truth is, we should be less so, because the timber of the country is every day diminishing, and that, which will remain at last, will be far off and difficult to procure.

111 Were the continent crowded with inhabitants, her sufferings under the present circumstances would be intolerable. The more sea port towns we had, the more should we have both to defend and to lose. Our present numbers are so happily proportioned to our wants, that no man need be idle. The diminution of trade affords an army, and the necessities of an army create a new trade.

112 Debts we have none; and whatever we may contract on this account will serve as a glorious memento of our virtue. Can we but leave posterity with a settled form of government, an independant constitution of its own, the purchase at any price will be cheap. But to expend millions for the sake of getting a few vile acts repealed, and routing the present ministry only, is unworthy the charge, and is using posterity with the utmost cruelty; because it is leaving them the great work to do, and a debt upon their backs, from which they derive no advantage. Such a thought is unworthy a man of honor, and is the true characteristic of a narrow heart and a pedling politician.

113 The debt we may contract doth not deserve our regard if the work be but accomplished. No nation ought to be without a debt. A national debt is a national bond; and when it bears no interest, is in no case a grievance. Britain is oppressed with a debt of upwards of one hundred and forty millions sterling, for which she pays upwards of four millions interest. And as a compensation for her debt, she has a large navy; America is without a debt, and without a navy; yet for the twentieth part of the English national debt, could have a navy as large again. The navy of England is not worth, at this time, more than three millions and an half sterling.

114 The first and second editions of this pamphlet were published without the following calculations, which are now given as a proof that the above estimation of the navy is just. See Entic’s naval history, intro. page 56.

115 The charge of building a ship of each rate, and furnishing her with masts, yards, sails and rigging, together with a proportion of eight months boatswain’s and carpenter’s sea-stores, as calculated by Mr. Burchett, Secretary to the navy.

116 And from hence it is easy to sum up the value, or cost rather, of the whole British navy, which in the year 1757, when it was at its greatest glory consisted of the following ships and guns:

117 No country on the globe is so happily situated, or so internally capable of raising a fleet as America. Tar, timber, iron, and cordage are her natural produce. We need go abroad for nothing. Whereas the Dutch, who make large profits by hiring out their ships of war to the Spaniards and Portuguese, are obliged to import most of the materials they use. We ought to view the building a fleet as an article of commerce, it being the natural manufactory of this country. It is the best money we can lay out. A navy when finished is worth more than it cost. And is that nice point in national policy, in which commerce and protection are united. Let us build; if we want them not, we can sell; and by that means replace our paper currency with ready gold and silver.

118 In point of manning a fleet, people in general run into great errors; it is not necessary that one fourth part should be sailors. The Terrible privateer, Captain Death, stood the hottest engagement of any ship last war, yet had not twenty sailors on board, though her complement of men was upwards of two hundred. A few able and social sailors will soon instruct a sufficient number of active landmen in the common work of a ship. Wherefore, we never can be more capable to begin on maritime matters than now, while our timber is standing, our fisheries blocked up, and our sailors and shipwrights out of employ. Men of war, of seventy and eighty guns were built forty years ago in New-England, and why not the same now? Ship-building is America’s greatest pride, and in which, she will in time excel the whole world. The great empires of the east are mostly inland, and consequently excluded from the possibility of rivalling her. Africa is in a state of barbarism; and no power in Europe, hath either such an extent of coast, or such an internal supply of materials. Where nature hath given the one, she has withheld the other; to America only hath she been liberal of both. The vast empire of Russia is almost shut out from the sea; wherefore, her boundless forests, her tar, iron, and cordage are only articles of commerce.

119 In point of safety, ought we to be without a fleet? We are not the little people now, which we were sixty years ago; at that time we might have trusted our property in the streets, or fields rather; and slept securely without locks or bolts to our doors or windows. The case now is altered, and our methods of defence, ought to improve with our increase of property. A common pirate, twelve months ago, might have come up the Delaware, and laid the city of Philadelphia under instant contribution, for what sum he pleased; and the same might have happened to other places. Nay, any daring fellow, in a brig of fourteen or sixteen guns, might have robbed the whole Continent, and carried off half a million of money. These are circumstances which demand our attention, and point out the necessity of naval protection.

120 Some, perhaps, will say, that after we have made it up with Britain, she will protect us. Can we be so unwise as to mean, that she shall keep a navy in our harbours for that purpose? Common sense will tell us, that the power which hath endeavoured to subdue us, is of all others, the most improper to defend us. Conquest may be effected under the pretence of friendship; and ourselves, after a long and brave resistance, be at last cheated into slavery. And if her ships are not to be admitted into our harbours, I would ask, how is she to protect us? A navy three or four thousand miles off can be of little use, and on sudden emergencies, none at all. Wherefore, if we must hereafter protect ourselves, why not do it for ourselves? Why do it for another?

121 The English list of ships of war, is long and formidable, but not a tenth part of them are at any one time fit for service, numbers of them not in being; yet their names are pompously continued in the list, if only a plank be left of the ship: and not a fifth part, of such as are fit for service, can be spared on any one station at one time. The East and West Indies, Mediterranean, Africa, and other parts over which Britain extends her claim, make large demands upon her navy. From a mixture of prejudice and inattention, we have contracted a false notion respecting the navy of England, and have talked as if we should have the whole of it to encounter at once, and for that reason, supposed, that we must have one as large; which not being instantly practicable, have been made use of by a set of disguised Tories to discourage our beginning thereon. Nothing can be farther from truth than this; for if America had only a twentieth part of the naval force of Britain, she would be by far an over match for her; because, as we neither have, nor claim any foreign dominion, our whole force would be employed on our own coast, where we should, in the long run, have two to one the advantage of those who had three or four thousand miles to sail over, before they could attack us, and the same distance to return in order to refit and recruit. And although Britain by her fleet, hath a check over our trade to Europe, we have as large a one over her trade to the West-Indies, which, by laying in the neighbourhood of the Continent, is entirely at its mercy.

122 Some method might be fallen on to keep up a naval force in time of peace, if we should not judge it necessary to support a constant navy. If premiums were to be given to merchants, to build and employ in their service ships mounted with twenty, thirty, forty or fifty guns, (the premiums to be in proportion to the loss of bulk to the merchants) fifty or sixty of those ships, with a few guardships on constant duty, would keep up a sufficient navy, and that without burdening ourselves with the evil so loudly complained of in England, of suffering their fleet, in time of peace to lie rotting in the docks. To unite the sinews of commerce and defense is sound policy; for when our strength and our riches play into each other’s hand, we need fear no external enemy.

123 In almost every article of defense we abound. Hemp flourishes even to rankness, so that we need not want cordage. Our iron is superior to that of other countries. Our small arms equal to any in the world. Cannon we can cast at pleasure. Saltpetre and gunpowder we are every day producing. Our knowledge is hourly improving. Resolution is our inherent character, and courage hath never yet forsaken us. Wherefore, what is it that we want? Why is it that we hesitate? From Britain we can expect nothing but ruin. If she is once admitted to the government of America again, this Continent will not be worth living in. Jealousies will be always arising; insurrections will be constantly happening; and who will go forth to quell them? Who will venture his life to reduce his own countrymen to a foreign obedience? The difference between Pennsylvania and Connecticut, respecting some unlocated lands, shews the insignificance of a British government, and fully proves, that nothing but Continental authority can regulate Continental matters.

124 Another reason why the present time is preferable to all others, is, that the fewer our numbers are, the more land there is yet unoccupied, which instead of being lavished by the king on his worthless dependants, may be hereafter applied, not only to the discharge of the present debt, but to the constant support of government. No nation under heaven hath such an advantage as this.

125 The infant state of the Colonies, as it is called, so far from being against, is an argument in favour of independance. We are sufficiently numerous, and were we more so, we might be less united. It is a matter worthy of observation, that the more a country is peopled, the smaller their armies are. In military numbers, the ancients far exceeded the moderns: and the reason is evident. For trade being the consequence of population, men become too much absorbed thereby to attend to anything else. Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defence. And history sufficiently informs us, that the bravest achievements were always accomplished in the non-age of a nation. With the increase of commerce, England hath lost its spirit. The city of London, notwithstanding its numbers, submits to continued insults with the patience of a coward. The more men have to lose, the less willing are they to venture. The rich are in general slaves to fear, and submit to courtly power with the trembling duplicity of a Spaniel.

126 Youth is the seed time of good habits, as well in nations as in individuals. It might be difficult, if not impossible, to form the Continent into one government half a century hence. The vast variety of interests, occasioned by an increase of trade and population, would create confusion. Colony would be against colony. Each being able might scorn each other’s assistance: and while the proud and foolish gloried in their little distinctions, the wise would lament, that the union had not been formed before. Wherefore, the present time is the true time for establishing it. The intimacy which is contracted in infancy, and the friendship which is formed in misfortune, are, of all others, the most lasting and unalterable. Our present union is marked with both these characters: we are young and we have been distressed; but our concord hath withstood our troubles, and fixes a memorable area for posterity to glory in.

127 The present time, likewise, is that peculiar time, which never happens to a nation but once, viz. the time of forming itself into a government. Most nations have let slip the opportunity, and by that means have been compelled to receive laws from their conquerors, instead of making laws for themselves. First, they had a king, and then a form of government; whereas, the articles or charter of government, should be formed first, and men delegated to execute them afterward: but from the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom, and lay hold of the present opportunity— To begin government at the right end .

128 When William the Conqueror subdued England, he gave them law at the point of the sword; and until we consent, that the seat of government, in America, be legally and authoritatively occupied, we shall be in danger of having it filled by some fortunate ruffian, who may treat us in the same manner, and then, where will be our freedom? where our property?

129 As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of all government, to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith. Let a man throw aside that narrowness of soul, that selfishness of principle, which the niggards of all professions are so unwilling to part with, and he will be at once delivered of his fears on that head. Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society. For myself, I fully and conscientiously believe, that it is the will of the Almighty, that there should be diversity of religious opinions among us: It affords a larger field for our Christian kindness. Were we all of one way of thinking, our religious dispositions would want matter for probation; and on this liberal principle, I look on the various denominations among us, to be like children of the same family, differing only, in what is called, their Christian names.

130 In page forty , I threw out a few thoughts on the propriety of a Continental Charter, (for I only presume to offer hints, not plans) and in this place, I take the liberty of re-mentioning the subject, by observing, that a charter is to be understood as a bond of solemn obligation, which the whole enters into, to support the right of every separate part, whether of religion, personal freedom, or property. A firm bargain and a right reckoning make long friends.

131 In a former page I likewise mentioned the necessity of a large and equal representation; and there is no political matter which more deserves our attention. A small number of electors, or a small number of representatives, are equally dangerous. But if the number of the representatives be not only small, but unequal, the danger is increased. As an instance of this, I mention the following; when the Associators petition was before the House of Assembly of Pennsylvania; twenty-eight members only were present, all the Bucks county members, being eight, voted against it, and had seven of the Chester members done the same, this whole province had been governed by two counties only, and this danger it is always exposed to. The unwarrantable stretch likewise, which that house made in their last sitting, to gain an undue authority over the delegates of that province, ought to warn the people at large, how they trust power out of their own hands. A set of instructions for the Delegates were put together, which in point of sense and business would have dishonoured a schoolboy, and after being approved by a few , a very few without doors, were carried into the House, and there passed in behalf of the whole colony ; whereas, did the whole colony know, with what ill-will that House hath entered on some necessary public measures, they would not hesitate a moment to think them unworthy of such a trust.

132 Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions. Expedience and right are different things. When the calamities of America required a consultation, there was no method so ready, or at that time so proper, as to appoint persons from the several Houses of Assembly for that purpose; and the wisdom with which they have proceeded hath preserved this continent from ruin. But as it is more than probable that we shall never be without a Congress , every well wisher to good order, must own, that the mode for choosing members of that body, deserves consideration. And I put it as a question to those, who make a study of mankind, whether representation and election is not too great a power for one and the same body of men to possess? When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember, that virtue is not hereditary.

133 It is from our enemies that we often gain excellent maxims, and are frequently surprised into reason by their mistakes. Mr. Cornwall (one of the Lords of the Treasury) treated the petition of the New-York Assembly with contempt, because that House, he said, consisted but of twenty-six members, which trifling number, he argued, could not with decency be put for the whole. We thank him for his involuntary honesty. ¹

¹ Those who would fully understand of what great consequence a large and equal representation is to a state, should read Burgh’s political disquisitions.

134 To Conclude , however strange it may appear to some, or however unwilling they may be to think so, matters not, but many strong and striking reasons may be given, to shew, that nothing can settle our affairs so expeditiously as an open and determined declaration for independance. Some of which are,

135 First .—It is the custom of nations, when any two are at war, for some other powers, not engaged in the quarrel, to step in as mediators, and bring about the preliminaries of a peace: but while America calls herself the Subject of Great-Britain, no power, however well disposed she may be, can offer her mediation. Wherefore, in our present state we may quarrel on for ever.

136 Secondly .—It is unreasonable to suppose, that France or Spain will give us any kind of assistance, if we mean only, to make use of that assistance for the purpose of repairing the breach, and strengthening the connection between Britain and America; because, those powers would be sufferers by the consequences.

137 Thirdly .—While we profess ourselves the subjects of Britain, we must, in the eye of foreign nations, be considered as rebels. The precedent is somewhat dangerous to their peace , for men to be in arms under the name of subjects; we, on the spot, can solve the paradox: but to unite resistance and subjection, requires an idea much too refined for common understanding.

138 Fourthly .—Were a manifesto to be published, and despatched to foreign courts, setting forth the miseries we have endured, and the peaceable methods we have ineffectually used for redress; declaring, at the same time, that not being able, any longer, to live happily or safely under the cruel disposition of the British court, we had been driven to the necessity of breaking off all connections with her; at the same time, assuring all such courts of our peaceable disposition towards them, and of our desire of entering into trade with them: Such a memorial would produce more good effects to this Continent, than if a ship were freighted with petitions to Britain.

139 Under our present denomination of British subjects, we can neither be received nor heard abroad: The custom of all courts is against us, and will be so, until, by an independance, we take rank with other nations.

140 These proceedings may at first appear strange and difficult; but, like all other steps which we have already passed over, will in a little time become familiar and agreeable; and, until an independance is declared, the Continent will feel itself like a man who continues putting off some unpleasant business from day to day, yet knows it must be done, hates to set about it, wishes it over, and is continually haunted with the thoughts of its necessity.

Since the publication of the first edition of this pamphlet, or rather, on the same day on which it came out, the King’s Speech made its appearance in this city. Had the spirit of prophecy directed the birth of this production, it could not have brought it forth, at a more seasonable juncture, or a more necessary time. The bloody mindedness of the one, shew the necessity of pursuing the doctrine of the other. Men read by way of revenge. And the Speech, instead of terrifying, prepared a way for the manly principles of Independance.

142 Ceremony, and even, silence, from whatever motive they may arise, have a hurtful tendency, when they give the least degree of countenance to base and wicked performances; wherefore, if this maxim be admitted, it naturally follows, that the King’s Speech, as being a piece of finished villainy, deserved, and still deserves, a general execration both by the Congress and the people. Yet, as the domestic tranquillity of a nation, depends greatly, on the chastity of what may properly be called national manners , it is often better, to pass some things over in silent disdain, than to make use of such new methods of dislike, as might introduce the least innovation, on that guardian of our peace and safety. And, perhaps, it is chiefly owing to this prudent delicacy, that the King’s Speech, hath not, before now, suffered a public execution. The Speech if it may be called one, is nothing better than a wilful audacious libel against the truth, the common good, and the existence of mankind; and is a formal and pompous method of offering up human sacrifices to the pride of tyrants. But this general massacre of mankind, is one of the privileges, and the certain consequence of Kings; for as nature knows them not , they know not her , and although they are beings of our own creating, they know not us , and are become the gods of their creators. The Speech hath one good quality, which is, that it is not calculated to deceive, neither can we, even if we would, be deceived by it. Brutality and tyranny appear on the face of it. It leaves us at no loss: And every line convinces, even in the moment of reading, that He, who hunts the woods for prey, the naked and untutored Indian, is less a Savage than the King of Britain.

143 Sir John Dalrymple, the putative father of a whining jesuitical piece, fallaciously called, “ The Address of the people of England to the inhabitants of America ,” hath, perhaps, from a vain supposition, that the people here were to be frightened at the pomp and description of a king, given, (though very unwisely on his part) the real character of the present one: “But” says this writer, “if you are inclined to pay compliments to an administration, which we do not complain of,” (meaning the Marquis of Rockingham’s at the repeal of the Stamp Act) “it is very unfair in you to withhold them from that prince, by whose nod alone they were permitted to do any thing .” This is toryism with a witness! Here is idolatry even without a mask: And he who can calmly hear, and digest such doctrine, hath forfeited his claim to rationality—an apostate from the order of manhood; and ought to be considered—as one, who hath not only given up the proper dignity of man, but sunk himself beneath the rank of animals, and contemptibly crawls through the world like a worm.

144 However, it matters very little now, what the king of England either says or does; he hath wickedly broken through every moral and human obligation, trampled nature and conscience beneath his feet; and by a steady and constitutional spirit of insolence and cruelty, procured for himself an universal hatred. It is now the interest of America to provide for herself. She hath already a large and young family, whom it is more her duty to take care of, than to be granting away her property, to support a power who is become a reproach to the names of men and christians— Ye , whose office it is to watch over the morals of a nation, of whatsoever sect or denomination ye are of, as well as ye, who are more immediately the guardians of the public liberty, if ye wish to preserve your native country uncontaminated by European corruption, ye must in secret wish a separation—But leaving the moral part to private reflection, I shall chiefly confine my farther remarks to the following heads.

145 First. That it is the interest of America to be separated from Britain.

146 Secondly. Which is the easiest and most practicable plan, reconciliation or independance ? with some occasional remarks.

147 In support of the first, I could, if I judged it proper, produce the opinion of some of the ablest and most experienced men on this continent; and whose sentiments, on that head, are not yet publicly known. It is in reality a self-evident position: For no nation in a state of foreign dependance, limited in its commerce, and cramped and fettered in its legislative powers, can ever arrive at any material eminence. America doth not yet know what opulence is; and although the progress which she hath made stands unparalleled in the history of other nations, it is but childhood, compared with what she would be capable of arriving at, had she, as she ought to have, the legislative powers in her own hands. England is, at this time, proudly coveting what would do her no good, were she to accomplish it; and the Continent hesitating on a matter, which will be her final ruin if neglected. It is the commerce and not the conquest of America, by which England is to be benefited, and that would in a great measure continue, were the countries as independant of each other as France and Spain; because in many articles, neither can go to a better market. But it is the independance of this country of Britain or any other, which is now the main and only object worthy of contention, and which, like all other truths discovered by necessity, will appear clearer and stronger every day.

148 First. Because it will come to that one time or other.

149 Secondly. Because, the longer it is delayed the harder it will be to accomplish.

150 I have frequently amused myself both in public and private companies, with silently remarking, the specious errors of those who speak without reflecting. And among the many which I have heard, the following seems the most general, viz. that had this rupture happened forty or fifty years hence, instead of now , the Continent would have been more able to have shaken off the dependance. To which I reply, that our military ability, at this time , arises from the experience gained in the last war, and which in forty or fifty years time, would have been totally extinct. The Continent, would not, by that time, have had a General, or even a military officer left; and we, or those who may succeed us, would have been as ignorant of martial matters as the ancient Indians: And this single position, closely attended to, will unanswerably prove, that the present time is preferable to all others. The argument turns thus—at the conclusion of the last war, we had experience, but wanted numbers; and forty or fifty years hence, we should have numbers, without experience; wherefore, the proper point of time, must be some particular point between the two extremes, in which a sufficiency of the former remains, and a proper increase of the latter is obtained: And that point of time is the present time.

151 The reader will pardon this digression, as it does not properly come under the head I first set out with, and to which I again return by the following position, viz.

152 Should affairs be patched up with Britain, and she to remain the governing and sovereign power of America, (which, as matters are now circumstanced, is giving up the point intirely) we shall deprive ourselves of the very means of sinking the debt we have, or may contract. The value of the back lands which some of the provinces are clandestinely deprived of, by the unjust extention of the limits of Canada, valued only at five pounds sterling per hundred acres, amount to upwards of twenty-five millions, Pennsylvania currency; and the quit-rents at one penny sterling per acre, to two millions yearly.

153 It is by the sale of those lands that the debt may be sunk, without burthen to any, and the quit-rent reserved thereon, will always lessen, and in time, will wholly support the yearly expence of government. It matters not how long the debt is in paying, so that the lands when sold be applied to the discharge of it, and for the execution of which, the Congress for the time being, will be the continental trustees.

154 I proceed now to the second head, viz. Which is the easiest and most practicable plan, reconciliation or independance ; with some occasional remarks.

155 He who takes nature for his guide is not easily beaten out of his argument, and on that ground, I answer generally—That independance being a single simple line , contained within ourselves; and reconciliation, a matter exceedingly perplexed and complicated, and in which, a treacherous capricious court is to interfere, gives the answer without a doubt.

156 The present state of America is truly alarming to every man who is capable of reflexion. Without law, without government, without any other mode of power than what is founded on, and granted by courtesy. Held together by an unexampled concurrence of sentiment, which, is nevertheless subject to change, and which every secret enemy is endeavouring to dissolve. Our present condition, is, Legislation without law; wisdom without a plan; constitution without a name; and, what is strangely astonishing, perfect Independance contending for dependance. The instance is without a precedent; the case never existed before; and who can tell what may be the event? The property of no man is secure in the present unbraced system of things. The mind of the multitude is left at random, and seeing no fixed object before them, they pursue such as fancy or opinion starts. Nothing is criminal; there is no such thing as treason; wherefore, every one thinks himself at liberty to act as he pleases. The Tories dared not have assembled offensively, had they known that their lives, by that act, were forfeited to the laws of the state. A line of distinction should be drawn, between, English soldiers taken in battle, and inhabitants of America taken in arms. The first are prisoners, but the latter traitors. The one forfeits his liberty, the other his head.

157 Notwithstanding our wisdom, there is a visible feebleness in some of our proceedings which gives encouragement to dissensions. The Continental Belt is too loosely buckled. And if something is not done in time, it will be too late to do any thing, and we shall fall into a state, in which, neither Reconciliation nor Independance will be practicable. The king and his worthless adherents are got at their old game of dividing the Continent, and there are not wanting among us, Printers, who will be busy in spreading specious falsehoods. The artful and hypocritical letter which appeared a few months ago in two of the New-York papers, and likewise in two others, is an evidence that there are men who want either judgment or honesty.

158 It is easy getting into holes and corners and talking of reconciliation: But do such men seriously consider, how difficult the task is, and how dangerous it may prove, should the Continent divide thereon. Do they take within their view, all the various orders of men whose situation and circumstances, as well as their own, are to be considered therein. Do they put themselves in the place of the sufferer whose all is already gone, and of the soldier, who hath quitted all for the defence of his country. If their ill judged moderation be suited to their own private situations only , regardless of others, the event will convince them, that “they are reckoning without their Host.”

159 Put us, say some, on the footing we were on in sixty-three: To which I answer, the request is not now in the power of Britain to comply with, neither will she propose it; but if it were, and even should be granted, I ask, as a reasonable question, By what means is such a corrupt and faithless court to be kept to its engagements? Another parliament, nay, even the present, may hereafter repeal the obligation, on the pretence, of its being violently obtained, or unwisely granted; and in that case, Where is our redress?—No going to law with nations; cannon are the barristers of Crowns; and the sword, not of justice, but of war, decides the suit. To be on the footing of sixty-three, it is not sufficient, that the laws only be put on the same state, but, that our circumstances, likewise, be put on the same state; Our burnt and destroyed towns repaired or built up, our private losses made good, our public debts (contracted for defence) discharged; otherwise, we shall be millions worse than we were at that enviable period. Such a request, had it been complied with a year ago, would have won the heart and soul of the Continent—but now it is too late, “The Rubicon is passed.”

160 Besides, the taking up arms, merely to enforce the repeal of a pecuniary law, seems as unwarrantable by the divine law, and as repugnant to human feelings, as the taking up arms to enforce obedience thereto. The object, on either side, doth not justify the means; for the lives of men are too valuable to be cast away on such trifles. It is the violence which is done and threatened to our persons; the destruction of our property by an armed force; the invasion of our country by fire and sword, which conscientiously qualifies the use of arms: And the instant, in which such a mode of defence became necessary, all subjection to Britain ought to have ceased; and the independancy of America, should have been considered, as dating its æra from, and published by, the first musket that was fired against her . This line is a line of consistency; neither drawn by caprice, nor extended by ambition; but produced by a chain of events, of which the colonies were not the authors.

161 I shall conclude these remarks, with the following timely and well intended hints. We ought to reflect, that there are three different ways, by which an independancy may hereafter be effected; and that one of those three , will one day or other, be the fate of America, viz. By the legal voice of the people in Congress; by a military power; or by a mob: It may not always happen that our soldiers are citizens, and the multitude a body of reasonable men; virtue, as I have already remarked, is not hereditary, neither is it perpetual. Should an independancy be brought about by the first of those means, we have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest purest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom from the event of a few months. The Reflexion is awful—and in this point of view, How trifling, how ridiculous, do the little, paltry cavellings, of a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed against the business of a world.

162 Should we neglect the present favorable and inviting period, and an Independance be hereafter effected by any other means, we must charge the consequence to ourselves, or to those rather, whose narrow and prejudiced souls, are habitually opposing the measure, without either inquiring or reflecting. There are reasons to be given in support of Independance, which men should rather privately think of, than be publicly told of. We ought not now to be debating whether we shall be independant or not, but, anxious to accomplish it on a firm, secure, and honorable basis, and uneasy rather that it is not yet began upon. Every day convinces us of its necessity. Even the Tories (if such beings yet remain among us) should, of all men, be the most solicitous to promote it; for, as the appointment of committees at first, protected them from popular rage, so, a wise and well established form of government, will be the only certain means of continuing it securely to them. Wherefore , if they have not virtue enough to be Whigs , they ought to have prudence enough to wish for Independance.

163 In short, Independance is the only Bond that can tye and keep us together. We shall then see our object, and our ears will be legally shut against the schemes of an intriguing, as well, as a cruel enemy. We shall then too, be on a proper footing, to treat with Britain; for there is reason to conclude, that the pride of that court, will be less hurt by treating with the American states for terms of peace, than with those, whom she denominates, “rebellious subjects,” for terms of accommodation. It is our delaying it that encourages her to hope for conquest, and our backwardness tends only to prolong the war. As we have, without any good effect therefrom, withheld our trade to obtain a redress of our grievances, let us now try the alternative, by independantly redressing them ourselves, and then offering to open the trade. The mercantile and reasonable part in England, will be still with us; because, peace with trade, is preferable to war without it. And if this offer be not accepted, other courts may be applied to.

164 On these grounds I rest the matter. And as no offer hath yet been made to refute the doctrine contained in the former editions of this pamphlet, it is a negative proof, that either the doctrine cannot be refuted, or, that the party in favour of it are too numerous to be opposed. Wherefore , instead of gazing at each other with suspicious or doubtful curiosity; let each of us, hold out to his neighbour the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line, which, like an act of oblivion shall bury in forgetfulness every former dissension. Let the names of Whig and Tory be extinct; and let none other be heard among us, than those of a good citizen, an open and resolute friend, and a virtuous supporter of the rights of mankind and of the FREE AND INDEPENDANT STATES OF AMERICA.

165 To the Representatives of the Religious Society of the People called Quakers, or to so many of them as were concerned in publishing the late piece, entitled “ The Ancient Testimony and Principles of the People called Quakers renewed, with Respect to the King and Government , and touching the Commotions now prevailing in these and other parts of America addressed to the People in General .”

166 The Writer of this, is one of those few, who never dishonours religion either by ridiculing, or cavilling at any denomination whatsoever. To God, and not to man, are all men accountable on the score of religion. Wherefore, this epistle is not so properly addressed to you as a religious, but as a political body, dabbling in matters, which the professed Quietude of your Principles instruct you not to meddle with.

167 As you have, without a proper authority for so doing, put yourselves in the place of the whole body of the Quakers, so, the writer of this, in order to be on an equal rank with yourselves, is under the necessity, of putting himself in the place of all those, who, approve the very writings and principles, against which your testimony is directed: And he hath chosen this singular situation, in order, that you might discover in him that presumption of character which you cannot see in yourselves. For neither he nor you can have any claim or title to Political Representation .

168 When men have departed from the right way, it is no wonder that they stumble and fall. And it is evident from the manner in which ye have managed your testimony, that politics, (as a religious body of men) is not your proper Walk; for however well adapted it might appear to you, it is, nevertheless, a jumble of good and bad put unwisely together, and the conclusion drawn therefrom, both unnatural and unjust.

169 The two first pages, (and the whole doth not make four) we give you credit for, and expect the same civility from you, because the love and desire of peace is not confined to Quakerism, it is the natural, as well the religious wish of all denominations of men. And on this ground, as men labouring to establish an Independant Constitution of our own, do we exceed all others in our hope, end, and aim. Our plan is peace for ever. We are tired of contention with Britain, and can see no real end to it but in a final separation. We act consistently, because for the sake of introducing an endless and uninterrupted peace, do we bear the evils and burthens of the present day. We are endeavoring, and will steadily continue to endeavour, to separate and dissolve a connexion which hath already filled our land with blood; and which, while the name of it remains, will be the fatal cause of future mischiefs to both countries.

170 We fight neither for revenge nor conquest; neither from pride nor passion; we are not insulting the world with our fleets and armies, nor ravaging the globe for plunder. Beneath the shade of our own vines are we attacked; in our own houses, and on our own lands, is the violence committed against us. We view our enemies in the character of Highwaymen and Housebreakers, and having no defence for ourselves in the civil law, are obliged to punish them by the military one, and apply the sword, in the very case, where you have before now, applied the halter—Perhaps we feel for the ruined and insulted sufferers in all and every part of the continent, with a degree of tenderness which hath not yet made its way into some of your bosoms. But be ye sure that ye mistake not the cause and ground of your Testimony. Call not coldness of soul, religion; nor put the Bigot in the place of the Christian .

171 O ye partial ministers of your own acknowledged principles. If the bearing arms be sinful, the first going to war must be more so, by all the difference between wilful attack and unavoidable defence. Wherefore, if ye really preach from conscience, and mean not to make a political hobby-horse of your religion, convince the world thereof, by proclaiming your doctrine to our enemies, for they likewise bear arms . Give us proof of your sincerity by publishing it at St. James’s, to the commanders in chief at Boston, to the Admirals and Captains who are piratically ravaging our coasts, and to all the murdering miscreants who are acting in authority under him whom ye profess to serve. Had ye the honest soul of Barclay ¹ ye would preach repentance to your king; Ye would tell the Royal Wretch his sins, and warn him of eternal ruin. Ye would not spend your partial invectives against the injured and the insulted only, but, like faithful ministers, would cry aloud and spare none . Say not that ye are persecuted, neither endeavour to make us the authors of that reproach, which, ye are bringing upon yourselves; for we testify unto all men, that we do not complain against you because ye are Quakers , but because ye pretend to be and are not Quakers.

172 ¹“Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity; thou knowest what it is to be banished thy native country, to be over-ruled as well as to rule, and set upon the throne; and being oppressed thou hast reason to know how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man: If after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart, but forget him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give up thyself to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy condemnation.—Against which snare, as well as the temptation of those who may or do feed thee, and prompt thee to evil, the most excellent and prevalent remedy will be, to apply thyself to that light of Christ which shineth in thy conscience, and which neither can, nor will flatter thee, nor suffer thee to be at ease in thy sins.”

—Barclay’s address to Charles II.

173 Alas! it seems by the particular tendency of some part of your testimony, and other parts of your conduct, as if, all sin was reduced to, and comprehended in, the act of bearing arms , and that by the people only. Ye appear to us, to have mistaken party for conscience; because, the general tenor of your actions wants uniformity: And it is exceedingly difficult to us to give credit to many of your pretended scruples; because, we see them made by the same men, who, in the very instant that they are exclaiming against the mammon of this world, are nevertheless, hunting after it with a step as steady as Time, and an appetite as keen as Death.

174 The quotation which ye have made from Proverbs, in the third page of your testimony, that, “when a man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him”; is very unwisely chosen on your part; because, it amounts to a proof, that the king’s ways (whom ye are desirous of supporting) do not please the Lord, otherwise, his reign would be in peace.

175 I now proceed to the latter part of your testimony, and that, for which all the foregoing seems only an introduction, viz.

176 “It hath ever been our judgment and principle, since we were called to profess the light of Christ Jesus, manifested in our consciences unto this day, that the setting up and putting down kings and governments, is God’s peculiar prerogative; for causes best known to himself: And that it is not our business to have any hand or contrivance therein; nor to be busy bodies above our station, much less to plot and contrive the ruin, or overturn of any of them, but to pray for the king, and safety of our nation, and good of all men: That we may live a peaceable and quiet life, in all godliness and honesty; under the government which God is pleased to set over us. ”—If these are really your principles why do ye not abide by them? Why do ye not leave that, which ye call God’s Work, to be managed by himself? These very principles instruct you to wait with patience and humility, for the event of all public measures, and to receive that event as the divine will towards you. Wherefore , what occasion is there for your political testimony if you fully believe what it contains: And the very publishing it proves, that either, ye do not believe what ye profess, or have not virtue enough to practise what ye believe.

177 The principles of Quakerism have a direct tendency to make a man the quiet and inoffensive subject of any, and every government which is set over him . And if the setting up and putting down of kings and governments is God’s peculiar prerogative, he most certainly will not be robbed thereof by us; wherefore, the principle itself leads you to approve of every thing, which ever happened, or may happen to kings as being his work. Oliver Cromwell thanks you. Charles , then, died not by the hands of man; and should the present Proud Imitator of him, come to the same untimely end, the writers and publishers of the Testimony, are bound, by the doctrine it contains, to applaud the fact. Kings are not taken away by miracles, neither are changes in governments brought about by any other means than such as are common and human; and such as we are now using. Even the dispersion of the Jews, though foretold by our Saviour, was effected by arms. Wherefore, as ye refuse to be the means on one side, ye ought not to be meddlers on the other; but to wait the issue in silence; and unless ye can produce divine authority, to prove, that the Almighty who hath created and placed this new world, at the greatest distance it could possibly stand, east and west, from every part of the old, doth, nevertheless, disapprove of its being independant of the corrupt and abandoned court of Britain, unless I say, ye can shew this, how can ye on the ground of your principles, justify the exciting and stirring up the people “firmly to unite in the abhorrence of all such writings , and measures , as evidence a desire and design to break off the happy connexion we have hitherto enjoyed, with the kingdom of Great-Britain, and our just and necessary subordination to the king, and those who are lawfully placed in authority under him.” What a slap of the face is here! the men, who in the very paragraph before, have quietly and passively resigned up the ordering, altering, and disposal of kings and governments, into the hands of God, are now, recalling their principles, and putting in for a share of the business. Is it possible, that the conclusion, which is here justly quoted, can any ways follow from the doctrine laid down? The inconsistency is too glaring not to be seen; the absurdity too great not to be laughed at; and such as could only have been made by those, whose understandings were darkened by the narrow and crabby spirit of a despairing political party; for ye are not to be considered as the whole body of the Quakers but only as a factional and fractional part thereof.

178 Here ends the examination of your testimony; (which I call upon no man to abhor, as ye have done, but only to read and judge of fairly;) to which I subjoin the following remark; “That the setting up and putting down of kings,” most certainly mean, the making him a king, who is yet not so, and the making him no king who is already one. And pray what hath this to do in the present case? We neither mean to set up nor to put down , neither to make nor to unmake , but to have nothing to do with them. Wherefore, your testimony in whatever light it is viewed serves only to dishonor your judgement, and for many other reasons had better have been let alone than published.

179 First, Because it tends to the decrease and reproach of all religion whatever, and is of the utmost danger to society, to make it a party in political disputes.

180 Secondly, Because it exhibits a body of men, numbers of whom disavow the publishing political testimonies, as being concerned therein and approvers thereof.

181 Thirdly, Because it hath a tendency to undo that continental harmony and friendship which yourselves by your late liberal and charitable donations hath lent a hand to establish; and the preservation of which, is of the utmost consequence to us all.

182 And here without anger or resentment I bid you farewell. Sincerely wishing, that as men and christians, ye may always fully and uninterruptedly enjoy every civil and religious right; and be, in your turn, the means of securing it to others; but that the example which ye have unwisely set, of mingling religion with politics, may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of America .

F  I  N  I  S.

On Common Sense

“No writer has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of style, in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple and unassuming language.” Thomas Jefferson

“A pamphlet called ‘Commonsense’ makes a great noise. One of the vilest things that ever was published to the world. Full of false representations, lies, calumny, and treason, whose principles are to subvert all Kingly Governments and erect an Independent Republic.” Nicholas Cresswell

“I dreaded the effect so popular a pamphlet might have among the people, and determined to do all in my Power to counteract the effect of it.” John Adams

“Its effects were sudden and extensive upon the American mind. It was read by public men.” Dr. Benjamin Rush

“Have you read the pamphlet Common Sense ? I never saw such a masterful performance.… In short, I own myself convinced, by the arguments, of the necessity of separation.” General Charles Lee

Transcriber's Notes

This production of the Bradford edition of Common Sense retains the original characteristics of the document—the author's use of capitalization (large and small), spelling, and italics.

The page numbers of this version of the book were my invention, for ease in reading the HTML document. The page numbers can more accurately be called paragraph numbers. They match the paragraph numbers in the edited text of ‘Common Sense’ from the National Humanities Center.

In one case, the text refers to page forty (see our Page 130 ). We provided a link to the appropriate part of our document but retained the page number specified by Paine. Our page numbers are not carried over to the Kindle, E-PUB, and text documents produced by Project Gutenberg.

The section "On Common Sense," containing quotes about Common Sense, have been added by this transcriber.

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Find anything you save across the site in your account

The Sharpened Quill

By Jill Lepore

In the winter of 1776, John Adams read “Common Sense,” an anonymous, fanatical, and brutally brilliant seventy-seven-page pamphlet that would convince the American people of what more than a decade of taxes and nearly a year of war had not: that it was nothing less than their destiny to declare independence from Britain. “The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind” was its astonishing and inspiring claim about the fate of thirteen infant colonies on the edge of the world. “The sun never shone on a cause of greater worth. ’Tis not the affair of a city, a county, a province, or a kingdom; but of a continent—of at least one-eighth part of the habitable globe. ’Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now.” Whether these words were preposterous or prophetic no one could say for sure, but everyone wondered: Who could have written such stirring stuff?

“People Speak of it in rapturous praise,” a friend wrote Adams. “Some make Dr. Franklin the Author,” another hinted. “I think I see strong marks of your pen in it,” speculated a third. More miffed than flattered, Adams admitted to his wife, Abigail, “I could not have written any Thing in so manly and striking a style.” Who, then? Adams found out: “His Name is Paine.”

Thomas Pain was born in Thetford, England, in 1737 (he added the “e” later, and was called “Tom” only by his enemies), the son of a Quaker artisan who sewed the bones of whales into stays for ladies’ corsets. He left the local grammar school at the age of twelve, to serve as his father’s apprentice. At twenty, he went to sea, on a privateer. In 1759, he opened his own stay-making shop and married a servant girl, but the next year both she and their child died in childbirth. For a decade, Pain struggled to make a life for himself. He taught school, collected taxes, and, in 1771, married a grocer’s daughter. Three years later, he was fired from his job with the excise office, his unhappy and childless second marriage fell apart, and everything he owned was sold at auction to pay off his debts. At the age of thirty-seven, Thomas Pain was ruined. He therefore did what every ruined Englishman did, if he possibly could: he sailed to America. Sickened with typhus during the journey, Pain arrived in Philadelphia in December, 1774, so weak that he had to be carried off the ship. What saved his life was a letter found in his pocket: “The bearer Mr Thomas Pain is very well recommended to me as an ingenious worthy young man.” It was signed by Benjamin Franklin. It was better than a bag of gold.

How an unknown and uneducated Englishman who had been in the colonies for little more than a year came to write the most influential essay of the American Revolution—no matter that he had once caught Franklin’s eye during a chance meeting in London—is a mystery not easily solved. Lockean liberalism, classical republicanism, and Leveller radicalism all can be found in Paine’s work, though how much he read Locke, or anyone else, is probably impossible to discover. His love for equality has been traced to Quakerism, his hatred of injustice to growing up next door to a gallows. Good guesses, but guesses all the same. In a rewarding new biography, “Thomas Paine: Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Birth of Modern Nations” (Viking; $27.95), Craig Nelson argues that Paine soaked up the ideas of the Enlightenment, especially Newtonian rationalism, during the years he spent in London, and that may be the best explanation anyone ever gets.

“I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense,” Paine wrote, but this was coyness itself: “Common Sense” stood every argument against American independence on its head. “There is something very absurd in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island,” he insisted. As to the colonies’ dependence on England, “We may as well assert that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat.” And hereditary monarchy? “Nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion .”

Adams, who had been the colonies’ most ardent advocate for independence, refused to accept that Paine deserved any credit for “Common Sense.” “He is a keen Writer,” Adams granted, but he’d offered nothing more than “a tolerable Summary of the Arguments which I had been repeating again and again in Congress for nine months.” The longer John Adams lived, the more he hated Thomas Paine, and the more worthless he considered that seventy-seven-page pamphlet. By the end of his life, the ill-tempered former President would call “Common Sense” “a poor, ignorant, Malicious, short-sighted, Crapulous Mass.”

Thomas Paine is, at best, a lesser Founder. In the comic-book version of history that serves as our national heritage, where the Founding Fathers are like the Hanna-Barbera Super Friends, Paine is Aquaman to Washington’s Superman and Jefferson’s Batman; we never find out how he got his superpowers, and he only shows up when they need someone who can swim. For all that, Paine’s contributions to the nation’s founding would be hard to overstate. “Common Sense” made it possible to declare independence. “Without the pen of the author of ‘Common Sense,’ the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain,” Adams himself wrote. But Paine lifted his sword, too, and emptied his purse. Despite his poverty—he was by far the poorest of the Founders—he donated his share of the profits from “Common Sense” to buy supplies for the Continental Army, in which he also served. His chief contribution to the war was a series of dispatches known as “The American Crisis,” and printed in newspapers throughout the states. He wrote the first of them by the light of a campfire during Washington’s desperate retreat across New Jersey, in December, 1776. Getting ready to cross the frozen Delaware River—at night, in a blizzard—to launch a surprise attack on Trenton, Washington ordered Paine’s words read to his exhausted, frostbitten troops: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now , deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” The next morning, the Continentals fought to a stunning, pivotal victory.

It’s hard to believe that anyone thought Adams could have written such lines. Paine wrote like no one else: he wrote for everyone. “As it is my design to make those that can scarcely read understand,” he explained, “I shall therefore avoid every literary ornament and put it in language as plain as the alphabet.” As a journalist, Paine wrote vigorously, and he wrote often, penning, in 1776, a series of essays in the Pennsylvania Journal refuting critiques of “Common Sense.” He also served as the editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine . “A magazine,” Paine believed, “is the nursery of genius.”

So gripping was Paine’s prose, and so vast was its reach, that Adams once complained to Jefferson, “History is to ascribe the American Revolution to Thomas Paine.” But history has not been kind to Paine, who forfeited his chance to glorify his role, or at least to document it: when, at the end of the war, Congress asked him to write the history of the Revolution, he declined. And the person who did write that history, Adams’s friend the Massachusetts poet and playwright Mercy Otis Warren, relegated Paine to a footnote—literally—in her magisterial three-volume “History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution” (1805). By the time Paine died, in 1809, all the surviving Founders had renounced him. (Jefferson even refused to allow his correspondence with Paine to be printed. “No, my dear sir, not for this world,” he told an inquirer. “Into what a hornet’s nest would it thrust my head!”) And almost no one showed up to see him buried. As Paul Collins observes in “The Trouble with Tom: The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine” (Bloomsbury; $24.95), “There were twenty thousand mourners at Franklin’s funeral. Tom Paine’s had six.”

Disavowed by his contemporaries, Paine left little behind in his own defense; the bulk of his papers, including notes for an autobiography, were destroyed in a fire. Even his bones have been lost. (The sorry story of those bones—stolen, stashed, smashed, and, in the end, probably thrown out with the rubbish—is the subject of Collins’s transatlantic quest.) Paine enjoyed a brief revival in the nineteen-forties, after F.D.R. quoted “The American Crisis”—“These are the times that try men’s souls”—in a fireside chat in 1942, three months after the attack on Pearl Harbor; and an excellent two-volume set, “The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine,” edited by Philip Foner, was published in 1945. But Paine has never much enjoyed the esteem of academics, who, on the whole, have shared John Adams’s view of him, whatever the rest of America might think. In a review of “The Complete Writings” in The Nation in 1946, the eminent early-Americanist Perry Miller sneered, “The price of popularizing for contemporaries is temporary popularity.” In 1980, Ronald Reagan inaugurated a second Paine revival when, accepting the Republican Party nomination for President, he quoted “Common Sense”: “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” In the wake of that revival, the Princeton historian Sean Wilentz agreed with Miller’s assessment; in The New Republic in 1995, Wilentz called Paine “hopelessly naïve.” Paine emerges in most academic accounts as a kind of idiot savant; savvy about adjectives but idiotic about politics. “Common Sense” is “a work of genius,” Bernard Bailyn concluded, but, next to men like Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, Paine was “an ignoramus.”

Thomas Paine left the United States in 1787. “Where liberty is, there is my country,” Franklin once said, to which Paine replied, “Where liberty is not, there is my country.” In England in 1791, he wrote the first part of “The Rights of Man,” a work he considered an English version of “Common Sense.” Defending the French Revolution from English critics, he argued that France had “outgrown the baby clothes of count and duke , and breeched itself in manhood.” Americans had weaned themselves of milk, and the French had put on pants; now it was time for the British to grow beards. “It is an age of revolutions, in which every thing may be looked for.” The next year, Paine wrote “Rights of Man, Part the Second,” his most important statement of political principles, in which he explained and insisted on natural rights, equality, and popular sovereignty. He went further: “When, in countries that are called civilized, we see age going to the work-house and youth to the gallows, something must be wrong in the system of government.” By way of remedy, Paine proposed the framework for a welfare state, providing tax tables calculated down to the last shilling.

The first part of “Rights of Man” sold fifty thousand copies in just three months. The second part was outsold only by the Bible. But British conservatives didn’t want to follow France, especially as the news from Paris became more gruesome. Paine was charged with seditious libel, and everywhere his ideas were suppressed and his followers persecuted. “I am for equality. Why, no kings!” one Londoner shouted in a coffeehouse, and was promptly sent to prison for a year and a half. Meanwhile, William Pitt’s government hired hack writers to conduct a smear campaign in which it was asserted, among other things, that Paine had committed fraud, defrauded his creditors, caused his first wife’s death by beating her while she was pregnant, and abused his second wife almost as badly, except that she wasn’t really his wife, because he never consummated that marriage, preferring to have sex with cats. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, eat your hearts out.

“It is earnestly recommended to Mad Tom that he should embark for France and there be naturalized into the regular confusion of democracy,” the London Times urged. In September, 1792, that’s just what Paine did, fleeing to Paris, where he had already been elected a member of the National Assembly, in honor of his authorship of “Rights of Man.” In France, he faltered and fell, not least because he spoke almost no French but mostly because he argued against executing Louis XVI, suggesting, instead, that he be exiled to the United States, where “he may learn, from the constant aspect of public prosperity, that the true system of government consists not in kings, but in fair, equal, and honourable representation.”

Back in England, Paine’s trial for “Rights of Man” went on without him; he was found guilty, and outlawed. “If the French kill their King, it will be a signal for my departure,” Paine had pledged before he left for France, but now he had no choice: not only could he not return to England; he couldn’t venture an Atlantic crossing to the United States, for fear of being captured by a British warship. Instead, he stayed in his rooms in Paris, and waited for the worst. As the Reign of Terror unfolded, he drafted the first part of “The Age of Reason.” In December, 1793, when the police knocked at his door, he handed a stash of papers to his friend the American poet and statesman Joel Barlow. Barlow carried the manuscript to the printers; the police carried Paine to an eight-by-ten cell on the ground floor of a prison that had once been a palace. There he would write most of the second part of “The Age of Reason” as he watched other inmates go daily to their deaths. (In six weeks in the summer of 1794, more than thirteen hundred people were executed.)

When the United States government failed to secure his release, Paine at first despaired. Then he raged, writing to the American Ambassador, James Monroe, “I should be tempted to curse the day I knew America. By contributing to her liberty I have lost my own.” Finally, after ten months, he was freed. But he left prison an invalid. Ravaged by typhus, gout, recurring fevers, and a suppurating wound on his belly, he never fully recovered. He convalesced at Monroe’s home in Paris and, for years, at the homes of a succession of supporters. After Jefferson defeated Adams in the election of 1800, the new President invited Paine to return to the United States. He sailed in 1802.

“The questions central to an understanding of Paine’s career do not lend themselves to exploration within the confines of conventional biography,” Eric Foner observed in 1976, in “Tom Paine and Revolutionary America.” No argument there. What with the burned papers, the lost bones, and Paine’s role in three revolutions, not to mention tabloid allegations of wife-beating, it’s hard to know how to write about Paine. Three new books wrestle with what has come to be called “The Problem with Paine.” Collins’s “The Trouble with Tom,” an entertaining romp, belongs to an emerging genre of popular history that might be called necro-tourism: Tom Paine’s bones, Einstein’s brain, Houdini’s hands. Paine’s strange fate in American cultural memory is the subject of Harvey J. Kaye’s deeply researched and revealing “Thomas Paine and the Promise of America” (Hill & Wang; $25). Nelson’s “Thomas Paine” is the most conventionally biographical, though it’s as much a primer on the Enlightenment as it is the story of the stay-maker from Thetford—and all the better for it.

Kaye calls Paine “the greatest radical of a radical age,” Collins dubs him “a walking revolution,” Nelson sums him up as “Benjamin Franklin unleashed,” and although I always thought that Franklin was Franklin unleashed, all of them are right. But none of them explain Paine’s recent resurrection. Kaye, tracing Paine’s influence on everyone from Abraham Lincoln (who admired Paine’s style) to William Lloyd Garrison (who was accused of wanting to “out-Paine Tom Paine”) and Walt Whitman (who, Kaye says, “longed to be Paine”), attributes Paine’s popularity in the past two decades to the purity of his ideals, including a record on slavery that sets him apart from the rest of the Founders: Paine neither owned slaves nor profited from the slave trade and, in 1774, wrote an impassioned anti-slavery essay. Kaye concludes, “We find no Founder more committed to the progress of freedom, equality, and democracy than Paine.”

True enough. But Americans’ fresh embrace of Paine can also be attributed to our having forgotten the very thing about him that contributed most to his obscurity in the first place: his uncompromising condemnation of all the world’s religions. In “The Age of Reason,” published in 1794 and 1795, Paine wrote, “All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.” Theodore Roosevelt once called Paine a “filthy little atheist,” but Paine did believe in God; he just didn’t believe in the Bible or the Koran or the Torah; these he considered hearsay, lies, fables, and frauds that served to wreak havoc with humanity while hiding the beauty of God’s creation, the evidence for which was everywhere obvious in “the universe we behold.” In “The Age of Reason,” Paine offered his own creed:

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow-creatures happy. But . . . I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

“Paine’s religious opinions were those of three-fourths of the men of letters of the last age,” Joel Barlow observed, probably overstating the case only slightly. Paine’s views were hardly original; what was new was his audience. While other Enlightenment writers wrote for one another, Paine wrote, as always, for everyone. His contemporaries believed that radical philosophical speculation—especially critiques of religion—was to be shared only with men of education (and, it was assumed, judgment). The poor could not be trusted with such notions; freed of church-based morality, they would run amok. Paine disagreed, profoundly. To say that he was vilified for doing this is to miss the point. He was destroyed.

Mark Twain once said, “It took a brave man before the Civil War to confess he had read ‘The Age of Reason.’ ” But that didn’t mean it wasn’t read. In 1797 alone, a single Philadelphia printer sold a hundred thousand copies. In Britain, sales of “The Age of Reason” outpaced even those of “Rights of Man,” though, since it was banned as blasphemous, it’s impossible to know how many copies were sold. The London printer Richard Carlile, who called his bookstore the Temple of Reason, was fined a thousand pounds for publishing it, and sentenced to two years in jail. (During an earlier trial on similar charges, Carlile had read aloud from “Rights of Man,” a ploy that allowed him to publish it again, as a courtroom transcript.) After Carlile’s wife fell into the trap of selling “The Age of Reason” to a government agent posing as a bookstore browser, she—and her newborn baby—followed her husband to prison. Eventually, in order to avoid exposing anyone inside the bookstore to further prosecution, there appeared in the Temple of Reason an “invisible shopman,” a machine into which customers could drop coins and take out a book, about which Collins writes, “It is sobering to think that the freedom of the press once depended upon a mechanism now used to vend Mars bars.”

But “The Age of Reason” cost Paine dearly. He lost, among other things, the friendship of Samuel Adams, who seethed, “Do you think that your pen, or the pen of any other man, can unchristianize the mass of our citizens?” Even before Paine returned to the United States, in 1802, Federalists used him as a weapon against Jefferson, damning the “two Toms” as infidels while calling Paine a “loathsome reptile.” Ministers and their congregants, caught up in the early stages of a religious revival now known as the Second Great Awakening, gloried in news of Paine’s physical and mental decline, conjuring up a drunk, unshaven, and decrepit Paine, writhing in agony, begging, “Oh, Lord, help me! Oh, Christ, help me!”

Some of that fantasy was founded in fact. Even at his best, Paine was rough and unpolished—and a mean drunk. In his tortured final years, living in New Rochelle and New York City, he displayed signs of dementia. (Scurrilous rumors about cats aside, Paine’s behavior throughout his life appears erratic enough that Eric Foner wondered if he suffered from crippling bouts of depression; Nelson offers a tentative diagnosis of bipolar disorder.) At home, he was besieged by visitors who came either to save his soul or to damn it. He told all of them to go to hell. When an old woman announced, “I come from Almighty God to tell you that if you do not repent of your sins and believe in our blessed Savior Jesus Christ, you will be damned,” Paine replied, “Pshaw. God would not send such a foolish ugly old woman as you.”

Admirers of Paine’s political pamphlets have tried to ignore his religious convictions. In 1800, a New York Republican Society resolved, “May his Rights of Man be handed down to our latest posterity, but may his Age of Reason never live to see the rising generation.” That’s more or less how things have turned out. So wholly has “The Age of Reason” been forgotten that Paine’s mantle has been claimed not only by Ronald Reagan but also by the Christian Coalition’s Ralph Reed, who has invoked him, and the North Carolina senator Jesse Helms, who in 1992 supported a proposal to erect a Paine monument in Washington, D.C. Nor have liberals who embrace Paine, including the editors of TomPaine.com, had much interest in the latter years of his career. Maybe that’s what it means to be a lesser Super Friend: No one cares about your secret identity. They just like your costume.

Historians, too, have tried to dismiss “The Age of Reason,” writing it off as simplistic and suggesting either that Paine wrote it to please his French jailers or that, in prison, he went mad. This interpretation began with Mercy Otis Warren, who called “The Age of Reason” “jejune,” and concluded that, in prison, Paine had “endeavoured to ingratiate himself.” Nelson, too, makes much of “the Terror’s devastation of Paine’s psyche.” (Only a miraculous if temporary recovery or the mania following depression, Nelson suggests, made it possible for Paine to write his last great work, “Agrarian Justice,” the very next year.)

But Paine considered his lifelong views on religion inseparable from his thoughts on government: “It has been the scheme of the Christian Church, and of all the other invented systems of religion, to hold man in ignorance of the Creator, as it is of Governments to hold man in ignorance of his rights.” Writing about kings and subjects in “Common Sense,” he wondered “how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species.” In “The Age of Reason,” he used much the same language to write about priests and prophets: “The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet, as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.” He wrote “Common Sense,” “Rights of Man,” and “The Age of Reason” as a trilogy. “Soon after I had published the pamphlet ‘Common Sense,’ in America,” he explained, “I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion.”

Just because Paine was wrong about the coming of that revolution doesn’t mean we ought to forget that he yearned for it. In 1805, John Adams railed that the latter part of the eighteenth century had come to be called “the Age of Reason”: “I am willing you should call this the Age of Frivolity . . . and would not object if you had named it the Age of Folly, Vice, Frenzy, Brutality, Daemons, Buonaparte, Tom Paine, or the Age of the Burning Brand from the Bottomless Pit, or anything but the Age of Reason.” Yet even Adams would not have wished that so much of Paine’s work—however much he disagreed with it—would be so willfully excised from memory. “I know not whether any man in the world has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for the last thirty years than Tom Paine,” Adams admitted, adding, with irony worthy of the author of “Common Sense,” “Call it then the Age of Paine.”

Adams wrote those words, in 1805, as if Paine were already dead. A few months later, a neighbor of Paine’s came across the old man in a tavern in New Rochelle, so drunk and disoriented and unkempt that his toenails had grown over his toes, like bird’s claws. While Adams, at his home in Quincy, busied himself reflecting on the Age of Paine, Paine hobbled to the polls in New Rochelle to cast his vote in a local election. He was told that he was not an American citizen and was turned away. So much for the rights of man. Three years later, as the seventy-two-year-old Paine lay dying in a house in Greenwich Village, his doctor pressed him, “Do you wish to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?” Paine paused, then whispered, “I have no wish to believe on that subject.” ♦

Books & Fiction

By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

By Eric Lach

By Adam Iscoe

By Ronan Farrow

By Andrew Marantz

Advertisement

Supported by

A Culture Warrior Takes a Late Swing

The editor and essayist Joseph Epstein looks back on his life and career in two new books.

• Share full article

By Dwight Garner

NEVER SAY YOU’VE HAD A LUCKY LIFE: Especially If You’ve Had a Lucky Life , by Joseph Epstein

FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTENT: New and Selected Essays , by Joseph Epstein

When Tammy Wynette was asked to write a memoir in her mid-30s, she initially declined, she said in an interview, because “I didn’t think my life was over yet.” The publisher responded: Has it occurred to you that in 15 years no one might care? She wrote the book. “Stand by Your Man: An Autobiography” (1979) was a hit.

The essayist and editor Joseph Epstein — whose memoir “Never Say You’ve Had a Lucky Life,” is out now, alongside a greatest-hits collection titled “Familiarity Breeds Content” — has probably never heard Wynette sing except by accident. (In a 1993 essay, he wrote that he wished he didn’t know who Willie Nelson was, because it was a sign of a compromised intellect.) But his memoir illustrates another reason not to wait too long to commit your life to print.

There is no indication that Epstein, who is in his late 80s, has lost a step. His prose is as genial and bland, if comparison to his earlier work is any indication, as it ever was. But there’s a softness to his memories of people, perhaps because it was all so long ago. This is the sort of memoir that insists someone was funny, or erudite, or charismatic, while rarely providing the crucial details.

Epstein aw-shucks his way into “Never Say You’ve Had a Lucky Life” — pretending to be self-effacing while not being so in the least is one of his salient qualities as a writer — by warning readers, “I may not have had a sufficiently interesting life to merit an autobiography.” This is because he “did little, saw nothing notably historic, and endured not much out of the ordinary of anguish or trouble or exaltation.” Quickly, however, he concludes that his life is indeed worth relating, in part because “over the years I have acquired the literary skill to recount that life well.”

Here he is wrong in both directions. His story is interesting enough to warrant this memoir. His personal life has taken complicated turns. And as the longtime editor of the quarterly magazine The American Scholar, and a notably literate conservative culture warrior, he’s been in the thick of things.

He does lack the skill to tell his own story, though, if by “skill” we mean not well-scrubbed Strunk and White sentences but close and penetrating observation. Epstein favors tasseled loafers and bow ties, and most of his sentences read as if they were written by a sentient tasseled loafer and edited by a sentient bow tie.

He grew up in Chicago, where his father manufactured costume jewelry. The young Epstein was popular and, in high school, lettered in tennis. His title refers to being lucky, and a big part of that luck, in his estimation, was to grow up back when kids could be kids, before “the therapeutic culture” took over.

This complaint sets the tone of the book. His own story is set next to a rolling series of cultural grievances. He’s against casual dress, the prohibition of the word “Negro,” grade inflation, the Beat Generation, most of what occurred during the 1960s, standards slipping everywhere, de-Westernizing college curriculums, D.E.I. programs, you name it. His politics aren’t the problem. We can argue about those. American culture needs more well-read conservatives. The problem is that in his search for teachable moments, his memoir acquires the cardboard tone of a middling opinion column.

His youth was not all tennis lessons and root beer floats. He and his friends regularly visited brothels because, he writes, sex was not as easy to come by in the 1950s. He was kicked out of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for his role in the selling of a stolen accounting exam to other students.

He was lucky to find a place at the University of Chicago, a place of high seriousness. The school changed him. He began to reassess his values. He began to read writers like Irving Howe, Sidney Hook, Midge Decter and Norman Podhoretz, and felt his politics pull to the right.

After college, he was drafted into the Army and ended up in Little Rock, Ark., where he met his first wife. At the time, she was a waitress at a bar and restaurant called the Gar Hole. Here Epstein’s memoir briefly threatens to acquire genuine weight.

She had lost custody of her two sons after a divorce. Together they got them back, and she and Epstein had two sons of their own. After their divorce, Epstein took all four of the boys. This is grist for an entire memoir, but Epstein passes over it quickly. One never gets much of a sense of what his boys were like, or what it was like to raise them. He later tells us that he has all but lost touch with his stepsons and has not seen them for decades.

He worked for the magazine The New Leader and the Encyclopaedia Britannica before becoming the editor of The American Scholar in 1975. It was a position he would hold for 22 years. He also taught at Northwestern University for nearly three decades.

At The American Scholar he began to write a long personal essay in each issue, under the pseudonym Aristides. He wrote 92 of these, on topics such as smoking and envy and reading and height. Most ran to 6,500 words, or about 4,000 words longer than they should have been.

Many magazine editors like to write every so often, to keep a hand in. But there is something unseemly about an editor chewing up acres of space in his own publication on a regular basis. Editorially, it’s a droit du seigneur imposition.

A selection of these essays, as well as some new ones, can now be found in “Familiarity Breeds Content.” In his introduction to this book, Christopher Buckley overpraises Epstein, leaving the reader no choice but to start mentally pushing back.

Buckley calls Epstein “the most entertaining living essayist in the English language.” (Not while Michael Kinsley, Lorrie Moore, Calvin Trillin, Sloane Crosley and Geoff Dyer, among many others, walk the earth.) He repurposes Martin Amis’s comment about Saul Bellow: “One doesn’t read Saul Bellow. One can only reread him.” To this he adds, “Ditto Epstein.” (Epstein is no Saul Bellow.) Buckley says, “Joe Epstein is incapable of writing a boring sentence.”

Well. How about this one, from an essay about cats?

A cat, I realize, cannot be everyone’s cup of fur.

Or this one, from an essay about sports and other obsessions:

I have been told there are people who wig out on pasta.

Or this one, about … guess:

When I was a boy, it occurs to me now, I always had one or another kind of hat.

Juggling today appears to be undergoing a small renaissance.

If one is looking to save on fuel bills, politics is likely to heat up a room quicker than just about anything else.

In tennis I was most notable for flipping and catching my racket in various snappy routines.

The essays are, by and large, as tweedy and self-satisfied as these lines make them sound. There are no wild hairs in them, no sudden deepenings of tone. Nothing is at stake. We are stranded with him on the putt-putt course.

Epstein fills his essays with quotation after quotation, as ballast. I am a fan of well-deployed, free-range quotations. So many of Epstein’s are musty and reek of Bartlett’s. They are from figures like Lord Chesterfield and Lady Mary Montagu and Sir Herbert Grierson and Tocqueville and Walpole and Carlyle. You can feel the moths escaping from the display case in real time.

To be fair, I circled a few sentences in “Familiarity Breeds Content” happily. I’m with him on his distrust of “fun couples.” He writes, “A cowboy without a hat is suitable only for bartending.” I liked his observation, which he borrowed from someone else, that a career has five stages:

(1) Who is Joseph Epstein? (2) Get me Joseph Epstein. (3) We need someone like Joseph Epstein. (4) What we need is a young Joseph Epstein. (5) Who is Joseph Epstein?

It’s no fun to trip up a writer on what might have been a late-career victory lap. Epstein doesn’t need me to like his work. He’s published more than 30 books, and you can’t do that unless you’ve made a lot of readers happy.

NEVER SAY YOU’VE HAD A LUCKY LIFE : Especially If You’ve Had a Lucky Life | By Joseph Epstein | Free Press | 287 pp. | $29.99

FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTENT : New and Selected Essays | By Joseph Epstein | Simon & Schuster | 441 pp. | Paperback, $20.99

Dwight Garner has been a book critic for The Times since 2008, and before that was an editor at the Book Review for a decade. More about Dwight Garner

Explore More in Books

Want to know about the best books to read and the latest news start here..

Salman Rushdie’s new memoir, “Knife,” addresses the attack that maimed him  in 2022, and pays tribute to his wife who saw him through .

Recent books by Allen Bratton, Daniel Lefferts and Garrard Conley depict gay Christian characters not usually seen in queer literature.

What can fiction tell us about the apocalypse? The writer Ayana Mathis finds unexpected hope in novels of crisis by Ling Ma, Jenny Offill and Jesmyn Ward .

At 28, the poet Tayi Tibble has been hailed as the funny, fresh and immensely skilled voice of a generation in Māori writing .

Amid a surge in book bans, the most challenged books in the United States in 2023 continued to focus on the experiences of L.G.B.T.Q. people or explore themes of race.

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .