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Uffi-ACHON AND -REACTION BETWEEN GH-ERCIIES AND
TBfr-WE- GOVERNMENT.
A LECTURE
F. W. NEWMAN,
LATIN PROFESSOR AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON,
AT SOUTH-PLACE CHAPEL, FINSBURY,
MAY 20, 1860.
Irhrteb Eg request
LONDON:
ALLIANCE DEPOT, 335 STRAND.
MANCHESTER: ALLIANCE OFFICES, 41 JOHN DALTON STREET.
�A LECTURE,
ETC.
It is a notorious fact of ancient and modern times, that very
many politicians who have no belief in religion have upheld
religious creeds as conducive to the national morality : and
they have generally much to say that is plausible in their
defence. Side by side with this, it has been maintained, upon a
large survey of the world, that national morality depends very
little on the avowed creed of nations ; and it may be worth
while to dwell for a moment on the evidence of this fact. I
will begin by contrasting the Turks with the Persians. Ac
cording to the testimony of a series of impartial English
men who have known them well, the peasants of Turkey pro
per are eminently upright, truthful, simple-hearted, honest,
friendly; faithful and devoted in domestic relations,—the
tie of parent and child being peculiarly tender and beautiful.
The Persians, on the contrary, are described as prevailingly
frivolous, false, cheating, and generally without conscience.
Both nations are Mohammedan. It is true, that they are of
different sects. The Persians regard the three first Caliphs
as usurpers, and reject the “traditions of the elders” con
cerning the miracles of Mohammed and various observances.
But none of us will for a moment impute the superiority of
Turkish morality to this ceremonial difference. It undoubt
edly rises out of the social organization, local influences, and
mode of life, which have come down from remote times. We
have a confirmation of this in the fact, that all which is best
in the Turkish character is apt to be lost as soon as the indi
�3
vidual is transplanted, and especially if he be raised into high
office. Yet his Mohammedan creed remains as orthodox as
before. Here then we see, that though a right creed is of
course better than a wrong creed, yet social institutions have
more effect on our moral state than the national religion.
And now look back to Europe. Are not Ireland, France,
Spain, South Germany, and Italy, under the same church ?
Yet how diverse are they morally ! If we had time to con
sider separate virtues and vices, the contrasts would perhaps
seem deeper the longer we dwelt on them. What greater
contrast in manliness can there be than that between Spain
and Naples ? It is conceded to be immense even between
the border countries, Spain and Portugal. What French
man, however patriotic and Catholic, will dare to extol the
French women for chastity 1 Yet, coming of the same race,
and with very much of the same temperament, the Catholic
Irishman justly boasts that the honoui’ of Irish women stands
as high as that of any in the whole world. Again, for long
ages past, who would have seemed uncharitable in rating very
low the truthfulness of the Italians or French ? Yet no one
would have dared so to speak of the Catholic Germans or of
the Spaniards. Again, was not England once Catholic ? Yet
the England of Edward III. and that of Queen Elizabeth are
not in any great moral contrast. I need not go farther. I
have sufficiently indicated on what ground we are forced to
believe that national morality does not depend chiefly on the
theoretic religion, but on those social institutions, habits, and
laws which pervade daily life.
The truth which I have been stating has been often darkly
felt by those who avow as their motto, “ Religion has nothing
to do with politics.” I believe the*se were accurately the words
for which our late eminent statesman Mr. Canning encountered
much obloquy some thirty-five years ago. In his mouth it
meant, that an English Catholic had more of the Englishman
in him than of the Catholic, so that the difference between his
religion and that of the Protestant ought to be overlooked in
Parliament; a doctrine which shortly gained a great prac
�4
tical triumph. My main object in now addressing you, is to
point out the false theory which is founded on this movement
towards a more comprehensive state. Those who desired to
admit Dissenters and Catholics into civil equality with Church
men, who claimed that the State should turn a blind eye to
wards the creed of an individual, were sure to condemn any
public hostility to voluntary religious institutions, and very
generally may have wished that all such institutions should
be left without national endowments. The State being thus,
in their view, neutral towards the sects, they have naturally
claimed that the sects should be neutral towards the State.
They have conceived of Church and State (or, if you prefer so
to phrase it, the Churches and the State) as occupying two
parallel lines of movement which cannot come into collision :
as though the Church were something of the other world alone;
as though its business were with creeds and ceremonies, feasts
and fastings, chanting and prayers, ordination and sacraments,
consolation in sickness and hopes beyond the grave; but had
no right to interfere with laws and customs which make men
moral or immoral. To very many politicians of this class, to
use religious influence against any measures of State is prim&
facie evidence of an ambitious and meddling Church. On the
other hand, they often avow, that in the State it is an erring
obtrusiveness to legislate for the morality of the nation ; and
that all zeal for morality should be yielded up to individuals,
or to voluntary societies.
If this were not a widely-prevailing theory, influencing
public men, often asserted in public journals, and espoused
by those who have a name as political philosophers, I should
not now address you on the other side. But since I regard
this as the cardinal heresy of the Liberal party in both conti
nents,—the heresy which, in proportion as it triumphs, de
moralizes nations, and makes them vacillate between anarchy
and despotism; the heresy which, by the reaction from it,
gives a new life to bigotry, and generates dangerous forms of
socialism,—I think the close examination of it is of urgent
practical importance.
�5
I began by pointing out the evidence lying on the surface
of history, that the morality of nations is more dependent on
laws and institutions than on religious creed. I think I
should hardly overstate in saying, that laws, enactments, in
stitutions of property, and the social relations which rise out
of them (all of which are the sphere of the State), must of
necessity affect the national character for good or evil: hence
the action of the State is essentially either moral or immoral.
But inasmuch as the Churches, or Church, either need not
exist at all, or very often exist in a feeble, cloudy, ceremonial
life, their action on the national morality is apt to be but a
secondary force. Hence, instead of saying with the Ultravoluntaryist, that morality is the sphere of the Church alone,
it is more true to assert, that the State has necessarily a
moral action, the Church only accidentally and occasionally.
And if we admit that Religion rises above a solemn mummery
or a wild fanaticism, only in proportion as morality underlies
it; if we are conscious that Spiritualism is the glorification of
the highest Morality, and that the immoral man cannot be
permanently and consistently spiritual, nor ever reap the
noblest fruits and blessed joys of spirituality; if we feel that
an immoral atmosphere is corrupting to the most of us, and
intensely painful to the best;—then never can those institu
tions and measures of State which make our neighbours and
ourselves moral or immoral be matter of indifference to the
spiritual man ; nor can the religious unions, which we call
Churches, ever wisely cherish neutral sentiment towards them.
The best and noblest churches, however strong and fresh the
religious impetus within them, must necessarily be weakened,
disorganized, and degraded, by prevailing public depravities.
I will add, that when the spiritual influence within them be
comes most intense, most pure, most beneficial, it will produce
permanent results of good only in proportion as it affects
public action or institutions.
It may aid to clear our view of this subject, if I present a
slight sketch historically of the part which religious influence
has played among nations. Civilization begins when brute
�6
force ceases to rule, and the warrior is subjected to the
civilian.
In China perhaps this was effected by the ascend
ency of mere moralists over the State, without any strictly
religious development; but the result was, even more em
phatically, that the State had the cognizance of morality, and
became the moral teacher as well as enforcer. Every where
else, in all the great civilised powers, we find religion to iden
tify itself with civilianism, and to become so incorporated
with the magistracy and laws as to appear to dictate the
whole constitution. In fact, it must have been a struggle
between the men of the sword and the men of mind,—or be
tween a ruling family on the one hand, and a combination of
civilians and warriors on the other,—which resulted in a
compromise, by which the sword ruled under sanction of re
ligious law. But we have seldom any history of the earliest
stage. One thing only I here assert and press,—that, as a
fact, whether we approve it or not, whether we like it or not,
in the whole earlier stage of humanity,—I mean down to the
Christian era,—we know no instance in which a religion pro
duced moral results, or any results but such as we must de
plore, except in so far as it acted upon and through civil
institutions j imparting to them solemnity and permanence,
curbing alike despotism and anarchy, making law moral, and
investing judicial sentences with power over the conscience.
Out of this sprang, and always will spring, the greatness of
nations, even when the theory of the religion is disfigured by
antiquated fable and impure blots.
But the dispersion of the Jews, and the Christianity which
followed, opened a new phase of human existence. A pheno
menon came forth, known previously in the far East, but
unparalleled in the West,—a religion appealing to individual
conviction, and propagated by individual energy, through
many countries, in spite of resistance and persecution from
the civil power. As to certain broad facts concerning this
great movement there can be no mistake. The Roman aristo
cracy, which conquered the Western world, had disorganized
itself by plunder and by civil war, which ended in a military
�7
despotism, so complete within, and so uncontrolled without,
as to become wildly immoral. During the monstrous rule
of the three emperors, Caius Caligula, Claudius, and Nero,
Christianity put forth its first and most signal efforts. The
first churches looked out upon a civil power, which seemed
to be made of iron and clay, without heart or conscience; a
power as unsusceptible of Christian conversion as behemoth
or leviathan. Sacrifice and incense, if offered only to Jupiter
Best and Greatest, might perhaps have been interpreted as to
the True Jehovah ; but when incense to the images of the
Csesars, deceased and living, was the symbol of loyalty, and
as it were the oath of office,—when persecution and death was
inflicted on those who refused the test,—the Christian churches,
from the time of Nero onward, not only despaired of such a
civil power, but pictured it as a hideous and fierce beast, and
impatiently expected its destruction by fire from heaven. To
coalesce with it was “to worship the beast and his image,”
and involved an impious dereliction of the faith. The hostility
thus kindled generated worse distrust, and before long, wider
persecutions. Christ did not return in the clouds of heaven,
at the time they expected him, to overthrow these incurable
iniquities by flaming fire; but the despotism decayed by its
own misrule, and the Goths from the Danube and the Black
Sea began their terrible inroads. At last appeared a prince
on the throne of the Csesars who sought the alliance of the
Christian churches, then already consolidated into a power
ful Organization. From that day the views, the policy, the
aspiration of the Church was changed; and a second era
began.
In this first era, which alone is regarded by many Protes
tants as the time of the Church’s purity, will any one assert
that the impurity of the State was no calamity to the Church ?
We cannot read the apostolic epistles without seeing what
scandalous immoralities were liable to break out in those who
were received as saints. The energy of Christian conviction
to rescue men out of vice and crime was sometimes wonderful,
—then, as in later ages; but to make deep spiritual impres
�8
sions abiding is of all mental tasks the hardest. Habit is the
ever-plodding tortoise which wins the race while the hare is
asleep. Oh, how great the misery to a struggling human soul
to have been reared in profligacy and recklessness of right I
Moreover, he who seemed to be rescued from it by repentance
and faith was not only open to the insidious re-approaches of
old habit; he also of necessity worked and lived with old com
panions, was surrounded by reminiscences of his old offences,
and by all the old solicitations. Where the public institutions
favour vice and crime, and almost enforce it, how many of us
will remain untainted? To touch pitch, and not be defiled;
to walk through fire, and not be burned; to live in the midst
of every thing immoral, and maintain a conscience void of
offence; to be subject to an unscrupulous and exacting supe
rior, and behave to him with modesty and dutiful boldness,
performing all his rightful commands, and refusing his un
rightful,—is a task rather for an angel than for a man. Now
let me ask : If we are truly religious men—I care not under
what name,—if those whom I address are a religious church,
what greater calamity from without could befal you as a reli
gious body, in its religious hopes and aims, than if some evil
demon could suddenly turn the civil institutions of our Eng
land into those of Nero’s Rome? Oh, what a thing it is for
our own moral and religious life to have no slavery among us!
What a thing to have fixed law and fair juries, a police which
cannot plunder and torture, magistrates who cannot arrest
without cause, judges who cannot be terrified by power, soldiers
who are restrained by civil law, and a law which is enforced
equally upon all ranks ! What a thing it is that impurity
dares not to obtrude itself in full glare, usurping art, invading
literature, penetrating into public religion, and dislocating
family relations ! Is it a fond fancy of Englishmen that it is
characteristic of their nation to love fair play, to esteem truth
fulness, to abhor hypocrisies and slanders, to uphold the rights
of the weak, to disapprove all cruel extremes of punishment,
all mere vindictiveness, all making of oneself judge in one’s
own cause ? If in any of these things our boasts are justified,
�9
we owe these good qualities to the laws of the land. Let us
not deceive ourselves. The best foundations of our moral
character come to us as a gift from our predecessors, who have
elaborated our civil institutions. Very imperfect we are ;
but the majority of us would be far worse if the laws of Eng
land were worse ; and if we desire a purer and nobler moral
ity to be wider spread and more permanent, we must desire
and seek the removal of all those public regulations and cus
toms which are experienced to be corrupting ; we must aid
every movement towards a purer condition of the whole social
state.
But what did the Christian Church in her second age ?
Of course, her bishops, before often haughty and overbearing,
became now, equally often, ambitious and worldly, bent on
aggrandizing in wealth and power the religious community
from which their greatness sprang. I have no thought at
present to attack nor to palliate this conduct. But, measure
their evil as you please, of their good we now reap the fruits ;
precisely because they fundamentally abandoned the original
limitation of Christian effort, and embraced the institutions
of this world in the sphere of the Church’s action. To the
apostles’ eyes the saints were nothing but an elect remnant,
snatched out of an evil world which was soon about to be de
stroyed by fire. They laboured for to-day, not for a morrow
which might never come. They tried to relieve the poor, but
not to remove the causes of poverty; to rescue the vicious, but
not to extirpate the social roots of vice; to comfort and teach
the slave, but not to overthrow slavery; to defy evil law and
wicked governors, but not to displace and replace them. Their
whole action was upon individuals, not upon society; it was
palliative, not radical; and hence its benefit was in many
great countries of the world temporary only, and barely
touched a fraction of the people. The Christian Church of the
fourth century had built up its theoretic creed out of a mo
saic of biblical texts, commented on in the spirit alternately
of a Rabbinist and of a Neo-Platonist. But if on the side of
the creed it manifested a weak understanding, yet in its eccle
�10
siastical action it used the freest judgment, never tying itself
down to the precedent or precepts of apostles who lived in a
world differently circumstanced ; but it undertook to remould
the State, to infuse a new spirit into law, and claim the whole
realm of the magistrate as the domain of the Church, that is,
of Christ and of God. So long as the Church was morally
higher than the State, the ambition of churchmen, however
grasping and occasionally unscrupulous, was on the whole, of
course, an immense benefit: and in that period of six or seven
centuries, while barbarous invasion or riotous internal conflict
tormented nearly all Europe, the Church in superadding her
sanction to law and social institutions infused somewhat of
broadly humane and moral aims. Those ecclesiastics assuredly
made a great many mistakes, as fallible men will, and sowed
much tare with their wheat. Judge their evil as severely as you
choose, it will nevertheless remain true that we owe to them
the moral reorganization of the State,—a basis on which fresh
and fresh growths of good take place and shall take place.
We Protestants are too accustomed to think solely of the
later stage of this history. We think of the Romish clergy as
jealous of the cultivated laity, as animated by a narrow idolatry
of church power, as claiming for churchmen an impunity of
crime, crushing freedom among the clergy themselves, distorting
or debauching society by monkery, nunnery, clerical celibacy,
and auricular confession j in short, sacrificing moral ends to
ecclesiastical glorification : finally, as convulsing Europe with
war, and rending States with civil contention, in order to uphold
a worn-out creed and the preposterous claims of a foreign priest.
I name all this, lest, being unknown to many who hear me, I
may seem to overlook, to doubt, or to defend it. I do not. But
while I reprobate the evil ambition of Rome, and very much
beside, I nevertheless defend, approve, and thank that good
ambition, with which at an earlier time she made it a religious
effort to improve the public institutions of barbarous Europe.
In the most far-going and active Protestantism the very
same tendency appeared, as in Calvin, in Knox, in the Puri
tans. All of these regarded it as a first object of importance
�11
with the religious man to make the institutions of the State
virtuous; and much permanent benefit, it is universally agreed,
has remained from this to Scotland and to New England. The
rock on which they all split is only too notorious. They iden
tified Virtue with their own private creed, instead of inter
preting it from the most highly developed conscience of men
and nations. They tried to enforce what cannot be enforced,
and limit what cannot be limited, measuring all minds by their
own, as though they had the infallibility against which they
rebelled. Reaction and indignation was sure to follow, from
those reared in their own bosom. It began among us with the
sects of the Independents and Quakers, and with the writings
of Locke; it has been reinforced from the school of Bentham :
and now, from hatred of Established Churches, and dread of
Over-legislation and Communism, the error spreads wide, that
the State can do little, and is not bound to do any thing, for
moral improvement; and that the business of religious men,
and religious communities as such, is not at all to act upon
or through the public institutions.
But does any one seriously believe that the State can do
little, or rather does not at present do much, for moral interests ?
What if it were to sanction polygamy ? Must we go to the
Mormons, or to the universally decaying Mohammedan powers,
to ask the probable consequences ? If it threw open the trade
of gambling, betting-houses and lotteries, have the churches
so much spare energy, kept in reserve, that they could coun
teract the demoralizing influences which are now pent up ?
Indecent and corrupting exhibitions or gatherings, which evade
the existing law, are at present believed to perpetrate much
moral mischief in our great towns. And if you duly consider
how willing a fraction of mankind is to enrich itself by acting
the tempter and promoting vice, can any of you doubt how
grave an addition to our existing vice would be caused, if every
vile man were allowed by law to thrust upon our children such
sights and sounds as more mature years know to poison the
fountains of youthful peace, innocence, and love 1 In the year
1830, grave statesmen and economists talked learnedly on the
�12
efficacy of free-trade in beer to promote sobriety. Free beer
houses were established by the consent of both sides of Parlia
ment ; but in four years’ time a select committee of the Com
mons, likewise composed of both sides of the House, judicially
pronounced that a flood of vice had been set loose by the
measure. Several select committees of both Houses have since
declared themselves on the subject, always confirming this
fact; yet it pleases the larger part of the press of England to
shut its eyes, and pretend that the State can do nothing for
morality. If time allowed, it would not be difficult to show,
in numberless ways, how the action of public law is either a
depraving or an improving influence. That we often are not
aware of this, is a result, and in part a means, of its very effi
cacy. As a child has all its habits determined for it by the
rules of the family, and moves in leading-strings unawares, so
is it largely with the nation that has once become accustomed
to the regulations of State. Habit is the great regulator of
conduct, and hereby of morality. The atmosphere which we
are ever breathing, without observing it, is the main source
of health or of sickness.
But let me ask, how have the voluntary churches and soli
tary individuals in these later days rendered their good per
manent to society ? As far as I am aware, the earliest phi
lanthropist of Protestant times was William Penn the Quaker.
Of State-Churches he disapproved; but his celebrity for doing
good on any large scale must surely rest on his public laws
and institutions in Pennsylvania. In the next century John
Howard, the visitor of prisons, was the most celebrated phi
lanthropist. Of how little comparative avail would his career
have been, if he had merely relieved the sufferings of indivi
dual prisoners ! His real efficacy was through the political
authorities, by stimulating them to improve the public regula
tions ; and through this, he is a benefactor of Europe down
to the present moment. So, again, the great religious move
ment of Wesley and Whitfield was not a mere reform in
private life, but marked its moral success in public law, its
effect on which is left permanently in regard to fairs, wakes,
�13
revels, and other public gatherings, once sources of demorali
zation, of which many are now suppressed, others are chastised.
Once more, the greatness of Clarkson and Wilberforce as phi
lanthropists does not rest on their charities in private life,
but on the extinction of West-Indian slavery and the over
throw of public lotteries. The labours of the philanthropist
seem always to find their legitimate goal in the amelioration
of public institutions ; for so only is the evil against which
he is warring brought to its minimum. Bad institutions,
acting on the less developed and imperfect minds, generate
mischief far more rapidly than any argument of reason or of
pure religion can check it. The further moral progress of
mankind is to be looked for by regulations which hinder the
corruption of the weak and ignorant by the cunning, the co
vetous, and the lustful. To make a trade of corruption is the
highest of all offences against the social union. In proclaim
ing this, I utter no new political doctrine, but one ever avowed
in England, and confirmed by many laws which are in daily
active life. Yet the doctrine needs, I think, to be made more
prominent to the conscience of the nation, and to be more
pressed on the religious, as a clue to their own duties. In the
last thirty or forty years we have become acquainted with that
phrase, “ the dangerous classeswe have learnt that there
is within our nation another nation, separated from it men
tally, morally, religiously,—a nation of criminals born from
criminals, living chiefly on plunder,—barbarous in the midst
of civilization. Many self-denying efforts have been systemati
cally made by Ragged Schools and Town Missionaries to reach
this population. If I were competent to measure, yet this is
no place to measure, the amount of good thus effected, and
how far it keeps pace with the progress of the evil. But to
me it seems perfectly clear, that the State has no right to ex
pect the diseases of its body to be removed year after year by
the zeal of private philanthropy; and that the rightful result
of these efforts is, that those at whose sacrifice they are made
should prevail with the public authorities to prevent the evils
in an earlier stage. After it has been shown (and I think it
�14
has already been shown) what is the utmost which voluntary
zeal can effect, it becomes clearer what the State must under
take. Two causes, it is notorious, chiefly, if not solely, gene
rate “the dangerous classes”—seduction of women, and the
retail trade in intoxicating drink. Hence it is clear in what
direction the State has, in the first instance, to move, in order
to counteract the evil.
Very few indeed of us can take up (what I may call) the
profession of philanthropy; the rest of us are perhaps apt to
think that they fully do their part, if, having found some
agency to which they can trust, they support it by one or
more annual guineas. That is all well and right in itself;
but if the agency is only palliative, if it aspire only to cure
partially, not to prevent evil, something earlier remains
to be done, and it must be done by the civil community
itself
This truth was discerned by the founder of one other phi
lanthropic movement, which proved wholly abortive, through
the enormous errors mingled with it; nevertheless its moral
strength was derived from its firm grasp of a truth which the
opposite schools were holding every day more loosely; the
doctrine that man cannot he perfected in isolation; that his
social union has a higher object than that of the market; that
his virtue, feeble in the individual, becomes strong by mutual
support; that in proportion as we are immature, our will is
puerile, and we are the creatures of our circumstances; and
that it is the proper business of the local civil community to
promote the training of all to industry and to virtue. I allude
to the late Robert Owen of Lanark, the founder of English
Socialism, a true philanthropist (I believe) in heart, though
his public schemes were impossible, and his moral theories all
ill balanced, some of them monstrous. A part of his aims has
been adopted by those who call themselves Christian Socialists,
in whom it is easy to discern (side by side with very question
able opinions of another sort) a wholesome intensity of convic
tion that our nation is forgetting the duty of the State to use
its vast power for moral good. Against us all, in every capa
�15
city, public or private, it is a fixed truth, that “ Whosoever
knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”
If plunder and fightings, fires and murder, abounded in
our streets, we should cry aloud and protest to our magis
trates and rulers, imploring more vigorous measures. Let us
hope that some higher motive than selfish fear would inspire
the protest. But alas, when the evil threatens not ourselves,
but those who are morally weaker than we, our outcry is far
too tranquil. If the daughters or sisters of others are seduced,
if the families of others are ruined by the public solicitations
to drunkenness, we are apt to think it is no case for our com
plaint. Yet surely to shelter the weak in mind from exces
sive temptation is as much a duty of society as to rescue the
weak in body from attack ; and as to drunkenness it is a duty
which the State, for four centuries and upwards, has deliber
ately and avowedly assumed. Let no religious churches fancy
that God has reserved for them corporately an isolated and pe
culiar goodness. They are in great measure products of their
age and nation, and partake of its evil. They cannot be made
perfect without the surrounding community. If there is what
Frenchmen call a solidarity between nation and nation, each par
taking of the other’s good, each in some measure afflicted by the
other’s evil, so that each is in some sense responsible for all,—
much more is this true of the natives of the same country, mem
bers of the same State, dwellers in the same locality, partners
in daily transactions or company. If the law acts well for our
moral good, because we are strong, but works ill to our neigh
bours because they are weak; — conduce as it may to the
energy of the self-controlled, yet if it ensure a harvest of crime
and debauchery under the windows of our happy homes, indeed
it is a selfish and short-sighted principle in us to be contented
and silent. England has long been heart-sick under a sense that
religion has unduly been severed from the affairs of daily life.
We long for a religion that shall be at once deep-hearted and
practical. Whatever the professional politicians think or do
not think, the nation at large is as weary of the personal ques
tions which divide statesmen as of the theological quarrels on
�16
which sects are founded. The nation is very competent to
discriminate repartee from wisdom, malicious speech from
earnestness of heart; and out of the earnestness of its own
heart has a natural right to claim that the moral welfare of
the many shall never be sacrificed to the exchequer, nor to
party. Nay, I will add, this is conceded and avowed on both
sides by those who declare themselves to be party-men. Hence,
without a struggle to dislocate existing entanglements, the
moral earnestness of the religious unions of this nation, when
it joins in one prayer, has forthwith a great, a mighty force
with Parliament and with the Throne. The claim rising from
us all, that the authorities, central and local, armed by the
law, shall put down public solicitations to corruption, and
shall thereby help us and those weaker than some of us to
avoid ruinous vice, will never be mistaken for ecclesiastical
ambition or democratic disaffection. There is therefore a real
and great power resting in the churches, just in proportion to
their moral simplicity and earnestness,—a power which they
cannot innocently disuse. All that is needful is, that they
shall speak from the heart of all good men, not from their own
private heads, and plead with the organs of the State for that
virtue on which we all agree, not for that theology on which
we so deeply differ. This is reasonable ; for the State belongs
to us in common, and no man or sect may claim to work it
for private ends. This also is on the side of spiritual advance
ment ; for the higher the morality of the nation, the better
material it affords for a truly spiritual church. Oh, what a day,
worth living for and worth dying for, that would be, in which
all the good and pure-hearted should cooperate to abate every
palpable immorality of the land! The common action would
teach them a common esteem. Their unwise animosities
would drop off. Cultivating simplicity of eye, they would
find their whole souls full of light; and without proselytisms,
controversies, or heart-burnings, a new and real reformation
would be begun.
ROBSON, LEVEY, AND FRANKLYN, GREAT NEW STREET AND FETTER LANE, E.C.
r
�
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The action and reaction between churches and the civil government.
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Notes: A lecture by F.W. Newman, Latin Professor at University College London, at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, May 20 1860. The original title crossed out by unknown hand and added in ink "Moral Influence of Law". From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Robson, Levey and Franklyn, Fetter Lane, London.
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Text
NATIONALSECULARSOCIETY
COMMON
SENSE.
BY
THOMAS PAINE.
Wiflj
arár an
fxr
LONDON:
FREETHOUG-HT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
63, FLEET
STREET, E.C.
1884.
PRICE
SIXPENCE
�LONDON:
PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH,
63, FLEET STREET, ®.C
�B "2^5
INTRODUCTION.
4
'
In the T08 'years which have passed since Thomas Paine ad
dressed this pamphlet to the Anglo-Saxons in British North
America, the extension of the territory and population has been
of the grandest description. The jurisdiction of the thirteen
colonies was then everywhere circumscribed by the Indian lines,
and the number of the population—when the United States first
declared themselves a confederation—did not exceed three mil
lions. To-day in 88 States and in 10 territories, with an area of
3,603,844 square miles, exclusive of the Indian territory, the
American Republic has a population of more than 50,000,000.
When Paine penned the words now re-printed, the doctrine of
independence was scarcely comprehended by any ; George Wash
ington was a Royalist by education and association, and even the
most advanced disciples of Otis shrank from breaking with the
Monarchy. Paine’s “ Common Sense ” appealed, however, to
the people, and their decision was swift, universal, and perma
nent. The 4th of July was the grand answer of the American
people—an answer they have never had reason to regret.
The very month it was issued Washington regarded the situa
tion as “ truly alarming,” and wrote that “ the first burst of
revolutionary zeal had passed away.” Paine’s pen revived the
zeal, and achieved a victory which at that time Washington’s
sword was insufficient to conquer. In England the fear of
Paine’s pen was widespread, as may be seen by reading the trial
of the shoemaker, John Hardy, for high treason.
|To-day Paine’s “ Common Sense ” has a merit beyond its mere
local significance, mighty as this was, and no apology is needed
for its re-publication.
Chaeles Beadlaugh.
��AUTHOR’S 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 appear
ance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in
defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes
more converts than reason.
As a long and violent abuse of power is generally the means of
calling the right of it in question (and in matters 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.
In the following sheets the author hath studiously avoided
everything 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.
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 all mankind, and extir
pating the defenders thereof from the face of the earth, is the con
cern of every man to whom nature hath given the power of feel
ing ; of which class, regardless of party censure, is
The Author.
Philadelphia, Feb. 14, 1776.
��COMMON SENSE.
-------- ♦--------
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 is a patron,
the last a punisher.
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 un
answerably follows, that whatever form thereof appears most
likely to ensure it to us with the least expense and greatest bene
fit, is preferable to all others.
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 labor
Out the common period of his 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 meantime would
�Common Sense.
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 be
rather said to perish than to die.
Thus, necessity, like a gravitation 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 attach
ment to each other; and this remissness will point out the neces
sity of establishing some form of government to supply the
defect of moral virtue.
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.
But as the colony increases, the public concerns will increase
likewise, and the distance at which the members may be sepa
rated 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 have 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 may never form to them
selves an interest separate from the electors, prudence will point
out the necessity of having elections often; because, as the elected
must 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 them
selves. And as this frequent interchange will establish a com
mon interest with every part of the community, they will mutually
and naturally support each other: and on this (not the unmean
ing name of king) depends the strength of government and the
happiness of the government.
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
�Common Sense.
9
dazzled with show, or our ears deceived by sound; however
prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understand
ing, the simple voice of nature and of reason will say it is right.
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 re
paired 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 erec
ted is granted. When the world was overrun with tyranny the
least remove therefrom was a glorious risk. But that it is im
perfect, subject to convulsions, and incapable of producing what
it seems to promise is easily demonstrated.
Absolute governments (though 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 to
gether without being able to discover in which part the fault
lies ; some will say in one, and some in another, and every po
litical physician will advise a different medicine.
I know it is difficult to get over local or long-standing pre
judices ; yet if we 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.
First.—The remains of monarchical tyranny in the person of
the king.
Secondly.—The remains of aristocratical tyranny in the persons
of the peers.
Thirdly.—The new Republican materials in the persons of the
commons, on whose virtue depends the freedom of England.
The two first being hereditary are independent of the people,
wherefore, in a constitutional sense they contribute nothing to
wards the freedom of the state.
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.
To say that the commons are a check upon the king, presup
poses two things :
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.
Secondly.—That the commons, by being appointed for that
purpose, are either wiser or more worthy of confidence than the
crown.
But as the same constitution which gives the commons power
to check the king, by withholding 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
�10
Common Sense.
than those whom it has already supposed to be wiser than him.
A mere absurdity.
There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition
of monarchy ; it first excludes a man from the means of informa
tion, yet it empowers him to act in cases where the highest judg
ment is required. The state of a king shuts him from the world,
yet the business of a kiDg requires him to know it thoroughly;
wherefore the different parts, by unnaturally opposing and des
troying each other, prove the whole character to be absurd and
useless.
Some writers have explained the English constitution thus:
the kiDg, they say, is one, the people another; the peers are a
house in behalf of the king, the commons in behalf of the people;
but this hath all the distinctions of an house divided against
itself; and though the expressions be pleasantly arranged, yet
when examined they appear idle and ambiguous; and it always
happens that the nicest construction that words are capable of,
when applied to the description of something which either can
not 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.
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.
That the crown is this overbearing part of the English con
stitution 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.
The prejudice of Englishmen in favor of their own govern
ment, 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 formidable shape of
�Common Sense.
11
an Act of Parliament. For the fate of Charles the First hath
only made kings more subtle;—not more just.
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 constitu
tion of the government, that the crown is not so oppressive in
England as in Turkey.
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
with an obstinate prejudice. And as a man who is attached to a
prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge a wife, so any prepos
session in favour of a rotten constitution of government, will
disable us from discerning a good one.
Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession.
Mankind being originally equal in the order of creation, the
equality only could be destroyed by some subsequent circum
stances ; the distinctions of rich and poor may in a great measure
be accounted for, and that without having recourse to the harsh
and ill-sounding names of oppression and avarice. Oppression
is often the consequence, but seldom the means, of riches ; and
though avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously
poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.
Bftt 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.
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 throws
mankind into confusion. Holland, without a king, hath enjoyed
more peace for the last century than any of the monarchical
governments in Europe. Antiquity favors the same remark;
for the quiet and rural lives of the first patriarchs have a happy
something in them, which vanishes away when we come to the
history of Jewish royalty.
Government by kings was first introduced to the world by
the heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the cus
tom. It was the most prosperous invention the devil ever set
on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The heathen paid divine
honours to their deceased kings, and the Christian world hath
improved on the plan, by doing the same to its living ones. How
�12
Common Sense.
impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in
the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!
As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be
justified on the equal rights of nature, so neither can it be de
fended 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 antimonarchical parts of the 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 Caesar the things which are Caesar’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.
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, administered 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.
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.
The children of Israel being oppressed by the Midianites,
Gideon marched against them with a smsll army, and victory,
through the Divine interposition, decided in his favor. 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 a tempta
tion in its fullest extent: not a kingdom only, but a hereditary
one. But Gideon in the piety of his soul, replied, “ I will not
reign 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 decla
rations of his thanks, but in the positive style of a prophet
charges them with disaffection to their proper sovereign, the King
of Heaven.
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 heathen, is something exceedingly un
accountable ; 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
�Common Sense.
13
thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the 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 heathen; whereas their true glory laid in being as much un
like them as possible. “Bat 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 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 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 show the
manner of a king that shall reign over them (z.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 difference of time, and distance, and manners, the cha
racter 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 them captains over thou
sands, and captains over fifties, and will set them to ear his
ground, and to reap his harvest, and 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 expense 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 seed, and of your vineyards,
and give them to his officers and 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 you 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 who 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. “Never
theless 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 ingrati
�14
Common Sense.
tude, 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 there
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 equal,
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 contempo
raries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit
them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of heredi
tary right in kings is, that nature disproves it, otherwise she
would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind
an ass for a lion.
Secondly, as no man at first could possess any other public
honors than were bestowed upon them, so the givers of those
honors could have no right 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 com
pact 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 con
tempt ; yet it is one of those evils which, when once established,
is not easily removed; many submit from fear, others from super
stition, and the most powerful part shares with the king the
plunder of the rest.
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, we should find the first of them nothing
better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose
savage manners or pre-eminence in subtilty, obtained him the
title of chief among plunderers; and who, by increasing in
power, and extending his depredations, overawed the quiet and
�Common Sense.
15
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 unrestained 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 re
cords were extant in those days, and traditionary history is
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 threaten, 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) in
duced 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.
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 him
self 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 the lion, and welcome ; I shall neither copy their humility,
nor disturb their devotion.
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 ex
cludes 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 parallel
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; so in the one all mankind are
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 re-assuming some further state and privi
lege, it unanswerably follows that original sin and hereditary suc
cession are parallels. Dishonorable rank! Inglorious connexion !
Yet the most subtle sophist cannot produce a juster simile.
�16
Common Sense.
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.
But it is not so much the absurdity as the evil of hereditary
succession which concerns mankind. Did it insure 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 im
proper, it hath in it the nature of oppression. Men, who look
upon themselves as born to reign, and on the others to obey,
soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind, their
minds are easily 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 ignor
ant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.
Another evil which attends hereditary succession is, that the
throne is liable to be possessed by a minor at any age; all which
time the regency, acting under the cover of a king, has every
opportunity and inducement to betray its 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 with the follies either of infancy or age.
The most plausible plea which hath ever been offered in favor
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 Revo
lution) 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.
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 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.
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 sixty-seven years,
viz., from 1422 to 1489.
In short, monarchy and succession have laid, not this or that
�Common Sense.
17
kingdom only, but the world in blood and ashes. It is a form of
government which the word of God bears testimony against, and
blood will attend it.
If we inquire into the business of a king we shall find that in
iome 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 ground. In the 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 a man would
be puzzled to know what is his business.
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 un
worthy of the name, because the corrupt influence of the crown,
by having all the places in its disposal, hath so effectually swal
lowed up the power and eaten out the virtue of the House of
Commons (the Republican part of 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 con
stitution 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 ?
In England the 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 prelimi
naries to settle with the reader than that he will divest himself
Of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his feelings to deter
mine 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.
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
�18
Common Sense.
is closed. Arms, as the last resource, decide the contest; and
the appeal was the choice of a king, and the continent hath
accepted the challenge.
It hath been reported of the late Mr. Pelham, who, though 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.
The sun never shone on a cause of greater worth. It is not
the affair of a city, a county a province, or of a kingdom, but of
a continent—of, at least, one-eighth part of the habitable globe.
It is not the concern of a day, a year, or an age ; posterity are
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.
By referring the matter from argument to arms, a new era for
politics is struck, a new method of thinking hath arisen. All
plans, proposals, etc., prior to the 19th of April, i.e., to the
commencement of hostilities, are like the almanacks of 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 affecting 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.
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 view 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 dependent on, Great Britain. To
examine that connexion and dependence, 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 dependent.
I have heard it asserted by some that, as America had
flourished under her former connexion with Great Britain, 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 thriven upon milk it is never to have meat, or that the
first twenty years of our lives are 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 anything to do
with her. The commerce by which she hath enriched herself are
�Common Sense.
19
the necessaries of life, and will always have a market while eating
is the custom of Europe.
But she has protected us, say some. That she has engrossed
us is true, and defended the continent at our expense as well as
her own is admitted ; and she would have defended Turkey from
the same motive, viz., the sake of trade and dominion.
Alas! we have been long led away by ancient prejudices, and
made large sacrifices to superstition. We have boasted of the
protection of Great Britain, without considering that her motive
was interest, not attachment; but 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 waive her pretensions to the continent, or
the continent throw off the dependence, 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.
It has lately been asserted in Parliament that the colonies have
no relation to each other but through the parent country, i.e.,
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.
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 on 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 in 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.
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.
It is pleasant to observe by what regular gradations we sur
mount the force of local prejudice, as we enlarge our acquaint
ance with the world. A man born in any town in England
divided into parishes, will naturally associate with his fellow
parishioner, because their interests in many cases will be com
mon, and distinguish him by the name of neighbor ; if he meet
B2
�20
Common Sense.
him but a few miles from home, he 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, ie., county man ; but if in their foreign
excursions they should associate in France, or in any other part
of Europe, their local remembrance would be enlarged into that
of Englishman. 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.
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 recon
ciliation 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; wherefore by the same method of reasoning, England
ought to be governed by France.
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 wars is un
certain ; neither do the expression mean anything; for this
continent never would suffer itself to be drained of inhabitants,
to support the British arms in either Asia, Africa, or Europe.
Besides, what have we to do with setting the world at defi
ance ? 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.
I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation to show
a single advantage this continent can reap by being connected
with Great Britain ; I repeat the challenge, not a single advan
tage is derived. Our corn will fetch its price in any market in
Europe, and our imported goods must be paid for, buy them
where you will.
But the injuries and disadvantages we sustain by that con
nexion are without number ; and our duty to mankind at large,
as well as to ourselves, instructs us to renounce the alliance, be
cause, any submission to, or dependence on, Great Britain tends
to involve this continent in European wars and quarrels, and set
us at variance with nations who would otherwise seek our friend
ship, and against whom we have neither anger nor complaint.
As Europe is our market for trade, we ought to form no partial
connexion with any part of it. It is the true interest of America
�Common Sense.
21
to steer clear or European contentions, which she can never do,
while by her dependence on Britain she is made the make-weight
in the scale of British politics.
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
connexion with Great Britain. The next war may not turn out
like the last, and should it not the advocates for reconciliation
now will be wishing for a 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 a separation. The blood
of the slain, the weeping voice of nature, cries. It is 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 to the
weight of the argument, and the manner in which it was peopled
increases 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.
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 anything 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 hands,
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.
Though I would carefully avoid giving unnecessary offence
yet I am inclined to believe that all those who espouse the doc
trine 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 conti
nent than all the other three.
It is the good fortune of many to live distant from the scene
of sorrow ; and the evil is not sufficiently 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,
�22
Common Sense.
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 redemp
tion, and in a general attack for their relief they would be ex
posed to the fury of both armies.
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, honor, and faithfully serve the
power which hath carried fire and sword into your land ? If you
cannot do all these then you are only deceiving yourselves, and
by your delay bringing ruin upon posterity. Your future connex
ion with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honor, 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 child by their hands, and you yourself
the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are
you a judge of those who have ? But if you have, and still can
shake hands with the murderers, then you are unworthy 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.
This is not inflaming or exaggerating matters, by 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 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.
It is repugnant to reason, to the universal order of things, to
all examples of 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 a year’s security. Reconciliation
is now a fallacious dream. Nature has deserted the connexion
�Common Sense.
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.”
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 contri
buted 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 of
throats under the violated, unmeaning names of parent and
-child.
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.
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 petition, waiting four or five months for an answer, which,
when obtained, requires five or six more to explain it, 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.
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 perpetu
ally 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 they belong to different systems : England,
to Europe ; America, to itself.
I am not induced by motives of pride, party, or resentment to
espouse the doctrine of separation and independence. I am
clearly, positively, and conscientiously persuaded that it is the
true interest of the continent to be so ; that everything short of
that is merely patchwork, that it can afford no lasting felicity,
that it is leaving the sword to our children, and slinking back at
a time when a little more, a little farther, would have rendered
the continent the glory of the earth.
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
expense of blood and treasure we have been already put to.
The object contended for ought always to bear some just pro
portion to the expense. The removal of North, or the whole
detestable junto, is a matter unworthy the millions we have ex
�24
Common Sense.
pended. A temporary stoppage of trade was an inconvenience
which would have sufficiently balanced the repeal of all the Act»
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 independence of the continent as an event which,
sooner or later, must arise, so from the late rapid progress of thè
continent to maturity, the event could not be far off. Wherefore,
on the breaking out of hostilities, it was not worth 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 of law, to regulate the trespasses of a tenant whose
lease is just expiring. No man was a warmer wisher for recon
ciliation than myself before the fatal nineteenth1 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
disdained the wretch that, with the pretended title of Father of
his People, can unfeelingly hear of their slaughter, and com
posedly sleep with their blood upon his soul.
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.
First. The powers of governing still remaining in the hands
of the king, he will have a negative over the whole legislation of
the continent. And as he hath shown 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 in
habitant in America so ignorant as not to know that, according,
to what is called the present constitution, this continent can.
make no laws but what the king gives leave to ? And is there
any man so unwise as not to see (considering what has happened)
he will suffer no law to be made here but such as suits his pur
pose? We may be as effectually enslaved by the want of laws
in America as by submitting to laws made 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 con
tinent as low and as 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 endeavor 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 independent ; for independency 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.”
1 Lexington.
�Common Sense.
25
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 toseven 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 absur
dity of it, and only answer that England, being the king’s resi
dence, and America not so, make 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 pos
sible, and in America he would never suffer such a bill to be
passed.
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 interfere 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 show 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 subtlety, in the long run, what he cannot do by force
and violence in the short one. Reconciliation and ruin are nearly
related.
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 that is
every day tottering on the brink of commotion and distur
bance, and numbers of the present inhabitants would lay hold of
the interval to dispose of their effects, and quit the continent.
But the most powerful of all arguments is, that nothing but
independence, 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 mor©
fatal than all the malice of Britain.
Thousands are already ruined by British barbarity ! thousands
more will probably suffer the same fate! Those men have other
feelings than we, 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.
�26
;
, j
•Common Sense.
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 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 independence, fearing 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 independence.
I make the sufferer’s case my own, and I protest, that were I
driven from house and home, my property destroyed, and my
circumstances ruined, that, as a man sensible of injuries, I could
never relish the doctrine of reconciliation, or consider myself
bound thereby.
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 ground
than such as are truly childish and ridiculous, viz., that one colony
will be striving for superiority over another.
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, at peace. Holland and Switzer
land are without wars, foreign and domestic: monarchical gov
ernments, it is true, are never long at rest; the crown itself is a
temptation to enterprising 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.
If there is any true cause of fear respecting independence, it is
because no plan is yet laid down : men do not see their way out.
Wherefore, as an opening to that business, I offer the following
hints ; at the same time modestly affirming, that 1 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.
Let the assemblies be annual, with a president only. The re
presentation more equal; their business wholly domestic, and
subject to the authority of a continental congress.
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 three hundred and ninety.
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
�Common Sense.
27
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, 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 satis
factorily just, not less than three-fifths of the congress to be
called a majority. He that will promote discord under a govern
ment so equally formed as this, would have joined Lucifer in his
revolt.
But as there is a peculiar delicacy, from whom and in what
manner this business must first arise; and as it seems most
agreeable and consistent that it should come from some inter
mediate 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:—
A committee of twenty-six members of congress, viz., two for
each county. 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 pro
vince for that purpose; or, if more convenient, the representatives
may be chosen in two or three of the most populous parts there
of. 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 coun
sellors ; and the whole, empowered by the people, will have a
truly legal authority.
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 Magna Charta of England; fixing
the number and manner of choosing members of congress, mem
bers 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 it is necessary for a charter to contain. Imme
diately after which the said conference to dissolve, and the bodies
which shall be chosen conformable to the said .charter to be the
legislators and governors of the continent for the time being,
whose peace and happiness may God preserve ! Amen.
. Should any body of men be hereafter delegated for this or some
similar purpose, I offer them the following extract 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
�Common Sense.
greatest sum of individual happiness, with the least national
expense.”—Dragonetti, on “ Virtue and Rewards.”
But where, some say, is the king of America ? I will tell you,
friend, he reigns above, and does 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 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.
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 Masaniello may
*
hereafter arise, who, laying hold of popular disquietudes, may
collect together the desperate and 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 to 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 have ? Ere she could hear the news, the fatal busi
ness might be done, and ourselves suffering, like the wretched
Britains, under the oppression of the conqueror. Ye that oppose
independence now, ye know not what ye do ; ye are opening a
door to eternal tyranny.
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.
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 b§ 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 ?
Ye that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, can ye restore to
* Thomas Aniello, otherwise Masaniello, a fisherman of Naples, who, after
spiriting up his countrymen in the public market-place against the oppression of
the Spaniards, to whom the place was then subject, prompted them to revolt, and
in the space of a day became king.
�Common Sense.
29
us the time that is past? Can you 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 a
lover forgive the ravisher of his mistress as the continent forgive
the murderers 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 from 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 temper sustains pro
voke us into justice.
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
two countries would take place one time or other. And there is
no instance in which we have shown less judgment than in
endeavoring to describe what we call the ripeness or fitness of
the continent for independence.
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 endeavor, 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.
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 accom
plish 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 Britian would r ever suffer an
American man-of-war to be built while the continent remained
in her hands, wherefore we should be no forwarder a hundred
years hence in that branch than we are now; but the truth is, we
shall be less so, because the timber of the country is every day
�30
Common Sense.
diminishing, and that which will remain at last will be far off
and difficult to procure.
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 to be idle. The diminution of
trade affords an army, and the necessities of an army create a
new trade.
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 inde
pendent 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, 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 peddling politician.
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 fifty millions sterling, for
which she pays upwards of four millions interest. As a compen
sation for the 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 more at this time than three
millions and a half sterling.
The charge of building a ship of each rate, and furnishing
her with masts, yards, sails, and rigging, together with a pro
portion of eight months’ boatswain’s and carpenter’s sea stores,
as calculated by Mr. Burchett, Secretary to the Navy, is as
follows:—
For a ship of 100 guns...................................... £35,552
90
.................................... 29 886
80
23.638
70
17,785
60
14,197
50
................................... 10,606
40
7,758
30
5,846
20
3,710
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:—
�Common Sense.
Ship.
Guns.
Cost of one.
31
Cost of all.
£35,553 ............. ........... £213 318
100
6
29,886 ............. ...........
358 632
12
90
23,638 ............. ...........
283 656
12
80
17,785 ............. ............
70
764.755
48
14,197 ............. ...........
60
496.895
35
10,606 ............. ...........
40
50
424,240
7,758 ............. ...........
40
344,110
45
3,710 ............. ...........
58
20
215,180
85 Sloops, bombs, and)
fireships, one with;- 2,000 ..........................
170,000
another.
J
----------Cost ......................... 8,270.786
Remains for guns
....
229,214
£3,500,0001
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.
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 thehottestengagement 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 sociable sailors will soon instruct a sufficient number
of active landsmen 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
1 Mr. Paine would be a little astonished if he could to-day examine
the estimates for an English ironclad.
�32
Common Sense.
the other. To America only hath she been liberal in both. The
vast empire of Russia is almost shut out from the sea ; where
fore her boundless forests, her tar, iron, and cordage are only
articles of commerce.
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 street, or field 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.
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 harbors for that purpose?
Common sense will tell us that the power which hath endeavored
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 harbors, 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 here
after protect ourselves, why not do it for ourselves ? why do it
for another ?
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 preju
dice and inattention, we have contracted a false notion respecting
me navy of England, and have talked as if we should have the
/vnole of it to encounter at once, and for that reason supposed
mat we must have one as large, which not being instantly prac
ticable, has 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 overmatch for her,
because, as we neither have nor claim any foreign dominion, our
own force will 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
�33
Common Sense.
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 lying in the neighborhood of the continent,
is entirely at its mercy.
Some method might be fallen on to keep up a naval force in
the 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 suffi
cient 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 defence is sound policy, for when our strength and
our riches play into each other’s hands we need fear no external
enemy.
In almost every article of defence 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 we
want ? Why is it that we hesitate ? From Britain we 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 obedi
ence ? The difference between Pennsylvania and Connecticut,
respecting some unlocated lands, shows the insignificance of a
British government, and fully proves that nothing but continental
authority can regulate continental matters.
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 dependents, 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.
The infant state of the colonies, as it is called, so far from being
against, is an argument in favor of independence. We are suffi.
oiently 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
ancient 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 dimiishes the spirit both of patriotism and military defence; and
history sufficiently informs us, that the bravest achievements
C
�34
Common Sense.
were always accomplished in the nonage 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 they are to venture. The rich are in general
slaves to fear, and submit to courtly power with the trembling
duplicity of a spaniel.
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 the increase of trade and popu
lation, 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. Where
fore, 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
honorable. Our present union is marked with both these cha
racters ; we are young, and we have been distressed; but our
concord hath withstood our troubles, and fixes a memorable era
for posterity to glory in.
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 dele
gated to execute them afterwards; but from the errors of other
nations, let us learn wisdom, and lay hold of the present oppor
tunity—to begin government at the right end.
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 ruf
fian, who may treat us in the same manner; and then, where
will be our freedom ? where our property ?
As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of all
governments to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I
know of no other business which government hath to do there
with. Let a man throw aside that narrowness of soul, that sel
fishness 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 con
scientiously believe that it is the will of the Almighty that there
should be a 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
�Common Sense.
35
denominations among us to be, like children of the same family,
differing only in what is called their Christian names.
In page twenty-seven I threw out a few thoughts on the pro
priety 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 sup
port the right of every separate part, whether of religion, per
sonal freedom, or property. A firm bargain and a right reckon
*
ing make long friends.
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 follow
ing : When the Associators’ petition was before the House of
Assembly of Pennsylvania twenty-eight members only were pre
*
sent; 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 dishonored 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 th®
whole colony; whereas, did the whole colony know with what
ill-will that House had entered on some necessary public
measures, they would not hesitate a moment to think them un
*
worthy of such a trust.
Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which, if
continued, would grow into oppressions. Experience 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 As
sembly 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 ever 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 are 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.
It is from our enemies that we often gain excellent maxima
and are frequently surprised into reason by their mistakes. Mr.
Cornwall, one of the Lords of the Treasury, treated the petition
c 2
�36
Common Sense.
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.
*
To conclude : however strange it may appear to some, or how
ever unwilling they may be to think so, matters not; but many
strong and striking reasons may be given, to show that nothing
can settle our affairs so expeditiously as an open and determined
declaration for independence. Some of which are:
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.
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 connexion between Britain and America, be
cause those powers would be sufferers by the consequences.
Thirdly. While we profess ourselves the subjects of Britain,
we must, in the eyes 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 understandings.
Fourthly. Were a manifesto to be published, and dispatched
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 connexion
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.
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 independence, we take
rank with other nations.
These proceedings may at first appear strange and difficult;
but like other steps which we have already passed over, will in a
little time become familiar and agreeable; and until an indepen
dence is declared, the continent will find 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.
♦Those who would fully understand of what great consequenee a large
and equal representation is to a State, should read Burgh’s “ Political Disquisi
tions.’’
�Common Sense.
37
APPENDIX.
„
5
*
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 shows the necessity of pursu
ing 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 independence.
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 the 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 execration.
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.
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 sup
position 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 Rock* ngham’s at the repeal of the Stamp Act), “ it is very unfair in
ou to withhold them from that prince by whose nod alone they
�38
Common Sense.
were permitted to do anything.” This is Toryism with a witness!
Here is idolatry even with 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 con
sidered as one who hath not only given up the proper dignity of
man, but sunk himself beneath the rank of animals, and con
temptibly crawls through the world like a worm.
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 sup
port 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 reflexion, I shall chiefly coniine
my farther remarks to the following heads:—
First. That it is the interest of America to be separated from
Britain.
Secondly. Which is the easiest and most practicable plan,
Reconciliation or Independence ? with some occasional remarks.
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 dependence, 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 child
hood, compared with what she would be capable of arriving at,
had she, as she ought to have, the legislative power 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 the 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 independent of each other as
France and Spain; because in many articles, neither can go to a
better market. But it is the independence 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.
First. Because it will come to that one time or other.
Secondly. Because the longer it is delayed the harder it will
be to accomplish.
I have frequently amused myself, both in public and private
companies, with silently remarking the specious errors of those
who spoke without reflecting. And among the many which I have
heard, the following seems the most general, viz.: That had this
�Common Sense.
39
rupture happened forty or fifty years hence, instead of now, the
continent would have been more able to have shaken off the de
pendence. 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 unan
swerably 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 shall 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.
The reader will pardon this digression, as it does not properly
come under the head I first set out with, and to which I shall
again return by the following position, viz :
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 entirely), we shall
deprive ourselves of the very means of sinking the debt we have
or may contract. The value of the back land, which some of
the provinces are clandestinely deprived of, by the unjust exten
sion of the limits of Canada, valued at only five pounds sterling
per hundred acres, amounts to upwards of twenty-five millions
Pennsylvania currency ; and the quit rents at one penny sterling
per acre, or two millions yearly.
It is by the sale of those lands that the debt may be sunk,
without burden to any, and the quit-rent reserved thereon will
always lessen, and in time will wholly support the yearly expense
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 continental trustees.
I proceed now to the second head, viz.: Which is the easiest
and most practical plan, Reconciliation or Independence ? with
some occasional remarks.
He who takes nature for his guide is not easily beaten out of
his argument, and on that ground I answer generally—that
independence being a Bingle simple line contained within our
selves, and reconciliation a matter exceedingly perplexed and
complicated, and in which a treacherous, capricious court is to
interfere, gives the answer without a doubt.
The present state of America is truly alarming to every man
who is capable of reflection. Without law, without government,
without other mode of power than what is founded on, and
granted by courtesy; held together by an unexampled occurrence
of sentiment, which is nevertheless subject to change, and which
�40
Common Sense.
every secret enemy is endeavoring to dissolve. Our present
condition is legislation without law, wisdom without a plan, a
constitution without a name ; and what is strangely astonishing,
perfect independence contending for dependence. 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 embarrassed system of things; the mind of the multi
tude 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 everyone thinks
himself at liberty to act as he pleases. The Tories dared not to
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.
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 be
not done in time, it will be too late to do anything, and we shall
fall into a state, in which neither reconciliation nor independence
will be practicable. The Court and its 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 letters which appeared,
a few months ago, in two of the New York papers, and likewise
in two others, are an evidence, that there are men who want
either judgment or honesty.
It is easy getting into holes or corners, and talking of recon
ciliation ; 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 situations 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.”
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
�Common Sense.
41
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 envi
able period. Such a request, had it been complied with a year
ago, would have won the heart and soul of the continent—but it
is now too late, “ the rubicon is passed.”
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 does 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 conscien
tiously 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 independence of America should
have been considered as dating its era from, and published by the
first musket that was first 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.
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 independency can 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 independency be brought about by the first
of those means, we have every opportunity and every encourage
ment 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 till 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 cavillings of
a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed against the
business of a world.
Should we neglect the present favorable and inviting period,
and an independence 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 independence, which men should rather
privately think of, than be publicly told of. We ought not now
�42
Common Sense.
to be debating whether we shall be independent or not, but
anxious to accomplish it on a firm, secure, and honorable basis,
and uneasy rather that it is not yet begun 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
independence.
In short, independence is the only bond that can tie 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, with
out any good effect therefrom, withheld our trade to obtain
a redress of our grievances, let us now try the alternative by
independently 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.
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 favor 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 neighbor 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 amoDg 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 inde
pendent States of America.
�Common Sense.
43
To the Representatives of the Religious Society of the People called
Quakers, or to so many of them as were concerned in publishing
a late Piece, intituled: “ 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 England.'’’
The writer of this is one of those few, who never dishonor
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.
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 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.
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 reli
gious body of men) is not your proper walk ; 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.
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 as the religious wish of all denominations of
men. And on this ground, as men laboring to establish an
independent 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 final
separation. We act consistently, because for the sake of intro
ducing an endless and uninterrupted peace, do we bear the evils
and burdens of the present day. We are endeavoring, and will
steadily continue to endeavor, to separate and dissolve a con
nexion, 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.
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
�44
Common Sense.
our own vines are we attacked; in our own houses, and in our own
land, 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.
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 apolitical hobby-horse of your religion, convince
the world thereof, by proclaiming your doctrine to our enemies,
for they likewise bear arms. Give us a 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 the tyrant whom ye profess to serve. Had
ye the honest soul of Barclay, ye would preach repentance
*
to your king ; ye would tell the despot of 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 endeavor 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 ye because
ye are Quakers, but because ye pretend to be, and are not
Quakers.
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
* “ Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity! thou knowest what it is to be
banished thy native country, to be overruled 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.
�Common Sense,
45
it with a step as steady as time, and an appetite as keen as
death.
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 tyrant whom ye are so desirous of supporting does not please
the Lord, otherwise his reign would be in peace.
I now proceed to the latter part of your testimony, and that for
which all the foregoing seems only an introduction, viz:—
“ It hath ever been our judgment and principle, since we are
called to profess the light of Christ Jesus manifested in our con
sciences 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 might 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, therefore,
publishing it proves that you either do not believe what ye
profess, or have not virtue enough to practice what ye believe.
The principles of Quakerism have a direct tendency to make a
man the quiet and inoffensive subject of any and every govern
ment which is set over him. And as 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 prin
ciple itself leads you to approve of everything which ever
happened, or may happen, to kings, as being his work. Oliver
Cromwell thanks you. Charles, then, died, not by the hands of
men; 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 Savior, 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 independent of the corrupt and abandoned Court of
�46
• Common Sense.
Britain; unless, I say, ye can show 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 mea
sures as evidence a desire and design to break off the happy con
nexion 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 para
graph before, have quietly and passively resigned up the order
ing, 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 crabbed spirit of a despairing poli
tical party; for ye are not to be considered as the whole body of
the Quakers, but only as a factional or fractional part thereof.
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,” must 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 judgment, and for many other
reasons had better have been left alone than published.
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.
Secondly. Because it exhibits a body of men, numbers of
whom disavow the publishing political testimonies, as being
concerned therein and approvers thereof.
Thirdly. Because it hath a tendency to undo that continental
harmony and friendship which yourselves, by your late liberal
and charitable donations, have lent a hand to establish ; and the
preservation of which is of the utmost consequence to us all.
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 inhabi
tant of America.
�Works by CHAS. BRADLAUGH—
The Freethinker’s Text-Book. Part I.¥ Section I.—“The Story
of the Origin of Man, as told by the Bible and by Science.” Sec
tion II.—“What is Religion?” “How^has it Grown ?” “God and
Soul.” Bound in cloth, price 2s. 6d.
Impeachment of the House of Brunswick.—Ninth edition. Is.
Political Essays. Bound in cloth, 2s. 6d.
Theological Essays. Bound in cloth, 3s.
Hints to Emigrants, containing important information on the
United States, Canada, and New Zealand. Is.
Debates—
Four — with the Rev. Dr. Baylee, in Liverpool; the Rev. Dr.
Harrison, in London; Thomas Cooper, in London; the Rev.
R. A. Armstrong, in Nottingham ; with Three Discourses by
the Bishop of Peterborough and replies by C. Bradlaugh.
Bound in one volume, cloth, 3s.
. gji-w
What does Christian Theism Teach ? A verbatim report' of two
nights’ Public Debate with the Rev. A. J. Harrison. Second
edition. 6d.
God, Man, and the Bible. A verbatim report of a three nights’
Discussion at Liverpool with the Rev. Dr. Baylee. 6d.
On the Being of a God as the Maker and Moral Governor of the
Universe. A verbatim report of a two nights’ Discussion with
Thomas Cooper. 6d.
Has Man a Soul? A verbatim report of two nights’debate at
Burnley, with the Rev. W. M. Westerby. Is.
Christianity in relation to Freethought, Scepticism and Faith.
Three Discourses by the Bishop of Peterborough with
Special Replies. 6d.
’
Secularism Unphilosophical, Unsocial and Immoral.
Threo
nights’ debate with the Rev. Dr. McCann. Is.
Is it Reasonable to Worship God? A verbatim report of two
nights’ debate at Nottingham with the Rev. R. A. Armstrong
Is.
The True Story of my Parliamentary Struggle. Contain
ing a Verbatim Report of the proceedings before the Select
Committee of the House of Commons ; Mr. Bradlaugh’s
Three Speeches at the Bar of the House, etc., etc.
0 6
Fourth Speech at the Bar of the House of Commons. 30th
Thousand
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May the House of Commons Commit Treason? ...
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A Cardinal’s Broken Oath
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Perpetual Pensions. Fortieth thousand
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Civil Lists and Grants to Royal Family
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The Land, the People, and the Coming Struggle...
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Five Dead Men whom I Knew when Living. Sketches of
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Sumner and Ledru Rollin ...
0 4
Cromwell and Washington: a Contrast...
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Anthropology. In neat wrapper
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When were our Gospels Written ?
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Plea for Atheism
0 3
Has Man a Soul ?
0 2
The Laws Relating to Blasphemy and Heresy
0 6
Jesus, Shelley, and Malthus, an Essay on the Population
Question
0 2
�Verbatim Report of the Trial of C. Bradlaugh before Lord Cole
ridge for Blasphemy, in three Special Extra Numbers of the
National Reformer. 6d.
Verbatim Report of the Trial, The Queen against Bradlaugh and
Besant. Cloth, 5s. With Portraits and Autographs of the two
Defendants. Second Edition, with Appendix, containing the
judgments of Lords Justices Bramwell, Brett, and Cotton.
Works by ANNIE BESANT—
The Freethinker’s Text-Book. Part II. “On Christianity.”
Section I.—“Christianity: its Evidences Unreliable.” Section
II—“Its Origin Pagan.” Section III.—“Its Morality Fallible.”
Section IV.—“Condemned by its History.” Bound in cloth,
3s. 6d.
History of the Great French Revolution. Cloth, 2s.
My Path to Atheism. Collected Essays. The Deity of Jesus—
Inspiration—Atonement— Eternal Punishment—Prayer — Re
vealed Religion—and the Existence of God, all examiner) and
rejected; together with some Essays on the Book of Common
Prayer. Cloth, gilt lettered, 4s.
Marriage: as it was, as it is, and as it should be. Second Edition.
In limp cloth, Is.
Light, Heat, and Sound. In three parts, 6d. each. Illustrated.
Bound in limp cloth, Is. 6d.; cloth, 2s.
The Jesus of the Gospels and The Influence of Christianity on
the World. Two nights’ Debate with the Rev. A. Hatchard. Is.
Social and Political Essays. 3s. 6d.
Theological Essays and Debate. 2s. 6d.
Fruits of Christianity
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�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Common sense : with appendix and an address to Quakers
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Paine, Thomas [1737-1809]
Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 46, [2] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. First published Philadelphia: William and Thomas Bradford, 1776. Works by Bradlaugh and Besant listed on unnumbered pages at the end. Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh.
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1884
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Text
THE ITALIAN MOVEMENT AND
ITALIAN PARTIES.
TWO LECTURES
DELIVEEED AT THE
PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION, EDINBURGH.
" *
SPEECHES
g
DELTVEBED IN
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AND AT THE WAKEFIELD
MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE.
BY
JAMES STANSFELD, Esq., M.P.
PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE GARIBALDI ITALIAN UNITY COMMITTEE.
LONDON:
JAMES RIDGWAY, 169, PICCADILLY,
EFFINGHAM WILSON, 11, ROYAL EXCHANGE.
EDINBURGH: ADAM & CHARLES BLACK.
��fenMbi (JMxmt Bnxtg gummite-
The following Lectures and Speeches are published at the request of
the Executive of the Garibaldi Italian Unity Committee, viz.:—
P. A. Taylor, M.P., Chairman.
W. H. Ashurst, Treasurer.
J. Sale Barker,
W. J. Linton.
W. T. Malleson, B.A.,
William Shaen, M.A.,
R. E. Wainewright, B.A.
J. M. Moir, M.A., Secretary.
March, 1862,
10, Southampton Street, Strand, London.
s
��TWO LECTURES,
&C.
■
LECTURE I.
It is not unusual, I believe, for a Lecturer to commence his
address by some prefatory remarks, intended to demonstrate
the interest and importance of his subject to his hearers. But
my subject needs no such introduction, and if I fail to make it
interesting, the fault will be my own.
Nevertheless, it may be well at the outset of what I have to
say, to endeavour not to prove the interest of my subject, but
to ascertain what are the essential elements and the attributes
of the Italian Question which make it one of so great interest,
of such special import to ourselves.
Tn the first place then Italy has the greatest past of any nation.
She has been mistress of the Pagan and of the Christian
world. She has suffered centuries of decay, of disintegration,
of what seemed death—and it was death—but death precedes
resurrection, and Italy is being born again and to a purer life.
How can we then choose but look upon her regeneration with
the interest which belongs to so great a past, and with that
mingled sense of veneration and of joy, with which we greet
the spectacle, with all its wondrous meaning, of a nation’s life
providentially renewed.
Let us descend from the height of this generality to think of
the living human tender interest inspired by a nearer view of
d;he more immediate past. Count, if you could count them,
B
�2
>
Italy’s martyr heroes in exile, in the dungeon, on the scaffold,
or dying on the field ; from Silvio Pellico to Petroni, from the
brothers Bandiera to Pisacane and Rosolino Pilo, from Joseph
Andreoli and Menotti to Ugo Bassi, Ciceroacchio and the
Canon Tazzoli. From those times so near us as some twenty
years ago, when Joseph Mazzini wrote “ The shadow of des
*
potism is cast on the whole land, on virtue as on vice, on life
and death; one would imagine that the very steps of the
scaffold were clothed with velvet, so little sound do those youth
ful heads make which roll down from them”—down to these
later days when the task of silent martyrdom is over and the
struggle is in the face of day.
And yet alas, even now how many are the noble men
who suffer death that Italy may be, and we know them not, or
their names die from us in the great whirl of time, save for the
few with whom the accidental privilege of personal relation
ship—sad and anxious privilege as it has often proved—has
made them rank us brothers. I have been of these few; for
this reason I am here to-night, for I may say that this Italian
Movement as far as their part in it has been concerned, has been
since 1848, a large part of my daily life. No forlorn hope has
since then been led—precursor of the successes which now fill
us with delight,—that has not numbered personal friends of
mine among its bravest leaders. The dungeons of the Pope
are still crowded with men whose crimes will rank as virtues
when her capital is restored to the Italian nation, amongst
whom I could name men of the highest character and of the
purest devotion, for whom, those whom I love have been pining
night and day for years. Let me recal two names, especially
dear to me of those who are no more. I knew Colonel
Pisacane the forerunner of Garibaldi, who fell in 1857 in an
unsuccessful attempt to raise the Neapolitan provinces against
their deceased king. He was a man of great military capacity,
of enlightened intellect, of high soul and of an absolute devo
tion ; and it was my privilege to call him friend. Rosolino
Pilo too, I knew, and cherish his memory with a peculiar'
affection. You may remember his name, though I know not,
* “ State and Prospects of Italy,” Monthly Chronicle, May, 1839.
�3
for he died too soon to reap the reward of an extended fame—
Rosolino Pilo, the gentle and the brave, without whom the late
insurrection in Sicily might have been crushed out at once, he
kept it alive in the mountains round Palermo until Garibaldi
could come to save it, with his genius and his prestige—and was
then wounded to the death. I might almost say that it was from
my own threshold that he went forth to buy with his life’s blood
the redemption of the country which had been his cradle, and
which was to become his grave.
But let us turn again to considerations of a more general
nature. The Italian movement is above all else one of
national reconstruction or rather of national regeneration.
A few years ago my first business would have been to
prove this, to show that this and not merely some portion
of liberty and reform was the goal towards which all Italy
was striving, and which she was destined to attain. Now
I may start with the assumption of that which all of us
believe, and, this brings me to the next attribute of special
interest in this Italian movement, which I desire to note.
By virtue of its national character, of which it has forced
the consciousness upon us, it has opened our eyes to the
fact that what we call the question of nationalities, is the
great European question of the day. The example of Italy is
contagious and acts directly on the peoples; wherever there is
a sense of national individuality unrecognized or oppressed, the
peoples are astir. I speak not merely of such well recognized
nationalities as those of the Polish and the Magyar races, but
of all those various tribes which people the South East of
Europe, and which are kept together for the time in unnatural
bonds, by the iron rule of Austria or the decaying empire of the
Turks. The organization of these minor nationalities is a
necessary work, perhaps of the immediate future. Italy tells us
so, she heralds and she hastens the advent of the problem to
be solved. The fact of Italy’s reconstruction has another prac
tical interest for us. She has been for centuries the battle-field
of rival ambitions in Europe, and the spoil of the victor. She
will now cease to be a cause of war; she should become a
guardian of the peace. One great element in the creed of
b 2
�modern European statesmanship, is what is called the “ Balance
of Power,”—a phrase dating from Richelieu, who feared or pro
fessed to fear the preponderance of the House of Hapsburg,
which was often used against France, during the wars about the
Spanish succession, and which is referred to in the treaty of
Utrecht between England and Spain (February 1713) as “the
best and firmest support of a mutual friendship and of a durable
understanding.”
Now this phrase the il Balance of Power ” is beginning to be
considered by some as the expression of a rather antiquated
doctrine. But the truth is that it is only the old methods,
dynastic alliances, or treaties to counteract them, that are be
coming out of date. A true “ Balance of Power” is still essen
tial to European peace, and to that confidence which should
save us the cost and the danger of constantly preparing for
war; but it needs to be constructed on some fixed and per
manent basis, and to have added to it, as an equally important
safeguard, the removal of occasions and temptations which lead
to war. Now the principle of the organization of European
states according to nationalities, would, as far as the’west and
centre of Europe are concerned, give us this fixed basis and this
additional safeguard,—an united Italy, and an united Germany,
would be France for all aggressive purposes disarmed.
An additional source of practical and immediate interest to
us in the Italian national movement, is to be found in the
influence it has had upon our own foreign policy, an influence
beneficial in two ways. In the first instance it has, I might
almost say, given us for the first time, a foreign policy based
upon an intelligible principle. The principle is that of “Non
intervention;” not the barren fact, without sympathy, or sense
of duty, or of right, but the principle, to be observed, to be
upheld, and as far as reason and prudence may allow, to be
enforced in the counsels of Europe. I may say that it is the
doctrine of Nationalities which has served to moralize the
doctrine of “ Non-intervention” and to elevate it to the height
of a principle capable of ruling the foreign policy of our
country.
A short time ago, some time in September I think, a well
�known statesman, and a brilliant writer and orator, Sir Edward
Bulwer Lytton, addressed the Hertfordshire Agricultural
Society, on the great political changes which had in the course
of the preceding year passed over both the old world and the
new. His speech was not a party speech, or I should not refer
to it here. He spoke for all Britain, and for statesmen of all
parties. He said that foreigners all misunderstood the foreign
policy of this country; and he undertook in a few words to
explain it. He said that England was a free nation, and that
therefore her Statesmen and her Ministers must consult popular
opinion, but popular opinion sided with the free; he said that
it was our interest that good government should be established
everywhere, because under good government the interchange of
commerce could be promoted, and the spread of freedom
abroad widened the market for English manufactures ; that we
had an interest therefore not in tyrannies and in revolutions,
but in the rise and prosperity of free peoples who would accept
our own temperate form of constitutional government; and if
we must further explain our policy, he added, it was that in the
rise of a free people we might expect an ally in our sympathies
for freedom, and a customer in that prosperity which is the
companion of free political opinions. “ There was the whole
key to the great principle of British foreign policy.”
Now I not only object to this as a definition of what our foreign
policy ought to be, but as a definition of what it is. I don’t think
tthat interest qualified by popular sympathies, is the key of the great
principle of British foreign policy. Iam sure that this is not what
is at the bottom of the mind and of the heart of Britain in the
matter. The leading doctrine of our foreign policy zof to
day is, as I have said “ non-intervention ” and thanks to Italy,
non-intervention in the sense in which I have explained it. Now
this doctrine was born of the desire of peace. We all desire
peace, for we know the cost of war; and England specially
desires peace, because if she were to find, in principle or in
sympathy, a righteous cause of war, she feels no sufficient
assurance that the war would be so conducted or would so
^eventuate as to serve the cause she might have it at heart to
aid. Non-intervention began then as a kind of rule for our
�selves. It was our interest for the sake of peace and it kept us
out of mischief’s way. But considered simply as a rule for
ourselves you will see that it tended logically and inevitably to
the negation of all foreign policy; and it has by some been
carried almost this length. But this was not what England
meant or what she ever would or ever will, I trust, accept. She
sought a foreign policy which should be intelligible, abiding and
at her own control; for this she had need of a principle, and
she found it in the doctrine of non-intervention elevated and
moralized, as I have said. And at the bottom of such doctrine
so accepted and imposed is I say not the notion of interest—that
would never lead us to a principle—but the notion of duty and
of right. We say that each people has the right to shape out
its own national life, and that no foreign power has the right to
interfere to prevent it. We sympathize with a people struggling
to liberate itself from domestic tyranny, but we believe that it
must effect its own emancipation. Where our consciences
point out to us a people dismembered, or partly, or wholly
under the rule of a foreign power, we recognise its right to
work out or to re-establish its national independent existence,
and we say that no other nation has the right to aid such foreign
power in forcibly retaining its wrongful rule. And we believe
it not only to be our interest but our duty, to do what we can
wisely do, to promote an acceptance of this principle and to
procure an observance of this rule of public right and wrong.
Our statesmen used to talk about non-intervention between the
different states of Italy, as if those states could have any rights
which were not subordinate to that of the whole Italian people.
“Non-intervention” led them some short time ago to the
absurdity of saying, that if Venice sought to free herself from
the yoke of Austria, she must do so without the aid of that
portion of Italy already free. We have widened the basis and
raised the level of our idea ; we now deny the right of Germany
to aid Austria, when Italy shall feel the time is ripe to claim
her own.
The Italian question has helped to moralize our foreign
policy in another way. It has roused us, the nation, to dictate
and to control that policy, and it inaugurates the new era, in
�7
which public opinion and public sympathy assert their supe
rior right to the secret or traditional diplomacy of statesmen or
of Courts.
Lastly, the Italian question is deeply, solemnly interesting to
us as a Protestant community. I use the word in no narrow or
antagonistic sense; I mean to us as a community believing in
freedom of conscience as between man and man. We have
not to wait for the destruction of the temporal power of the
Papacy; the temporal power that now supports the Pope is not
that of Papacy; it is that of France. The sham that still re
mains will ere long be swept away. But what we may with
confidence look forward to as a future result of the conflict
between Italy and the Papacy, as a first fruit of that new and
conscious freedom and responsibility which this national up
rising is already calling forth, is a Reformation of the Catholic
Church—not our Reformation, for history does not repeat her
self, and nothing spontaneous can be a copy of what has gone
before, but, nevertheless, a movement of religious reformation
pregnant with the most vital consequences to the Christian
world, and certainly beneficial in its influence on the spirit of
freedom and of faith; and this we shall owe to Italy—born
again into the world, not without purpose in the evolution of the
providential scheme.
We believe in Italy at last. We think that we understand her
movement, and that we can no longer be deceived. Indeed
since we have mastered the notion of national regeneration as
the aim of Italy, we rightly feel that we hold the clue to that
movement, the key to any phenomena it may present, the test,
largely speaking, of the accuracy of what people may wish to
persuade us of in point of facts. And, in truth, since this cha
racter of the movement has become patent to demonstration,
not only to us, but to Europe, none but a few Ultramontane
journals have ventured to dispute the right or the tendency of
the Italian people.
I need hardly say that success has had much to do with this;
there is indeed nothing which succeeds like it, as the French
say. It helped England to the completion of her faith in Italy
—it gave to her her faith in Cavour, in spite’of his French
�alliance and the sacrifice of Savoy and Nice. But the inB
fluence of this faith and of this success cannot alone lead
us to an accurate comparative appreciation of what I may
call the inner life of this movement, of the action and counter
action of the various parties in Italy, each, in their own
way, contributing to the solution of the national problem. Any
man, not somewhere behind the scenes, dependent on the
daily press alone for his impressions, must, if he endeavours
to form precise notions at all, become sadly perplexed by the
conflicting views presented to him. Newspaper corresponden
cies and leading articles, too often like multiplied addresses of
counsel learned in the law, skilled in the arts and trained to
the habit of advocacy, perplex the mind of the Jury of the
nation, if it has nothing else on which to build its verdict, until, like
common juries, it is apt to take refuge in mere impressions,
and almost to resent any appeal to its more careful discrimi
nation. Such task of careful discrimination indeed we cannot
undertake from day to day; we cannot always keep on guard
against the possibility of false impressions; and it is for this
reason that I think, and that I assume you think it to be of use
and of interest occasionally to compare notes, somewhat deli
berately, to endeavour again to build up the elementary outlines
of our knowledge, to refresh ourselves with a text-book of our
own making, and to renew our tests of truth.
In the outline which I shall now give of the Italian move
ment, I shall naturally, though without any very formal plan,
perform this office for myself as for those who hear me. I
shall do this from a certain point of view, for how can there be
opinions of any value without a certain point of view ? That
point of view, I believe, you know. My familiarity is not with
the Ministerial but with what is called the National party in
Italy ; my interest in the question dates from them ; you have a
right to say that my prepossessions will be in their favour; but
I do not think that they have met with such plentiful advocacy
of late as to induce you, on that account, to regret hearing me.
I shall state their case as I see it, but in doing so I shall ask
you to believe me when I say that I have never, in my own
mind, confounded retaliation with defence. I do not trace in
�9
myself the slighest predisposition to react against injustice by
the like. I have ever felt that true friendship never doubting of
itself or fearing doubt, pays its best homage in endeavouring to
be just. It is an homage undoubtedly due to the National
party of Italy, for, all things considered, it is a generous party,
and furnishes instances of the highest self-abnegation, of the
truest-minded self-devotion to the country and the cause.
What, however, I shall say of and for that party, I shall ask
you to depend upon, as knowledge, not opinion merely; for 1
have known that party, and some of its leaders, in the greatest
intimacy, for years.
Italy was one under the Romans, and yet it was not Italy but
Rome that ruled the world. In those days of universal
dominion, the principle of nationality had not yet begun to play
its part in the organization of the world. Then came the decay
of that mighty empire of the Romans, for its work was done,
and a new work was to begin. The northern hordes, migrating
en masse from northern Europe and from Asia, overran the whole
of Europe, sometimes sweeping away whole populations, some
times assimilating with them, remaking and redistributing the
material of European communities; modern nationalities, not
even yet all wrought out into an abiding harmony, being their
result. Two or three centuries of this work of assimilation
sufficed for Italy, and you already find her leading minds, Dante,
Machiavelli, with others of less note, dreaming of a Nation
to come. The first form of renewed life and progress in Italy
was, as elsewhere, municipal. In those barbarous and feudal
times industry collected itself in walled cities and organized for
defence. In Italy because, on the one hand, of the fecund
genius of the people, and on the other of the absence of any
great ruling central power, this new life of Europe had the
most brilliant results. Italy took the lead at once in com
merce and in arts; her merchant princes rivalled monarchs in
splendour and ambition, and excelled them in culture ; cities
became states, aimed at supremacy over their fellows, and in
dulged in the luxury of war. It has been, until a very recent
date, an almost universal habit to cite these wars and jealousies
�10
q
of the Italian Republics of the Middle Ages, as evidences that
Italy was not and could not be, even now, ripe to become a
nation. We borrowed this notion from M. Sismondi, the great
author of the “ History of the Italian Republics.” The destruc
tion of the republic of Florence, and the peace between
Charles V. and Pope Clement VII. in 1530, seemed to him the
death of Italy ; but we now know that neither Emperor nor
Pope, neither Guelph nor Ghibelline, neither foreign or priestly
rule, have any hold whatever on the mind or on the heart of the
Italian people. It was a question of faith or want of faith in
progress and the future. Was Italy, or was she not, at some
future time, again to take her place among the nations ? With
out such faith, the mind naturally, dwelt among the divisions of
the past—and none more likely to do so than the man who had
made of that past his special study—and found in it confirma
tion of its scepticism. But once given that general faith in the
future and a just retrospect of the past tells a very different
tale. The life of the Italian republics was not a national but a
municipal life, on however splendid a scale ; those wars and
jealousies were not between incipient nations but dominant
municipalities, Milan, Florence, Como, Pisa, Sienna, Venice,
Bologna, and so forth. And since those times these very
cities have for centuries been joined under successive though
varying territorial governments ; forgetting their rivalries under
centuries of common slavery, or giving a proof of their readi
ness to unite in a common national life, as when, for instance,
Napoleon included them all in the kingdom of North Italy in
1802. A nation wants good boundaries, an indubitable capital,
and a greater power of attraction of the whole upon its several
parts than any neighbouring national unit can exercise upon
them. This (or even less than this) gives you the virtual
nation, which once realized in fact, must hold itself together
and increase in its cohesive force. Italy has the Alps and the
sea for her boundaries, and Rome for her capital; and I confess
that from the first moment that I turned my thoughts to the
Italian question, it seemed to me clear that the problem was to
found the nation, but that once constituted, it would have the
elements of a nationality as compact and homogeneous as that of
�11
France herself. Napoleon himself said at St. Helena that
Unity of manners, of language, of literature, must at a future
more or less remote, end in bringing her inhabitants under
one government.” In 1814 Napoleon walking along the sea
shore of the island of Elba, with a young Italian, and looking
across to the peninsula, suddenly asked, “ What do the Italians
think of me ? ” “ They would love your majesty more had you
given them unity,” was the reply; “ they are right,” said the
Emperor; “ I did not think that they would go so far towards
that goal. They have exceeded my expectations.”
Immediately before Napoleon, Piedmont and Savoy belonged
to the House of Savoy, but Genoa was republican, and so was
Venice; then all the rest was Austrian, or under Austrian in
fluence ; the Pope at Rome, the kingdom of rhe Two Sicilies
reigned over by the Spanish Bourbons, Lombardy Austrian,
and the dukedoms of Modena, Parma and Piacenza, and Tus
cany ruled by princes of the House of Austria. You will mark
here sources of rivalry between Governments, but no element
beneath the surface likely to be antagonistic to the reconstitu
tion of the nation. The only indigenous governments were that
of the kingdom of Savoy, then a despotism, and the republics
of Genoa and of Venice; all other frontier lines marked out
simply the possessions or the indirect dependencies of Austria.
Then came the period of Napoleon—a step towards unity;
after various changes the kingdom of Italy down to Ancona
in the Papal States, except Parma in the hands of a sister of
the Emperor, Naples and Sicily ruled first by Joseph and then
by Murat, all, in fact, Napoleonic, with the nominal exception
of Rome.
The downfall of Napoleon and the treaties of Vienna of 1815,
brought Austria back in more than her former power. Venice
was given with Lombardy to Austria, with the right of garrison
ing Ferrara and Comacchio ; Tuscany, with the addition of
the island of Elba, to Ferdinand of Austria; Parma to Marie
Louise, who was Austrian ; Modena to the Austrian House of
Este ; Genoa was added to the territories of the House of
Savoy ; the Roman states of course went to the Pope; the two
Sicilies to the Bourbons again. The Allied Powers seemed to
�12
think only of dispossessing France ; they recognized no right
in the Italian people, I will not say to national unity, but to
Governments which should at least not be foreign to the soil.
And yet they had endeavoured to turn Italy against Napoleon
by promises of independence, and at the time of his fall they
had the ample evidence of addresses from the army and the
national guard, from commercial bodies of men, and from deputies
of the kingdom of Italy, sent to Paris immediately on the abdi
cation of Napoleon, to show them that what above all things
Italy dreaded and protested against was the being given back
to Austrian rule. In the report of those deputies to the Presi
dent of the Regency at Milan, I find that after fruitless commu
nications with the representatives of Russia and of Prussia,
they addressed themselves to our representatives, Lord Castlereagh and Lord Aberdeen. Count Frederick Confalonieri,
their spokesman, saying, “Although our country has never tasted
the advantage of a political and national existence, she has
been taught these twenty years to desire such an existence.
The sheer hope, and the bare name of nation have impelled
her to sacrifices of all kinds * * * we are not the men of
twenty years ago, and it is impossible for us to become so, save
by renouncing habits and sentiments grown part of our system
and dear to a nation endowed with intelligence, energy, and
passions, that has acquired a large experience of political mat
ters, and that has learnt also to war * * The best interests of
*
.
our nation (the Count is here in truth speaking of Northern
Italy, which Napoleon erected into a kingdom and which fur
nished him with some of his best troops), requires and demands
a king; and let this king be even an Austrian, our wishes will
be accomplished; all that we desire is to obtain an existence
independent of other states, and a Constitution or National
Representation.” But it was not to be; Italy was conquered
from Napoleon, and was parcelled out as so much booty in the
general spoil. From these iniquities sprang the partial revolu
tions of 1820, 1821, and 1831; the national rising of 1848, and
the late war, together with the number of minor or abortive
attempts, and the constant conspiracies which have followed
each other almost year by year since the Treaties of 1815.
�13
The insurrection of July 1820, took place in Naples, the
army bore part in it; in six days, without resistance or blood
shed, so universal was the movement, the king yielded, and
granted a Constitution. In March, of the following year, an
Austrian army entered the kingdom and despotism was restored.
The insurrection of March, 1821, was Piedmontese, it was
also the work of the army, and succeeded without bloodshed in
three days; on the fourth day the king, Victor Emmanuel, bound
by oaths to Austria not to grant a Constitution, abdicated, and
a Constitutional system was proclaimed. In April it was sup
pressed, and despotism and the king restored by Austrian arms.
Both of these movements were the work of the Carbonari,
amongst whom were enrolled Prince Francis, of Naples, and
Charles Albert, then Prince of Carignano, and heir to the
throne of Savoy. The former was a traitor from the first—the
latter having approved of the movement on the 8th of March,
prepared the next day to prevent it at Turin, but it broke out
on the 10th at Alexandria, and he was himself proclaimed
Regent on the abdication of the king.
The insurrection of Central Italy in 1831, had its source in a
conspiracy dating from the previous year, in Modena, which
had proposed to place the Duke of Modena at the head of the
Italian movement. But this part of the scheme was afterwards
abandoned. The conspirators, with young Menotti at their
head, were betrayed; on the 2nd of February the Duke sur
rounded his house—the conspirators resisted, cannon were
brought to play against them ; at the sound the people rose in
all the neighbouring towns, and in three weeks Parma, Modena,
and the northern half of the Papal States, embracing some two
million and a-half of inhabitants, were in arms. The instinct
of the people was already Italian, they sought to invade Tus
cany and Naples, and to bring about an insurrection at Genoa,
and to march on Rome ; but the Provisional Governments of
Parma, Modena, and Bologna, opposed and prevented all such
movements.
They were not men of revolutionary capacity, they did not
even take any efficient means to prepare for defence, they
sought to moderate the movement and to give it an inoffensive
�14
aspect to the powers of Europe, they believed that if they, not
the originators of the Movement, but being now placed at its
head, proved themselves peaceful and unaggressive. Austria
would not invade, and they knew that otherwise they had no
thing to fear. They had some plausible reasons for their belief.
France had just declared strongly for enforcing non-intervention
with a high hand. On Dec. 1, 1830, M. Lafitte president of the
Council, anticipating disturbances in Italy, had said in the
chambers, “ France will not allow the principle of non-interven
tion to be violated ; but she will labour to prevent peace being
compromised if possible, and if war becomes inevitable, it must
be proved that we had no choice between it and the abandon
ment of our principles.” A note was shown at Bologna, whose
authenticity has however been denied, signed by the French
Ambassador at Naples, pledging France beforehand “to support
Bologna on condition that the government should not assume
an anarchical form, and that it should recognize the principles
which had been declared in the face of Europe—true or not,
the provisional governments, on the faith of it, tempered or
rather emasculated the movement, and relied on France. It is
said that Louis Philippe, to avoid the fulfilment of his pro
mises, and to give time to Austria, kept back from his Minister
Lafitte for five days, the despatch of the French Ambassador
at Vienna, announcing the Austrian invasion. The Austrian
intervention took place first in Parma and Modena, Austria
declaring that she did so to protect her reversionary rights—for
these duchies you will remember were given by the treaties of
1815, to Austrian princes—and that if Bologna remained peace
ful she would be respected. This was in the beginning of
March—on the 20th, the Austrians were at the gates of Bologna
—on the 26th, the capitulation including an amnesty was signed,
to be# afterwards violated by Rome; then followed a mass of
proscriptions and imprisonments. Young Menotti died on the
gallows on March 23rd. He had been wounded on the 2nd
February at Modena, taken prisoner by the Duke, and dragged
away with him in his flight. Italy was again at peace,.
I must ask you to note here that with the failure of the move
ment of 1831 died out, in Italy, the institution, if I may say so,
�15
of Carbonarism. Our notions of Carbonarism have been, in
this country, of the vaguest. We have been accustomed to
hear of it as of a terrible system of secret societies, democratic
in their origin, anarchical in their views, shunned by all decent
men and yet hardly now extinct, and with the dagger as their
sole weapon and device. These notions of ours have not only
been vague, but also about as inaccurate as notions could be.
Carbonarism existed in Italy already in the time of Napoleon.
It was a system of secret societies without a positive political
programme of faith, and in this it was an offspring of the times ;
it was an expression of a state of mind whose function is to
render impossible an existing state of things and to destroy it;
analogous, I might say, to those periods of religious anarchy
and scepticism which precede the dawning of a new faith.
Italy had not yet begun to formalize the faith of her regenera
tion, though I have already given evidences of the existence at
that date of the germs of such faith. Carbonarism was an un
reasoning instinctive creation. Italy conspired a tout prix leav
ing to chance, opportunity, or the discretion of unknown leaders,
to decide the time and the aim : at any rate such action could not
be for the worse, must in fact, be for some measure of liberty
and independence. Then as to the method of conspiracy, this
also partook of the^nature of the times and the character of
the association. It was necessary to ensure secresy and fidelity,
and they were sought for in the modes which had been handed
down and familiarized to men’s minds by the secret societies of
the middle ages, by processes of initiation, by oaths and gro
tesquely fearful ceremonies, intended to impress the imagina
tion of the adept, and to ensure his blind obedience and his
faith. Terrible penalties hung over the heads of those who
should henceforth falter or betray ; and vengeance followed
treason, actual or supposed;—though the love of the -terrible
and the unknown has undoubtedly exaggerated the number of
such instances of vengeance or punishment. On the other hand
Carbonarism was not anarchical in its objects, because the
spirit of Italy was not anarchical, but was already, though half
iinconsciously, seeking a new and better, a more stable and
orderly as well as a freer life. The movements of 1820 and
�16
1821, which I have described, were entirely the work of Car-j
bonarism, that of 1831 also partially, although it was already on
the decline, and in those movements we have seen want of
national faith, want of energy and direction, and hence failure,
but of the spirit of anarchy, nothing. Lastly, Carbonarism
has been laid as a convenient reproach at the door of Italian
Democracy. Reproach or not, this is the greatest mistake of
all. Its great efforts were the movements of 1820 and 1821,
revolutionary but not democratic movements, the heirs apparent
of Naples and of Piedmont were its sworn adepts, the army its
instrument. The last effort, only partially its own, was the
revolution of the centre in 1831. Then it passed away, and
then, and not till then, appeared upon the scene the small be
ginning of that national democratic agitation, which has since
played so important and in some respects, I think, so little
understood a part in the reconstruction of the unity of the
Italian nation.
On the ruins of Carbonarism was founded the society “ La
Giovine Italia” (young Italy) the work of Joseph Mazzini.
Its initiators, with their chief, were all young men, full of the
enthusiasm of a national faith, deeply impressed with the
illusions and the failures of 1820 and 1831, and professing a
republican creed. There was nothing to hope from Italian
princes—they had ceased to conspire and betray: nothing to
hope from cautious diplomatic courses intended as in 1831, to
conciliate Europe, and to ward off the intervention of Austria;
everything to fear from the weak leadership of men, who from
motives of such sort would be certain to denationalize and to
emasculate any movement, the control of which should be en
trusted to their hands. No possible salvation save in proclaim
ing at once their great end, the liberty, independence, and
unity of the whole nation, and in setting themselves to the task
of arousing the whole nation to its conception and accomplish
ment. I will give you the creed and the policy of the new
association in the words of its author.
*
“They had examined
* Vide “ Letters on the State and Prospects of Italy,” by Joseph Mazzini,
Nos. I. to IV., Monthly Chronicle, 1839, from which much of this historical
sketch of the movements in which Carbonarism played out its part, is derived’
�17
| with care the movements of 1831, and had deduced from this
examination, that there was in Italy no deficiency of revolu
tionary elements but of a guiding spirit * * * they aspired to
be not simply revolutionary but regenerative * ** * to rouse
the different Italian States to revolt was not their object, their
sole endeavour was to create the nation * * * they felt that at
bottom the question was no other than the grand problem of
National Education, and arms and insurrection were for them
only the means, without which, from the state of Italy, it was
impossible to accomplish this * * * the Association resolved to
disguise nothing and to sacrifice nothing. It presented itself
as it was, as the tendencies and exigencies of Italy, it believed,
required it to be, an association republican and indivisible. * * *
It exposed the errors of 1831 ; it separated itself from the past.
It repeated everywhere that the salvation of Italy was in the
people, that the grand lever of the people was action; that it
El was necessary to act without ceasing, without discouragement,
without being intimidated by reverses at first, and always in the
name of Italy and for the whole pf Italy. “ It is possible,” it
said, “ that you will succumb, but even then you will instead of
falling basely and without effect, have educated the country; a
« great principle will survive you, and the generation which fol
lows you will read upon your tombs the programme of the Italy
to come.”
I I have read to you these words of Mazzini, at some length,
because, though written years ago, they continue to be the true
key of every movement of his party in Italy from that day to
the present. It is a programme so utterly at variance with our
ordinary, what we call practical notions, that I believe it to be
difficult for many of us even to realize and to comprehend it;
and yet it is of immense interest as the expression of the actual
I rule of conduct of the Party of Action in Italy for thirty years.
I It has educated the nation to the belief in Unity, and to the
needful determination of incessant action to attain it. Not
only Italy but Europe knows that there is no peace possible
till Italy be one. It is true that the practical accomplish
ment of this task has passed, not, however, as I shall hereafter
show, so largely as is generally believed, into other hands. But
c
�18
what higher tribute, I would ask, could be paid to the sound
ness of a principle or a faith, wThat more conclusive testimony
of the hold which it has obtained upon a nation, than that the
supposed decline of the party who originated it should date
from the adoption, more or less, of their principle and their
object by other parties in the state ? What is called the Pied
montese or Moderate Party dates its successes from the moment
when it also gave itself by its own methods to this nation’s
work ; and to pursue, in some manner, without ceasing, this
task, is even now the very term of its power and existence.
You will note that the republican creed of the founders of
Young Italy was not, if I may so say, of the essence of their
faith. It rather served to define their party; it represented the
actual tendency of the young and rising intellect of the day
in their country and the popular instincts of those most likely
among the people to aid them in their work. It was -well to
proclaim it, because there was then nothing to hope from
monarchy, and because its open avowal would give numbers,
enthusiasm, and unity to their ranks. But the object of their
faith, and the great aim of all their labours being the resusci
tated nation, they could not purpose to impose on it a creed,
which it might or might not accept, and it would always be
their duty to subordinate their special political views to the
accomplishment of the great object to which they had devoted
their lives. And I shall show you, I hope, before I have done,
that they have not failed in the observance of so clear a duty.
The Giovine Italia was, as I have said, reared on the ruins
of Carbonarism. The method of its organization, and of its
labours partook of the nature of the ideas on which it was
founded. I shall give you here again the very words of its
founder:—
“ Having principles and reckoning upon them rather than
on the power of mystery and of symbols, it rejected all the
complete machinery of the Carbonarian hierarchy and all the
pomp which was only calculated to hide the absence of real
purpose. It had a central committee abroad, and interior pro
vincial committees directing the ‘ practical conspiracy having
to initiate a work of education the Association only decreed
�19
' secresy as far as necessity required it, that is to say for its
interior operations; with respect to its existence, its object, its
.^hopes, its principles, it challenged publicity. The journal, La
Griovine Italia, was established at Marseilles, another journal in
Switzerland; catechisms of the new faith were printed and
clandestinely distributed with great labour, courage, and inged nuity throughout the peninsula. Their circulation was immense
and their effect also; organization commenced at every point,
and the first work of propagandism was an immense success.”
I quoted from the programme of Young Italy a few moments
ago, the doctrine of incessant action, of perpetually renewed
■ revolt. The party of Young Italy, or the Party of Action as
they came consequently to be called, have abided by that
doctrine; they have had some brilliant successes. I will in
stance the republic at Rome and the recent conquest of Sicily
and Naples to the new kingdom; but their career in action has,
as a logical and inevitable consequence of their fidelity to this
doctrine, been otherwise a succession of forlorn hopes ending
in temporary failure. Some of these have, within my know
ledge, only just escaped success; Austria could tell you how
nearly the attempt at Milan in February, 1853, succeeded in
■renewing the five days of 1848; but they did fail, and as failures
■they were judged, and not unreasonably judged by the world at
► large. But if we, outside of Italy, and only desiring rightly to
understand the regenerative movement of the country in all its
phases and in all its parts, would look this question more
closely in the face, we should have to remember that it is per| mitted to forlorn hopes, that it is of their very nature to be un
dertaken in the face of a preponderance of adverse chances,
because of the proportion ably great results of a successful issue;
and we, should recognise that these long series of attempts have,
after all, achieved their work of arousing the determined con
sciousness of the nation, and that the party which in accordance
with our naturally a priori unfavourable view, ought over and
over again, as, over and over again it has been said to have
been annihilated, has, nevertheless, gone on increasing in in.fluence and in boldness, and is only now less prominent and less
distinct because its preliminary educational task may be said to
c 2
�20
be complete, and it has but to share in the work to which all
parties in the nation havejiow set their hands.
The result of the labours of the Giovine Italia and the pro
gress of the Italian idea will be best understood by a short
reference to the movements of 1848 and 1849; they constitute,
too, the first chapter of the history of the relations of the
national party or party of action with the monarchy of Savoy,
now beginning to play its part also in the nation’s work. You
will remember that all Italy was already in a ferment in 1847,
before the revolution of 1848 in France which dethroned the
Orleans dynasty and gave the signal for the European move
ment of that year. Pius IX. had ascended the Papal chair in
1846, had granted an amnesty and promised administrative
reforms. The instinct of the Italian people seized upon the
occasion to further the national design. I will give you the
opinion of Prince Metternich of the nature and meaning of the
movement in the Roman states—it was afterwards amply veri
fied by facts. Writing to Count Dietrichstein, in a despatch
dated August 2, 1847, he says, “ Under the banner of Admini
strative Reform the factions are endeavouring to accomplish an
undertaking which could not be confined within the states of
the Church, nor within the limits of any one of the states which
in their ensemble constitute the Italian peninsula. The factions
seek to merge these states into one political body, or at least
into a confederation of states, subject to the direction of a cen
tral supreme power.”
The times were, indeed, evidently ripe for a great movement;
it was no longer a question of forlorn hopes; events might at
any moment precipitate the nation into the arena, and this
state of things brought a new party upon the field—the Mode
rate or Piedmontese party.
We left Charles Albert in 1821 affiliated to the Carbonari;
he had been a party to their conspiracy ; but with the weakness
peculiar to his character, he had sought at the last moment to
avert the insurrection. It succeeded, nevertheless, till Austria
intervened. Since his accession in 1831 Charles Albert had
reigned a despot; he, or those who represented him, for I donot wish to make him responsible for every mean or cruel
�21
act perpetrated in his name, had visited with a refined and
ferocious cruelty the insurrectionary attempts of patriots who
Still trod the path he had once professed to enter,—T allude
especially to the arrests of 1833. But the increasing ferment
of the Italian mind had taught him to look back upon the ambi
tion of his younger days, and to feel that the time was at hand
pwhen he might have, mutatis mutandis, to re-enact his part. The
idea of the Moderate party was to renewr the kingdom of Italy of
Napoleonic days, that is a kingdom of the north, to gain Charles
Albert to the cause by offering Lombardy and Venetia to be
snatched from Austria, as the price of his assistance, and thus
at the same time to stem the revolutionary tfde which might
unmake monarchy in building up the nation. I must ask you
to bear in mind this, the leading idea of the Moderate party of
a northern kingdom, for it is the key to the whole of their subse
quent policy. It was their aim in 1848—it ruined that move
ment, it ruined that campaign. It was the aim again of the
compact of Plombieres, and of the Franco-Italian campaign of
1859. That the nation went beyond it is due, not to the policy
of the Moderate party, but to the true instincts and the single
purpose of the Italian people. I shall proceed to illustrate the
truth of what I say. On the 18th March, 1848, Milan was in
insurrection against the Austrians, on the evening of the 22nd
Radetski fled, Charles Albert declared war against Austria on
the 23rd. Piedmont was already sharing in the excitement of
all Europe responsive to the revolution in France. On March
4th, the king having reigned seventeen years a despot, granted
a Constitution ; known as the statute, now the law, very inade
quate to its requirements, for a whole Italian people, for all
Italy save Rome and Venice- The king refused the first re
quest of Milan for his aid ; on the 21st he offered assistance on
condition that they should previously give themselves to him; on
the 23rd the Milanese had triumphed and he declared war;
on the same day Mr. Abercromby, our ambassador at Turin, re
ceived from the Foreign Minister a despatch stating the causes
and motives of the declaration of war. It justified that step on
the ground that the whole country was in insurrection, that
“ after the events in France the danger of the proclamation of a
�22
republic in Lombardy was imminent * * * that the situation of
Piedmont was such that at any moment, at the announcement
that the republic had been proclaimed in Lombardy, a similar
movement might burst forth in the states of his majesty, and
that the king thought himself obliged to take measures to pre
vent such a catastrophe for Piedmont and the rest of Italy.”*
When Charles Albert crossed the frontier the Lombard insur
rection was already victorious in every point. To the Austrians
remained only the Quadrilateral and 50,000 men, and all Italy
was hastening to the war; the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the
Pope, and the king of Naples, were compelled to furnish con
tingents for the crusade. Now, see the position; every other
ruler in Italy save Charles Albert was necessarily an unwilling
contributor to the common cause ; they had nothing to gain, for
if the north were freed it could not come to them, and with the
true instinct of self-preservation they feared the national move
ment which must ultimately sweep them away. The people,
with that weak faith in the professions of their princes, which
was one of the leading characteristics of the European revolu
tionary movement of 1848, believed them, in those moments of
common enthusiasm, to be sincere, but they did nothing wil
lingly against Austria, and, one by one, withdrew what troops
they could when dissension had crept in and the policy of the
monarchy of Savoy had chilled the enthusiasm and the hopes
of the nation.
Charles Albert, on the other hand, and his counsellors, had a
hope and a fear ; the hope was the kingdom of North Italy, the
fear was the republic. It w as this foolish fear which ruined the
campaign. Because of this fear the volunteers were dis
couraged, and the services of such men as Garibaldi and
Cialdini refused. Garibaldi summoned by Mazzini had already
sailed from Monte Video, before the news reached of any
Italian or European movement having taken place. When he
arrived Charles Albert was in the field, and his offers were
refused.
The provisional government of Lombardy, under the in
* Lord Ponsonby to Lord Palmerston.
Corr. Pt. II. p. 338.
Vienna, April 10, 1848.
Italian
�fluence of the King, refused to summon for a war of insurrec
tion in aid of the regular forces of Sardinia, the Italian exiles
who had gained their military experience in the insurrectionary
movements of Spain and Greece, and many of whom are now
to be found distinguished in the service of the present kingdom.
They said that no one knew where they could be found, Mazzini insisting, obtained authority to summon them. Among
them came Enrico Cialdini; he was refused, and said I “ will
not have journeyed here from Spain for nothing, before I
return I shall seek an Italian wound as a common soldier at
Venice”—he went there and was wounded in the ranks. Be
cause of this fear the king keeping near Milan and with his own
frontiers and capital protected by his rear, set himself to the
siege of the four fortresses, neglected the passes of the Alps,
which volunteers alone would have sufficed to seize and guard,
and kept altogether aloof from Venetia where the republican
flag was unfurled under Manin, even instructing his navy to
enter into no hostilities with Austrian men of war. He wanted
the courage to feel that if he trusted the nation and did the
nation’s work, his reward was assured. It was folly to fear
that a people which at the moment of a successful revolution
had abstained from pronouncing upon its future form of govern
ment leaving that to the nation after the successful termination
of the struggle, to decide, would have hesitated in accepting a
King who should have led them to victory.
The army of Radetsky though reduced to 50,000 was safe
within the Quadrilateral, and capable in any case of a prolonged
defence. If its communications were allowed to be kept up
with its base of operations, and reinforcements to be received,
it could only be a question of the time necessary for it to re
ceive sufficient reinforcements, for Radetsky again to take the
field with an army superior to any which the limited resources
of Piedmont could oppose. It was therefore vital to seize
Upper Venetia and the passes of the Alps, to cut off his sup
plies, and to isolate him within the line of his defences. In
that case, in the midst of a hostile population it could again
have been only a question of time, how soon he would have
been compelled to lay down his arms. These are of the very
�24
elements of strategy which any civilian may comprehend.
Charles Albert’s fearful policy made time the ally of his enemy
—and it was a fatal policy. In the beginning of August,
Charles Albert was already in retreat upon Milan, which under
a committee of defence of the nomination of Mazzini, accepted
by the provisional government, and of which General Fanti
was a member, in that moment of supreme danger, was making
most energetic preparations for defence. When Fanti and
Restelli went on the 3rd to Lodi to see the king and ascertain
his intentions, they were informed by General Bava, that the
king would march to the defence of Milan. The king entered
on the 4th, renewing the promise of defence—on the 5th, he
declared that the capitulation was already signed. The popu
lation incensed to fury, threatened his life—he declared that,
moved by their unanimous determination, he would remain and
fight to the death,—in the night he fled in secret and the cam
paign was at an end.
Of the events of 1849, I can hardly now stay to say a word.
We all know how republican Venice under Manin, continued
for a year to resist all the power of Austria by sea and land.
We can never forget the defence of Rome, whither or to Venice,
the republican volunteers repulsed from serving the country in
Lombardy repaired—the heroic defence of Rome under the
Triumvirate of which Mazzini was the chief—the brightest and
saddest page in the history of the Italian Movement. A defence
which, hopeless as it proved to be, was the greatest moral
victory, the most pregnant with consequences for the future,
which Italy has yet achieved. Rome fell after three months
siege, to the overpowering force and the matchless perfidy of
the French. I say that its hopeless defence was the greatest
of all moral victories for Italy. It was so, because it gave to
the unaided people a proof and a consciousness of its own
dignity and of its own faculties; it was so, because it upheld
for three months against the forces of France, Austria, Naples,
and Spain, the national flag in Rome, the future capital of the
nation, and because it shewed what Italian volunteers could do
against all present hope for the future of their country. Twice
were the French troops attacked at the point of the bayonet
�25
and repulsed far beyond the walls. The first occasion was on
the 30th of April, 1849; within a few days a Neapolitan army
of 15,000 men, led by the king in person, encamped at Albano,
some 15 miles from Rome, and on the 10th of May the French
troops again attacked and were again repulsed. On the 19th
of May an armistice was concluded, and negotiations com
menced with Lesseps the French envoy, pending which the
little army at Rome marched against the Neapolitan king at
Velletri, and put him ignominiously to flight; laying the founda
tion for Garibaldi of that wondrous prestige which enabled him
a year ago to free Sicily and Naples, with a handful of volunteers
opposed to an army of 100,000 men, to enter the capital alone,
and to drive the son of Bomba to seek refuge in an almost im
pregnable fortress. On the 31st of May the French envoy
signed a convention between the Roman assembly and himself,
on the ratification of which, by General Oudinot and the French
Government, the gates were to be opened to the army of France,
with a new armistice to be, in case of non-ratification of the
convention, prolonged for fifteen days. The General refused
his assent and produced private instructions of his own, but
promised not to recommence the attack before
the
*
4th of June.
To his eternal infamy, and that of the government which he
served, he forfeited his word, attacked by surprize in the night
of the 2nd and the defence was at an end. And throughout
the whole of this unequal struggle, not only Rome but all the
Roman states remained faithful to the Assembly and Govern
ment of their own choice, and to the flag of the nation which
they had commissioned them to raise and to defend. That
unanimity was the downfall of the temporal papacy, the
thunders of the Vatican were henceforth to rank as stage tricks
to an accustomed audience,—the papal chair must rest on
French bayonets or tumble to the ground. And the protest of
that sublime defence was more, it determined the nature of her
future efforts to all Italy, it rendered impossible at any moment
the adoption by Italy of any other goal but unity, it bound
Italy, without the possibility of being led, or driven, or com
pelled astray, to its accomplishment. Rome for her capital, the
sea and the Alps her frontier lines, were the inevitable future
�26
of the Italian people. And I beg you mark, as if to enhance
the value of this protest and this proof, the triumvirate of men
who ruled Rome during the defence, was chosen for this spe
cial task, on the receipt of the intelligence that Charles Albert’s
renewed campaign had terminated within a few days of its com
mencement, with the disastrous and fatal defeat of Novara.
And thus it was that Italy made her experience of Monarchy
and Republicanism, as agencies towards the achievement of
the national unity.
Such were the efforts, and such the
failures of 1848 and 1849.
My next theme will be the lessons which Italy thereby learned,
and the future action, and the future relation of parties, and of
the instinctive nation, to the present time.
�LECTURE II.
There were certain things made evident to demonstration
by the events of ’48 and ’49. I will clear the ground by stating
these results at once.
First, it was made clear that all Italy was, and would continue
to be, bent on driving out Austria and on accomplishing her
entire independence from foreign rule; and that Austria could
never hope to hold Venice and Lombardy save by the sword,—
in fine, that she was but encamped upon Italian soil, and that
it was a mere question of time and opportunity when the at
tempt to expel her would be again renewed.
Secondly, it was proved that the tendency, the instinct of the
nation was towards unity. To make this assurance doubly sure
there was the fact that with the exception of Piedmont, every
Italian government was necessarily pro-Austrian and antipopular, having nothing to hope and everything to fear from the
national tendency, bound therefore by the logic of its position
to suppress liberty even within its own territories at any risk;
and then there was also to be taken into account the fact of the
existence of a large, active, and restless popular party, with its
ramifications in all parts of the peninsula—the national or re
publican party, pledged and devoted ora e s&wpre to the accom
plishment of the unity as well as the independence of the
country.
Further, however weak and wavering might have been the
policy of Charles Albert, Piedmont stood alone as an Italian
state which had fought for Italy against Austria, and which could
be relied upon as hostile to Austria, which could afford to be
�28
faithful to the constitution which the events of ’48 had induced
it to accord to its own subjects, and which might have hopes for
the future in allying itself again with the nation’s cause.
Charles Albert had abdicated after the defeat of Novara, and
died broken-hearted in exile. His son, Victor Emmanuel,
reigned in his stead, a soldier of undoubted courage, loving
danger and the field, not indeed a man of high intellect or cha
racter, but without special kingly faults, and eager to avenge the
reverses which had brought his father to the grave. Then
there was the fact of the great emigration, especially from
Lombardy and Venice, of the youth who had fought as volun
teers, and who, establishing themselves in Piedmont, made that
state the home of the most eminently Italian element in the
country, and which constituted, or might be made to constitute,
a new link between Piedmont and the Italy which was to be.
All these were capabilities for Piedmont, and moving causes in
the direction of a national career.
There was another cause likely to induce constitutional Pied
mont with more or less of decision towards some sort of active
national policy. If Piedmont should refuse in any manner to
lend herself to the national cause, the nation would inevitably
throw herself into the arms of the republican party pledged to
action. Piedmont had to choose between abandoning Italy to
the republican party and ranking herself with the other doomed
princedoms of the centre and the south, or endeavouring, by a
possible active policy of her’ own, to draw the people to herself
and to centre their hopes upon her alliance.
Piedmont was bound, therefore, to some sort of Italian
national policy; and considering how much Italy has already
accomplished of her unity, so much so, indeed, that no policy
save that of an absolute completion of the task is any longer to
be dreamed of or suggested, and considering, too, how pre
dominately the credit and the practical fruits of that success
have, in the opinion of the world and in the possession of
power, enured to the benefit of the Moderate party, it would
seem natural to imagine that they, too, must have had the unity
of their country long in view, and that they can have differed
only from the National party as to the policy best adapted to
�29
the attainment of a common object; and yet I believe the ac
ceptance of the idea of Italian Unity, as an object of practical
statesmanship, by the leaders of the Moderate party, must be
admitted to be of a very recent date.
I will go back to Gioberti, who was the founder of that party:
in the Sardinian Chambers on the 10th of February, 1849, on
the eve of the short campaign which ended in the defeat of
Novara, Gioberti said—“ I consider the unity of Italy a chimera.
We must be content with its union.” And if you look to the
writings, the speeches, the acts, of all the leading men of the
Moderate party until a very recent period, you will find them
all, without exception, not only not propounding or advocating
unity, or directed to its accomplishment, but explicitly directed
to a different solution. You will find the proof of what I say
in Balbo’s “Hopes of Italy;” in Durando’s “ Essay on Italian
Nationality,” advocating three Italies, north, centre, and south;
in Bianchi Giovini’s work entitled “ Mazzini and his Utopias
and in Gualterio’s “Revolutions of Italy.” Minghetti, Ricasoli,
Farini, each and all have been the advocates of a confederation
of Princes rather than of a united Italy.
Let me come to Cavour. An attempt has recently been
made to claim for him the credit of having since the days
of his earliest manhood conceived the idea of making him
self the minister of a future united Italy. In an article in the
July “ Quarterly,” by a well known pen, a letter of Cavour,
written about 1829 or 1830, is cited in implied justification of
this claim. He had been been placed under arrest a short time
in the Fort de Bard, on account of political opinions expressed
with too much freedom. In a letter to a lady who had written
condoling with him on his disgrace, he says:—“I thank you,
Madame la Marquise, for the interest which you take in my
disgrace; but, believe me, for all that, I shall work out my
career. I have much ambition—an enormous ambition; and
when I become minister I hope to justify it, since already in my
dreams, I see myself Minister of the Kingdom of Italy.” Now
this is, I need not say, a most remarkable letter, and of the
greatest interest, as showing the confidence in his own future,
at so early an age, of one of the greatest statesman of our
�30
times. But no one acquainted with the modern history of Italy,
and familiar with its recognised phraseology, could read in this
letter the prophecy of that unity which is now coming to pass.
The “Kingdom of Italy” is a well known phrase, borrowed
from the time of Napoleon, and has always meant, until facts
have enlarged its significance, that kingdom of Northern Italy
whose precedent existed under Napoleon, which was the object
of Piedmontese policy in ’48 and ’49, and one of the explicit
terms of the contract of Plombieres in ’59. It is rather a
curious inconsistency in the article in question that it itself
furnishes ample evidence that the unity of Italy was no part of
the practical programme of the Moderate party. “ Cavour,” we
are told, “founded in 1847, with his friends Cesare Balbo,
Santa Rosa, Buoncompagni, Castelli, and other men of mode
rate constitutional views, the Risorgimento, of which he became
the editor, and the principles of the new periodical were an
nounced to be i independence of Italy, union between the
princes and peoples, progress in the path of reform, and a
league between the Italian States.’ ” Again, after saying that it
was Ricasoli and the leaders of the Constitutional party who
recalled (in ’49) the Grand Ducal family to Tuscany, and that
Gioberti himself proposed that the Pope should be invited back
to Rome, the writer goes on to say :—“ It was an immense ad
vantage to the restored Princes to have been thus brought back
by the most intelligent and moderate of their subjects. It
rested chiefly with them to render the reconciliation permanent.
The occasion was lost through distrust and fear of those they
governed (not an unusual accompaniment of restorations), and
by a reckless disregard of their rights and feelings. A mode
rate, conciliatory, and just policy might at that moment have
united princes and peoples. All that the wisest and most influ
ential men in Italy asked was a federal union of the different
states in the Peninsula upon a liberal and constitutional basis,
from which even the House of Austria was not to be excluded.
But concession was obstinately refused. The Italian States
again brought under the direct influence of Austria, were
governed in a jealous and severe spirit, and some of them with
a cruelty which aroused the indignation of Europe. In their
�31
bitter disappointment the hopes of the Italians were turned to
Piedmont, and that kingdom necessarily became the rallying
point for Italian freedom; so that the position which she has
since held was made for and not by her.”
I must trouble you with one more quotation. At the con
ference of Paris in 1855, after the Crimean war, Piedmont was
represented by Cavour, who brought before the assembled
statesmen the condition of Italy; but unable to enter fully
into the Italian Question at the conferences, he addressed two
state papers on it to Lord Clarendon. “ In them he proved,”
continues the writer, “by indisputable facts, how impossible
it was for Piedmont to develope her material resources, or her
free institutions, whilst hemmed in on all sides by Austrian
bayonets, exposed to endless intrigues, and compelled for her
own safety to make a constant drain upon her finances. It is
evident by his language in the Congress, and by those docu
ments, that Cavour still looked to a solution of the Italian
difficulty in the withdrawal of the French and Austrian troops
from the territories of the Pope, and in a reform of the Italian
Governments themselves. His plan—at any rate for the tem
porary settlement of the question—was a confederation of
Italian States with constitutional institutions, and a guarantee
of complete independence from the direct interference and
influence of Austria; and the secularization of the legations
with a lay vicar under the suzerainty of the Pope. At that
time he would have been even willing to acquiesce in the
occupation of Lombardy by Austria, had she bound herself to
keep within the limits of the treaty of 1815. Had Austria
shown more wisdom and moderation, there can be little doubt
that the excuse for French intervention would have been
removed, and that the great struggle which has since taken
place in Italy might have been deferred for many years.” *
Now, you cannot, I think, have failed to note the glaring
inconsistency of these praises of what is called the moderation
* Letters of Cavour recently published in the Rivisita Contemporanae,
and referred to in the Turin correspondence of the Times of February 11th,
1862, are quite inconsistent with the view of Cavour’s policy and ideas
in 1855.
�32
of Cavour, with the assumption to him and to his party of the
whole credit of Italian unity, and the theory, now too prevalent,
that no other party has contributed anything but follies and ex
cesses, impediments, not aids to the accomplishment of the
great task. I believe such ideas to be as profoundly unge
nerous and unjust as they are evidently self-contradictory, and
I believe that they will be adjudged by history to be, so far as
they are in any degree in good faith, superficial, partial,
and utterly incapable of serving as any explanation of the
method of the evolution of the great problem of Italian
nationality.
I can tell you something about the origin of these ideas—
they take their rise in the very nature of the policy of the
Moderate party.
The polioy of that party, dating from 1848, was based on a
necessity, a hope, and a fear. It was necessary for Piedmont
to play some part for the nation, or the nation would march
over Piedmont to its goal. It was possible to play that part and
to reap the reward of so doing. But it must either be played
boldly as a national revolutionary policy, or it must be played
in some sense, from the first, in opposition and in antagonism
to the policy of the national party. It would indeed have been
a grand and an inspiring spectacle could we have seen the
counsellors of the monarchy of Savoy, on the very morrow of
its great discomfiture, taking heart from the very depth of their
defeat, and giving themselves unequivocally to the service of
the entire nation. They would assuredly have met with their
reward, in the unquestioned and undivided leadership of a
national movement far higher than anything we have yet seen
in its moral meaning, and pregnant with infinitely grander
consequences to the civil and religious progress of the world ;
but I am not idealist enough to tax men or parties with not
accomplishing a miracle of self-transformation or of faith.
Another method was their inevitable choice ; without abso
lutely defining their ultimate aim, they had to bid against the
national party for the sympathies of the Italian populations,
and above all they had to secure the initiative for them
selves.
�33
This policy once entered upon begat unavoidably antagonism
and distrust, and made it more difficult than ever—though
mistakenly, as events have shown—for them to believe that
they could rely on the nation to accept monarchy when the
nation was once roused to arms. Choosing not to rest abso
lutely on the nation they—or I should rather say Cavour (for
from the moment he laid his hand to the work it became his
own) turned to Europe—to its constituted powers and its diplo
macy, and sought there to strengthen Piedmont for eventu
alities which must sooner or later arise. He concluded treaties
of commerce, he cultivated diplomatic relationships, and by his
successful home and foreign policy, and the general vigour of
his administration, he created a new feeling of confidence in
Piedmont as a well-governed, compact, constitutional govern
ment, the one bright spot in the otherwise sombre picture of the
foreign and domestic misrule of the peninsula.
But, in carrying out this vital portion of his policy, he came
to play a double part. And I ask you to note this, for it is the
key of that which I have now to explain. In Italy it was neces
sary to suggest hopes, however carefully undefined, which
should keep in check the influence of the National party;
abroad he had to protest not only against that party but against
those very popular aspirations which at home it was necessary
that he should be supposed to serve. Hence two languages;
one for the secret agencies, discrediting the National party, yet
whispering the same hopes—and one for state documents and
diplomatic communications, ignoring any thought of Italy save
as her condition imperilled or embarrassed the monarchy of
Savoy, and here again repudiating the National party, and
building up upon the fact of their existence and their restless
and troublesome activity, the most cogent arguments in his own
favour which could be addressed to the representatives of exist
ing monarchies in Europe.
Thus we may understand how it became literally a part of the
system of business, if I may so say, of the Moderate party to
discredit, in every way, the objects, the means, the doings, and
even the personal character of the leaders of the party of action.
If you think of the subsidizing of the press in which foreign
D
�34
governments delight, of the influence of the salons and the
ante-chamber on some purveyors of news, and of the instinctive
fear and hatred, of the prejudice devoid of conscience and the
enmity without law, with which anything linked with the names
of democracy or republic is regarded in the high places of
despotically monarchical Europe, you will not wonder when I
say that a measure of injustice has been dealt out to a deserving
party in Italy of which I have never known the parallel, and
which history will condemn as a calumny and a disgrace.
But I have no desire to retort injustice. It were an easy task
to oppose the diplomatic professions of Count Cavour to the
claims of an exclusive patriotism set up on his behalf and on
that of his party, and to leave the matter there. But I and you
are interested in arriving at a just appreciation of the policy and
of the man, and this is what 1 now proceed to attempt. First
then, I believe that Cavour had from his earliest days the idea of
independence firmly rooted in his mind, and that he never
wavered in the intent of driving Austria beyond the Alps. Any
expressions, any proposals of his to the contrary, at any time,
were mere diplomacy—into the morals of which I do not now
enter. If in 1855, he did, as the Quarterly Revieiver says, profess
“ a willingness to acquiesce even in the occupation of Lom
bardy by Austria, had she bound herself to keep within the
limits of the treaty of 1815,” I am not therefore disposed to
infer that he ever contemplated, much less accepted the possi
bility of the struggle which has ensued, being “ deferred for
many years.” Cavour knew too well that there was no real
danger to the speedy accomplishment of Italian independence
in any such professions. I will take another case, and shall
quote from the official correspondence published by the French
government. On the 10th September, 1860, after the invasion
by Garibaldi of the Neapolitan States, Cavour wrote to Baron
• Talleyrand, “ If we are not at the Cattolica before Garibaldi we
are lost; the revolution will invade central Italy. We are
forced to act.” Again, in a circular of M. Thouvenel, of
October, 1860, I find these words:—“Signor Farini (sent by
Cavour) has explained to the Emperor (at Chambery) the very
embarrassing and dangerous position in which the triumph of
�35
the revolution, to a certain extent personified in Garibaldi,
threatens to place the government of his Sardinian Majesty.
Garibaldi was on the point of freely traversing the Roman
States, raising the populations as he went; and had he once
passed that frontier, it would have been utterly impossible to
prevent an attack on Venice. The Government of Turin had one
mode left open to it in order to prevent that eventuality, and
that was to enter the Marches and Umbria as soon as the arrival
of Garibaldi had produced disturbances, and re-establish order
without infringing on the authority of the Pope, and if need
were to give battle to the revolution in the Neapolitan territory,
and request a congress to immediately decide the destinies of
Italy.” Now, certainly these professions of motive cannot be
said to be very creditable to Cavour, and they look as unlike as
possible to the arguments of a patriot having the accomplish
ment of his country’s unity above everything else at heart. And
yet I do not, therefore, argue that Cavour did not willingly take
advantage of that mighty step of Garibaldi, which gave half
Italy to the new kingdom, and which enabled him, despite his
own past professions, to lift his policy at once to the height of
an openly declared national policy. On the other hand, I be
lieve that neither he nor any other statesman actually in power,
in his own country or elsewhere, believed in Italy being as pre
pared for unity as she has proved herself to be. And although
his faith in Italy must have grown with the growth of his own
policy, and although he may from time to time have had visions
of its possible ulterior development, yet I also believe that up
to the close of the campaign of 1859 (and indeed after its close
and until, on his retirement from office, he saw the people of
Italy in the Duchies and in the Romagna, with a singleness
of purpose and strength of will which, under the influence of a
national faith, made them as one man, better his own policy at
the moment of its apparent defeat) his practical idea was a
kingdom of the north.
Now, I think there is abundant evidence in support of these
views. Cavour’s sense of personal mortification and of failure,
as well as his indighation at the peace of Villafranca, are well
known—he had no conception that Italy was in a mental condin 2
�36
tion to take up the diplomatic game at the very moment of that
seeming checkmate, and by the passive resistance of an abso
lutely unanimous population, to defeat the purpose of their too
powerful ally. A curiously-worded telegram has lately been
brought to light, I think, by Guerazzi, in which Cavour notified
to Ricasoli the conclusion of the peace. If its curt picturesque
ness be not quite suitable for ears polite, you will forgive
me, for the interest which attaches to it as part of the res gestae
of the time. This, then, is the telegram:—“ Cavour to Ricasoli,
—Peace with Austria. I resign. Dukes back. All to the
devil.” Fortunately, Cavour was wrong in the direction in
which all was going, as he soon discovered, returning then with
greater energy, and, can we doubt it, with greater confidence
than ever to his task.
But we have better evidence than this. We know the terms of
the compact of Plombieres. You will think, perhaps, that I speak
with too great confidence in saying that we know the terms. I
will tell you the grounds, then, of that strength of assertion.
You will remember when, on January 1, 1859, the Emperor
Napoleon spoke those words of startling import to Baron
Hiibner, which first gave the alarm of war in Europe. Already
before that day particulars of the compact and the general plan
of the campaign had reached this country from two different
but most reliable sources; they were essentially the same par
ticulars as those which were first published, as a revelation in
the columns of the Times sometime not earlier than the follow
ing month of March; and everything that has since happened
or come to light has only tended to confirm their accuracy. A
cause of war was to be sought with Austria, she was to be
tempted to take the offensive, the campaign was to be a short
one—if necessary peace on the Mincio. If Venice and Lom
bardy were gained to Piedmont, Nice and Savoy were to be
yielded to France. Napoleon, the cousin, married to the king’s
daughter, was to find a kingdom in Tuscany.
And now mark, all these particulars reached here, as I have
given them, not as conjectures or beliefs, but as the reports,
coming from two different sources, of what had been actually
agreed upon between the Emperor and Cavour. I need hardly
�37
tell you that Napoleon, Jerome’s son, with his separate corps
d'ctrmee operating across the Duchies, found that there was no
hope for him ; I need hardly remind you that peace was made
upon the Mincio, and that Venice not being gained, Nice and
Savoy did not become, by virtue of the bond, the due of France,
but were claimed because the Duchies and Romagna persisted
in giving themselves to the king.
I ask then, first, is this not sufficient evidence that a king
dom of Northern Italy was the limit of the practical conception
of the great statesman of the Moderate party; and in the
second place, I would also ask whether the complete success of
the programme of Plombieres in its original entirety, would
not, in establishing a northern Italy, and interposing a French
Prince between it and the centre and the south, have rendered
more distant and more difficult the attainment of a united
national existence ? And if the partially defeated programme
has been made to be more fruitful than could have been the
whole, once again I would ask you whether there is even com
mon honesty or common sense in persistently heaping the
whole merit of Italian unity upon one party and one man, and
in refusing to the true instinct of the nation and to the self
abnegating fidelity to their great aim of the National or so called
Republican party, the credit of having contributed to a result
greater than was the aim of the Moderate party itself, and higher
than the limits of its faith ?
Let me borrow an illustration from the science of Dynamics.
The Italian problem may be likened to that which in Dynamics
is explained by what is known as the parallelogram of forces.
Cavour’s policy alone would carry the question to A, the end of
the shorter side,—A being a kingdom of Northern Italy for the
House of Savoy; the national instinct and the National party
would carry it the longer side to B—the nation indivisible per
haps republican. By the resolution of forces, the diagonal is
taken toC, national unity, monarchical, and Piedmontese. Now
it is not unreasonable to think the diagonal the safer course, or
if you will the only possible course to unity, but it is not allow
able to ignore the existence of a force without whose contributed
impulse that point could not have been attained.
�38
But we are not dealing with unreasoning forces; such has
not been the force of the Republican party. This party an
nounced itself as republican at a time (in 1838) when there was
nothing to hope from monarchy, when the necessity, in an edu
cational sense was felt, of a definite Unitarian programme. I
do not mean to say that this was the only cause of the republi
canism of the party; but it was the justification of inscribing
the republican motto on their national flag. But the Republican
party have never for a moment been guilty of the inconsistency
of even desiring to force their creed upon an unwilling people.
Their aim was to constitute the national sovereignty, and the
sovereign nation must decide upon the form of its own future.
And thus it is that the royal House of Piedmont, always the
only possible Ralian monarchy, has had but to give itself to the
nation to have the certainty of being accepted by the nation ;
for who could dream that the nation ever would refuse the
crown to the soldier king who should unite his fate with theirs,
and with them achieve the independence of his country ? Is
not the instance of Garibaldi enough ? Does not the monarchy
know, has not the monarchy always known, that at the moment
of action it might ever rely upon him to lead the youth of Italy,
call them republican or not, to die for it and Italy upon the
battle field ?
But I will not leave the matter here with Garibaldi, the man
of instinct and action rather than the man of thought. I will
speak of the organized party not upon the field of battle. What
has their course of action been ? I assert then, and I speak
here what is matter of my own knowledge, that there never has
been a time since the movement of 1848 inclusive, in fact, since
Piedmont, an exception to all other Italian governments, be
came constitutional and ceased to be the bounden tool of
Austria, that this party has not been ready practically to
accept monarchy, provided always that monarchy committed
its fortunes to those of the unity of the country. And further, I
say that from the moment when it became possible—after the
peace of Villafranca—by a mere act of adhesion so to commit
monarchy, such act was accomplished with an active aid from
them, which should have been held convincing proof of the
�39
^singleness of their devotion to the one great aim of a recon
stituted nation.
k I will give you irrefutable proof of what I say. There is a
man whom I have named as the founder of this party, and who,
though continuing in exile, or traversing Europe or even re
visiting his own country at the risk of his life, has still re
mained its acknowledged head. I speak of Joseph Mazzini,
long my revered friend, whom I, in intimate daily life, know
perhaps better than any other living man, English or Italian,
knows him, of him whom calumny the most unscrupulous and
systematic, so long continued and so incessant as to have
deceived many _of the most liberal minded and justly meaning
of my own countrymen, has made it suffice to name, to suggest
ideas of anarchy and civil war, of ruin to all wise counsels, and
to Italy’s best or only hopes. I will show you his part towards
monarchy, in the pursuit of that which is now, but only now, a
common aim.
During the Lombard campaign of 1848, before the Decree of
Fusion, proposals were made to Mazzini in the name of
Castagneto, the king’s secretary. It was proposed that he
should constitute himself patron of the monarchical fusion,
that he should endeavour to draw over the republicans ; that he
should have in return as much democratic influence as he
could wish in the construction of the Articles of the Constitu
tion which would be given, and an interview was suggested
with the king. Mazzini replied that to assure the independence
and unity of the country he would sacrifice not his republican
faith, but all action for it, and that already the republicans were
silent upon it for the sake of independence and the war. But,
he said, that they regarded the “Italy of the North” as a fatal
conception, too ambitious for their princes and diplomacy,
and not sufficient for the people of Italy. Thanks to this,
popular enthusiasm was beginning to be extinct, the govern
ments were already showing their hostility, and the chances of
war were turning against them. To turn them in their favour
Charles Albert must dare all, raise the banner of Unity, and call
the nation to arms. When asked what guarantees the king
�40
must give of his devotion to unity, he hastily drew up the
terms of a proclamation containing these words :—
“ Ifeel” the king should say, “ that the time is ripe for the unity
of our country; I hear the shudder which thrills and oppresses
your souls. Up, arise ! I lead the way ! Behold, I give you
as the gage of my good faith the spectacle, hitherto unknown to
the world, of the priest king of the new epoch ; an armed
apostle of the idea-people; architect of the temple of the nation !
In the name of God and Italy, I tear the ancient treaties which
kept you dismembered and which are dripping with your blood 1
I call upon you to overthrow the barriers which still separate
you, and to group yourselves into legions of free brethren
around me, your leader, ready to conquei' or to die with you!”
How magnificent a trumpet call to a revolutionary war! I
cite it not, however, you will understand, as showing what
monarchy might then reasonably have done. I fear that at
that time it was already too late for such a policy; but I adduce
it as evidence of the truth of what I said that Mazzini and his
party had always been ready to act with monarchy for unity.
My second proposition was that as soon as monarchy was, or
rather as soon as she could be, by the people’s act, committed
to unity—the National party helped to accomplish that act, and
for the sake of unity gave themselves to monarchy.
I will call into court the testimony of deeds, not words alone.
On the eve of the campaign of ’59, leaving and even desiring
the bulk of their youth to give themselves to the war under
Garibaldi, Mazzini, with certain of the party, stood professedly
aloof, exposing and protesting against the scheme of Plombieres,
the details of which he knew and published, and preparing the
mind of the country to defeat when the time came, so much of
the compact as opposed itself to the unity of the nation. The
time did come, with the peace of Villafranca. Was a single
voice raised to say
royalty has betrayed us, away with
royalty?” Was that moment, when Cavour despaired, seized
upon to undermine his party, and sow dissension in the camp ?
I will tell you. Immediately after the peace of Villafranca on
the 20th of July, in the Pensiero ed Azione, Mazzini wrote,
�41
“ jLwerty and National Unity. Let this be the sole cry that
bursts from those who will not allow Italy to be a dishonoured
slave. * * * What was the aim of those who separated
themselves from us, and gave themselves to the French alliance ?
Their aim was like ours, one free Italy independent from all
foreigners * * * Now circumstances point out the same
ground for us all; now there is no hope left save in the people.
Let all disputes cease. In the name of the honour of Italy let
us unite. Accursed be he among us who cannot cancel the
memory of all mutual reproaches and accusations in the great
principle that by uniting we may and ought to save our country.”
And he and his party have remained absolutely true to this
programme; they co-operated in those acts of adhesion, deeds
not words alone, by which the Duchies and the Romagna per
sisted in giving themselves to the king, who had to play the
part of an ungracious unwillingness to accept this adhesion—
they planned, and urged, and discussed with members of the
government—I speak of Mazzini himself—Garibaldian expedi
tions upon Naples. These expeditions were ultimately for
bidden and prevented for the time ; but they were bent on that
union of the south which, while it gave Italy to the monarchy of
Piedmont, would conclusively Italianize the policy of that
monarchy, enlarge its dimensions, and be another step tending
to emancipation from the thraldom of a too subservient alliance
with France. It was Mazzini himself who planned the Sicilian
[.insurrection in the following year. Rosolino Pilo, of whom I
spoke before, kept up that movement until Garibaldi could
arrive. It was the same party who prepared the way for Gari
baldi’s entrance into the Neapolitan capital alone—the same
party who furnished and organized and despatched the greater
part of those volunteers who gained Naples and Sicily to the
new kingdom.
And all this they did for monarchy, or rather, through
monarchy, for Italy. Truly it has been a wonderful and an un
accustomed spectacle to see a party called revolutionary and
republican, heaping provinces upon a kingdom, and giving to a
policy which was not their own, a success and a justification
which it could not have earned alone. It has been a miracle of
�42
devotion to a great aim. Each fresh triumph for their great
principle and aim has been cutting ground from under their own
feet for their rivals to stand upon. And on the day of complete
emancipation they, the first teachers, the great martyrs, the in
cessant agitators, the forlorn hope of Italian unity, before
fortune’s smiles were won, will disappear and merge into the
common nation.
There is a curiously interesting estimate, though not from a
favourable point of view, of the two rival policies which I have
been discussing, and of the remarkable men with whom they
are identified. It is in M. Guizot’s recent work on Society and
the Church. He says :—“ The Italian movement * * * has only
burst forth and is only being accomplished under the impulsion
and with the alliance of the republican and democratic party,
which has been pursuing in Italy an end much more advanced,
a revolution much more profound, than the mere expulsion of
the foreigner and the reform of established governments * * *
It is the republican party which has been in Italy the first
patron and the ardent propagandist of Italian unity; it is by the
incessant action of M. Mazzini and his adherents that this idea
has been spread and has been accepted. * * * Cavour—had he
from the first a preconceived determination in favour of Italian
unity ? Has he constantly desired and constantly pursued, as
his aim, Italian royalty, one and constitutional, as M. Mazzini
has desired and pursued the Italian republic, one and demo
cratic ? I know not; but it matters little, for if Cavour did not
premeditate all that he has done, if he has been drawn on to more
conquests than those he sought, he has at least resolutely ac
cepted the impulsion, and if he has only reached the end im
pelled by his rival, he has at least conquered his rival by
robbing him of his arms.”
There is much in this passage of keen and true perception,
but M. Guizot fails to see that the arms were not stolen, but
were heaped upon the victor that he might have no choice,
accepting them, but to conquer in the common cause.
There is then now but one great aim, one common cause in
Italy—henceforth no party, no man, can be permitted to intrude
a less or a divergent purpose—and that purpose is the nation
�43
reconstituted in its entirety, from the Alps to the sea. The
question of policy, of method of accomplishment, alone re
mains. The Moderate party, in power, naturally desire to keep
the control of the movement in their own hands, and to go
to Venice and to Rome only when and how they may think
good policy allows. And in this desire they are justified, and
more than justified, for if they are not capable of exercising
such supreme direction and control, they are no fit government
for renascent Italy. But, in endeavouring to exercise it, they
are, as I think, under two influences, which have tended to en
feeble and to lead them astray. The first is their’ old fear of
the so-called Republican party—now a foolish fear but still fed
by the always exaggerated antagonism of parties in a revolu
tionary era, and by the jealousies and petty personal ambitions
which belong to a successful political coterie. Secondly, they are
hampered in their policy and confirmed in their antagonism to
the National party, by their alliance with France. The National
party naturally chafes, as Garibaldi is known to chafe, under
the policy dictated by that alliance. Rome is still held by the
French, and Italy is kept from the easy conquest of her natural
and necessary capital, by her own ally. How can you expect
the Italian people in a revolutionary time—how especially can
you expect that southern population which does not owe its
liberty either to France, or to Piedmont, but to Garibaldi and
his volunteers, and which only gave itself to Piedmont in order
to give itself to a united Italy,—to be content that the destinies
of its country should hang expectant on a policy dictated from
Paris through Turin ?
But enough of these differences and these difficulties, through
which Italy has yet to work her way,' and in spite of which she
will, it is my profound conviction, conquer her salvation. These
are not the features of the great whole, on which I care to
dwell, or on which I shall ever speak unless it be to defend men
who have wrought, and suffered, and accomplished, and merited far
more than the world will yet acknowledge, for their country.
There are men—but few I am proud to say in our own
country, who, not loving Italy as I do, would, if the temper
of the times allowed, gratify their despotic instincts by easy
�criticisms on the morality of the policy of Cavour, and who
would like to see, and to make us see, nothing in this great
Italian movement but the ambition of a dynasty and the
rivalries and jealousies of parties and of public men. But
for me, when I look, endeavouring to raise myself—as it is
the grand merit of some leaders of the National Italian
party to have raised themselves—above all such considerations,
when I look at the grand and glorious outline of this mighty
movement, when, resolutely closing my eyes to all that is
petty and personal and transitory in the immediate present,
I seek to penetrate to the very soul of this great argument,—
I see not the ambitions of dynasties, not the rivalries and
jealousies of parties or of public men—these are but the
exhibition of human passions and human interests working in
subservience to a great and a providential aim ; but I do see, and
Britain sees, with joy and with reverence she sees, the grandest,
the most hopeful, the most inspiring spectacle which this earth
can furnish forth—the regeneration of a people.
�45
MR. STANSFELD’S SPEECH
On
Italian Question, delivered in the House of
Commons in the Debate of July 19th, 1861.
the
Sir,—If this discussion were one which had been, or which
could be confined to the question which has been directly raised by
the hon. member for Bridgewater (Mr. A. W. Kinglake), I should
not propose to myself to take any part in it. Not that I doubt the
importance of the question ; on the contrary, I think it would be
difficult to exaggerate its importance ; for, if the fears which the
hon. member entertains—if the possibilities which he suggests
*
«were unfortunately ever to be realized in fact, it might well be
no less than the shipwreck of that great policy of non-interven
tion which we have done so much to uphold in Europe, in the
jcause of peace. Nor is it, Sir, that I can pretend to say that I
|fcave been entirely reassured by the statements of the noble Lord,
for I fear that 1 must still attach some credit to those sources of
information which revealed in this country—and here I can more
than confirm the statement of the noble Lord (Lord John
Russell)—the compact of Plombieres, and the very plan of the
Lombard campaign, even before those memorable words were
ispoken to Baron Hiibner, which first roused Europe from her
fdream of peace. But, Sir, the truth is that the question cannot
so confine itself—the truth is that it could not even arise for
discussion, were it not for the existence in Italy of a fact and
of a policy which it is of the deepest interest and moment for
us, not only as well-wishers of Italy, but as Englishmen and as
members of the European community, to take into account. Sir,
the policy is that which has hitherto obtained too exclusively in
�46
Italy, of too absolute and too subservient a dependence on
one foreign alliance; the fact is the long standing and anomalous
fact of the occupation of Rome by the troops of the French
empire. Sir, I will address myself to the question of this policy,
which so deeply concerns us. What ought to be, what ought
we to desire to be, the policy of Italy at the present time ? Sir,
Italy has recently lost a great statesman. I have not been one
of his indiscriminate admirers, but this is not an occasion on
which I ought to enter upon any lengthened criticism of his
policy. Suffice it for me to say that, after his great labours and
his great successes, he is gone, and that with him perhaps we
may be permitted to hope are also gone personal engagements
or at least personal entanglements which it would be well for
the honour and welfare of Italy, for the welfare and peace of
Europe, that they should be buried in his grave. What should
be the policy of his successors ? Italy must have Venice and
she must have Rome, nor can she pause or dally long upon the
road which leads to Venice and to Rome, at the risk of fatal
internal dissensions and of national suicide. In pursuit, then,
of these objects which she cannot relinquish, and which hei’
ministers explicitly avow, what is the policy which it is for us a
matter at once of the highest interest and of the strictest duty—
for I hold that in this matter the interests of Italy, of England,
and of Europe are identical—to induce, and, if we may, en
able her to pursue ? Sir, there are but two policies open to the
counsellors of the new kingdom:—The first is the policy of
Plombieres. Sir, I have to confess that that policy—thanks to
the indomitable spirit of unity of the Italian people—has so far
been productive of beneficial results which at the time of its
inception I did not anticipate as possible. But this I think I
may safely say, that not a single member of this House will be
found to rise in his place to night and to recommend us to ap
prove a repetition of that policy. Well, then, what is the only
alternative policy before the kingdom of Italy ? Is it not, I ask,
simply a truly national Italian policy, resting in absolute depen
dence on no single alliance, but, supported by the sympathies
and the moral aid of all free peoples, multiplying and organiz
ing its own forces, so that in due time Italy may suffice to her
�47
self for the completion of her emancipation ? Sir, there are
great dangers to Europe in a Franco-Italian war of indepen
dence—dangers of cessions of territory, suggested in the speech
of the hon. member for Bridgewater, which might sweep away
that last poor remnant of confidence, on which, as on a slender
thread, hangs suspended the peace of Europe—dangers of
dei many being brought into the field, and of our witnessing an
active alliance between Italy and France, not only on the plains
of Lombardy, but on the banks of the Rhine. But, Sir, there
aie also gieat dangers to Italy, and therefore to Europe, in an
exclusive Franco-Italian alliance, things remaining as they
are. We all know that Rome, in the occupation of the soldiers
of the Empire, is the focus of all reactionary intrigues and
attempts. But this is not all. There is some truth in the
statements of disaffection in the south, which have come from
the other side of the House to-night—disaffection on the part,
not of the adherents of the exiled dynasty, but amongst the
ranks of the patriots themselves, and which all the absolute
fidelity to the cause of Italian unity, and all the unexampled
self-abnegation of their leaders has not sufiiced to dispel or to
prevent. Sir, I do not desire to criticise in a hostile spirit the
faults of judgment or of intention on the part of the ministers
of Turin which have caused this disaffection. I wish simply to
indicate the sole remedy, which consists—I say it without fear
of contradiction—in the pursuit of a truly national and indepen
dent policy, in trusting and not fearing the people, in rallying
them to the aid of the Government, and not, in obedience to the
exigencies of an exclusive and subservient alliance, refusing to
utilize and to organize the immense willing force of a nation
which desires to be free. Sir, there are three practical bases on
which such policy should rest. The first is friendly and open
negotiations, in the face of Europe, with the French Emperor
for the withdrawal of his troops from Rome. Secondly, in order
to dispel the feeling in the south, that whereas of their own will
and by volunteer force alone, they freed themselves and gave
themselves to Italy, they find themselves treated as provinces of
Sardinia ; for such purpose, a clearly expressed understanding
that, her capital once regained to the Italian nation, a national
�48
assembly seated at Rome shall revise in a national sense the
laws of the country, in order that the “ statute” of Piedmont,
borrowed for a time, may not permanently remain without re
vision and modification the law of the reconstituted nation. And
lastly, the multiplication and the organization of the armed
forces, regular and irregular, of the country. At present, spite
of protestations and declared intentions, Italy, with already
twenty-two millions of inhabitants, with nothing to live for, or
to dream of, or to make sacrifices for, but the completion of her
own independence, can place no more armed men in line than
the little neighbouring republic of Switzerland, with less than
one-eighth of her population ; and of the 150,000 men she can
so place in a line, 60,000 are required to restore order in the
south ; while of the volunteer element there is no organization
whatever at all worthy of the name. And thus it comes to pass
that Italy is kept in absolute dependence—in wrongful, foolish
dependence—whatever confidence her ministers may have in
his intentions—on the will and the power of her great ally.
Sir, before I sit down, I desire to say something of a party
in Italy of which I have some special knowledge—the party
originally known as the party of Young Italy, then as the
Republican, then as the National party, and now as the party of
Action. Sir, I have never known, I have never heard or read of
any party in any country or in any time which has been so per
sistently misrepresented and maligned. In the ranks of that
party was born the idea of Italian unity ; by them that idea wras
nurtured into a faith. It was their faith, I may say that it was
my faith, when not a single English statesman could be found
to believe in the possibility of its realization. But, Sir, that
party not only created the idea and nursed it into a faith, but
they supplied also the motive power without which its realiza
tion so far would have been impossible. Trace back step by
step the policy of Count Cavour, and at each of such steps,
whether in argument before the assembled diplomacy of Europe,
or in act upon the field of Italy, eliminate the element of the
existence, of the determination, of the restless enthusiasm of
this party—and you will find the step in argument would have
been impossible as it would have been abortive in point of fact.
�49
The latest is the most brilliant and themost convincing illus
tration of the truth of what I say. The House should know, if
the House does not already know, that by far the greater part
of the volunteers who under Garibaldi won Naples and Sicily—
half Italy—to the new kingdom, sprang from the ranks of this
party—men called republicans, led by one of themselves to die
upon the battlefield that monarchy might rule the future desti
nies of a united Italy Sir, this party—I know it well—has
a policy and programme of its own, to which I invite the
attention of the Government and of the House. It is a policy
consistent with the declarations of the present first minister of
the king. He has but to do, what he has not yet done, to carry
out his words in acts, and he will rally this party round him;
he will have with him all the active forces, all the vital elements
of the country, and the moral unity of Italy will be at once and
for ever assured. And, Sir, this programme and policy is neither
more nor less than that truly national and independent pro
gramme and policy, good for Italy and good for Europe, which
I have endeavoured to lay before the House.
E
�MR STANSFELD’S SPEECH
Delivered
at the
Annual Soiree of the Wakefield
Mechanics’ Institute,
on the
31st October, 1861.
■ Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,—The most natural
topic for discussion upon an evening like the present, is- evi
dently the practical progress of the institution whose anniver
sary we are met together to commemorate; and the persons
most likely to be able to address you with interest and advan
tage to yourselves upon such a topic, are those who have been
practically concerned, during the past year, in the work of
that Institution. But it has come rather to be the habit of
Mechanics’ Institutes, upon these anniversary occasions, to
summon to common council with themselves those also without
their own body who are locally connected with themselves,
or who may be known as taking an interest in all sub
jects bearing upon the question, and ask them to address them
on such occasions as these. Now when that is so, it follows, as
a matter of course, that those who have not been practically
acquainted with the working of the institution are obliged to
fall back upon generalities. They talk to you of the necessity
of education, of the duty of self-education, of the duty of assist
ing in the education of your fellow-men, and they, perhaps, lay
before you the statistics of education in this and other countries.
But information and arguments of this description, although
very true and very well worth hearing, have become by repeti
tion somewhat trite, and hence we have seen of late years, as
�51
your chairman has already said, in meetings of this description,
as well as in agricultural meetings, that speakers are apt to
wander to any kind of subject, however remote it may appear
to be from the objects or institution in connection with which
I they were assembled, but which they think may prove interest
ing to those whom they may have to address. Now your chairI man has referred to a question in which he has been kind
enough to say that I have taken considerable interest, and with
which I have perhaps some special means of familial’ acquaint
ance. And with reference to that remark of your chairman I
have to note, and I think you must have noted, that of all those
questions of general interest which have of late years been
brought to the attention of public meetings of this descrip
tion, no questions have been found more universally interesting
than what we call foreign questions. I think it is not difficult to
understand why this should be so. You have heard from your
chairman a very eloquent and very accurate description of the
foreign question now so deeply interesting to us as a manufac
turing people—the American question, and I would ask you
what have you there ? You have there what I might call an
agglomeration of States—a kind of partnership of populations
not having the natural unity of purpose and of character which
belongs to an old and well-established nationality like our own
I —having, on the other hand, causes of dissension within its
bosom amply sufficient to rend the strongest nation, and at the
bottom of them all that great question of negro slavery,—a
question which I trust, will meet with some solution consistent
with the liberty of men, be they white or be they black, before
the war now commencing between the North and the South
shall be completed. Then, there is another vast nationality in
the East of Europe to which reference is not so often made—
not so often as it appears to me it would be well to make it—I
allude to the mighty empire of the Russias. There is no grander
spectacle, no more magnificent subject for our consideration in
these recent times than that which has been taking place in
Russia. You have there an internal revolution—you have the
emancipation of a serf-nation—you have Russia, thrown back
upon herself after her conflict and defeat in the Crimea, seeking
�52
to raise herself towards the same level of civilization as that on
which we stand in the west of Europe, and to hold her part with
us in the common progress of the civilized world. Then, turn to
Italy; what have you there ? You have a nation which has been
greater than any other nation—you have a nation which has
suffered more than any other nation—which, perhaps, has been
more degraded than any other nation—but which is now rising
to a unity and to a national life which promise to be second to
the nationality and to the life of no other nation in the world.
I need not ask you whether subjects of this description are not
of the deepest interest to all reasoning and thinking men. What
indeed can be more interesting to us in these days of extended
sympathies and of wider views, than what I may call the bio
graphy of nations ? But these questions are not only of interest
to us—I am entitled to say that if, upon these occasions, we
venture beyond the sphere of what we might strictly call educa
tional questions, there are no questions of general interest more
akin to the purposes of your Institution, more fitting as subjects
for your consideration and your study. For what are all these
questions of national movements, properly considered, but
educational phenomena upon the grandest scale—what are they
all but phases and steps in the life and progress of nations—
what are they all but partial evolutions in time and in space of
that great problem of all problems—the problem of the educa
tion of humanity, which in its complex unity contains the whole
progress of individual and collective man. Now, if I take a
view,—perhaps you may say so general, but I say so true of
this class of questions,—I ask whether it does not justify me
in saying that they are subjects for consideration and for study,
not only upon these anniversary meetings, but in the night
meetings of the members of your institutions. What subjects
can be more elevating, or more interesting, or more instructive
than those great national questions ? I would not deal with
them as I would deal with questions of party politics. I would
have you address yourselves to such questions as students, and
endeavour to seize upon their great outlines and to penetrate to
their very core. If you do so, one of the very first conclusions
you will come to, and a conclusion fitted to inspire you with
�53
,
confidence and courage in all the labours and sacrifices of life,
F will be this—that the great law of humanity is the law of pro
gress. I will take even the case of America—with respect to
which, as your chairman has said, there are many in this
country ready enough to say that it is the bursting of the bubble
r of Republicanism. If you will look at that question in the
student-like truth-seeking aspect which it demands, I ask you
whether you will not say there must be deeper causes there
than any question as to the form of government at stake ; and
whether—the North be entering upon a war with the South
blindly and foolishly or not—it is not evident that they are
at least instinctively endeavouring to cut the Gordian knot
of that past relationship between the South and the North,
which rendered the progress of liberty and which made
national dignity impossible in the United States. Now, let me
turn again for a moment to Ttaly. How interesting to look back
upon the Italian movement, and to trace its character from
former times down to this very day. How interesting to ask
ourselves what it is that Italy and the Italian movement have of
late years done for us as a nation 1 Why, all those who are
actively concerned in political life, and who deal at all with
the foreign policy of this country must know that the Italian
question has given us I might almost say a foreign policy. It
has taught us a new code of the rights and duties of nations—
it has done more than that, it has compelled us, somewhat slow
as we are to take any ideas from abroad, to become conscious
of the fact and to take cognizance of the fact, that what is called
j the question of nationalities is one of the greatest, if not the
most important question which is likely to occupy public
councils during the remainder of our lives. Then what is Italy
doing and hoping to do for herself ? Is it a question, however
great that question may be, simply of liberty or internal reforms,
which is being -worked out; is it simply that the Italians prefer
the Constitutional government of Cavour to the government of
the Pope ; or is it simply a question of independence—inde
pendence from all foreign influence, whether that influence be
&e influence of despotic and hostile Austria, or the influence of
a perhaps too powerful French ally ? Tf you look closely into
�54
the Italian question, and if you study its history, you can only
come to one conclusion, which is this—that the Italian question
is not simply a question of liberty—is not only a question of
independence, but that it is really a question of existence. “ To
be, or not to be ; that is the question.” I could trace to you,
did time afford, the history of Italy from former ages, and show
you the march of the nation towards the conception and the
realisation of its unity;—I could take you back to the days
of ancient Rome, and then on to the time of the Papacy,
when the Papacy had yet a mission to fulfil in Europe, and
show you Italy mistress of the Pagan and the Christian world ;
I could bring you down then to the days of the municipal re
publics of the middle ages—that bright period brilliant in arts,
in war, and in commerce; I could tell you that in those days
and from those days downwards, Italian minds, from Dante
and Machiavelli, to the present time, have dreamt of the
unity of their country; I could bring you next to the days of
the Great Napoleon and show you how, under his mighty
despotism even Italy had a foretaste of nationality, and began to
feel her strength upon the field;—I could tell you then of the
treaties of Vienna—those treaties to which it is a disgrace to us
that we were a party—I could tell you of their blasphemous
dividing of God’s heritage and of His people amongst the
scions of their different houses—I could tell you of the futile
protests of the representatives of the North Italian kingdom—
I could describe to you the revolution of 1821 in the North and
the South, and of 1831 in the centre—the institution of “the
Carbonari,” and that other institution much more potent, much
more pure in its objects and efforts—“ La Giovine Italia;”—I
could tell you of the forlorn hopes which were led, and of the
campaigns and movements of 1848 and 1849. I could show
you that even twelve years ago Italy was ripe for unity, and that
the people of every Italian state rose and proclaimed the inde
pendence and unity of their country—I could explain to you
how the jealousy of the different states of which Italy is com
posed frustrated the accomplishment of that idea,—then I
could show you the growth of that idea, and the fixity of pur
pose with which the Italian people have adhered to it down to
�the campaign of 1859, I could explain to you the compact of
Plombieres and the peace of Villafranca, and how the steadfast
ness of the Italian people snatched from a peace which disap
pointed their fondest hopes, the unity of their nationality—■
and having done this, you could come to no other conclusion
than that the object of Italy, that which they think of by day and
dream of by night is the existence of a free, a great, a united
and an independent people. If you were to go into such a
bourse of history you could not fail to feel as deeply as I feel
that unity is the great object of the Italian people, and that
from that unity would result advantage to Europe—the advantage
of that balance of power of which your chairman has spoken,
which ought to find its reality in the natural distribution of
nationalities—and that in the resuscitation of a people, which
has been great and which would yet be greater, there must be
involved a future hopeful and useful to humanity at large. For
if you look beyond the field of the immediate present—if your
eyes could pierce the intermediate haze of mere party questions,
the war of statesmen and the rival ambitions of contending
dynasties, or if amaster-hand in historic and philosophic art could
trace it to you, believe me, that no fairer or more immortal form
could be revealed unto your gaze than that of “ Italia risorta,”
crowned with the Capitol, girded by the Appenines, with
the blue waters of the Mediterranean smiling at her feet, and
holding in her hand the Book of Life, inscribed with a new and
higher moral code of a nation’s duties and a nation’s rights !
��
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The Italian movement and Italian parties: two lectures delivered at the Philosophical Institution, Edinburgh. Speeches delivered in the House of Commons and at the Wakefield Mechanics' Institute
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Stansfeld, James
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James Ridgway, Effingham Wilson, Adam & Charles Black
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[1862]
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G5248
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Italy
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Conway Tracts
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Italy-Politics and Government-19th Century
Political Parties-Italy
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Victorian Blogging
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An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Tracts for inquirers
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Dickson, William Edward
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Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 62 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Contents: 1. Reform. II. Reform Illusions. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Williams & Strahan, London. Date of publication from KVK. Appendix giving various statistics and figures.
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[s.n.]
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[1867]
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Politics
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Conway Tracts
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V
-
*****
ENGLISH
r
INSTITUTIONS
AND THEIR MOST
NECESSARY REFORMS.
A CONTRIBUTION OF THOUGHT
BV
FRANCIS W. NEWMAN,
LATE PROFESSOR IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.
LONDON:
TRUBNER & CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1865.
*
�Where materials are vast, conciseness may be accepted by the
Reader as a compliment to his intellect, not as a dogmatism.
Whatever the colour of his political creed, let him consent for
h^fr an hour to suspect fallacy in his customary axioms.
judges freely who does not think freshly.
No one
�ENGLISH
INSTITUTIONS
AND THEIR MOST
NECESSARY REFORMS. '
HERE are times in national history, at which
the urgent business of the classes in power is,
to increase the number of citizens loyal to the con
stitution : then, what seems to be a great democratic
move, may be made simply to avoid civil war. Such
was the crisis of 1832: such might have been that
of 1848. But, in spite of insurrection successful in
Sicily, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin, the English aristo
cracy in the latter year judged stiff and total resist
ance safer than any concession; relied on our hatred
of anarchy ; and by rallying the middle classes round
the standard of legality, quickly dissipated all fear
of Insurgent Reform. That lesson has not been
lost on Conservatives. Our wealth is more massive,
our thriving class reaches lower, in 1865 than in
1848. Education has spoiled political aspirants for
revolutionists. Let Reformers therefore take to
heart, that they have no chance now of succour from
the influences which carried the Reform Act of 1832.
If they are to have any organic changes, great or
small, they must persuade the actual holders of
constitutional power, and not forget the House of
Lords: otherwise, they do but waste their effort. ‘
For the reforms urged in these pages I would
plead with equal simplicity before the House of
Lords or before an assembly of Chartists. The
T
�4
arguments would differ in their relative importance,
but would never need to be dissembled.
The
nuisances which have to be abated, bring evil to
every political order and class of the nation, though
the weakest part of the nation of course suffers most
from them.
Where the object of a great national reform is, to
strengthen one Order by lowering another; to humil
iate the pride of a dynasty or of a peerage; or to en
force some large sacrifice of pecuniary means :—the
nature of the proposed change cannot be disguised.
Undoubtedly much strong language is heard among
us against aristocracy and in favour of democracy,
which, taken to the letter, might seem to imply that
aristocracy, in its legitimate sense, is to be depressed
and stript of honour.
But in fact bureaucracy
and centralization are the real foes, both of them
hostile to the genius of the constitution in former
days, and in no way closely allied to aristocracy as
such. Centralization has come in from Continental
Despotism, from the first French Revolutionists, and
largely from the writings of Bentham, as I under
stand. Bureaucracy has been ever on the increase
through the enormous extent of the empire, and the
immensity of power devolving on the ministry of
the day; while Parliament is too slow in learning
facts to be any adequate check. The House of
Peers, as an Order, has no interest in bureaucracy,
and none in centralization. Hence without a shadow
of paradox, and with perfect straightforwardness, I
maintain, that from a true Conservative point of
view our nation has to retrace many wrong steps
and make many right ones, quickly and boldly.
Not that it is paradoxical to hold, that in certain
cases it is for the true interest and true honour of a
ruling class—just as to a despotic king—to have
new checks put on its power. No man is to be
congratulated that his baser passions can bear
sway over him without restraint; and no party, no
�ministry, no Order of the State, is stronger or more
honourable, when its less wise or less virtuous
members can assume the guidance of it. Whatever
from without bridles them, is a real strength to the
party or Order, and will tend to its permanent
honour.
In a pamphlet already widely disseminated, I
have avowed my conviction, that to extinguish all
future creation of hereditary peers is the first need
ful step of reform. But it is equally my conviction
that this may be so done, and ought to be so done,
as to make us all proud of the House of Lords,
strengthen its efficiency, and in no way impair
practically its hereditary character, which (under
rightful modifications) I know how to value.
The course which Whig-Radical Reform has
hitherto taken has greatly frightened many reason
able Conservatives : I maintain that it ought also to
displease, if not alarm, all sincere and reasonable
Radicals,—because it tends to bring us to the French
goal not to the American goal. With a Central
authority preponderating so enormously over our
Local; a Parliament by the side of which every
Municipality is a pigmy; a Ministry, wielding an
executive so vast, while our Mayors and Lord
Mayors have sunk into pageants;—every step of
change which merely extends the Parliamentary
franchise, is a step towards a system in which it is
decided by universal suffrage once in 7 years, what
oligarchy shall be our despotic rulers. A Reform
in the direction of restoring the essential principles
of the old English Constitution ought not to frighten
Conservatives: a reform to re-establish what through
total change of' circumstances is now unsuitable,
ought not to be desired by Radicals. I cannot but
feel that it is a popular fallacy to say, that because
the original Parliament was elected by universal
suffrage, therefore the same thing is now proper.
Admit for the moment that the fact was as is
�6
asserted: yet the different functions needed from
the modern Parliament demand far wider political
information and intelligence in its electors. The
existing system is confessedly inadequate to the
nation : Tories and Whigs have avowed it, nor am
I defending things as they are. But before we
enter on a course which must become a mere ques
tion of strength, and may convulse us—not by civil
war, but by bitter discontents and impaired patriot
ism—more deeply than any one yet knows; let
thoughtful men of all sides be willing to reconsider
the entire position of things.
§ i. Before judging what reforms we need, we must
consider what grievances exist. I enumerate under
six heads the greatest of our organic evils and
sorest of our dangers.
i. Our wars made immorally. —War is crime on
*
the greatest scale, except when it is a necessary
measure of police for a commensurate object of
justice. No man can be hanged or deprived of his
property without the solemn verdict of men sworn
to uphold the right : yet we bombard cities, depose
princes, take possession of territory, drive families
into beggary, without any previous public hearing
or public deliberation; without any verdict of jus
tice ; at most by the vote of a secret cabinet, not
sworn to prefer the just to the convenient; nay, the
thing may be done at the will of one or two men in
Asia, without orders from England, or by the hot
headedness of a commodore; yet be ratified and
followed up, barely because it would hurt our pride
to disown it. These wars disgrace our ruling classes
*List of Queen Victoria’s wars.—War of Canada,—of Syria,—of Afghan
istan,—of Scinde and Moultan,—two Punjaub wars,—two Caffir wars,—war of
Assam,—war of Burma,—three Chinese wars,—Persian war,—Russian war,—■
war of Japan,—New Zealand wars,—war of Bhootan,—besides wars internal
to India or Ceylon, little wars in West Africa, and in South America. Of all
these wars only one (that of Russia) received previous mature consideration and
had national approval; and only one (the first Punjaub war) was a war of
defence against a foreign invader. Even that invasion was caused by our
aggression and conquest of Scinde.
�7
to the foreigner and bring upon them diplomatic
humiliations. To the poor of this country they are
’ the direst and most incurable of evils, entailing and
riveting upon them all their depression. If there
be a government of God on earth, no nation can
afford to make wars of cupidity or of pride.
This first grievance implies that Parliament is no
adequate check on the Ministry, and that the Min
istry has iro adequate control on its distant subor
dinates, in the matter of extra European war.
2. Our administrative inefficiency.—At the time
of the Crimean mismanagements, there was great
. outcry for administrative reform : it is not needful
here to do more than allude to the monstrous and
frightful facts which so harrowed the mind of Earl
Russell, then in the cabinet as Lord John Russell.
But in that great war, our Admiralty postponed to
build the gunboats wanted for the Baltic in 1854
and 1855 : built in preference great ships which
were not needed, and finally completed the gunboats
by 1856 after peace was made.—In the last four
years, the United States Admiralty, beginning from
nothing in their docks and almost nothing on the
seas, have built fleets adequate to their vast war ;
with 2000 miles of coast to blockade and great
flotillas on the rivers. It has been done for less
cost in gold, than that which our Admiralty has
expended in the same four years of peace: yet at
this moment we hear the outcry, that our ships and
guns are inferior to the American. On such details
I cannot pretend to knowledge; but it is needless
to prove that the incompetence of the Admiralty is a
chronic fact in England. Even the French Admiralty
has commented on it.—Now if the Admiralty is
inefficient, is the War Office or Civil Service likely
to be better, when the Admiralty is precisely the
organ on which it is hereditary with all English
statesmanship to pride itself?
The second grievance implies that Parliament
�8
has no adequate control over Ministerial incapacity
or favouritism.
3. The state of Ireland.—Lord Macaulay declared
Ireland to be the point at which the empire is always
exposed to a vital stab. No one will pretend that
Ireland is flourishing, or is loyal, or that the members
of the London Parliament have confidence in their
own understanding of Irish questions. A population
larger than that of some European kingdoms, inhab
iting a separate island—yet close to us—predomi
nantly of a foreign race, very many of them still
speaking a foreign tongue, differing also in religion;
is not easy to govern wisely, and cannot be perma
nently disaffected without grave mischief to us all.
Thirty thousand soldiers to overawe the Irish, are
a display to the world, that we still hold the island
as a conquest, and cannot trust them as fellow
citizens. The prohibition of volunteer soldiers tells
the same tale. Meanwhile the prime of the labour
ing classes emigrate, and propagate hatred against
us in America.
This grievance has lasted long enough to make
it clear, that the imperial Parliament is an inefficient
organ for Ireland, and that the Irish members are
inefficient or damaging for English legislation. The
Irish Parliament ought to have been reformed, not
destroyed.
4. The state of Established Churches.—Fivesixths of the population of Ireland are Dissenters :
so is a very large fraction of Wales. Half of
England is in Dissent, and no effort has ever been
made to bring back the most numerous body (the
Wesleyans) who on principle approve of a State
Church. Scotland is in a wonderful position through
the destruction of her Parliament. The articles of
Union are expounded to mean, that the Imperial
Parliament is bound forever to support the West
minster Confession of Faith, (which never was the
faith of England) whether Scotland believe it or not.
�9
Two successive vast schisms have rent away
masses of population from the Established Church ;
the latter in our own day, under Dr. Chalmers, who
was a vehement advocate for State Churches.
It is not my part to lay down that State Churches
are right or wrong : but I understand two character
istic boasts of “ Conservatives ” to be,—the House
Of Lords and the State religion. Each of these is in
secular decline under the existing routine, and must
continue to decline, if it be felt to obstruct, not to in
vigorate, national life. In the abstract, I do not
dissemble my own preference for territorial Churches
over Sects ; but the example of the United States
proves that Sectarianism is less hurtful in the ab
sence than in the presence of a Sectarian Church
Establishment. Thus we manage to get at once the
worst evils of both systems.
This topic suggests that the attempt at uniformity
is the wreck of state religion. Indeed, in the case
of Scotland uniformity is sacrificed, but in just the
most mischievous way,—that of enacting an ever
unchangeable creed.
Populations in a different
mental condition demand diversity in teachers and
in religious worship. These need local adjustment
by local assemblies, on which, at most, a veto alone
should be reserved to the central legislature.
5. The state of our Peasantry.—Almost from the
beginning, the peasantry have found the Parliament
to be an unfriendly organ. Under Edward III.
their wages were fixed by law, and they were
punished if they refused to work. For four centuries
and a half they were forbidden to make their own
bargains. Who can imagine that a Parliament of
landlords which thus treated them would not make the
laws of land unfairly favourable to landlords ? Yet
such laws are treated as sacred and unchangeable.
At present,in Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and England,
we find the actual cultivators of the soil to be worse off
than in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Hungary, or
�(atlength) than in Russia; nay, in afar less thriving
and happy condition than in the little island of
Guernsey. In Guernsey and in Belgium land is
scarcer than in England, in America it is far more
abundant; yet in each extreme the peasantry are
better off than with us. We have evidently to
adjust the arrears of six centuries’ oppression. Who
can hope that evils of that antiquity will be cleared
off by the old machinery ?
6. The incompetency of Parliament to do its
duties to India.—The English empire is a vast
machine of three parts. First, the United Kingdom,
with outlying military posts. Secondly, the true
English Colonies, which contribute to us neither
men nor money, yet have to be defended against
dangers real and imaginary. Thirdly, the perilous
splendour of India, where 150 millions are subjected
to the Queen’s direct rule, and thereby to her
Parliament. To these add 30 millions at home, and
you find 180 millions which have to be watched
over by a single supreme legislature. N or only so:
but 50 millions more of Indians, through their
princes, are in subordinate alliance to the Queen.
These princes are liable to be dethroned by the pen
of the Queen’s Secretary. To all such, the appeal
for justice lies to the British Parliament.
It is but the other day, that an Indian prince
appealed against an executive decree which had
deprived him of his royalty and thereby ejected all
his countrymen and kinsmen from high office. His
cause came before Parliament and was voted down
by ministers and placemen. Without assuming that
the vote was unjust, it may be judged monstrous to
eject all natives from high office because their prince
has misbehaved. In any case, Indians will never
become loyal to British rule, if their appeals against
the local executive are heard, not in a court of Law,
by judges sworn to do justice, but by men banded
as partizans, and virtually judges in their own
�11
cause. An eminent Indian officer recently states,
that, though not a shot be fired, 10,000 soldiers
are required yearly, merely to keep up in India the ex
isting force of 75,000 British troops. Grant that sani
tary arrangements may lower this frightful number :
yet how many will be wanted if we make new annexa
tions ? if we absorb more and more native principal
ities ? if we develop Indian wealth and mechanism
while wounding the native sentiment ? All these
agencies are going on at this moment. A general
insurrection may be surely counted on within thirty
years, unless, before that time, we win the loyalty
of Indian patriots. Even the movement of 1857
would have been irresistible, if the insurgents had
actively extended its area at once, or if certain
princes had gone against us. Unless the drain of
men for the Indian army be stopped, the sooner we
avow ourselves to be, like Switzerland and Belgium,
neutral in all European questions, the better for
our good fame. We are ourselves cementing India
into one country. Another insurrection, an insur
rection of collective India,—if successful, would
inflict on England an amount of loss, ruin, and
disgrace, which could not be recovered in a whole
generation;—if unsuccessful, would still multiply our
difficulties tenfold, and make it doubtful whether
expulsion would not have been better for us.
§ 11.
For these six grievances and dangers Reforms
are needed. Of what Reforms do we now hear talk ?
Prominently and solely of Extended Suffrage and
*
the Ballot. Let me grant to a Radical, that each
of these may have its value;—the Ballot for its
mechanical convenience, and as a temporary engine
to save a limited class from intimidation. Yet
unless these are mere steps towards after-reforms,
they will leave Parliament overworked and helpless,
* Since this was in type, Triennial Parliaments have been claimed.
�12
the Bureaucracy as despotic as ever, India disloyal,
the House of Lords as obstructive as ever to all
religious freedom. If after-reforms are intended,
they must be avowed at once, or we shall be once
more told that the settlement is “ final,” and is to
last for a full generation. That Mr. Bright and the
late lamented Mr. Cobden expected changes in the
possession of land, with benefit to our peasants,
from these two measures of reform, I infer from a
celebrated altercation; but the mode in which they
are to operate and the length of time before they
will bring relief, remain extremely obscure. The
artizan class from 1840 to 1846 gave their effort to
sustain the Corn Laws; the peasants also, if they
had the vote, would probably use it against them
selves. To give voting power to ignorant masses,
accustomed to abject obedience, is surely no political
panacea.
The primary weakness of our organization lies in
the enormous over-occupation of the House of
Commons. With great talent, knowledge and ex
perience, in more than 600 men,—by tact to divide
labour and put each man to his special work ;—by
standing Committees and Permanent Chairmen, in
whom the House could confide, and to whom they
could refer for information and counsel; no doubt a
vast deal of work might be done, and without very
long speeches. But no ministry has ever shown a
wish to aid the Legislative body to conduct its work
energetically.
On matters of administration the
ministers must of course take the initiative; but they
will never invent an organization which is to control
them ; which in fact must be devised and maintained
strictly as against them. New principles are wanted.
At present the holders of power and the expectants
of power combine to subject the independence of the
Legislative to the Bureaucracy; and this usurpation
is veiled under the phrase,—prerogative of the
Crown.
Merely to extend the franchise will not
�i3
add to the chance of getting abler members of
Parliament, nor a larger number of men resolved to
fight against any of the grievances enumerated.
The task laid on the Commons House is at present
too overwhelming. Without new machinery which
shall relieve it of the present intolerable load, no
imaginable change in the mode of electing is likely
to cure the evil. One supreme legislature for 230
millions! Englishmen who come out of practical
life and have been deeply immersed in special and
very limited occupations, are to judge on Private
Bills innumerable, and on the affairs of people very
unlike to us and quite unknown to us! In the
United States, for 31 millions of people there are 35
independent local legislatures, each having on an
average less than a million; while the Supreme
Congress is wholly disembarrassed of all local law,
and regulates only a defined number of topics which
concern the entire homogeneous Union. Our colon
ial legislatures legislate only for the home interests
of perhaps half a million, two million, or at most
three million people. It does not require super
human wisdom in legislators to do tolerably well
work thus limited. But it is a truly barbarous
simplicity to put one organ to the frightfully various
work of our Commons House. Entirely new organs
appear to me an obvious and undeniable necessity,
however disagreeable to men of routine.
Nor should it be left out of sight, that in the last
century and a half, while our population has been
growing in numbers and our affairs in complexity;
so far have we been from increasing and developing
our organization, that we have destroyed or spoiled
the organs which existed.
The Parliaments of
Ireland and Scotland have been annihilated (one by
flagrant, the other by suspected, bribery,) and the
power and status of our Municipalities and our
County organization have been gravely lowered.
The old Municipalities and Counties were the
�14
sources from which Parliament derived its own
rights and power : to the new institutions limited
rights have been jealously measured out by Parlia
ment. Every Empire needs to be made up of
Kingdoms or Governments; every such Govern
*
ment, of Provinces or Counties ; and each smaller
unit should have complete political life, with as much
power over itself as can be exercised without
damage to the nation. From these elementary
principles we have gone widely astray, working to
wards a central confusion which always threatens
alternate despotism and anarchy.
To invent new organization is not really difficult.
California thirteen years ago was infamous as a nest
of gamblers and robbers, mixed with gold-diggers ;
but the instant that a sufficient mass of honest men
was poured in, they constructed admirable institu
tions, and have now among other good things
popular colleges which we may envy. The diffi
culty is, to persuade English aristocrats to adopt
anything new, until the old has become quite in
tolerable. Let wretched Ireland be a witness to
that! It means that millions of the nation must
go through martyrdom,—that public calamity and
disgrace must be incurred,—that disaffection must
become dangerous ; before the classes which are at
ease will consent to the creation of any machinery
which they suspect might ultimately undermine
their power. This is no true Conservatism. This
is the way to ruin an aristocratic order. It is not the
able men, the experienced men, who so feel or so rea
son ; it is the meaner members of their party, whom
the leaders will not risk offending, until public calam
ityforces them, or until the nation, gaining a clear idea
of what it wants, speaks so pointedly, that the real
party-leaders come over to it. This I hold to be the
right course for the Radicals, who (it seems) must
be the movers. Let them make it their business to
convince such men as Mr. Gladstone and Lord
�i5
Stanley in the two great parties of the State, that
the things which they claim are reasonable and
right,—and with a view to this, let them impress
the same thing on as many members of Parliament
as they can,—and the necessary reforms will be car
ried, however novel in principle. Those who call
themselves “ practical men”—are apt to snuff out
every proposal that goes beyond routine, by the
reply,—“ There is no use in talking of it; for it is
quite impossible: ” and until a public opinion has
been formed in favour of it, every new thing is of
course impossible. But what our colonies and the
United States do, is not impossible to Englishmen
at home when they resolve upon it.
The inertia of our aristocratic ranks, miscalled
Conservatism, has undoubtedly a marvellous resist
ing force ; and this is the great danger of the country.
When all the world beside is in rapid movement,
and that world is in intimate relations—industrial,
political, social, literary, — with England ; when
moreover our own population is in steady change ;
organic reforms ought to accommodate themselves
easily and quickly,—if possible, spontaneously,—
to the changes of society. This would be true
Conservatism ; for this is vitality. Reform which
comes too late, fails to avert political disease.
The noblest function of high legislation is to guide
and conduct Reform.
Let those who think Inertia to be Conservative,
look with a fresh eye on the outer world. Russia
has cast off her slave system, and is organizing her
Governments into centres of independent political
life. She increases her population three times as
fast as England every year, and loses none
by emigration. In a quarter of a century more she
is likely to have ioo millions, not of disfranchised
men, or discontented subjects, but of real citizens,
under 40 or 50 local Parliaments, combining their
strength in one Empire.—Germany may ere long
�i6
be involved by her Prussian dynasty in a great
civil war, which (even if it do not become a Re
publican contest) can scarcely fail of ending in a
great union of their many local governments : a
Union which may chance even to absorb Holland
and Switzerland by the good will of these little
states. The Germany of the future is resolved to
be a power on the high seas, with at least forty
millions of people, who will cease to emigrate largely
when they are politically better satisfied.—France
will be to us ever a better neighbour, the richer and
the more commercial she becomes: yet so much the
more certainly is she our rival on the seas.—The
Italian fleets, with those of Southern Germany,
will supersede our functions as police of the Medi
terranean, and therefore might seem our valuable
allies: whether our Conservatives will so regard
them, is another question.—But the broad fact is,
that with the increase of good government on the
continent, and still more with the progress of free
institutions, the relative power of England must
sink and does sink: and we can less than ever afford
to have a discontented Ireland, and a peasantry who
are nearly at the bottom of the European scale.
Something yet stronger remains to be urged.
English and Irish peasants must be compared, not
merely to the peasants of Guernsey or of Europe,
but to those of America. There, a nation, among
whom in every moral and social sense our people
find themselves at home,—a nation which, since
the death of George III., has absorbed three
million British emigrants, — has decided on the
overthrow of slavery, and is resolved to people its
vast fertile lands by bestowing them freely on culti
vators. The Slave States will soon attract emigrants
even more than does the far West. America (to
say nothing of Canada) might receive ten million
new citizens in the next ten years with no result to
herself but increased prosperity. An emigrant who
�i7
has manly strength, industry, and temperance,
landing at New York with a few dollars, can in
3 or 4 years lay by enough to stock a farm, receive
public land, and become a freehold cultivator.
Should emigration from our counties once commence
in earnest, the Irish Exodus teaches that it is like a
syphon which sucks the cask dry,—the stream in
front attracting that behind. If English landlords
desire our problem to work itself out on the Irish
pattern ; if they can look complacently on the possi
bility of a constant dwindling of the English popu
lation, with results which need not here be pointed
at, they have only to persevere in their past
routine.
In this connexion there is yet one more topic
which English Whigs and Tories ought not to over
look : (I am unwilling to lay stress on it, yet it is
too important wholly to omit ;)—the danger—as
they will view it—of Republicanism becoming mili
tant in Europe. Their folly has prepared the way.
They abandoned Hungary, with its territorial no
bility, its old precedents, its rights founded on treaty,
when it had no thought of throwing off royalty.
By refusing to acknowledge the belligerency of
Hungary, and to reassume that place of Mediator,
between her and Austria, which (with Holland) we
had held in making the peace of 1710,—we con
nived at Russian invasion, and made Gorgey’s
treason a possibility.
Our first punishment was
our own Russian war, which came in the train. The
next is, that the English aristocracy now is isolated,
and Hungary (irreconcileable to Austria) will become
a Republic on the first opportunity. Hitherto the
French dynasty has failed to attain a constitutional
position, without which it has no mark of perma
nence ; nor is Victor Emmanuel’s throne the stronger
for all the humiliations which the French Emperor
has put upon it. Whether in France or in Ger
many events give the initiative, matters but little. A
c
�i8
civil war may rise in Germany, either from the un5
endurable encroachments of a prince, or by the con
tagion of revolutionary spirit. Whatever the cause
of German commotion, Republicanism would quickly
become an established fact in Hungary ; and once
successful there, would reanimate the struggle else
where. It will not wait to be a second time crushed
by the combination of kings. No one can predict
what is to come ; but no reasonable man will now
deny that events of an ordinary kind may lead to
the establishment of Republics in Hungary, Ger
many, and France. Would not English Conserva
tives and the Crown itself then regret, if by
obstructing all reforms, and initiating nothing likely
to remove the causes of discontent, they had per
petuated a sullen indignation against British Institu
tions ? Even in 1848 Tories rejoiced, that Lord
Grey’s Reform Bill of 1832 had become law.
S.ni.
What steps of Organic Reform do I then desire
to recommend to the attention of the reader ? I must
distinguish between immediate and ultimate measures.
Five measures appear to me of immediate urgent
importance.
1. The establishment of an Imperial Court in
India, to judge all causes between the Queen’s Go
vernment and the Princes ; with power similar to
that which the Queen’s Bench would put forth, if here
the Government were to eject a nobleman from his
estates. The mere inauguration of such a Court
would send a gush of loyalty through Indian hearts,
and would encourage the princes to lessen their
native armies. The establishment of one disputed
title by it (say, the confirmation of the Rajah of My
sore against Lord Canning’s unexpected and harsh
decision, which extinguishes his dynasty with his life,)
would allow us to reduce the Indian army by one
half. Its restitution of a single prince unjustly
�19
rdeposed, with restoration of his jewels and wardrobe,
might bring down the English force to the standard
of 1833. The mark of a “ tyrant ” (according to the
old Greeks) was his defence by a foreign body-guard:
we bear that mark of illegitimate sway at present.
To make India loyal, to save the yearly sacrifice of
health or life to 10,000 young men, now the miserable
victims of our army system, is so urgent an interest,
that I put this topic foremost. Too much import
ance can hardly be given to it. Each soldier is said
to cost us /ioo; hence the pecuniary expense also
is vast. But until we restrain ourselves from ag
gression, all attempts permanently to improve the
state of our millions at home must be fruitless.
Nor only so : but considering that 200 millions of
Indians would be represented in that Supreme
Court, a splendid commencement would be given to
“ Arbitration instead of War,” for which Cobden
contended in Europe.
English judges would be
faithful to their duty ; but, by adding natives of
India to the Court, we should set a potent example
to the whole world, fraught with good will to men,
and likely to bring us blessings from God.
The responsibilities of the English Parliament
would be greatly lightened by this measure ; which
would at least relieve them of their arduous judicial
duties towards the Indian princes.
2. The boon which was solemnly guaranteed to
India by Lord Grey’s Ministry in Parliament, and
by the Parliamentary Charter of 1833, should be at
once bestowed, bona fide. It was promised that to
every office, high or low, except that of Gov. Gen.
and Commander-in-Chief, native Indians should be
admissible on equal terms with British-born sub
jects. “ An exception corroborates the rule concerning
things not excepted. For twenty years this solemn
act was made a dead letter; then in 1853, under
pretence of new liberality, the delusive system of
competitive examinations was established, subjecting
�20
natives to unjust disadvantage, and forcing them to
come to England to be examined. If this system
of trickery be kept up by the old influences which
Lord Grey threatened with extinction if they dared
to resist that important clause in 1833,—all our
other good deeds and good intentions may prove
inadequate to win Indian loyalty. Our task there
is, to rear India into political manhood, train it to
English institutions, and rejoice when it can govern
itself without our aid. If a part of our aristocracy
and middle classes is too narrow-minded to under
stand how noble is such a function, the rest of Great
Britain ought not to remain silent,—to the great and
certain mischief of the empire.
3. The Mutiny Act, which is never passed for
more than one year, should not be re-enacted in its
present barbarous state, but with several important
modifications. Of these, I shall here specify but
one. No soldier or sailor who kills, wounds, or de
stroys, should be exempted from the ordinary
responsibilities of a civilian, except after the Queen
(or her accredited Viceroy) has publicly proclaimed
war. Then, and then only, if a soldier attack the
country against which war has been proclaimed,—
and none another,—should he be able to plead
“ military command ” in his justification. Against
violent and sudden attack civilians and soldiers alike
may make defence with deadly weapons. Admirals
and Consuls will cease to involve us in war of their
own initiation, only when they become unable to
shield the tools of their will from personal responsi
bility.—[I suppose that it is the Mutiny Act which
here needs modification. If there be some other
Act which exempts the soldier from guilt, then it is
that which needs repeal.]
4. Irish Ecclesiasticism has to be reformed with the
least possible delay. The topics are too well known
to dwell on. The Lord Morpeth Bill of 1837 and
Lord Leveson Gower’s of 1825,—both murdered
�21
by the House of Lords,—tell what needs to be done
for Ireland.
5. What I mention fifth, might be executed
first. — The principle of creating Life Peers, re
called by Lord Palmerston in the case of Lord
Wensleydale, should be avowed by the nation,
and enforced by the executive, but with one essential
modification of pre-eminent importance. Let the
" Commons vote a humble address to her Majesty,
representing that the House of Peers needs to be
elevated in honour and called to higher and more
active functions ; and with a view to this implore
her that in future she will create none but Life
Peers, and such Peers as can be trusted by her
faithful Commons to co-operate diligently in the
public service; that therefore also she will instruct
her ministers to seek a vote from the Commons,
commending for public merit any individual for
whom they are disposed to solicit from her Majesty
the honour of a Life Peerage.—The majority of the
Peers will be too sensible to resist the nation and
the Commons in such a cause, and a vast step on
ward will have been made.
So much for immediate Reforms : but what are
the more distant, yet necessary objects ?
We cannot undo in a day the malversations of
centuries. Every idea of immediate final Reform
is a sad delusion. For a century and a half, as
above remarked, instead of developing our ancient
organs, we have lamed or destroyed them. To re
make or invent requires both special knowledge and
wisdom. A popular movement cannot possibly dic
tate details. But I will not shrink from saying my
thought in outline, where I have thought a great
deal.
1. To stop unjust wars, entangling treaties, and
unwise diplomacy, the House of Lords should have
supreme controul over Foreign Affairs. The right
of advising her Majesty to declare war should be
�22
taken from the Privy Council, (which is in this mat
ter now a wooden machine,) and should be given to
the Lords ; every one of whom should have a right,
like that of the American Senate, to enter the Fo
*
reign Office and read every despatch. No Treaty
should be valid unless confirmed by the Lords, and
by the Commons also, if it involve pecuniary con
tingencies, and the House should have a right to
order the unmutilated publication of whatever di
plomatic document it pleases.
2. Every appointment to office should be made
out in the words, that her Majesty appoints the
person, “ by the consent of the House of Peers.”
Then the House would have a veto on every ap
pointment.
The Ministry would not dare to
appoint through mere favouritism, and would gain
power to resist importunate claimants of their own
party, whom they now reluctantly gratify.
Of course these new and high functions could
not be given to the Lords, until the nation trusts
them : and perhaps no Conservative, no peer, would
wish the Upper House to have this prominence in
the empire without some change in the present con
stitution. Sismondi,—a writer who energetically
combines an aristocratical creed with zeal for a freeholding peasantry,—declares as a historical induc
tion, that the essence and energy of aristocracy is
corrupted from the day that it becomes formally he
reditary. In England it has been saved by the dying
out of so many old peerages, and by the incessant
creation of new ones. The sole innovation of prin
ciple which I propose, is, that the creation shall be
made, not to reward partizanship, or to stock the
house with wealthy men ; but that^shall be voted
°l /optzmj cuique, (as the Romans have it) by the
representatives of the nation, and thus made a true
Aristocracy, a rule of the Best.
3. We want safety for our food which is on the high
seas.—The mischief of Bureaucracy is strikingly
�23
Illustrated in the recent history of this topic. In
i860 the United States Government sent a circular
to all its ministers in Europe, requesting them to
propose neutral privileges for all merchant ships in
time of war: and Earl Russell gave a decided re
fusal, without letting Parliament know that the offer
had been made. Three years later, Mr. Cobden re
vealed the fact, having got information of it from
America; and asserted of his own personal know
ledge that every Court of Europe would have
gladly acceded to the measure, if Earl Russell had
accepted it. The American Government did not
expect refusal from this quarter; for Lord Palmer
ston in a public speech at Liverpool had declared
his desire of such an arrangement. More recently
indeed, he has tried to back out of what he then
said ; but, as is believed, solely because he had found
Earl Russell unconvinceable. Such is the power of
one man, secretly to obstruct a matter of vital inte
rest to the nation. The doings of that one ship,
the Alabama, in spite of all the efforts of the Fede
ral navy, are a sufficient warning of what England
would suffer in a war with a power quite third-rate
on the seas. In fact, it is probable that either Aus
tria or Prussia could annihilate our merchant navy.
To compute the misery which would be endured by
the middle and lower classes of England from the
stagnation of foreign trade and the cutting off of
foreign food,—is impossible. It is not yet too late
to repair Earl Russell’s grave error; but if war
once come upon us, we then shall repent too late.
4. I believe that Ireland ought to be divided into
four Provinces, England into (perhaps) six, Scotland
into two; Wales would remain “the Principality:”
hence might be thirteen Provincial Councils with
free power of local taxation and local legislation,
subject only to a veto from Parliament, which in
most cases would gradually become a formality.
Time and trial, or lawyer’s skill, would discover in
�24
what cases the veto might be definitely renounced.
The Councils should be elected by a very extended suf4
frage, which in two generations might reach to every
adult who is ostensibly independent. The more
the Councils should relieve the Parliament of all
business except that in which the empire is neces
sarily a unit, the better. To controul the Executive
—to arrange all that is general to the United King
dom,—to look after India and the Colonies ; will
remain a more than sufficient task, if not only all
Private Bills are stript away, but also all business
concerning Education, Churches, the Poor, the Law
Courts, and Militia or Volunteers. If we had thus
many centres of national life, of high cultivation and
refinement, the unhealthy and threatening growth of
London would be arrested. We should soon have
many Universities, Free Education for all ranks, and
many small Army-systems, in wholesome emulation.
The Counties and the large Towns would no longer
be isolated, as strongholds of aristocracy and demo
cracy ; but the country gentlemen and nobility
would seek and find their places in the local Execu
tive and in the Provincial Councils, without being able
to block out meritorious men of every rank. The
poor would have a chance of rising to the top of the
scale. Instead of society being mischievously divi
ded, as now, into horizontal strata, its relations
would be local and territorial; for every Council
in England and its Executive would have a power
and dignity equivalent to that of a kingdom such as
Belgium or Holland.
Each would regulate its
local Religious Establishments : one would vie with
another in diffusing education : experimental legis
lation might become fruitful; and whatever mani
fest benefit one part had devised, would be initiated
without the ordeal of long Parliamentary cam
paigns.
The decay of English institutions from the acces
sion of William III to the death of George III was
�mainly due to the fact, that during European war
an English Parliament can ill attend to anything
else. J ust so, Parliamentary Reform was abandoned,
because Russian war came upon us.
This is an
evidently defective and barbarous condition; and
puts us into melancholy contrast to the United
States, in which no intensity of war lessens the do
mestic energy of the State Governments.
5. The question of Parliamentary suffrage cannot
be properly argued here. It is now complicated by
Mr. Hare’s ingenious proposals, of which I would
gladly see experiment in a single district, as in that
of the metropolis. To discuss his scheme fully
would require much space; to give an opinion
shortly would be arrogant. But to many reasoners
on the subject of the suffrage, a few general remarks
may be not superfluous.
Representative Legislators are an artificial sys
tem. Many men say to me : “I am not bound, to
obey laws, unless I have consented to them
iwy
'representative?' What if another say : “ I am not
bound to obey laws, unless I have consented to them
myself? " I think, that of the two, the latter state
ment has more reason. The former is every way
absurd. My representative may have voted against
the law ; then, I am not bound ! Women also are
free from all statute laws, by this argument. More
over, I never consented to be bound by my repre
sentative. Representation is a mere means to an
end. Justice to all orders and persons is the end.
Inasmuch as injustice in legislation generally pro
ceeds from one-sidedness of mind, a legislature
which does not contain men from all ranks is almost
certain to be unjust to the ranks excluded. But
merely to admit a right of voting, does not ensure
the object aimed at. The English farmers have
always had votes, but never in our days have
had representatives of their interest in Parliament.
Nor is the vote a natural right of individuals.
D
�26
If convenience suggested to cast lots in each rank,
and pick out a sort of jury from it as an electoral
college, no class would be injured, and no individual
could complain, as long as the results proved good.
Nor is it true that the men called “ potwall^ers ”
in old days were in any moral sense “ elevated ” by
the Parliamentary vote. That small shopkeepers,
artizans, farmers, peasants, and the entire female sex,
are wholly unrepresented in Parliament, seems to me
a great defect, apt to involve injustice to each
class, whenever it happens to have some special
interest and rights. But to remedy the evil is a
matter of extreme difficulty.
Neither extended
suffrage, nor universal suffrage seems to me likely
to bring an alleviation, until a distant date, after
living men are in their graves.
That persons may be “ elevated ” by possessing
the suffrage, they must be able to meet, and discuss,
and form definite opinions ; and not merely vote
once in seven years, but wait upon their representa
tive and press their judgments upon him, and be
able to call him to account, or be enlightened by
his explanation. A man who needs the Ballot to
shield him, and dares not allow the colour of his
political opinions to be known,—can do none of
these things; cannot fulfil the cardinal duties of a
constituent, and is degraded, not elevated, by pos
sessing the vote. Men who are too numerous or
too distant to meet and confer, are generally a mis
chievous constituency. Cliques and “ caucuses,” or
other Clubs, unknown to the Constitution, generally
snatch power out of their hands. I cannot convince
myself that the workmen who have “ Unions” are
not often in miserable subjection to the power of a
clique. The “caucuses” of the United Stateshave
constantly enabled those who are called “ trading
politicians ” to dictate the course of public events,
owing to the President being elected by suffrage on
too vast a scale. A nation which enjoys very
�27
vigorous local institutions,—where the Parish, as well
as the State, is in high energy, and education is not
only free to all, but accepted by all,—may bear
the occasional exercise of such a vote,—and will
use it well in a time of great national tension. But
to introduce those who have no daily political duties,
no local activity, no wide political thought, into the
responsibility of voting in huge masses once in seven
years, for a Parliament which is to be “ omnipotent; "
and to expect that this will promote liberty ;—seems
to me a lamentable and wild mistake. Electors
ought to have clear opinions as to the competence
of the elected for the highest and most difficult of
the tasks which will befal him. The welfare of our
millions is sacrificed by mismanagement of remote
affairs , as to which they have little knowledge and
no care. They should be able, not only to confer
and advise one another publicly, but to keep up
active personal relations with their representative.
Any enlargement of the franchise which impedes
these processes, or makes elections more expensive,
and leaves the expense on the candidate, must (I
fear) be a change greatly for the worse. At pre
sent, the power of a minister to threaten a dissolu
tion,—which means, to threaten a fine of some
hundreds or even thousands of pounds on single
members, if the voting be not to the minister’s taste,
is a disgrace and a grave mischief.
The French Reformers in the last century, who
first inEurope conceived generous and noble ideas
of popular power, were aware that nothing but con
fusion could come of Universal Suffrage acting
directly on a central system in a populous nation.
They devised the system of Double Election ; and
in my belief were fundamentally right. But on a
sound foundation they built unsoundly. The bodies
which thus elect, ought not to exist merely for the
sake of electing. They should elect because they are
a substantive power, trusted for other high duties,
�28
and therefore trustworthy for this function also. I
will not conceal my opinion, that if the United
Kingdom were divided into Provinces, every mem
ber of the Imperial Parliament ought ultimately to
be an ambassador delegated by the direct vote of his
Provincial Council; delegated with instructions, and
each liable to be separately recalled, and replaced at
the will of the Council. Such a system, I think,
would be a virtual return to the original idea, in
which the Knights and Burgesses certainly never
represented individuals, but represented corporate
bodies. There is the very same reason for electing
the central Parliament by representative Councils,
as there is for legislating by representatives, and
not by a folkmote, when a nation is counted by mil
lions. From every Council, on an average, seven
might every year be appointed, to sit for seven years,
unless recalled. Some of the seven every year
would be selected to gratify the petition of every
order of men : thus every class would have virtual
representatives in Parliament.
Every delegate
should have an honourable stipend from his own
Council, and never be permitted to incur any -election
expenses. In this way, from a humble origin, merit
might rise, first into the local legislature or local
executive, next into central posts of honour. And
there is no such security for the welfare of the lowest
ranks, as when a sensible fraction of the Executive
Government is ordinarily filled by men who have
risen .from below. At present no such men rise, nor
can rise, even into the Legislature, extend the suf
frage as you may.
After sons of peasants and of artizans shall be
found in high places,—after the House of Peers is
popularized,—no one would despair of changes in
the tenure of landed property, such as may elevate
the entire order of the peasantry ; but if it is to be
delayed so long, the problem will be solved by
Emigration in a mode far less satisfactory to the
�29
landlord class. If landlords are wise, they will
understand their danger ; and will prefer to have a
House of Peers which shall deal with it. Surely it
is happy for the Russian nobility that the Emperor
has taken in hand the removal of serfdom, instead
of awaiting the chances of revolution.
6. That pernicious system of Centralization which
makes French legal liberty impossible, and has
gravely damaged England, in India has run riot
without controul. When the East Indian Company
overthrew local treasuries in India, and put into
their central exchequer at Calcutta the tolls of roads
and ferries of the most remote South, they per
petrated a deed which doomed their rule to be a
blight upon the land, even if the virtue of their
lowest servants had been on a par with the best.
We know by positive official statement that in con
sequence of this diversion of moneys from their
local purpose, the roads of whole kingdoms became
overgrown, and so lost, that their old course was
matter for official inquiry. This hideous blunder
remains unreversed. India has no local treasuries.
Every coin in every province is liable to be spent
in some war against Nepaul, Afghanistan, or Thibet.
War is made with the very life-blood of material
prosperity: roads and bridges, canals and tanks,
cannot be repaired during war, while their funds are
mixed with the war funds. Many have of late been
finding out, that colonists will involve us in wars
with barbarian neighbours as long as they can sup
port their wars out of the resources of the Home
Government. Not less true is it, that India will
never be without a war, as long as there is a centra
lized treasure to support it and no Parliament to
refuse supplies. Mr. Bright many years since made
an elaborate speech in Parliament, which was heard
by all sides with very respectful attention:—if he
had followed it up, and claimed inviolable local
treasuries, he would have said all that I am here
�30
pressing. He urged that every Indian Presidency
should be independent of the rest, and that each
should be in direct relation to the Home Govern
ment. India, it is often said, is a continent, not a
country,
The diversities of its inhabitants are
enormous. No one proposes for it uniform legisla
tion.
If an English ministry could be at once
convinced that India ought to be divided into many
coordinate governments, it might be a reform not of
the distant, but of the near future. Parliament
would acquiesce in any thing proposed by the
ministry. There is evidently no reason in doubting
that a Government of io million people could defend
its own frontiers against any rude neighbours or
half barbarous potentates; and a Government thus
limited, would have far less tendency to aggression
than the powerful and proud Executive of 150
millions. A Viceroy is wanted in India, not to
govern but to reign. Take away the Governor
General, and send a prince of the blood royal, to
represent the Empress Queen to the Indian princes ;
—to receive their occasional homage and their
formal applications -to be the medium of transmit
ting their diplomacy to England, or their suits to
that Imperial Court which I imagine. The Central
Executive should be a mere “ Board of Works” for
Railways, Canals, Rivers, Harbours, Post, and Mint,
without a Foreign Office, an Army, or a Navy.
India will not cease to be drained’by war expenses,
and thereby to be misgoverned, until ambitious
central despotism is destroyed.
Every point above proposed by me, (except the
neutralization of merchant vessels in time of war,
to which Lord Palmerston once gave voluntary
assent) is developed out of the single principle, that
Centralization, and the Bureaucracy which it nou
rishes, must be severely abated. If Bureaucracy is
to be depressed, something else must be elevated.
What must that be ? I say, the House of Peers
�31
and an Imperial Court of Law. This ought not to
frighten a Conservative. But the House cannot
get or keep public support,—it cannot really lead
the nation,—without a Reform. What milder reform
is possible, than is above suggested ? What more
honourable to Peerage ? The strongest Democrats
rejoice to be presided over by a popular nobleman.
To a Reformed House of Peers the warmest lovers
of liberty among us would shortly rally. . A popular
movement can only dictate principles; such as are
these: let us have true Aristocracy, not Bureaucracy:
let us have political vitality every where, restricting
Centralization to its true functions : let every class
be represented in the Legislature, and be admissible
into the Executive.
Such principles are broad enough to be popular.
Details must be directed by cultivated intelligence,
independent of the ministry of the day. Every
ministry, like a Turkish Pasha, has an intense inte
rest in the present, and a very feeble interest in the
future. To allow a ministry to dictate permanent
policy is a truly grave mistake, tending to Turkish
ruin. The ministry has a task to execute ; but a
power which has a more permanent stake in the
country should prescribe what task. When the
House of Commons looks to the ministry to lead it,
and the Lords have no popular support, what else
can be expected but short-sighted policy ?
I have said enough, yet I wish to add, that I re
gard our system of voluntary political societies, made
for special objects, as a wretched crutch, and an
enormous waste of time and money. The argumen
tations which they carry on ought to be heard on
the floor of a local constitutional assembly,—of a
parish or municipality first,—thence by transference
to a Provincial Council, through which any petitions
should ordinarily go to Parliament. Then both
sides would hear one another from the beginning;
whereas now, an elaborate process is needed, before
�32
even the best cause can get a hearing from adversa
ries, while foolish schemes linger without effective
refutation.—The case of our peasants is sad and
disgraceful; but it needs wisdom still more than
sympathy. To abolish the Law of Primogeniture
might bring no immediate visible result; but it
would excellently inaugurate a new principle, and
give some hope for the future.
WILLIAM IRWIN, PRINTER, 5, PRINCESS STREET, MANCHESTER.
�
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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English institutions and their most necessary reforms. A contribution of thought
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Newman, Francis William [1805-1897.]
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Place of publication: London
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1865
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Politics
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Conway Tracts
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Political reform
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Text
CONTRADICTIONS
OF
LORD PALMERSTON
IN REFERENCE TO
POLAND AND CIRCASSIA,
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“ Russia can be reached only in her instruments.”
The Crisis, Paris, 184,0.
LONDON:
HARDWICKE, 192, PICCADILLY.
August, 1863.
Price One Shilling.
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*
�FALSEHOOD AS A METHOD OF GOVERNMENT.
17, 1863.
An event took place towards the end of the recent Session of
Parliament unprecedented in the history of this country. The
First Minister of the Crown was deliberately charged by Mr.
Cobden with three falsehoods.
The three falsehoods had all been told in the House, and one
was a wilful perversion, after his death, of a speech delivered by
a rival. The purpose in the three cases was to involve the House
in expenditure.
On the 30th of July, 1845, Lord Palmerston had announced
that the invention of steam-ships had destroyed the maritime
supremacy of England; Sir Robert Peel had scouted the notion
as a ridiculous absurdity. On the 23rd of July, 1860, Lord
Palmerston attributed to Sir Robert Peel this very state
ment—namely, that steam had bridged the Channel, and that as
regards security from aggression, England had ceased to be an
island.
On.the 10th July, 1862, Mr. Cobden, on the authority of
quotations from Hansard, called on Lord Palmerston to admit
that his assertion was a mistake, stating that, in order to be Par
liamentary, he used the word “ inexactness^ Lord Palmerston
refused to enter on the subject. Mr. Cobden’s constituents and
several. other bodies have since addressed him on the subject,
conveying their approbation of his conduct.
The effect of Mr. Cobden’s accusation is, therefore, to raise
the objeet of it above all Parliamentary control.
This alarming state of things would be at once reversed if the
laws were enforced. The former practice of the expulsion from
the House of Commons of those who stated what was not true,.
REPORT OF ST. PANCRAS COMMITTEE, APRIL
�would not- only stop the scandal but prevent the malversation
which these falsehoods are employed to disguise.
The first Memoir hereto appended is on Falsehood as dealt with
by the forms of the House of Commons. The second is on the
Falsehoods of .Lord Palmerston, giving some idea of the
extent to which Falsehood is carried on in the management of
the Country.
Signed by order of the Committee, and on their behalf.
C. D. Collet, Chairman.
C. F. Jones, Secretary.
I.
How to deal with Falsehood by the
Forms of the House of Commons.
For some generations back it has been held as an axiom that
Members of the Legislature were incapable of falsehood. Since
the year 1847, however, accusations of this offence have not
only circulated without the walls of Parliament, but have on
several occasions made their way into the House of Commons.
These accusations have always been directed against the same
person—Lord Palmerston. Hitherto they have always been
incidental to Motions respecting some foreign State. Such
Motions have generally been got rid of by means of a u countout” or the dropping of an order of the day, so that the issue
has been evaded.
The recent charges laid against Lord Palmerston, by Mr.
Cobden, having been made under cover of the word <( inex
actness,” have neither presented to the House a dilemma to be
evaded nor to individual members an opportunity to be seized.
The remedy is therefore to reverse the act of Mr. Cobden, and
to bring forward a Motion in the House, dealing with the act by
its proper name, and inflicting the ancient Parliamentary punish
ment for that offence. An inspection of the Journals of the House
shows that this punishment consists in expulsion.
In the cases selected, the motive to falsehood appears unim
portant; namely, to obtain the privilege of Parliament for some
person not entitled to it. The sole point at issue was whether the
Member had spoken the truth or not. The first of these two
cases is that of Colonel Wanklyn, who was summarily expelled.
The second, that of Sir John Prettiman, who was suspended,
and afterwards restored on submission, is still more instructive,
because it shows the pains taken to examine into and to prevent
prevarication, always more difficult to deal with than direct false
hood.
�7
CASE OF COLONEL WANKLYN.
A.D. 1677} 30 Charles II. Friday, February 1.—A Motion being made
against the frequent and irregular granting of Paper Protections by Mem
bers of this House; and
A Petition of Angela Margaretta Cottington being read, complaining
of Mr. Wanklyn, a Member of this House, for granting a Protection to
Charles Cottington, Esq., her husband, as his menial servant, whereby
she was hindered in her prosecution at law against him;
And the House being also informed that the said Mr. Wanklyn had
granted another Protection to one Jones, whereby to hinder the execution
of a writ of restitution awarded by the Court of King’s Bench;
And Mr. Wanklyn being present, and standing up in his place, and an
swering for himself, and to several questions which were propounded to him
by Mr. Speaker ;
And being withdrawn by Order, and the matter debated;
Resolved, &c., nem. contradicente, That Colonel Wanklyn in granting
Protection to Mr. Cottington and Mr. Jones, not being his menial servants,
has violated the justice and honour of this House.
. The Question being put, That Mr. Wanklyn, for granting such Protec
tions, shall be expelled this .House;
The House divide;
The Yeas go forth ;
TeUor,
TeBers
the
} for the Noes’ 109-
And so it was resolved in the Affirmative.
The Question being put, That Mr. Wanklyn shall receive his sentence at
the Bar standing;
It was resolved in the Affirmative.
Mr. Wanklyn being brought to the Bar by the Seijeant-at-Arms attend
ing the House, Mr. Speaker, in the name of the House, pronounced the
said sentence.
Ordered, That Mr. Speaker do issue out his warrant to the Clerk of the
Crown to make out a new writ for the election of a Member to serve in this
present Parliament for the Borough of Westbury in the County of Wilts,
in the room of Thomas Wanklyn, Esq., who was this day expelled the
*
House.
CASE OF SIR JOHN PRETTIMAN.
A.D. 1669, 21 Charles II. Wednesday, December 1.—Upon complaint
made of a Breach of Privilege committed by one * * in arresting of
Robert Humes, a menial servant of Sir John Prettiman, a Member of this
House;
Ordered, That it be referred to Mr. Speaker to examine the matter com
plained of, and give such order therein as he shall find just.
Saturday, December 4.—Mr. Speaker reports the case of Robert Humes,
servant to Sir John Prettiman, arrested and in the prison of the King’s
Bench: that he was heretofore a merchant, but left off his trade about five
years since, and that in August last he was entertained a servant to Sir
John Prettiman at twelve pounds per annum wages : and was employed in
recovering his rents; and was arrested in four several actions of the case,
of a hundred pounds a piece.
* Journals of the House of Commons, vol. ix. pp. 430-31.
�8
The Question being put, That privilege be allowed to Robert Humes,
menial servant to Sir John Prettiman ;
’
The House divided;
The Yeas went out;
poMheYeas.29.
I
.
19.
And so it was resolved in the Affirmative.
Ordered, That the Marshal of the King’s Bench do discharge Robert
Humes, menial servant to Sir John Prettiman (being arrested in breach of
privilege) out of prison.
Monday, March 21, 1670 (New Style.')—Two Petitions being tendered
against Sir John Prettiman, one from Dame Theodosia Prettiman, and
the other from Elizabeth Humes ;
Ordered that the Petitions be read to-morrow morning; and that Sir John
Prettiman have notice to attend then.
Wednesday, March 30.—A Petition of Elizabeth Humes, wife of Robert
Humes, was read;
Resolved, &c., That the Petition be committed to [here follow twenty
names], or any five of them ; and they are to meet to-morrow morning, at
seven of the clock, in the Speaker’s Chambers, and to examine the matter of
the Petition, and report it, with their opinions therein, to the House; and to
send for persons, papers, and records.
Thursday, April 7.—Sir Gilbert Talbot reports from the Committee to
which the Petition of Elizabeth Humes was committed, the whole state of
the matter and evidence therein : And that the Committee did leave it to the
House, to do what they should think fit therein.
And the Question, upon the whole matter, being, whether the said Humes
ought to be allowed privilege as the menial servant of Sir John Pretti
man ;
Resolved, &c., That the matter be recommitted to the former Committee,
to examine whether Sir John Prettiman did know of the condition of the
said Humes, and what accusations were against Humes, when he entertained
him for his servant; and whether he knew he was a prisoner for any criminal
matter, or under bail for the good behaviour, when he did entertain him;
and whether he were so when the Motion was made for his privilege ; and
whether he were arrested, or in prison, for a real debt, or whether the actions
against him were not feigned: And Sir John Prettiman is to attend the
Committee, and make it appear that he^was arrested and detained prisoner
for debt, after he was retained his servant: And the Committee is revived,
and to sit this afternoon : And the Keeper of the prison of the King’s Bench
is to attend the Committee, to give an account of the arresting and detaining
of the said Humes in prison: And all that shall come to the Committee are
to have voices : And [here follow eight names] are added to the Committee :
And the care of the matter is recommended to Mr. Crouch.
Friday, April 8.—Mr. Crouch reports from the Committee to whom the
Petition of Mrs. Humes was committed, That they had, in pursuance of the
order of recommitment, examined the whole matter of fact thereby directed,
relating to Sir John Prettiman’s protection, and moving the House for
giving privilege to Robert Humes, as his menial servant.
Upon stating whereof to the House, it appeared that the House had been
ill-dealt with by Sir John Prettiman in his concealing the truth of the case,
and that Humes was released out of prison, from actions depending against
him, by the miscarriage of Sir John Prettiman, as his menial servant, when
in truth he was not.
�Sir John Prettiman being withdrawn into the Speaker’s Chambers;
Resolved, &c., nemine contradicente, That Sir John Prettiman be suspended
his sitting in this House, and from all privileges Its a Member thereof, until
he shall produce Robert Humes.
Resolved, &c., That he be called to the Bar of this House, and receive from
Mr. Speaker this sentence upon his knees.
The House being informed that the said Sir John Prettiman was not to
be found in the Speaker’s Chambers, ordered that the Serjeant-at-Arms at
tending this House do bring the said Sir John Prettiman to the Bar of
this House to-morrow morning, to receive his sentence as aforesaid.
Resolved, &c., That the back door of the Speaker’s Chambers be nailed
up, and not opened during any sessions of Parliament.
Saturday, April 9.—Ordered, that it be referred to Colonel Bird, Sir
Thomas Meeres, Colonel Reames, Mr. Coleman, Colonel Talbot, to see a
true entry made in the Journal, of the matters concerning Sir John Pret
timan.
Resolved, &c., That no Member of this House do grant any protection to
any but such only as are their menial servants. And that all protections
already granted to any other persons besides menial servants be forthwith
withdrawn and called in.
Resolved, &c., That all protections and written certificates of the Members
of this House be declared void in Taw, and be forthwith withdrawn and called
in, and that none be granted for the future; and that the privilege of Mem
bers for their menial servants be observed according to Law; and that, if
any menial servant shall be arrested and detained contrary to privilege, he
shall, upon complaint thereof made, be discharged by order from the
Speaker.
Same day, afternoon.—Resolved, &c., That a day be given to Sir John
Prettiman to appear and receive the judgment of the House against him.
Resolved, &c. That the day be the second Tuesday at the next meeting
after the Recess.
Monday, April 11, 1670.—(The King having made a speech to the Two
Houses) Mr. Speaker reports the effects of His Majesty’s Speech: And
that it was His Majesty’s pleasure the House should adjourn till the 21th
of October next.
And accordingly the House adjourned till the 24th of October next.
Monday, October 31, 1670.—A Petition of Sir John Prettiman being
tendered to the House;
Ordered, That the Petition of Sir John Prettiman be read on Thursday
morning, nine of the clock.
Triday, November 11.—The Petition of Sir John Prettiman, Knight, was
read. The Petition of Elizabeth Humes was also read.
Resolved, &c., That the Serjeant-at-Arms attending this House do, accord
ing to former order, bring Sir John Prettiman to the Bar of this House on
Monday next, to receive the judgment of the House against him.
Monday, November 14.—In pursuance of the former order of this House, Sir
John Prettiman was, by the Serjeant-at-Arms, brought to the Bar of the
House; who there, upon his knees, received from Mr. Speaker the judgment
and sentence of the House, for his being suspended sitting in this House,
and of all privileges, as a Member thereof, until he shall produce Robert
Humes.
Resolved, &c., that Sir John Prettiman be heard at the Bar of this House
on Monday next upon his Petition, and the Petition of Mrs. Humes, both
formerly read; and that the Seijeant do give them notice hereof.
Wednesday, November 23.—The House then, according to former Order,
did proceed to the hearing of the matter between Sir John Prettiman and
�10
Mrs. Humes. And the Petitions on both sides being again read; and the
counsel for Sir John Prettiman, and the parties and witnesses on both sides,
being heard; it being made appear, on the behalf of Sir John Prettiman,
that he had, since the last recess, used his utmost endeavour to apprehend
and bring in Humes, the husband of Mrs. Humes ; and nothing of the sug
gestions of Mrs. Humes, her Petition being made out ; upon Debate of this
matter;
Resolved, &c., That Sir John Prettiman be restored; and have his pri
vilege, to attend the duty of his place, as a Member of this House.
*
J
From the passage in italics it appears that detection was fol
lowed not only by the punishment of the offender, but by a pro
vision to ensure the non-recurrence of similar acts. The restora
tion of the practice of punishing offences would now, as then, be
accompanied by provisions to prevent them, or, rather, the pro
visions already made by the laws would cease to be ineffective the
moment it was known that punishment would be the result of
their infraction.
il
The Falsehoods of Lord Palmerston.
From the diplomatic history of the last thirty-six years we
propose to select such cases of falsehood as are most glaring, and
such as may be dealt with without entering into the objects for
which they were told.
The cases brought forward by Mr. Cobden have, of course, to
be narrated first, and a careful consideration will show that two of
these were, beyond all others, appropriate ones for the House to
deal with. The list then extends in the inverse order of time.
'
REGARDING THE MILITARY FORCES OF FRANCE.
(mb. cobden’s first charge.)
On Monday, July 7, Mr. Cobden laid before the House a
comparative statement of the forces of England and France, both
naval and military, showing that never had the naval superiority
of England been so great, or the military superiority of France so
small, as at the present time. He complained of the habitual
i( inexactness ” of Lord Palmerston as the cause of the panic,
and consequently of the increase in the expenditure. He made
special reference to his having added 200,000 men to the real
numbers of the French army:—
“ But the noble Lord lias not confined his statements to the navy. He has
also given, us some facts and figures respecting the land forces of Erance ; but
in his statement there was an inexactness of a very grave kind, for he exceeded
the amount of the Trench force by two hundred thousand men, which called
* Journals of the House of Commons, vol. ix. pp. 114—169.
J
�11
down a correction from the Moniteur. I must complain of the habitual in
exactness of the noble Lord as to these matters, and if the China debate
should come on to-morrow I should have to recite another grave inaccuracy.
On the 24tli (23rd) of May the noble Lord, in speaking of the land forces of
France, said: ‘ On the 1st of January, 1862, the French army consisted’—
these are the corrected figures which the noble Lord afterwards gave—‘ of
446,348 men under arms. There was a reserve of 170,000 men, liable to be
called out at a fortnight or three weeks’ notice, malting altogether 616,348 ’
not 816,000 as the noble Lord really said.
“ Lord Palmerston.—No. I never said anything of the kind.
“Mr. Cobden.—I beg the noble Lord’s pardon, this was not a mistake of
■a figure. There was addition and subtraction, and the statement was the same
all through. The noble Lord proceeded‘ In addition to this force actually
under arms, or liable to be called out for service, I stated that there were 268,417
National Guards, making a total available force of 884,765.’ ”—Times, July 8.
Lord Palmerston replied.-.—
“ The hon. Member accuses me of great exaggeration. Now, I utterly deny
that I have been guilty of any exaggeration. Now, with regard to the French
army, I stated on a recent occasion that the French army on the 1st January,
consisted of 446,000 men under arms, and 170,000 men of the reserve, making
a total of 616,000 men. I was reported to have made that total 816,000. It
is very seldom that those gentlemen who report our debates in this House
commit an error, and an error in one figure is not unnatural.”—Times, July 8.
This was on the 7th July. Lord Palmerston speaks of a
recent occasion, but there had been two occasions. The first was
on the 19th May, the second was on the 23rd, and purported to be
a correction not of the former speech but of the erroneous report
of it. On the 19th May Lord Palmerston said:—
“ On the 1st of January last, France had 646,000 men, I think, at all events
upwards of 640,000 men under arms. She had, in addition, 170,000 men of
reserve, liable to be called back to the ranks at a fortnight’s notice. Besides
that she has upwards of 200,000 National Guards. Therefore, her regular
forces under arms, or liable to be called to the ranks at a fortnight’s notice,
are about 816,000 to our 100,000. The French Government had since
determined that towards the end of the year 31,000 of the 646,000 should be
transferred from the active army to the reserve, making no difference in the
amount available, but diminishing the expense without diminishing the eventual
efficiency. I should say, besides the 646,000, there were 70,000 of the con
scription of the present year, which might be called out at any moment if
necessary.”—Times, May 20.
On May 23rd, Lord Palmerston said:—
“ The lion. Gentleman (Sir R. Clieton) read a report of something which I
had said here on a former occasion, in which, notwithstanding its general ac
curacy, there was a mistake of a figure. On the 1st of January, the French
army consisted of 446,348 men under arms. There was, besides, a reserve of
170,000 men, liable to be called out at a fortnight or three weeks’ notice,
making altogether 616,348 men under arms or liable to be called out for service;
there were 268,417 National Guards, making a total available force of 884,705.
And I stated that besides these there were 70,000 men of the conscription for
the present year, liable to be called out if their services should be required. I
also stated that of the 446,000 it was intended at the time to transfer between
30,000 and 40,000 from the number under arms io the reserve, making no dif-
�12
ference in the really available force, though the change is attended with a certain
amount of economy.”—Times, May 24.
It is thus evident that the reporters had made no mistake. Lord
Palmerston says only one figure was wrong, meaning it to
be believed that an 8 was substituted by the reporters for a 6. After
making a variety of minor corrections of a statement in which he
professed that only one figure was wrong, he says, “Making a total
available force OF 884,765.” What he had said before was,
“ Therefore her regular forces under arms or liable to be called to
the ranks at a fortnight?s notice, are about 816,000, against our
100,000.” The reporters, therefore, according to him, substituted,
not a 6 for an 8, but the words in italics for those in small
capitals.
The occasion of this correction has to be taken into considera
tion. It was made on the night of Friday, the 23rd May.
The' next morning the following denial appeared at Paris, in
the Monileur:—
“ In the sitting of the House of Commons of the 19th instant, Lord Pal
estimated the strength of the Trench. army on the 1st of January,
1862, at 816,000 men, of whom 646,000 were under arms, and 170,000 under
reserve. This estimate contains an error sufficiently serious to require a recti
fication. On the 1st of January, 1862, the effective strength of the army was
not 646,000, but 447,000 men—a difference of 199,000 men. The reserve
counted, at the same date, not 170,000 men, but 165,000—a difference of
5000. The total error is, therefore, 204,000 men, or one quarter of the estimate
made in the House of Commons. Since the 1st of January the number of men
of the active army who have been allowed to go into the reserve is not 31,000,
but exceeds 38,000. This brings the reserve to 203,000 men, and reduces the
effective strength of the active army to 409,000 men.- Total, 612,000.”
merston
If Lord Palmerston had been misreported, it was his duty to
have corrected the error the next day. It was also open to him
to inform the French Government what he had really said. But
the Moniteur corrects not the reporters, but Lord Palmerston.
Before taking so serious a step, the French Government must have
demanded an explanation, and have failed to obtain it. The
Moniteur addresses itself to England, for in France it is no crime
to have a quarter of a million extra soldiers in arms. Lord Pal
merston corrects the reporters just in time to nullify the effect
in England of the protest in the Moniteur. That protest is then
a cry of distress. Lord Palmerston tyrannises over the French
Emperor in this matter, just as M. Thouvenel domineers over
Lord Russell in the affairs of Mexico. This is the one Cabinet,
of which “ some members live on the banks of the Seine, and
others on the banks of the Thames.”*
The case, however, is not complete without Lord Palmerston’s
description of the notice in the Monileur. On the 7 th July he said:—
* Lord Palmerston in 1856.
�13
“ But my statement was 616,000, and not 816,000. The French. Moniteur
corrected my statement, and what was that correction ? It charged me with
having made a little error both in the force under arms and in reserve, and the
aggregate was stated by the Moniteur to be 612,000 instead of 616,000. That
was the correction of the Moniteur, which completely and substantially affirmed
the statement that I had made.”—Times, July 8.
Lord Palmerston pretends that the Moniteur accuses him of
an error of only 4000 men; but the Moniteur expressly says:
“ The total error is 204,000 men.” Mr. Cobden terms this
“ inexactness.” The issue between them was the simplest in the
world. Lord Palmerston said it was a mistake of a single
figure. Mr. Cobden said it was not a mistake of a single figure.
Lord Palmerston’s words prove Mr. Cobden’s case. On this
Mr. Cobden drops the matter.
REGARDING THE RATIFICATION OF THE TREATY
OF TIEN-TSIN.
(mr. cobden’s second charge.)
The next day occurred the China debate, and, according to his
promise, Mr. Cobden brought up another case of “ inexactness.”
He proved that Lord Palmerston had first declared that the
Emperor of China had ratified the Treaty of Tien-Tsin, and had
afterwards declared that the war of 1859 was made to obtain the
ratification of that Treaty. Here are the two statements:—
Lord Palmerston, March 16, 1860.
“ A Treaty has been concluded with China. That Treaty has been approved
by the Emperor. We want the ratifications to be exchanged; we want the
Treaty to become a formal and acknowledged compact between the two
countries.”—Mansard, vol. 157, p. 807.
Lord Palmerston, February 14,1861.
“ It is well known that the operations in China arose from the refusal of the
Chinese Government to ratify the Treaty of Tien-Tsin, which has been con
cluded between the two countries. It became necessary to obtain the ratifica
tion of that Treaty.—Mansard, vol. 161, p. 401.
Lord Palmerston said in March, I860, “ That Treaty has
been approved by the Emperor.” That is, it had been ratified by
him at Pekin, as it had been by Queen Victoria in London. On
reference to the Blue-books it will be found that in China this
had been publicly done. An edict had appeared respecting the
Treaty, and it had actually been put in operation before the arrival
of Mr. Bruce. His visit was to exchange the ratifications, which
the Treaty had specially provided must be done at Pekin, although
that exchange could have taken place just as well at London, or
at any Chinese port. When Lord Palmerston contradicts Mr.
Cobden on this point, on the 8th July, he makes his former as
sertion still plainer. For he says, “It (the last expedition) was
�14
Q
not undertaken solely because Mr. Brtjce was not allowed to go
to Pekin (another falsehood); but because the Emperor refused to
ratify certain articles of that Treaty, which he said must be changed
before they could be carried out ”
On the 10th July, when Mr. Cobden answered what Lord
Palmerston had said on the 8th, he (Mr.. Cobden) repeated,
“ I stated that the Treaty had been ratified, and that all that had
to be done was to exchange the ratifications. ’
The truth, as appears in the documents published by the Eng
lish Government itself, is that not only had the Emperor of China
publicly assented to the Treaty, not only were the English actually
trading at some of the new ports opened to them by it before Mr.
Bruce’s arrival and the attack on the Peiho forts, but that no
objection was ever offered to the formal act of exchanging the
ratifications of the two Sovereigns, whether at Pekin or elsewhere.
Lord Palmerston is so sensible of the falsehood he is stating that
he carefully mixes up “ ratification” and il exchange of ratifica
tions,” and by doing so asserts that what Mr. Cobden read confirmed his statement. This was on the 10th, as we shall pre
sently see.
No war having been declared, the Treaty of Tien-Tsin was un
lawfully obtained, and is not binding upon China. Whether it
was obtained by one or by two lawless expeditions is of no im
portance here. What is of importance is, that, in this as in other
matters, Lord Palmerston’s statements are diametrically op
posed to each other.
REGARDING STEAM HAVING DESTROYED ENG
LAND’S NAVAL SUPREMACY.
(mr. cobden’s third charge.)
On the 10th of July, Mr. Cobden brought a third accusation
of inexactness” against Lord Palmerston. He had quoted
Sir Robert Peel as concurring with him instead of being op
posed to him on the subject of steam, the cause of the destruction
of England’s naval supremacy. Mr. Cobden said:—
“ At an early period of my experience in this House a circumstance hap
pened to which I must refer, because it affords another example—a flagrant
example of the inexactness and carelessness of the noble Lord in the state
ments which he makes to us. It occurred in 1845. On that occasion the
noble Lord had already mounted this hobby of his, that steam was the great
danger of this- country. He was fond of saying that the application of steam
to navigation had spanned the Channel with a steam bridge. That simile
occurs a dozen times in his speeches from 1842 downwards. Let nobody
undervalue the force of these repetitions of a phrase, because by dint of them
we come at last to believe them ourselves, and we make others believe them
also. In 1845 the noble Lord, in a harangue intended to induce Sir R. Peel
�15
to increase our armaments in some direction, launched this favourite idea of
his. Sir R. Peel controverted it. That led to the noble Lord rising again to
explain himself. I will read these passages. Outlie 30th of July, 1845, Lord
Palmerston said:—
“ ‘ In reference to steam navigation, what he (Lord Palmerston) said was,
that the progress which had been, made had converted the ordinary means of
transport into a steam bridge.’
“ Sir R. Peel, immediately following in reply, said
“1 The noble Lord (Lord Palmerston) appeared to retain the impression
that our means of defence were rather abated by the discovery of steam navi
gation. He (Sir Robert Peel) was not at all prepared to admit that. He
thought that the demonstration which we could make of our steam navy was
one which would surprise the world ; and as the noble Lord (Lord Palmerston)
had spoken of steam bridges, he would remind him that there were two parties
who could play at making them.’
Now comes this flagrant specimen of the noble Lord’s inexactness. I pur
posely use that long and rather French word because I wish to be Parlia
mentary in what I say. (Laughter.) The noble Lord, in speaking of this
very Fortifications Bill when he brought it in on the 23rd of July, 1860, said,
still reiterating the same argument:—“ e And, in fact, as I remember Sir R. Peel stating, steam had bridged the
Channel, and for the purposes of aggression had almost made this country cease
to be an island.”
“ Now, I happened to hear all that myself, but I am afraid to say so, because I
may be contradicted. (“ Hear,” and laughter.) But now T will make a sug
gestion to the noble Lord. Will he send one of his junior Lords of the Trea
sury to the library to get Hansard? I give him the volumes:—Hansard,
vol. 82, p. 1233, and vol. 160, p. 18. The noble Lord will probably speak
again, as we are in committee, and it would be a grateful thing if he would get
Hansard to satisfy himself of that gross inaccuracy. Moreover, it would only
be just to the memory of a great Statesman, and it is also due to. this House
that he should admit his error and recant it. There would be a novelty about
such a proceeding that would be quite charming. (Laughter.) Let him admit
that he is wrong. _ I will forgive him the China business if he will only get
Hansard, and admit that he was wrong, that it was a fiction—quite a mistake of
memory. (“ Hear, hear,” and laughter.) But the serious question is what kind
of opinion shall we form of the noble Lord’s judgment.”—Times-, July 11, 1862.
Observe, Mr. Cobden says the serious question is Lord Pal
judgment, not his integrity, which he had just proved
not to exist. Lord Palmerston evades; the charge:—
merston’s
“ It is very curious that my hon. Friend accuses me of inexactitude, and
refers me to Hansard to prove my error. I do not feel much disposed to
follow his example, because he and I differed the other evening on a matter of
historical fact. He contended that the Emperor of China had ratified the
Treaty of Tien-Tsin. I said he had not. After two or three days’ delay, my
hon. Friend brought down a Blue-book to confirm his assertion, and proceeded
to read a passage which completely substantiates my statement. [Mr. Cobden
intimated dissent.] Let my hon. Friend read it again if he pleases. I did not
the other night read the whole of the case; but the fact was just as he read it,
and as I stated it. The Emperor of China wrote one of his mandarins to say
that he approved of the Treaty; but when he was called upon to ratify it, and
exchange ratifications, which process alone could give it international value, he
refused, and that which my hon. Friend read confirmed the statement I made.”
(Cheers.)—Times, July 11, 1862.
�16
Mr. Cobden had quoted not a Blue-book but Hansard. One
of his quotations has already been extracted under the head
“Lord Palmerston, March 16, 1860.” The other was from
Lord John Bussell, February 13, 1860:—
“ The Treaty of Tien-Tsin had been signed, and had received the special
approval of the Emperor of China. Nothing but the ratification remained to
be given, and it would have been impossible for us—because Her Majesty’s
forces had suffered a loss, because 400 or 500 men had been killed or wounded
—to give up a Treaty solemnly agreed to, or to retreat from conditions to
which the Emperor of China had given his assent.”—Hansard, vol. 156,
p. 945.
Since this Memoir was published in its original form, Lord
Palmerston has gone round again. In the Debate of July 9,
on Fortifications, he used these words:—
“The hon. Member for Rochdale has referred to something which passed
between myself and the late Sir Robert Peel. When I said that steam had
bridged the channel, Sir Robert replied, in a way suitable to a debate in this
House, “ Ay, it may have bridged the Channel, but that is a game at which
two can play.”—Times, July 10, 1863.
The Prime Minister is charged by Mr. Cobden with three
falsehoods. Two are proved; the proof being accompanied by
fresh falsehoods: the third is admitted. This was a case to be
submitted to the judgment of the House. Mr. Cobden had no
option but a duty which he was bound to perform.
In 1670 the House of Commons suspended Sir John Pretti
man, for having only “ dealt badly with the House by conceal
ing the truth” about a man for whom he had obtained privilege,
by falsely representing him to be his menial servant. The offence
was the falsehood. It is no mitigation of Lord Palmerston’s
offence that it is in weighty, not in trifling matters, that
he has “ dealt badly with the House by concealing the truth.”
But this, which is no mitigation of the offence, is an aggravation
of the danger. In 1670 the House resented an act of deception.
In 1862 it courts such acts, in order to pretend that it is de
ceived. No such deception exists any longer.
GENERAL PRACTICE OF FALSEHOOD
(charges
brought by the queen and substantiated by
EARL RUSSELL.)
The falsehoods with regard to the French army were told
with the view to excite alarm in England, so as to increase the
military expenditure as against the aggressive power of France.
At the same time the Cabinets of England and France are de
clared to be so united as to form but one.
*
* A little while ago, Louis Napoleon was asked by an ecclesiastic, “Why
�17
Lord Palmerston has, during his whole career, been engaged
in increasing the military force of France, and in directing that
force to illegal objects.
,
In 1835 the English navy having been increased, at the instance
of William IV., as a precaution against Russia, Lord Palmerston
suggested to France to increase hers. When France complied with
this advice, he immediately made it a pretence for increased arma
ments on the part of England as against France. He has since
made France a partner in all his schemes of intervention.
So long ago as 1837 the Times made the charge which we
have here pressed home, namely, that Lord Palmerston makes
use of falsehood, not to escape from an attack, but as a method
of Government. The Times wrote, December 29, 1837: —
“ England has been in the habit of receiving as truth the assertions of a
Minister. We are now brought into the lamentable predicament of having
to guard against deception, and to be armed against design in every phrase
which escapes from the lips of the man who at present directs the Foreign
Policy of Great Britain. . . What must be said of the Minister of England
who now, after the display of the force which we have described (the Russian
fleet in the Baltic), instead of taking steps to counteract her, (Russia) instead
of remonstrating, protesting, and preventing, stands forward to justify the
measure, and then to repudiate the responsibility, and, not content with
this, perverts facts, and falsifies truth ?”
Lord Palmerston has now associated France with England
in the distant regions of China, and, pursuing the same course as
in 1837, has brought her forces into the neighbourhood of dis
turbed India, all the while arming in England against her. In 1848,
on the election of Louis Napoleon to the Presidency of the French
Republic, he wrote to Vienna that it was to be inferred from
such a choice that France would enter on a course of aggression.
To Lord Ponsonby, November 11, 1848:—
“Important changes may take place in France; the election, which is
• coming on next month, may bring other men into power in that country;
with other men another policy may come in. Traditional maxims of policy
connected with a busier action in regard to foreign countries may be taken
up as the guide of the Government of France. Popular feeling in that
country, which at present inclines to peace, might easily be turned in an
opposite direction, and the glory, as it would be considered in France, of
freeing the whole of Italy up to the Alps from the domination of Austria
*
might reconcile the French nation to many sacrifices and to great exer
tions.”!
do you not give out openly that you will defend the Pope against Gari
baldi ?” He replied, “ If I were to do so, Palmerston would have me upset
in a week.” The Committee insert this statement on the written testimony
of a gentleman of high standing and character.
* “Italy shall be free from the Alps to the Adriatic.”—Words of Louis
Napoleon in 1859.
T Correspondence respecting the Affairs of Italy, 1849, part iii. pp. 566,
C
�Such purposes of aggression were, however, not compatible
with the then constituted order of things. Lord Palmerston,
however, joined in the measures taken to render Louis Napoleon
absolute, and thus overthrow all restraint upon that career whose
aggressive tendencies he had prophesied.
Throughout Europe it had been Lord Palmerston’s boast to
have established (( Constitutional Government.” To this he had
sacrificed the prerogatives of .every Crown, the usages of every
people, the ancient village government of Greece, the fueros of
the Basques, the old estates of Spain and Portugal. On the en
actment of the coup dftat of the 2nd of December, 1851, he-has
tened to sanction a massacre of unarmed and inoffensive citizens,
the arrest of the members of the Assembly, and the restoration, by
violence and perjury, of a form of government that had destroyed
the liberty of the French people, and indemnified them for the
loss by setting Europe in flames. When asked to give reasons, he
replied, that the unity of purpose and of authority in the Presi
dent was his object. He said in Parliament, February 3,1852:—
“ Such was the antagonism arising from time to time between the French
Assembly and the President that their long co-existence became impossible,
and it was my opinion that if one or the other were to prevail it would be
better for France, and, through the interests of France, better for the in
terests of Europe, that the President should prevail than the Assembly, and
my reason was, that the Assembly had nothing to offer for the substitution
of the President, unless an alternative obviously ending in civil war or
anarchy, whereas the President, on the other hand, had to offer unity of
purpose and unity of authority, and if he were inclined to do so, might give
to France internal tranquillity, with good and permanent government.”
The “ unity of purpose” of Louis Napoleon had already been
•shown in his invasion and occupation of a portion of Italy
(Rome). It could not be the interest of England to confer
i( unity of authority” upon such an individual by means of a
*
usurpation.
The words of Lord Palmerston are unintelligible as those of a
British Minister; they are merely the repetition of a passage on
the same subject contained in a. Russian despatch a quarter of a
century before. Count Pozzo di Borgo wrote from Paris, 22nd
December, 1826:—
“The ancient fortresses are repaired with a dilatoriness that keeps them
still in a state of imperfection, and, consequently, of weakness, particularly
as regards the completion of those raised on the opposite frontier; the great
roads are falling into decay; the army itself and the marine are in a state
that calls for additions and ameliorations ; without which it would be im
possible to make them act with the unity and the power indispensable to
* “Brunnow is said to have mentioned triumphantly the events of the
second and third of December in Paris on the frst of that month, in his
passage through Berlin. He was sure of the success of the plot before it took
place.”—Private Letter, 1852.
�19
their action and their movements............. A serious war and the sacrifices
it would impose, would give rise, I fear, to all the effects of panic among
the capitalists, indifference among a great portion of the nation, and revo
lutionary sentiments, among many others............... In proportion as the situa
tion is. delicate, it will require increased care and interest to guard it from
the evils which menace it. Russia has re-established the French monarchy
by her arms, she has continued to protect it by her generosity, she will
preserve it, I dare hope, from the embarrassments and even misfortunes
which seem to menace it, by her influence and her policy.”
This letter was written soon after the invasion of Spain, into
which, in spite of Mr. Canning, Russia was able to inveigle
- France. Within four years afterwards, France had entered on
the conquest of Algiers. It is impo^ible, except on the supposi
tion that the military power of France is at the disposal of Russia,
to account for the anxiety which a Russian Ambassador feels that
France should be strong. It is impossible, except on the supposi
tion that the British Minister has adhered to this scheme, to
account for his efforts to increase that aggressive power of France
which he predicted beforehand, and which he persists in holding
up. to the English people as an object at once for alarm and
imitation.
Accordingly, it is on this very point that detection has over
taken Lord Palmerston. On his giving his sanction—in defiance
of the Queen and of his colleagues—to the coup d’etat of the
2nd December, he was removed from office by the Queen. On
the opening of Parliament, Lord John Russell announced that this
was not the first time he had been detected. He produced a
memorandum addressed to himself by the Queen on a-former
occasion, in which was consigned a description of the frauds and
usurpations Lord Palmerston had been in the habit of practising,
and a requirement that such practice should cease. Lord Pal
merston did not reject the imputation; on the contrary, he accepted
the terms on which his continuance in office then and for the
future was to depend. He wrote to Lord John Russell:—
“ I have taken a copy of this memorandum of the Queen, and will not fail
to attend to the directions it contains.”
Lord John Russell did not produce to Parliament the whole of
the Queen’s letter, and at a later date, when requested, he refused
to give the remaining portion. We are left in ignorance as to
the. specific occasions in which Lord Palmerston “ failed in sin
cerity.” We may, therefore, infer that specific instances were
given only as an illustration of a general practice; this is borne
out both by the reply of Lord Palmerston and by the terms of the
Queen’s letter. The latter are as follows]
“The Queen requires, first, that Lord Palmerston will distinctly
state what he proposes to do in a given case, in order that the Queen
may know as distinctly to what she is giving her royal sanction,
c2
�20
Secondly, having once given Her sanction to a measure, that it he
not arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister. Such an act she
must consider as failing in sincerity towards the Crown, and justly
to be visited by the exercise of her constitutional right of dismissing
that Minister, She expects to be kept informed of what passes
between him and the foreign Ministers before important decisions
are taken, based upon intercourse; to receive the foreign despatches
in good time; and to have the drafts for her approval sent to her in
sufficient time to makelherself acquainted with their contents before
they must be sent off. The Queen thinks it best that Lord John
Russell should show this letter to Lord Palmerston.”
On the 3rd of February, 1852, Lord John Russell testified
to the truth of the charges contained in the Queen’s letter, and
made the application of them, using the following words:—
“The noble Lord passed by the Crown, and put himself in the
PLACE OF THE CROWN.”
REGARDING THE ABANDONMENT OF OUR MARI
TIME RIGHTS.
(self-contradiction.)
Mr. Cobden denounces as ridiculous Lord Palmerston’s
pretence that steam has injured, or can injure the naval supremacy
of England, but Mr. Cobden has prepared and is still preparing
the way for Lord Palmerston to destroy the real source of that
supremacy—the Right of Search. The subject has been so fre
quently treated that it is necessary only to recite Lord Palmer
ston’s three speeches on this head:—
Lord Palmerston, November 7,1856.
“ I cannot help hoping that these relaxations of former doctrines, which
were established in the beginning of the war, practised during its continuance,
and which have since been ratified by formal engagements, may perhaps be
still further extended, and that, in the course of time, those principles of war
which are applied to hostilities by land may be extended without exception to
hostilities by sea, so that private property shall no longer be the object of
aggression on either side.”—Times, November 8, 1856.
Lord Palmerston, February 3,1860.
“ A naval Power like England ought not to surrender any means of weaken
ing her enemies at sea. If we did not seize their seamen on board their
merchant vessels, we should have to fight them on board their ships of war.
I deny that private property is spared in war on land any more than in war at
sea. On the contrary, armies in an enemy’s country take whatever they want
or desire, without the slightest regard to the right of property, as we shall find
to our cost if a hostile army should ever succeed in landing in this country.”—
Morning Star, Feb. 6, 1860.
Lord Palmerston, March 17, 1862.
“ The passage quoted as having been part of what I said at Liverpool, related
to two matters. First of all to the exemption of private property at sea from
capture; and, secondly, to the assimilation of the principles of war at sea to
�21
the practice of war on land. I am perfectly ready to admit that I have entirely
altered my opinion on the first point. Further reflection and deeper thinking
has satisfied me that what at first sight is plausible—and I admit that it is
plausible on the surface—is a most dangerous doctrine, and I hope that the
honourable Member (Mr. Bright) will be kind enough to give weight to my
thoughts, and also come round to those second thoughts which are proverbially
the best.” “ My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham has very ably and
very fully shown that it was a wise and politic measure on the part of the Go
vernment to adopt the principle that a neutral flag should cover enemy’s
goods. There is a principle upon which, as it appears to me, this doctrine
must stand. We have lately maintained, at the risk of war, that a merchant
ship at sea is a part of our territory, that that territory cannot be violated
with impunity, that, therefore, individuals cannot be taken out of a mer
chantman belonging to a neutral country. The same principle may be said
to apply to goods as well as men.”—Times, March 18, 1862.
The transmutation, by a “ principle,” of a ship, whose function
is to move from place to place, and, therefore, to convey help to
the enemy, into a territory whose peculiarity is that it remains
fixed, and, therefore, cannot convey goods to the enemy, is a
climax of absurdity. It covers contraband of war, despatches,
everything. It transmutes the neutral into an enemy so much
the more dangerous as he is himself exempted from all danger.
It is, of course, a flagrant contradiction to the declaration of the
3rd of February, 1860, that “A naval Power like England ought
not to surrender any means of weakening her enemies at sea.”
REGARDING THE SUEZ CANAL.
(SELF-CONTRADICTION’.)
Up to 1857, there was no documentary evidence to show what
had been Lord Palmerston’s conduct in this matter. Mr.
Urquhart, in the il Progress of Russia,” published in 1853, had
declared that Russia, through Lord Palmerston, had actively
intrigued against it for twenty-five years. In 1857 this statement
was confirmed by Lord Palmerston’s admission. In 1858, it
received the further confirmation of his denial:—
Lord Palmerston, July 7, 1857.
“ For the last fifteen years her Majesty’s Government have used all the in
fluence they possess at Constantinople and in Egypt to prevent that scheme
from being carried into execution.”—Hansard, vol. 116, p. 1014.
Lord Palmerston, Ju:ne 1, 1858.
“ We are told now that for fifteen years we have been exercising a moral
constraint upon the Sultan of Turkey to prevent him giving his sanction to
this scheme. Now, I can assure those who hold that opinion that they are
entirely mistaken.”—Hansard, vol. 150, p. 1381.
�22
REGARDING- THE DANISH SUCCESSION.
(CHARGE BY LORD ROBERT MONTAGU.)
The succession to the Crown of Denmark is of course a matter
in which England has no more right to interfere than in the
election of the Governor of New York, or the form of Govern
ment in France. This subject has, however, occupied the English
Government for at least twelve years. The correspondence had
filled, according to Lord Palmerston, in 1851, two thousand
pages of letterpress, and has given rise to repeated contradictions
on his part. The first statement was brought out by a question
from Mr. Disraeli :—
Lord Palmerston, February 4, 1850.
“ There are grave questions to be determined. There is one relating to the
succession to the Danish Crown; another, what should be the Constitution of
the Duchy of Schleswig in relation to the other part of what we call the
Danish Monarchy. . . . We must not expect that matters of that kind can be
arranged so quickly as we could wish; and more especially considering that
Her Majesty’s Government is only acting as mediator, and that we have no
power to exercise authority in regard to these questions.”—Hansard, vol. 108,
p. 283.
The second was a reply to Mr. Urquhart, who “ begged to ask
further, whether in this correspondence there had been any nego
tiation as to the succession to the Crown of Denmark, or in respect
to the succession in the Duchies”:—
Lord Palmerston, March 20, 1851.
“ A good deal had passed in regard to these points, that was to say, in regard
to the succession to the Crown of Denmark • and, as connected with that, in
regard to the arrangements for the order of succession in Schleswig.and Hol
stein. But Her Majesty’s Government had studiously and systematically held
themselves aloof from taking any share in these negotiations. Her Majesty’s
Government have confined themselves strictly to the mediation which they under
took, which was a' mediation for the purpose of bringing about a restoration
of peace between Denmark and the German Confederation.”—Hansard, vol.
115, p. 221.
In 1850, the Mediation included in its scope the settling of the
Danish Succession; in 1851, it had always been confined to the
restoration of peace between Denmark and Germany. Two years
afterwards, Mr. Blackett asked a question which brought forth
a third statement. This statement contradicted both the previous
ones. According to the first statement, it was only as Mediator
that England had anything to do with the Danish Succession;
according to the third, it was her “ business” to alter that Suc
cession.
Lord Palmerston, August 12, 1853.
ee As things stood, the succession to Denmark Proper went in the female
line, the succession of Holstein went in the male line, the succession of
Schleswig was disputed between two parties (!) ; and, therefore, on the death
�23
of the King and his Uncle, who was the next heir, Denmark would have gone
to the female heir, Holstein to the male, and Schleswig been divided between
them. (!) It was the business of the British Government to prevent such a state
of things, and it was thought an important object to keep together those three
States which in common parlance were called the Danish Provinces. He was
anxious to get renunciations also from that male branch which had claims on
Holstein, and to combine the whole in some party who might equally claim
all portions. That was accomplished by the Treaty.”—Hansard, vol. 129,
p. 1680.
On the 5th June, 1851, was signed the Protocol of Warsaw,
which established the “ principle of the integrity of the Danish
Monarchy.” On the 8th May, 1852, this was consigned to a
European Treaty. This was prima facie evidence that Lord
Palmerston’s statement of March, 1851, was false. The d«atj
*
mentary proof was not, however, made public till, on the 18th
June, 1861, Lord Robert Montagu produced in the House the
Draft of the original document:—
Protocol of London, August 2, 1860.
" Art. I.—The unanimous desire of the said Powers is that the state of the
possessions actually united under the Crown of Denmark shall be maintained
in its integrity.”—Hansard, vol. 163, p. 1266.
‘‘Thus,” to use the words of Lord R. Montagu, “the Pro
tocol and the Treaty were conceived in subjection and were exe
cuted in duplicity.”
This was a charge of falsehood, but it was made as a prima
facie case. Lord Robert Montagu challenged Lord Pal
merston to rebut the evidence brought against him. Lord Pal
merston could not disprove, but he did not then dare to avow
his falsehood. He answered by a “ Count Out.”
REGARDING THE FALSIFICATION OF THE
AFFGHAN DESPATCHES.
(CHARGE BY MR. DUNLOP.)
The Danish Treaty places the eventual succession of Denmark
in the Emperor of Russia, by cutting out nineteen of the inter
vening heirs. The Affghan Forgeries, first denied by Lord Pal
merston, are now justified by him on the ground that they
were necessary to save the honour of Russia, and to induce her to
act in accordance with the interests of England:—
Lord Palmerston, March 1,1818.
“ If any man will give himself the trouble of referring to those Debates, as
recorded in Hansard, respecting the despatches of Sir Alexander Burnes, he
will see that it is not true to assert that the papers produced to the House did
not contain a faithful report of the opinions which that Gentleman gave to the
Governor-General and the Board of Control. I do not mean to say that Sir A.
Burnes did not himself subsequently alter those opinions, but the passages
omitted contained opinions on subjects irrelevant to the question at issue.”—
Hansard, vol. 97, p. 102.
�24
Lord Palmerston, March 19,1861.
“ The policy and conduct of the Government were regulated, not by the
opinions of their subordinate agent at Caubul, but by the general knowledge
which they possessed of the state of affairs in the East, of the aggressive
views then entertained by Russia, and of the means by which that State was
preparing to carry hostilities to the very frontiers of our Indian possessions.
If that be so, the question is not the degree in which Parliament has been
misled, or in which Lieutenant Burnes has been injured, by the omission of
portions of his despatches in which his personal opinions, evidently arising
from confusion of ideas, misconception and overcredulity were stated, at
variance with the views justly entertained by the Government under which
he was acting. . . .”
“The opinions of Lieutenant Burnes, which are omitted from the de
spatches form no elements in the policy which was adopted.”—Hansard, vol.
162, p. 63.
Lord Palmerston on this occasion did not hesitate to charge
with falsehood a faithful ally of the British Government, Dost
Mahommed, on the ground not that he had evidence to prove it,
but that to tell falsehoods was a very natural thing.
“ I am sure' nothing can be more easily conceived than that the draught
which was submitted to Lieutenant Burnes was one thing, and the letter
which was sent off was of a totally different character.”—p. 60.
In 1848, Lord Palmerston met the charge by asserting that
the Papers did contain a faithful report of the opinions of Sir A.
Burnes. In 18G1, defending himself against the same charge,
he says his opinions were omitted because they were not acted
upon. When the denial was made, the unmutilated Papers had
not been published. At that time he could say that Lord Fitz
gerald, the President of the Board of Control, “ having access
to these documents, felt himself bound to state that he could not
find any trace on the part of the then Government of concealing
or misrepresenting the facts.” He could boldly challenge ex
posure, and say, “ Sir, if any such thing had been done, what
was to prevent the two adverse Governments who succeeded us
in power from proclaiming the fact, and producing the real docu
ments?”
When the real documents are produced, and the omitted words
are marked by brackets so as to render all further concealment
impossible, he covers the confession by making it in the form of
a justification. The omissions and alterations respecting Russia are
acknowledged in the same manner. This point is worthy of par
ticular attention, because it is the habitual practice and special
art of Lord Palmerston.
*
* Mr. Dunlop thus addressed his constituents at Greenock on the 21st of
October, .1861
“ The idea of my motion being considered an attack on the present Govern
ment never entered my imagination; and the notion that Lord Palmerston
would have resigned, had it been carried, must rest entirely on the assumption
�25
“ I say it was perfectly right, in the letter which has been referred to, to
substitute the words, ‘ the Russian Government’ for the words ‘ the Emperor,’
and to omit the words which would have identified the Emperor in person
with the communication made to Dost Mahommed. . . . Nothing could
have been more unwise than to pin them (the Russian Government) down to
that which you wished them to disavow, and to make it impossible, consistently
with their honour, to undo that which your remonstrances were especially in
tended to induce them to retract.”—pp. 60-1.
It would have been unworthy of Lord Palmerston to have
admitted a forgery without justifying it by a falsehood. The
Russian Government had already disavowed its agents. The
disavowal had been forwarded to Calcutta, and it was after this
that Vicovitch was sent to Caubul with the autograph letter
of the Emperor of Russia. Sir Alexander Burnes wrote,
December 20, 1837:—
“ I shall take an early opportunity of reporting on the proceedings of this
Russian agent, if he be so in reality; for, if not an impostor, it is a most un
called for proceeding, after the disavowal of the Russian Government conveyed
through Count Nesselrode, alluded to in Mr. McNeill’s letter on the 1st of
June last.”
This passage is one of those suppressed in the papers of 1839.
*
REGARDING CIRCASSIA.
'
(MISQUOTATION OF TREATIES—SELF CONTRADICTION.)
This portion of the world, so long thought of only as the region
of fabulous romance, then brought into the light of day to be for
gotten for a quarter of a century, is now seen to contain the key
to the destinies of the world. Yet in 1837 and 1838, when
England was sending an army across the Indus to oppose Russian
influence, nobody would take the trouble to see that the real bul
wark of India was to be preserved by supporting Circassia, not
by destroying Caubul. On the contrary, when the Vixen was
sacrificed by consent of Parliament, the general feeling was that
a great danger—war with Russia—had been escaped at a small
sacrifice—the honour of England. This sacrifice, however, could
be accomplished only on the condition that somebody should veil
it by a falsehood, namely, that the Bay of Soudjouk Kale was in
the possession of Russia at the time the Vixen was seized there.
This falsehood has not yet been retracted by Lord Palmerston,
and cannot therefore be set down here, as it would require the
statement of the whole case. It has, however, been supported by
that he was undeniably guilty, and that he would not^have dared to stand an
inquiry. I can truly say that I not only did not believe that he was participant
in the falsification—though I admit that such belief would not have deterred
me—but that till I heard his speech in answer to me, I had never entertained
even a suspicion that he had been so.”
* See Affghan Papers, 1849, p. 81.
�26
subsequent falsehoods, capable of being dealt with on the plan
said down for this Memoir, namely, simply as falsehoods, and
without reference to the designs with which they are uttered.
The Treaty of Adrianople, September 14, 1829, affected to
confer on Russia the east coast of the Black Sea. Had Russia
been able to conquer this territory, there would have been little
difficulty about the matter. But Russia, not having conquered
this coast, that is, Circassia, it remains very important that Turkey
never had the right or made the attempt to possess it. Russia’s
false claim, of thirty-three years standing, has to be backed up
by false representations, so as to seclude the Circassians from the
commerce of the world till Russia shall have really conquered the
country. In two or three places on the coast the Turks had
erected small forts, by permission of the Circassians. Had these
been specified by name in the Treaty of Adrianople, there would
have been some colour of a title on the part of Russia to these
places, especially if she actually possessed them. But no such
places are mentioned in the Treaty of Adrianople.
On Monday, August 24, 1857, in the House of Commons, in
reply to Lord Raynham, Lord Palmerston said:—“Thecoast
of Circassia—that was to say, the eastern coast of the Black Sea
—was ceded to Russia by Turkey at the Treaty of Adrianople—
that treaty ceding certain points by name along the coast round to
the Sea oj Azoff. The Russians were engaged in hositilities with,
the Circassians on the northern part of the eastern coast, and it
appeared that some of the cruisers which, by the Treaty of Paris,
Russia was entitled to maintain in the Black Sea, had been sent
to operate against the Circassians at Ghelendjik and Redout Kale.
He did not apprehend that in so doing, the Russians had at all
exceeded their powers under the Treaty of Paris.”
The words of the Treaty of Adrianople, Art. IV., are:—
“ The whole of the coast of the Black Sea, from the mouth of the Kuban
as far as the port of St. Nicholas, inclusively, shall remain in perpetuity
under the dominion of the Empire of Russia.”
The Treaty, therefore, instead of ceding certain points by name
along the coast round to the Sea of Azoff, specifies only the two
*
extremities.
This falsehood of Lord Palmerston did not, however, first
appear under the sanction of his name. In the debate of the
21st of June, 1838, on the sacrifice of the Vixen in the previous
year, Lord John Russell said:—
“ What is the case as. to the state of the port at which Mr. Belt’s vessel
is reported to have arrived ? This port, apparently, did not belong to Russia
* A copy of the Treaty of Adrianople will be found in the Collection of
Treaties between Russia and Turkey published by the Government in 1854.
�until the year 1783. Up to that period the fact was acknowledged that it
belonged to Turkey in the map put forth by the Russian authorities, and
this evening alluded to by the right hon. Gentleman. In that map, it is
true, that a great part of Circassia was laid down as belonging to inde
pendent tribes. But three of the places at that time so laid down as be
longing to Turkey were, by the subsequent Treaty of Adrianople, transferred,
by name, to Russia. These places were Soudjouk Kale, Poti, Anapa. They
were named specially in the Treaty, and thence has arisen a claim on the part
of Russia that the whole of that territory which had belonged to Turkey
belongs, since, to her, and has been confirmed to, and comes under her do
minion.”—Mirror of Parliament, p. 4999.
Neither Anapa, nor Poti, nor Soudjouk Kale, is mentioned in
the Treaty of Adrianople. Lord John Russell must have
been whispered to by Lord Palmerston. He appears, however,
to have read the Treaty after the Debate, since the words in
italics quoted from the “ Mirror of Parliament” are not in Han
sard.
In defending himself against the charge of deceiving the
owners of the Vixen, Lord Palmerston had recourse to a pro
cess of fraud and falsehood unexampled in parliamentary history.
Mr. Urquhart, on returning home from Constantinople, where
he had been Secretary of Embassy, consigned in a letter to Lord
Palmerston (dated September 20, 1837) a history of his con
duct in regard to the Vixen, which was at once a statement and
a charge. Sir Stratford Canning (June 16, 1838) requested
Lord Palmerston to lay this letter on the table of the House.
Lord Palmerston refused:—
“With regard to that letter from Mr. Urquhart, it was written after
that Gentleman had ceased to hold an official appointment, and is therefore
to be regarded as a private communication. The letter contains, too, a
number of misstatements and misrepresentations, and is, in fact, an attack
upon my conduct. I have not replied to that letter ; and, considering that it
is not official, I doubt whether it ought to be laid before the House.”—Ibid.,
p. 4831.
Sir S. Canning then requested that that portion of the letter
might be produced which referred to the FZrm. Lord Pal
merston replied:—
“ I believe that that part of the letter is connected with a false statement in
the Petition, namely, that the voyage of the Vixen was undertaken in consequence
of encouragement given to the undertaking by the Under Secretary of State. I
really doubt whether such a document ought to be laid before Parlia
ment.”
To this Sir S. Canning rejoined :—
“ I am informed that there are other portions of the letter having refer
ence to the Vixen. The circumstance of the document not being official,
induces the noble Lord to think that it ought not to be laid upon the table ;
but I beg to ask the noble Lord whether he himself has any objection to
the production of such parts of the communication as have reference to the
Vixen, Mr. Urquhart having given his consent to its production.”
�28
Lord Palmerston then said:—
“The fact is, that Mr. Urquhart wrote me a loDg letter subsequent to
his recal, which letter would, I believe, fill one of the volumes on the table,
and which letter contains a number of misstatements and misrepresentations
connected with transactions in which we had both been concerned. I have
not had time to reply to that letter, or to enter into a controversy with Mr.
Urquhart, and therefore the letter has remained wholly unanswered, but if I
were to lay the document on the table of the House I should be obliged to
accompany it with an answer from myself, in reference to the misstatements
it contains. I do not know that there is any portion of the letter which has an
important bearing on the affair of the Vixen ; but I shall look at it again, and
inform the right honourable Gentleman whether such be the case or not, but
if any part of it is to be produced, it will be necessary for me to write a reply,
and to lay that reply also on the table of the House.”
The letter was connected with a false statement in the petition,
and therefore could not be published. The letter, nevertheless,
had not an important bearing on the affair of the Vixen, though
the false statement which it supported was the whole case referred
to Parliament. Finally, though unimportant, the letter could not
be published unless an answer could be written by Lord Palmerston, and laid on the table of the House.
This conversation is quoted from the Mirror of Parliament. It
is also reported in the Times of June 18, 1838. Not a trace of
it is to be found in Hansard.
Lord Palmerston did, after this, write a reply, but he never
laid it on the table of the House. It was left for Mr. Urquhart
to publish in the Times. But, on the day of the debate (June
21), Lord Palmerston did not hesitate to say that this reply,
written after the lapse of six months, was written the day after
he received Mr. Urquhart’s letter.
“ But we now come to another part of these transactions, being that in
which the right honourable Gentleman means to impute to me, personally,
some considerable blame—I mean as to the matters which form the subject
of a letter written by Mr. Urquhart, and published in the Times this morn
ing. I beg, in the first place, to say that, during the little leisure which in
disposition sometimes gives me, I wrote a letter to Mr. Urquhart, in
answer1 to one I had received from him the day before ; a fact which I men
tion to show the course that was taken in answering his communication.”
Mr. Urquhart’s letter to Lord Palmerston was dated Sep
tember 30, 1837
*
Lord Palmerston’s reply is dated June 20, 1838.|
On June 16, 1838, Lord Palmerston said:—
“That letter has remained wholly unanswered.”
On June 21, 1838, Lord Palmerston said of the same
letter:—•
* It will be found in the Times of June 21, 1838.
j\ See the Times of July 26, 1838, which also contains Mr. Urquhart’s
rejoinder.
�29
. “ I wrote a letter to Mr. Urquhart in answer to one I had received from
him the day before.”
Everybody, surely, can understand a direct falsehood like this.
It must be evident that if Lord Palmerston could not com
pass his defence without having recourse to falsehood, he must
have been guilty of something far worse than anything the Motion
imputed to him.
Such an extraordinary manoeuvre must have had a special ob
ject; but the mode in which it was intended to operate can be
explained only by some one personally cognisant at the time of
the whole transaction. Lord Palmerston completed his task
by repeating, and at the same time contradicting, what he had
said about the private nature of Mr. Urquhart’s communica
tion :—
“It would ill become me to criticise the course that Gentleman has
thought proper to take, but my objection is not what it has been sup
posed to be by the noble Lord the Member for North Lancashire (Lord
Stanley)—that his letter was a betrayal of official confidence ; my objection
is exactly the reverse, namely, that it contains a great number of private
and confidential communications between Mr. Urquhart and other people
which I did not think fit or proper to be published.”—Ibid., p. 4990.
What is a betrayal of official confidence ? Is it not the
revelation by a public servant of private and confidential com
munications made to him as such? Does Lord Palmerston
mean to say that breach of official confidence means pub
lishing that which the public ought to know? If he does not
mean this, it is difficult to know what he does mean. But in
this last contradiction, if the meaning is obscure the purpose
is obvious. The North American Indians, in their warlike
marches, leave to the last man the office of concealing the trail
which may betray them. This feat seems to a European impos
sible, but Lord Palmerston has learned to perform it with an
ease and a perfection which far surpass those of the inhabitants of
the forest. He guards against the danger of being detected and
contradicted in his falsehoods by detecting and contradicting
himself.
REGARDING THE RELATIONS OF ENGLAND WITH
RUSSIA.
(self-contradiction.)
Lord Palmerston lately proposed an assimilation between
war and peace. From 1837 to 1840 he effected an assimilation
between enmity and friendship. He combined with Russia on
all European matters, while he made war upon Dost Mahomed
merely for receiving at his Court a Russian Envoy.
�30
Lord Palmerston, December 14, 1837.
“ I say, therefore—not at all dissembling—that I think Russia does keep a
larger force than is required for the defence of her own possessions, and than is
consistent with the general well-being of other nations at peace with her . .
that having no reason to believe that the intention of Russia is otherwise than
friendly towards this country—having reason, on the contrary, to believe
(whatever her policy or ultimate intentions may prompt) that she has no wish
or design to embark in a war with England, I feel &c.”*
Lord Palmerston, March 11, 1839.
“Ido not like to touch this part of the subject,lest the possible supposition
should be entertained that, in what I say, I am giving any countenance to an
opinion that may be anywhere entertained, that we are now in a state in which
a rupture with Russia is likely to arise. There is nothing in the relations be
tween this country and Russia to justify such an opinion ; on the contrary, I
believe that, on both sides, there is a strong and anxious desire to preserve the
peaceful relations, and to maintain that friendship which at present exist.
Lord Palmerston, March 19, 1861.
“ Russia was then in a state of active hostility to England in regard to our
Asiatic affairs............ The policy which the Governor-General had adopted
required that Dost Mahomed should be treated as an enemy, because he was
allied with those who were at ffiat time the enemies of England.”—Hansard,
vol. 162, pp. 62—3.
REGARDING THE RUSSIAN FLEET IN THE BALTIC.
(self-contradiction.)
Lord Palmerston’s contradiction of himself on this point is
one of the most remarkable of his many contradictions. In 1837
there was, according to his statement at the time, a correspond
ence between England and Russia, respecting the Russian Fleet
in the Baltic. In 1848 he denied that any such correspondence
had taken place. In'making this denial he affected to reply
to a demand for papers on the part of Mr. Anstey. No such
demand was made by Mr. Anstey in his speech, nor were the
papers in question among those recited in his Motion:—
Lord Palmerston, December 14, 1837.
“ I am asked whether any measures have been adopted by the Government
- to prevent Russia from proceeding with the naval armament at Cronstadt.
Now, with regard to the building and equipping of a fleet, no Government is
entitled to prescribe to another Power what fleets it shall build; but unques
tionably when a Foreign Power is fitting out a considerable force, either by
sea or land which indicates intentions calculated to give reasonable ground of
uneasiness to another Power, or its allies, then the Government of such country
has a right to demand for what purpose such force is intended; and certainly
the presence and equipment of the Russian fleet, as it was collected in the
Baltic two or three years ago, did lead to explanations between the Govern* Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston,
G.C.B., M.P., &c., as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, during more than
Forty Years of Public Life; with a Memoir by George Henry Francis, Esq.
Editor of “ Maxims and Opinions of the Duke of Wellington,” &c. London:
Colburn and Co. 1852. P. 361.
t Ibid. pp. 406-7.
�31
ments of England and of Russia, but those explanations were satisfactory to
the Government of this country • and although, since that time, a large number
of vessels have been fitted out for the purpose of review, there has not been
any such display of naval force in the Baltic as might be reasonably looked upon
as indicating a hostile intention on the part of Russia towards any other
Power.”*
Loud Palmerston, March 1, 1848,
“ The bon. Member (Mr. Anstey) asks for all the correspondence which may
have passed from the year 1835 downwards on the subject of the Russian fleet
in commission in the Baltic. I do not recollect that any particular communi
cations took place on this subject between the British Government, on the one
hand, and those of Russia or Erance on the other.”—Hansard, vol. 97, p. 120.
REGARDING THE COMPARATIVE STRENGTH OF
ENGLAND AND RUSSIA.
(self-contradiction.)
When a Minister avows that he has committed a forgery to
save the honour of an enemy, it is natural to suppose that enemy
to be strong. Lord Palmerston, however, when urged to arm
against Russia, declared that she was weaker than England:—
Lord Palmerston, December 14,1837..
" Does he suppose that Russia—ay, even that same Russia which he seems
so desirous to convert into a general alarm-giver—is in a more warlike position
as regards financial matters than Great Britain? I beg to tell him he is.quite
as much mistaken in thinking that Russia at this moment could.find means to
commence an offensive war, as he is in asserting that England is in such a state
as to render her unable to provide for a defensive one. . . I assert that Russia
would find it more difficult to undertake a war, which had not for its object
self-defence, than England.”f
England, then, was strong enough to cope with Russia if both
stood alone; the only danger was lest England should be en
cumbered by the assistance of allies—for instance, France and
Poland:—
Lord Palmerston, July 9, 1833.
“I repeat that a general war must have taken place if England had interfered
by arms; because, on one side there were Russia, Austria, and Prussia enter
taining one opinion, and, on the other, England and Erance were united in a
different interpretation. Austria and Prussia were both in possession of Polish
provinces, and both were interested, or believed themselves interested (which
is much the same thing), in establishing the interpretation put by Russia on
the Treaty. And what was the state of the disposable army of these Powers?
Russia had an army in Poland against which the Poles were scarcely able to
make head; Austria had an army on the Austrian frontier of Poland; while
Prussia had concentrated her forces on the Russian frontier;. and if the British
Government had wished to make the fate of the Poles certain, and to involve
them in a contest with forces so superior as to render resistance on their part
for a week impossible, they had nothing to do but to declare that they would,
by force of arms, compel Russia to maintain the Constitution of Poland.”^
Lord Palmerston succeeded in persuading the British Par
liament that Austria was the enemy of Poland. That the reverse
* Opinions of Lord Palmerston, pp. 356-7.
f Ibid. pp. 362-3.
J Ibid. pp. 244-5.
�32
was the truth, has lately been established by the public testimony
of a Polish Gentleman whose character and whose knowledge of
the subject are alike unimpeachable:—
Count Zamoyski, July 11, 1861.
“ I remember, when the insurrection broke out in Warsaw, the people looked
up to the Austrian Consul as their friend. There was no English Consul and
no French Consul. No impediment was raised in the way of any man in
Galicia passing the frontier and joining the army. We had several regiments
formed of Galicians. Austria, at that very time, far from being offended at the
Galicians, actually supported the insurrection. The Emperor of Austria
issued a proclamation to the Province in which be announced that six months’
taxes would be.remitted as a token of gratitude for their conduct during the
struggle. Their conduct .consisted in collecting money and men, and sending
them to the Polish insurrection. The Plenipotentiary of the Austrian Govern
ment at the Congress of Vienna was Prince Metternich. Now, the Prince,
during the Polish insurrection of 1831, concealed himself from the Russian
Embassy, but he saw the Polish Envoy every evening, receiving him by the back
door of his house. He conferred with him, and expressed the greatest sym
pathy with Poland, but regretted he could do nothing so long as England and
France took no action. He actually ended every conference about Poland by
saying to the Polish Envoy :—
My dear friend, you lose your time here; you should go to the Govern
ments of Paris and London. We cannot move without having the assurance
and security that they are determined to do the tiling in earnest—to check
Russia at once and for ever.’
. “The Emperor Francis II., of Austria, sent a message through his Mi
nister to the Polish Envoy, and it was to this effect:—
“ ‘ The Emperor feels that he is drawing near his end. He is about to ap
pear before the great Judge. The possession of Galicia weighs upon his con
science as a crime, and he would be happy to restore it to Poland, provided
that it would not be amiexed to Russia.’
“A few years afterwards, the Plenipotentiary of England at Vienna was Lord
Holland, who was then Mr. Henry Fox. He took occasion to observe to
Prince Metternich that he was surprised Austria did not see the benefit
which she would derive from the restoration of Poland, Not knowing what
had happened before, he said Austria had remained quiet, not apprehending the
immense interest she had in the restoration of Poland. This was in 1835.
Metternich’s answer was:—
“ ‘Do you think we do not know and understand that ? Give me the as
surance that Poland will be restored in twenty-four hours, and I will subscribe
to it at once. But do you think it is an easy matter to accomplish ? It wants
the assistance, of you English and French. Give me the assurance that you are
willing to do it, and I am ready. I will ask no compensation for Galicia. The
compensation, of course, would be the re-establishment of the barrier between
ourselves and Russia.’
“ The Polish Envoy at Vienna in 1831 was my own brother, so I have this
from a good source.”
REGARDING POLAND.
(equivocation.)
It was not enough to persuade the British Parliament that
Austria was hostile to Poland, it was necessary to profess a be
lief that Poland would continue to exist as a State. This was
merely a matter of the careful placing of words. In 1832 it was
�33
impossible to exterminate a large kingdom morally or politically.
Nobody dared to say, “Your words are inappropriate, and therefore
unmeaning.” Four years afterwards it was easy to say that what
lie meant was, that it was impossible to exterminate a nation
morally or physically, and as these words, by virtue of having a
meaning, were the reverse of what he had formerly said, they were
taken to mean the same:—
Lord Palmerston, June 28, 1832.
“ As to the idea which seems to be entertained by several gentlemen of its
being intended to exterminate a large kingdom, either morally or politically, if
it be seriously entertained anywhere, it is so perfectly impracticable that I
think there need he no apprehension of its being attempted.”*
Lord Palmerston, April 20, 1836.
" What I, on the occasion referred to, said, was this—that it was impossible
for Russia to exterminate, nominally^ or physically, a nation. I did not say king
dom. A kingdom is a political body, and may be destroyed ; but a nation is
an aggregate body of men; and what I stated was that if Russia did entertain
the project, which many thinking people believe she did, of exterminating the
Polish nation, she entertained what it was hopeless to accomplish, because it
was impossible to exterminate a nation, especially a nation of so many millions
of men as the Polish Kingdom, in its divided state, contained.”!
The conduct of Lord Palmerston in respect to Poland cannot
be better summed up than in the words of Mr. Hennessy,
July 2, 1861:
“ I have said that England has been to blame throughout the whole of this
business. When Lord Clarendon touched the Polish question he did it damage.
Lord Aberdeen and other British statesmen of our day injured it. But the
Minister who has from the beginning to this hour done the most against Poland
is the present Premier. It may surprise some hon. Members to be told that,
when other great Powers were anxious to assist Poland, the noble Lord on
behalf of England, stepped in and prevented them. Had I myself heard such a
statement some time ago, I should probably have been surprised also. But
this session I have seen many things which must lessen the confidence of
the country in the noble Lord. I have observed him rise in his place and
lose his temper when accused by one of his own supporters of falsifying Sir
A. Burnes’s despatches. I have watched influential Members of the Liberal
party recording their votes against the noble Lord when that grave charge was
denied but not disproved. I have heard another supporter of the Govern
ment, when he brought forward the case of the Baron de Bode, taunted by the
noble Lord with bringing forward a case involviug fraud, and I have then
seen, on that issue, the Minister defeated by a majority of this House, and
the charge of fraud flung back upon the noble Lord. And, not the least dis
graceful, I have seen the House counted out by the Government when charges
equally serious were made against the noble Viscount by the noble Lord near me
(Lord Robert Montagu.)”
In reply to this charge, namely, that of having used the power
of England against Poland, and having been guilty of acts which
rendered his denial unworthy of belief, Lord Palmerston was
not able to utter a syllable.
* Opinions of Lord Palmerston, p. 202.
+ Azc.
J Opinions of Lord Palmerston, p. 315.
�34
REGARDING THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE TREATY
OF VIENNA.
(mental reservation.)
_The only difficulty in the way of Lord Palmerston’s betrayal
of Poland has lain in the Treaty of Vienna, by which we were
bound to maintain Poland in the enjoyment of certain rights.
Out of this difficulty Lord Palmerston easily extricates him
self. On August 8, 1831, Mr. Hunt presented a petition pray
ing the House of Commons to address the King to dismiss Lord
Palmerston from his councils for not having assisted Poland.
Mr. Hume said we were bound by treaty to see justice done to
Poland:—
“Lord Palmerston could not, consistently ■with his duty, give the hon.
Member those explanations which he desired; but this, at least, he would
undertake to say, that ichatever obligations existing Treaties imposed, would at
all times receive the attention of Government.”
On August 16, 1831, on a Motion for papers by Colonel
Evans, after an attack by Mr. Hume:—
“ Lord Palmerston hoped that nothing he had said, and nothing he had
omitted to say, would lead any man to suppose that the British Government
had forgotten any obligations imposed upon it by Treaties, or that it was not
prepared to fulfil those Treaties.”
This was before Warsaw had fallen, and while the cessation of
intercourse between England and Russia might have saved
Poland. He denied that England was bound to maintain the
Treaty of Vienna by force. But then he coupled this doctrine
with the hypothesis that England had to stand alone against the
other Powers. On June 28, 1832, in reply to Mr. Cutlar
Fergusson, he said:—
“ England lay under no peculiar obligation, individually and independently
of the other contracting parties, to adopt measures of direct interference by
force.”
At this time it was supposed in England that Austria and
Prussia were ready to make war in concert with Russia, and that
all the other Powers would have been neutral. Now, it is known
that Austria, France, Turkey, Sweden, and Persia were on the
side of Poland, and had to be restrained by Lord Palmerston.
He, however, is quite equal to the emergency. Pie shifts his
doctrine to the very simple one that a State making a joint
Treaty is not bound to enforce it if one of the parties choose to
violate it.
On February 27, 1863, Lord Palmerston, in reply to Mr.
Hennessy, said:—
“ The hon. Member assumes that by the Treaty of Vienna we are under
an obligation to interfere with the affairs of Poland. We have a right to
interfere, but we are under no obligation to do so.”
�35
When, therefore, Lord Palmerston told Mr. Hume that the
British Government had not forgotten any obligations imposed
upon it by Treaties, he made a mental reservation that there were
no such obligations. Falsehood here emulates the simplicity of
truth, and by that simplicity triumphs.
REGARDING THE RUSSO-DUTCH LOAN.
(FORGERY IN COLLUSION WITH THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADORS.)
Connected with the Polish Revolution is the payment of the
Russo-Dutch Loan, and with that again the separation of Belgium
from Holland. The continued payment to Russia of this loan
after it had lapsed by this separation, according to the Treaty
of 1815, was obtained by a most elaborate falsehood concerted
between Lord Palmerston and the Russian Ambassadors.
This falsehood, told in 1832, is contrary to all the evidence, and
especially to Lord Palmerston’s own prior statement. The
substance of it was that Russia had been willing to ensure a
compulsory observance of the Treaty of 1815, and had offered to
march 60,000 men into Belgium for that purpose.
The statement first appears in a note from the Russian Ambas
sadors to Lord Palmerston, dated January 25, 1831. They
declare, at the same time, that in all their conversations with Lord
Palmerston they have reserved their right to the continuance
of the payments as the condition on which they adhered to the
Protocol of the 20th of December 1830. This Protocol they
describe as one which “ does not yet take away the sovereignty
of the King of the Netherlands.” - Yet the Protocol declares
that u the very object of the UnioQ of Belgium with Holland
finds itself destroyed, and that thenceforth it becomes indis
pensable to recur to other arrangements to accomplish the in
tentions to the execution of which the Union should have served
as a means.”
Loan Palmerston, February 18,1831.
“ They (the Conference) were not to concern themselves with the question
whether Belgium, having won her freedom with her arms, should or should not
be subject again to Holland, and no such interference took place.”*
The Protocol of the 20th December, 1830, like every other, was
signed by Russia; she was therefore bound to adhere to it. The
offer of the 60,000 men must, then, have been made not only before
the 25th of January, 1831, but before the 20th of December,
1830—the date of the Protocol.
The offer must also have been known to foreign Powers, since
the Emperor abstained from following up this determination,
4<out of respect to the representations of his Alfies, and princiOpinions of Lord Palmerston, p. 156.
�36
pally out of deference to the opinions and wishes of the Cabinet
of London.”
It was not till the 4th November, 1830, that the King of Hol
land invoked the interference of the Five Powers; it was not
till the 10th that he consented to an armistice. The offer must,
therefore, have been made between the 10th November and the
20th December, 1830. The offer was not for many months com
municated to the public, nor to the Parliament, nor to the Minis
ters themselves. The letter of the 25th January appears to have
lain (unanswered) in Lord Palmerston’s desk till the time came
round for the December payment.
The payments were made twice in the year, the one per cent,
of the principal being paid in July, the interest in December.
The Treaty stipulated for the lapse of a year before the payments
should cease. The July payment was therefore made without
hesitation. But the December one was beyond the stipulated
term. The Comptroller of the Exchequer demurred to the pay
ment. So grave was the objection which he raised, that the case
was submitted to the Law Officers of the Crown. Then it was
that Lord Palmerston first produced the letter of the Russian
Ambassadors reciting this offer, and it was upon this letter that
he obtained an opinion favourable to the Russian claim, and con
sequently the payment of the usual December instalment.
The legality of this payment was warmly contested in both Houses,
and on several occasions. But in spite of this apparent pressure,
the offer of the 60,000 men, which, according to the prevalent
notions of the day, would have justified the payment to Parlia
ment, was still kept in reserve. Sir Thomas Denman, it is true,
referred to a Russian document which had influenced his own
legal opinion, and the non-production of which he deplored. But
the document was not produced. The motives which induced its
suppression appear to have continued for fifteen years, after which
period it was laid before Parliament and printed.
The story of a proposed forcible intervention came out he
France, on the opening of the Chambers in 1832, in the shape of
a boast by M. Casimir Perier that he had threatened with war
any Power that should presume to send forces into Belgium. He
attributed the “ salvation of Belgium” to the promptitude of that
declaration. The Duke of Wellington was indignant at this
statement, and denounced it in the House of Lords as a falsehood.
On the 16th March, 1832, he
“ Most distinctly denied the assumption of M. Perier, namely, that other
nations had evinced an intention of interfering by force. The British Govern
ment had no such intention, nor had any of the other Powers ; and he would
add that the French Government knew that such was the case.”—Hansard,
vol. 11, p. 307.
�37
Lord Grey confirmed the statement of the Duke of Wel
lington.
Some months afterwards, on the 12th of July, Lord Patbrought forward the Russian statement in Parliament
for the first time:—
merston
“In the beginning of October, 1830, the King of the Netherlands applied
to his Allies, telling them his authority had been overthrown in Belgium, and
he asked for military assistance to enable him to re-establish it. Such an appli
cation was made to Great Britain, to Austria, to Russia, and to Prussia. What
was the answer—not of the present, but of the late Administration ? Why,
they declined to afford the military assistance required of them. What, how
ever, was the answer of the Emperor of Russia ? He signified to his Allies
that he had 60,000 men on his frontiers, ready to march for the pur
pose of re-establishing the authority of the King of the Netherlands, if the
other contracting parties to the Treaty were of opinion that such a proceeding
would be consistent with the general interest.”—Hansard, vol. 14, p. 326.
The message of the King of Holland was dated the 4th No
vember. By the 29th Russia required every man, whose services
she could command, to defend herself in Poland, transferring them
from the remotest stations, and leaving naked her most exposed
frontiers. Nobody got up to question the reality of the offer, or
to state the impossibility of its execution. The Duke-of Wel
lington, who had contradicted the statement before it was put
into a definite shape, remained silent.
From that moment the assertion of Lord Palmerston has
been accepted as truth.
This assertion, so long delayed, has no other evidence than that
it is made by the Russian Ambassadors in the letter above men
tioned. That letter, marked “ confidential,” appears never to
have been answered; an answer to it appears, however, to have
been imperative, since it invokes the 11 spirit and the letter of the
Treaty.” The new Treaty commences by declaring that com
plete agreement between the spirit and the letter does not exceed
On the grounds above stated there can be no doubt that the
assertion of Lord Palmerston was false.
Upon this falsehood was obtained the payment of the instal
ment, and through it the payments have continued up to the
present time. It therefore represented a value for Russia, limiting
it to a pecuniary one, of l,837,500Z.
It will also appear from the circumstances and context that the
Russian note of the 25th January, 1831, never had existence.
The need of something to show having arisen at a posterior
date, such a document was forged. It was collusively assumed
between the parties to have been presented by the one and ac
cepted by the other at the time of its date.
�38
.REGARDING RUSSIA AND TURKEY.
(self-contradiction.)
Nearly all the falsehoods already collected have reference to
Russia, and were told for her interest. Secresy and intrigue
have not sufficed to keep down Turkey in the interest of Russia.
Direct falsehoods have been supplied. Among the most obvious
of them is one about the Treaty of Adrianople. By this Treaty
Russia obtained possession of the mouth of the Danube. Lord
Palmerston actually denied that she had obtained by that
Treaty any territory in Europe. He gave an argument in sup
port of his assertion, namely, that she was under a Treaty obliga
tion to make no such acquisition. The obligation, of course, had
no geographical limits. This additional falsehood is important,
because it shows at a glance that Lord Palmerston was not un
acquainted with the truth, but wilfully perverted it.
Lord Palmerston, August 7, 1832.
“ If ever there was just ground for going to war, Russia had it for going to
war with Turkey. She did not, however, on that occasion, acquire any increase
of territory, at least in Europe. I know that there was a continued occupation
of certain points, and some additional acquisitions on the Euxine, in Asia; but
she had an agreement with the other European Powers, to the effect that suc
cess in that war should not lead to any aggrandisement in Europe, I think the
official situation I hold in this House renders it my duty to state facts like
these.”*
Lord Palmerston, April 20, 1836.
“ Undoubtedly, when Russia acquired a portion of the Danube by the Treaty
of Adrianople, that part of the river fell within the scope of the Treaty of
Vienna, as being a part of Russia.” f
REGARDING THE TREATY OF JULY 15, 1840.
(ERASURE OF HANSARD.)
The turning point in the career of Lord Palmerston, and in
the history of the world, is the Treaty of 1840, for the Pacification
of the Levant, by the four Powers to the exclusion of France.
By this Treaty Russia was authorised to occupy Constantinople.
The meaning of the transaction as regards Russia and Turkey
was concealed by the device of the quarrel between the Sultan
and the Pasha of Egypt. England affected to side with the
former, France supported the latter. But though Englishmen
were easily mystified as regards Russia and Turkey, they were not
disposed to sacrifice the good understanding with France. It be
came necessary to make it be believed in Parliament that no insult
had been offered to France. Mr. Hume demanded the production
of the Treaty. Lord Palmerston refused to produce it because
it had not been ratified, and was therefore not yet valid, but he
declared that the Treaty which he refused to the English Parlia
* Opinions of Lord Palmerston, p. 216.
f Ibid., p. 314.
�39
ment he had already, as a mark of confidence, forwarded to the
French Government. This statement was doubly false. No copy
of the Treaty was sent to the French Government for two months
after its signature. By a Protocol signed on the same day as the
Treaty, it was to come into operation without waiting for ratifica
tion.
Loud Palmerston, Avgust 6,1840.
“ My honourable Friend (Mr. Htjme) asked for a copy of the Convention that
had been entered into with the great Powers: that a Convention had been
entered into was certain, but it was not fulfilled until it was ratified and ex
changed by each of the Powers that were parties to it; and until this was
done it was impossible that the document could be made public, or that it
could be laid before Parliament.”—Hansard, vol. 55, p. 1371.
Extract erom Protocol oe July 15,1840.
“ The said Plenipotentiaries, in virtue of their full powers, have agreed
between them Xhat the preliminary measures mentioned in Article II. of the
said Convention shall be put in execution immediately, without waiting for the
exchange of ratifications; the respective Plenipotentiaries state formally by
the present Act the assent of their Courts to the immediate execution of these
measures.”*
These measures were the employment of the British fleet
against Mehemet Ali, and—if she had assisted him—against
France.
Lord Palmerston, August 6, ] 840.
“ In the case of the Convention between France and England, with respect
to Belgium, that Convention was not communicated to the Belgian Govern
ment till after it was ratified; whilst, in the present case, the Treaty was for
warded to France two days after it was signedTimes, August 7, 1840.
Lord Palmerston to M. Guizot, September 16, 1840.
“ The Undersigned had the honour, on the 17th July, to inform his Excellency
M. Guizot, that a Convention upon the affairs of Turkey had been signed on the
15th of that month, &c. . . . The ratifications of that Convention having now
been exchanged, the Undersigned has the honour of transmitting to M.
Guizot, for the information of the French Government, a copy of that Conven
tion and of its annexes.”!
The falsehood of the 6 th August was told for the House of
Commons. We quote it from the Times’ report of the next day.
But, though the House of Commons accepted the statement without inquiry, there were others who could not be deceived by it.
M. Guizot has just published the History of his Embassy to
the Court of St. James in 1840. In it this passage occurs:—
“ On the 16th of September, when all the ratifications had arrived and been
exchanged in London, Lord Palmerston at length made known to us officially
and textually the Treaty of the 15th of July.”
The Appendix to the Correspondence contains the reply of
M. Thiers to a Memorandum of Lord Palmerston of the
31st August, in which he (M. Thiers) says:—
* Convention for the Pacification of the Levant, presented by command.
1841.
f Correspondence relative to the Affairs of the Levant, Part II., p. 190.
�40
“ All at once, on the 17th of July, Lord Palmerston calls to the Foreign
Office the Ambassador of France, and informs him that a Treaty had been
signed the day before yesterday; he tells him this without even communicating
to him the text of the Treaty.”
In another place, speaking of this Treaty, he says :—
“ Which was not communicated to it until two months later.”—Pp. 453,455.
M. Guizot says of this Despatch of M. Thiers:—
“ I read it to Lord Palmerston, who had returned the same day from the
country, and gave him a copy of it.”—P. 318.
When, therefore, Lord Palmerston corrected his speech for
Hansard, he erased the falsehood which had had such an effect
in the House, and substituted the following indistinct and un
meaning form of words:—
“ The four Powers then determined, in accordance with the regulation already
made with France, that they would join in carrying the arrangement into effect,
and notice of the same was given to the French Minister two dags after it was
completed. In the case of the Convention made between France and England
alone, in reference to Belgium, notice of the same was not communicated to
the other Powers till some time after.”—Hansard, vol 55, p. 1378.
If this falsehood had been detected on the night of its utterance,
the career of Lord Palmerston might have been closed.
Lord Palmerston, ever since he has been Foreign Secretary,
harS pretended a great regard for the independence and integrity
of the Ottoman Empire. He said, 11th July, 1833:—
“ The integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire are necessary to
the maintenance of the tranquillity, the liberty, and the balance of Power in the
rest of Europe.”*
No change has taken place in Lord Palmerston’s conduct to
Turkey since he ventured to express a very different opinion.
On the 5th of February, 1830, being in opposition, he for once
spoke out his intentions:—
“I object to the policy of making the integrity of the Turkish dominions in
Europe an object essentially necessary to the interests of Christian and civilised
Europe.”!
These falsehoods are presented here disconnected from the con
sideration of the subjects to which they relate. It is sufficient
that the designs attempted require the use of falsehood for any
honest man to condemn them; they might be arrested in their
course by a nation which, though unable to comprehend treason,
should at least resolve to punish falsehood. But this process will
cease to be effective when, at length, the time shall have arrived
in which falsehood shall no longer be necessary for the success of
treason.
* Opinions of Lord Palmerston, p. 246.
C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND.
f Ibid., p. 131.
�
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Contradictions of Lord Palmerston in reference to Poland and Circassia et caetera
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Hardwicke
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1863
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Foreign Relations
Great Britain
Politics
Conway Tracts
Foreign Relations
Great Britain-Politics and Government-1837-1901
Henry John Temple
Press
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Text
Centenary Issue
SOME OF
Z -
'8S 09 Paine’s Masterpieces
Uniform with this Cheap Reprint are issued Thomas Paine’s
“Age of Reason ” and “ The Rights of Man ”
O
�THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, LTD.
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Cheap Popular Editions of The Paine Centenary Com
memoration : JUNE Sih, I9o9.
Paine’s Works.
The Age of Reason.
140 pp.
The Rights of Man.
153 pp-
A Selection from Paine’s
Political Writings,
including “Common Sense,” “The
Crisis,” and Speeches upon the Trial
and Death of Louis XVI.
144 pp.
EACH 6d. IN PAPER COVER, OR Is. IN CLOTH.
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W
Life of Thomas Paine
written by the late Dr. Moncure D.
Conway.
The work has hitherto
been obtainable only in its original
expensive form (2 vols., 25s.). With
the generous co-operation of the
Author’s Executors, it is now being
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London : Watts & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, E.C.
�N/5^8
NxnONALSECULARSOCU
~ N PAINT'S
POLITICAL WRITINGS
DURING THE AMERICAN AND FRENCH
REVOLUTIONS
INCLUDING
“COMMON SENSE,” “THE CRISIS,” AND SPEECHES UPON THE
TRIAL AND DEATH OF LOUIS XVI.
EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, BY
HYPATIA BRADLAUGH BONNER
London:
WATTS & CO.,
17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1909
��INTRODUCTION
Mr. John M. Robertson, in his biographical sketch of Thomas Paine, points
out that “ In Paine’s public life there are three great tidal periods—the
period when he was helping more than any other to make the Revolution in
America; the period when, having come to Europe after the American
Revolution was fairly consolidated, he published the Rights of Man, and laid
in England the foundations of a new democracy in the very teeth of the great
reaction of which Burke was the prophet; and, lastly, the period when, after
his hopes from the French Revolution had substantially failed, and he expected
death as his own meed, he wrote his Age of Reason, significantly making his
last blow the most deadly of all his strokes at the reign of tradition.” Readers
of the popular reprints issued by Messrs. Watts have had the opportunity of
becoming acquainted with the two works which mark these two later periods,
for which Paine is most widely-known in England, and both of which were the
subject of prosecution in this country. Those writings of his, however, by
means of which he helped “ more than any other to make the Revolution in
America,” and so separate America from England, are very little known here,
in spite of their influence on our history. To commemorate the centenary of
the death of Thomas Paine (June Sth, 1809) there is now issued an edition of
Common Sense and The American Crisis, which are “ historical documents ”
in the fullest sense of the term, since they not only record historical events,
but actually helped to make history.
Paine left England in 1774, and arrived in America on November 30th of
that year. He carried with him letters of introduction from Dr. Franklin, and
settled in Philadelphia, where he very soon became editor of the Pennsylvania
Magazine, in which he tried his maiden pen by writing short essays on such
subjects as anti-slavery, duelling, unhappy marriages, and justice to women.
Without further literary apprenticeship than this he wrote his Common Sense
—-a pamphlet “ addressed to the inhabitants of North America ”—which was
published on January 10th, 1776, at the price of 2s., by Richard Bell, of Third
Street, Philadelphia. It came out three months after the burning of Falmouth
(Maine), and nine days after the burning of Norfolk (Virginia). A few days
later it reached General Washington, who wrote on January 31st: “A few
more such flaming arguments as were exhibited at Falmouth and Norfolk,
added to the sound doctrine and unanswerable reasoning contained in the
pamphlet Common Sense, will not leave numbers at a loss to decide upon the
propriety of separation.” The effect produced by the pamphlet was immediate
3
�4
INTRODUCTION
and unparalleled. Even Paine’s bitter enemy, Cheetham, was obliged to admit
that, “ Speaking a language which the colonists had felt, but not thought, its
popularity, terrible in its consequences to the parent country, was unexampled
in the history of the. Press.” Paine himself, writing on April 8th, in answer to ,
an attack made upon the author of Common Sense, says : “ Perhaps there never
was a pamphlet since the use of letters were known about which so little pains
were taken, and of which so great a number went off in so short a time; I am
certain that I am within compass when I say one hundred and twenty thousand.
The book was turned upon the world like an orphan to shift for itself; no plan
was formed to support it.” In less than three months, therefore, 120,000
copies had been distributed. Dr. Conway thinks that, in the end, probably
half-a-million - copies were sold. Paine refused to receive any profit from this
work, and gave the copyright of the pamphlet to the States for the cause of
independence; this he did in so thorough a manner that some time later
we find him remarking that he was still in debt to his printer to the extent of
^29 12s. id.1
’
. The editions of Common Sense consulted for the present issue are a Phila
delphia edition of 1776, a London one of the same year brought out by
J. Almon, of Piccadilly (and bound up with pamphlets by “ Candidus ” and
“ Cato,” who argue that “ the scheme of Independence is ruinous, delusive,
and impracticable,” and that “ permanent Liberty or true happiness can only
be obtained by Reconciliation with the Kingdom” of Great Britain); an
edition published by J. Ridgway, York Street, St. James’Square, in 1791;
Jordan’s edition of 1792 ; and Sherwin’s (1817) and Carlile’s (1819) collected
works; also some more recent editions, including, of course, Dr. Conway’s
great edition of 1896. The earliest London editions have a strange appear
ance in our eyes to-day, inasmuch as all unpleasing references to the King (
are omitted, and a blank space left in their place. In consequence of these
omissions, Sherwin’s and Carlile’s, and all subsequent editions founded on
• these, either had the blank spaces filled in with whatever words the editors
considered most suitable—such as “tyrant,” or “royal brute,” or “Court”
for “ King ”; or else, where whole sentences or paragraphs had been omitted,
the later editors simply closed up the types, so that the matter read straight
on. Apart from Dr. Conway’s edition, therefore, the present issue is, as far
as I have been able to ascertain, the first complete and accurate edition of
Common Sense issued in this country based on the early American text.
Paine came of Quaker stock, and hated war with all his heart. “ If there
is a sin superior to every other,” he writes, “ it is that of wilful and offensive
war.” But this war' of independence was neither wilful nor offensive on the
part of America, and, his scruples overcome, in 1776 he enlisted in a Pennsyl
vania division of a Flying Camp of 10,000 men.; and when that brief period
'of enlistment was over, he re-enlfsted at Fort Lee, on the Hudson, under the
�INTRODUCTION
5
command of General Nathaniel Green, who made him a Volunteer aide-decamp. On November 20th Fort Lee was surprised, and tw’O days later the
army, miserable with defeat, hunger, and cold, retreated to Newark. Here
Paine began to write the first American Crisis, a task which could only be
carried on at night, since in the day-time there was ■work for every soldier.
This was one of the darkest hours of the soldiers of independence; the depres
sion was extreme throughout the whole army, from the General down to the
half-naked, half-frozen, hungry soldier. Washington’s letters at this period
touch a note of utter despondency—disaffection was widespread, and deser
tions were numerous. Washington decided to make an attempt on Trenton
on Christmas Day, one hour before dawn, but the situation appeared
so desperate that he wrote: “Necessity, dire necessity will, nay must,
justify any attempt.” It was at this dark hour that the first number of the
Crisis appeared. It was published originally in the Pennsylvania Journal
for December 19th on the 23rd it was issued as a pamphlet, and copies
reached the camp at Trenton Falls on the eve of the engagement. I he
disheartened soldiers were called together to listen to Paine’s inspiring words.
To get some idea of their effect we must once more read the unwilling testi
mony of a hostile witness—Cheetham—who says : “ The number was read in
camp to every corporal’s guard, and in the army and out of it had more than
the intended effect....... Militiamen who, already tired of the war, were
straggling from the army, returned; hope succeeded despair, cheerfulness to
gloom, and firmness to irresolution.” Confidence inspired the camp, and, with
“ These are the times that try men’s souls ” as a watchword, a brilliant attack
was made on Trenton, and a victory gained. Just as Paine had given Common
Sense, so now he dedicated the profits of the Crisis to the service of his
adopted country.
Considering its enormous historical importance, considering also that it is
full of pungent sayings—some of which have been detached and have passed
into the current coifi of our language—it is rather remarkable that there
should have been so few editions of the Crisis published in this country
apart from complete editions of Paine’s works, and it is an especial pleasure
to me to assist in bringing this too little known work within reach of English
readers. So many years have passed since the American revolution, so
few Englishmen could be found to-day to defend George III.’s perverse
obstinacy, so few decent people would be prepared to condone the barbarities
committed in a war of a hundred years ago, that I am convinced that none
except the most inveterately prejudiced would allow their judgment of the
merits of this work to be influenced by the reflections upon England which it
contains; reflections which were after all directed against England’s king and
England’s ministers rather than against England’s people, who had no voice
at all in this dispute between their own country and America. For myself I
feel that I read and re-read these Crisis papers with ever-increasing profit and
�A
INTRODUCTION
enjoyment—profit from their evident sincerity and clear candour ; enjoyment
of the keen wit and forceful writing. It is true they deal with events which
took place more than a century ago, but they also deal with men, who are at
bottom exactly the same to-day as they were then in their qualities and
imperfections, in their virtues and their vices. Often by a mere change of
names, one may fit Paine’s words to present situations; there is nothing
bygone and musty about Paine; he is essentially modern, he knows the stuff
of which men are made.
The present edition of The American Crisis is based upon the early
American issues, after comparison with Eaton’s, Sherwin’s, Carlile’s, and Dr.
Conway’s. From Eaton’s edition two numbers are missing, for copies of
which Eaton offered ten guineas each. I have restored the original title,
The American Crisis, which distinguished it from a slightly earlier English
publication called The Crisis, and have also restored Paine’s original number
ing, one to thirteen (thirteen being the original number of the United States),
with a Crisis Extraordinary and Crisis Supernumerary. In most of the later
editions the papers were numbered in sequence from one to sixteen.
To these American works are added certain little known French docu
ments, with which every reader interested in Paine would do well to make
himself acquainted.
The Address to the People of France was written after Paine was elected
to the National Convention in September, 1792. He was chosen by four
departments, and elected to represent Calais. The address shows with what
whole-heartedness he threw himself into the struggle for liberty in France,
just as he had earlier thrown himself into the struggle for liberty in America;
in both cases he felt he was fighting a cause which was “ the cause of man
kind.” The present version is based upon Dr. Conway’s rendering, after
comparison with the Sherwin and Carlile editions.
The argument for Bringing Louis XVI. to Trial, and that for Preserving
the Life of Louis Capet, are also based mainly upon these three editions. For
Paine’s final Plea for a respite for Louis XVI. I am indebted solely to Dr.
Conway. This speech had not previously been published in full either in
England or America; Carlile, in his edition of Paine’s works, gives a brief
summary of the Plea, but, although that was valuable as a record of Paine’s
persistent effort to save the life of Louis, it does not give the arguments
adduced. Paine has been so often accused of having voted for the death of
Louis XVI. that it cannot be too widely known with what heroic determi
nation he pleaded for the king’s life at the risk of his own.
The Declaration of Rights, which Paine assisted Condorcet in drawing up,
Dr. Conway found in a volume of Condorcet’s works; the exceedingly
interesting Letter to Danton was brought to light by M. Taine, and first
published in full by his translator, John Durand. Dr. Conway relates that
“ Danton followed Paine to prison, and on meeting him there said: ‘ That
�INTRODUCTION
7
which you did for the happiness and liberty of your country I tried to -do for
mine. I have been less fortunate, but not less innocent. They will send me
to the scaffold; very well, my friend, I will go gaily.’ M. Taine, in La
Revolution, refers to this letter from Paine, and says: ‘ Compared with the
speeches and writings of the time, it produces the strangest effect by its
practical good sense.’ ”
I am indebted to Dr. Conway for certain of the explanatory notes given
in the following pages.
April, igog.
Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner,
NOTE BY THE PUBLISHERS.
Throughout this Reprint the original style—punctuation, capitals, etc.—
has been faithfully followed, and the Reprint has been made, as nearly as
possible, a fac-simile of the original editions.
*
�1
�CONTENTS
COMMON SENSE
-
-
PAGE
-
11
the Origin and Design of Government in General,
with Concise Remarks on the English Constitution
12
Introduction
Of
Of Monarchy
-
-
■
Hereditary Succession -
-
-
14
Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs -
18
Of
and
the Present Ability of
cellaneous Reflections
-
America : with some Mis
-----
26
Appendix
--------
31
Epistle
Quakers
to
-
•
•
-
-
-
35
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
I. (Dec., 1776)
-------
II.—To Lord Howe (Jan., 1777)
III. (April, 1777)
....
-------
IV. (Sept., 1777).............................................................................
/
V.—-To Gen. Sir William Howe (Mar., 1778)
To the Inhabitants of America
-
38
42
49
64
-
-
65
-
-
74
VI.—To the Earl of Carlisle, General Clinton and
William Eden, Esq., British Commissioners,
at New-York (Oct., 1778)
VII.—To the People of England (Nov., 1778)
-
82
VIII.—Addressed to the People of England (Mar., 1780)
91
-------
94
IX. (June, 1780)
-
77
The Crisis Extraordinary—On the Subject of Taxa
tion (Oct., 1780)
97
�CONTENTS
IO
PAGE
X.—On the King of England’s Speech (Mar., 1782)
To the People of America
A
-
104
108
XI.—On the Present State of News (May, 1782)
114
Supernumerary Crisis — To Sir Guy Carleton
(May, 1782)
-118
XII.—To the Earl of Shelburne (Oct., 1782)
-
120
XIII.—Thoughts on the Peace and the Probable Advan
tages Thereof (April, 1783)
-
124
A Supernumerary Crisis—To
the
-
People of America
-............................................................. 127
(Dec., 1783) -
ADDRESSES AND MANIFESTOES AS DEPUTY TO THE
NATIONAL CONVENTION OF FRANCE. 1792-1793.
Address
to the
People of France
Declaration of Rights -
On
the
-
-
-
130
-
-
-
-
-
-
131
Propriety of Bringing Louis XVI. to Trial
Reasons for Preserving
Shall Louis XVI.
have
Letter to Danton
the
Life
of
Respite?
-
•
Louis Capet
-
•
-
*
■
132
-
134
•
’
-
*
137
x38
�A SELECTION FROM
PAINE’S POLITICAL WRITINGS
✓
COMMON SENSE*
1
as well as censure to individuals make no
part thereof. The wise and the worthy
PERHAPS the sentiments contained in the need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and
following pages are not yet sufficiently those whose sentiments are injudicious, or
fashionable to procure them general favour; unfriendly, will cease of themselves, unless
a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, too much pains are bestowed upon their
gives it a superficial appearance of being conversion.
right, and raises at first a formidable outcry
The cause of America is in a great
in defence of custom. But the tumult soon measure the cause of all mankind.- Many
subsides. Time makes more converts than circumstances have, and will arise, which
reason.
are not local, but universal, and through
As a long and violent abuse of power is which the principle of all lovers of mankind
generally the means of calling the right of are affected, and in the event of which their
it in question (and in matters to which affections are interested. The laying a
might never have been thought of, had not country desolate with fire and sword,
the sufferers been aggravated into the declaring war against the natural rights of
inquiry), and as the King of England hath all mankind, and extirpating the defenders
undertaken in his own right to support the thereof from the face of the earth, is the
Parliament in what he calls theirs, and as concern of every man to whom nature hath
the good people of this country are grievously given the power of feeling ; of which class,
oppressed by the combination, they have regardless of party censure, is
an undoubted privilege to inquire into the
The Author.
pretensions of both, and equally to reject
the usurpation of either.
Postscript to Preface in the Third
In the following sheets the author hath
Edition.
studiously avoided everything which is
personal among ourselves. Compliments The publication of this new edition hath
INTRODUCTION.
* Published January ioth, 1776, with the following title :—
Common Sense : Addressed to the Inhabitants of America, on the following interesting
Subjects :—
(1) Of the Origin and Design of Government in general, with concise Remarks on the English
Constitution.
(2) Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession.
(3) Thoughts on the present State of American Affairs:
(4) Of the Present State of America, with some miscellaneous Reflections.
Man knows no master save creating Heaven,
Or those whom choice and common good ordain.
—Thomson.
Philadelphia: Printed and Sold by R. Bell, in Third Street, mdcclxxvi.
A “ new edition ” published by J. Ridgway, in London, in 1791, omits the lines from Thomson
and announces on the title-page : “ To which is added an Appendix, together with an Address
to the people called Quakers.”
11
�12
COMMON SENSE
whatever form thereof appears most likely
to ensure it to us with the least expense
and greatest benefit is preferable to all
others.
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
Philadelphia, P'ebruary 14th, 1^6.
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
OF THE ORIGIN AND DESIGN OF a wilderness ; but one man might labour
GOVERNMENT IN GENERAL, WITH out the common period of his life without
accomplishing' anything; when he had
CONCISE REMARKS ONTHE ENGLISH
felled his timber he could not remove it,
CONSTITUTION.
nor erect it after it was removed ; hunger
Some writers have so confounded society in the meantime would urge him from his
with government as to leave little or no work, and every different want call him a
distinction between them; whereas they different way. Disease, nay, even misfortune,
are not only different, but have different would be death ; for though neither might
origins. Society is produced by our wants, be mortal, yet either would disable him
and government by our wickedness; the from living, and reduce him to a state in
former promotes our happiness positively, which he might be rather said to perish
by uniting our affections; the latter nega than to die.
Thus, necessity, like a gravitation power,
tively, by restraining our vices. The one
encourages intercourse, the other creates would soon form our newlyarrived emigrants
distinctions. The first is a patron, the last into society, the reciprocal blessings of
which would supersede and render the
a punisher.
Society, in every state, is a blessing ; but obligations of law and government un
government, even in its best state, is but necessary while they remained perfectly
a necessary evil ; in its worst state, an just to each other ; but, as nothing but
intolerable one ; for when we suffer, or are heaven is impregnable to vice, it will un
exposed to the same miseries by a govern avoidably happen that, in proportion as
ment, which we might expect in a country they surmount the first difficulties of
withoutgovernment, our calamity is height emigration, which bound them together in
ened by reflecting, that we furnish the a common cause, they will begin to relax in
means by which we suffer. Government, their duty and attachment to each other;
like dress, is the badge of lost innocence ; and this remissness will point out the
the palaces of kings are built on the ruins necessity of establishing some form of
of the bowers of paradise. For, were the government to supply the defect of moral
impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and virtue.
Some convenient tree will afford them a
irresistibly obeyed, man would need no
other lawgiver; but, that not being the state-house, under the branches of which
case, he finds it necessary to. surrender up the whole colony may assemble to deliberate
a part of his property to furnish means for on public matters. It is more than probable
the protection of the rest; and this he is that their first laws will have the title only
induced to do by the same prudence which, of REGULATIONS, and be inforced by no
in every other case, advises him out of two other penalty than public disesteem. In
evils to choose the least. Wherefore, this first parliament every man by natural
security being the true design and end of right will have a seat.
But as the colony increases, the public
government, it unanswerably follows that
been delayed with a view of taking notiee
(had it been necessary) of any attempt to
refute the doctrine of independence. As no
answer hath yet appeared, it is now pre
sumed 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 un
necessary 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.
�\
COMMON SENSE
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
3,t 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 have 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 may never form to them
selves an interest separate from the electors,
prudence will point out the necessity of
having elections often; because, as the
elected must 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 reflection 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 oj government and the happiness
of the government.
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.
I draw my idea of the form of govern
ment 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 dis
ordered, and the easier repaired when dis
ordered : 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 overrun with tyranny, the
least remove therefrom was a glorious
rescue.1 But that it is imperfect, subjectto convulsions, and incapable of producing
what it seems ^o promise, is easily demon
strated.
Absolute governments (though the dis
grace 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 con
stitution 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.
I know it is difficult to get over local or
long-standing prejudices ; yet if we suffer
ourselves to examine the componept parts
of the English constitution, we shall find
them to be the base remains of two ancient
tyrannies, compounded with some new
republican materials.
First.—The remains of monarchical
tyranny in the person of the King.
Secondly.—The remains of aristocratical
tyranny in the persons of the Peers.
Thirdly.—The new republican materials
in the persons of the Commons, on whose
virtue depends the freedom of England.
The two first being hereditary, are inde
pendent of the people, wherefore, in a
constitutional sense they contribute nothing
towards the freedom of the State.
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.
To say that the Commons is a check
upon the King, presupposes two things.
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.
Secondly.—That the Commons, by being
appointed for that purpose, are either wiser
or more worthy of confidence than the
Crown.
But as the same constitution which gives
the Commons power to check the King, by
withholding supplies, gives afterwards the
King a power to check the Commons, by
empowering him to reject their other bills,
1 There are three readings of this word:
“ rescue ” and “ risque ” in some of the early
editions ; “ risk ” in the later.
�14
COMMON SENSE
it again supposes that the King is wiser
than those whom it has already supposed
to be wiser than him. A mere absurdity !
There is something exceedingly ridiculous
in the composition of monarchy; it first
excludes a man from the means of informa
tion, yet it 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.
Some writers have explained the English
constitution thus : the King, they say, is
one, the People another : the Peers are a
house in behalf of the King, the Commons
in behalf of the People; but this hath all
the distinctions of an house divided against
itself: and though the expressions be
pleasantly arranged, yet when examined
they appear idle and ambiguous ; and it
always happens, that the nicest construction
that words are capable of, when applied to
the description of something 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.
But the provision is unequal to the task :
the means either cannot or will not accom
plish 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 con
stitution 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 endeavours
will be ineffectual; the first moving power
will at last have its way; and what it wants
in speed, is supplied by time.
That the Crown is this overbearing part
of the English constitution needs not to 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.
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
formidable shape of an Act of Parliament.
For the fate of Charles the First hath
only made kings more subtle—not more
just.
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 so oppressive in England as
in Turkey.
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 our
selves while we remain fettered with an
obstinate prejudice. And as a man who is
attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to
choose or judge a wife, so any prepossession
in favour of a rotten constitution of govern
ment, will disable us from discerning a
good one.
OF MONARCHY AND HEREDITARY
SUCCESSION.
MANKIND being originally equals' in the
order of creation, the equality only could be
destroyed by some subsequent circum
stances ; the distinctions of rich and poor
may in a great measure be accounted for,
and that without having recourse to the
harsh and ill-sounding names of oppression
and avarice. Oppression is often the con
sequence, but seldom the means, of riches ;
and though avarice will preserve a man
from being necessitously poor, it generally
makes him too timorous to be wealthy.
But there is another and greater distinc
tion, for which no truly natural or religious
reason can be assigned, and that is, the
�COMMON SENSE
4
\ 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
ihe world so exalted above the rest, and
ciistinguished like some new species, is
4orth inquiring into, and whether they are
the means of happiness or of misery to
mankind.
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 throws mankind into con
fusion.
Holland, without a king, hath
enjoyed more peace for the last century
than any of the monarchical governments
in Europe. Antiquity favours the same
remark ; for the quiet and rural lives of the
first patriarchs have a happy something in
them, which vanishes away when we come
to the history of Jewish royalty.
Government by kings was first intro
duced 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 heathen paid
divine honours to their deceased kings, and
the Christian world hath improved on the
plan, by doing the same to its living ones.
How impious is the title of sacred majesty
applied to a worm, who in the midst of his
splendour is crumbling into dust !
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 the scripture
have been very smoothly glossed over in
monarchical governments ; but they un
doubtedly merit the attention of countries
which have their governments yet to form.
Render unto Casar the things which are
Casar's, is the scripture doctrine of courts,
yet it is no support of monarchical govern
ment, for the Jews at that time were
without a king, and in a state of vassalage
to the Romans.
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, administered by a judge and
the elders of the tribes. Kings they had
15
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
honour, should disapprove of a form of
government which so impiously invades the
prerogative of Heaven.
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 attend
ing to.
The children of Israel being oppressed
by the Midianites, Gideon marched against
them with a small army, and victory,
through the Divine interposition, decided
in his favour.
The Jews, elate with
success, and attributing it to the general
ship of Gideon, proposed making him a
king, saying, Rrcle thou over us, thou and
thy son, and thy son's son. Here was a
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
honour, but denieth their right to give it;
neither doth he compliment them with
invented declarations of his thanks, but in
the positive style of a prophet charges
them with disaffection to their proper
sovereign, the King of Heaven.
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 the 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 they say unto thee, fcr
they have not rejected thee, but they have
rejected me} THAT I SHOULD NOT REIQN
�i6
COMMON SENSE
over THEM. According to all the works
which they have done since the day that I
brotcght them 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
show the manner of a 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 dif
ference of time, and distance, and 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
them captains over thousands, and captains
over fifties, and will set them to ear his
ground, and to reap his harvest, and make
his instruments of war and instruments
bf his chariots j and he will take your
daughters to be confectionaries, and to be
cooks, and to be bakers (this describes the
expense and luxury as well as the oppres
sion of kings), and he will take your fields
andyour olive yards, even the best of them,
and give them to his servants j and he will
take the tenth of your seed, and of your
vineyards, and give them to his officers and
his servants (by which we see that bribery,
corruption and favouritism 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 ofyour sheep, andyou
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 who have lived since
either sanctify the title or blot out the sin
fulness 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,
andfight 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 clone in the sight of
the Lord, in ASKING YOU A king. So
Samuel called icnto 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 con
struction. That the Almighty hath there
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 priest
craft in withholding the scripture from the
public in popish countries. For monarchy
in every instance is the popery of govern
ment.
To the evil of monarchy we have added
that of hereditary succession ; and as the
first is a degradation and lessening of our
selves, 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 pre
ference to all others for ever ; and though
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 rights in
kings, is, that nature disapproves it, other
wise she would not so frequently turn it
into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for
a lion.
Secondly, as no man at first could
possess any other public honours than were
bestowed upon them, so the givers of those
honours could have no right 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
�COMMON SENSE
\ ever treated hereditary right with con
tempt; yet it is one of those evils which,
\when once established, is not easily
'removed : many submit from fear, others
!rom superstition, and the most powerful
>art. shares with the king the plunder of
he rest.
This is supposing the present race of
kings in the world to have had an honour
able origin ; whereas it is more than
probable that, could we take off the dark
covering of antiquity, and trace them to
their first rise, we should find the first of
them nothing better than the principal
ruffian of some restless gang, whose savage
manners, or pre-eminence in subtilty,
obtained him the title of. chief among
plunderers ; and who, by increasing in
power, and extending his depredations,
overawed the quiet and defenceless to
x purchase their safety by frequent contribu
tions. Yet his electors could have no idea
of giving hereditary right to his descen
dants, because such a perpetual exclusion
of themselves was incompatible with the
free and unrestrained principles they pro
fessed 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 complimentalj
but as few or no records were extant in
those days, and traditionary history is
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 favour
hereditary pretensions ; by which means it
happened, as it hath happened since, that
what at first was submitted to as a con
venience, was afterwards claimed as a
right.
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 Con
queror is a very honourable 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. How
ever, it is needless to spend much time in
exposing the folly of hereditary right; if
17
there are any so weak as to believe it, let
them promiscuously worship the ass. and
the lion, and welcome; I shall neither
copy their humility, nor disturb their devo
tion.
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 transac
tion, there was any intention it ever should.
If the first king of any country was by
election, that likewise establishes a pre
cedent 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 parallel
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; so in the
one all mankind are 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 re-assuming some further state
and privilege, it unanswerably follows, that
original sin and hereditary succession are
parallels. Dishonourable rank ! Inglorious
connection ! Yet the most subtle sophist
cannot produce a juster simile.
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.
But it is not so much the absurdity as
the evil of hereditary succession which
concerns mankind. Did it insure 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 looked upon themselves as born to
reign, and on the others to obey, soon
grow insolent; selected from the rest of
mankind, their minds are easily 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
�iS
COMMON SENSE
they succeed to the government, are fre
quently the most ignorant and unfit of any
throughout the dominions.
Another evil which attends hereditary
succession is, that the throne is liable to be
possessed by a minor at any age ; all which
time the regency, acting under the cover
of a king, has every opportunity and in
ducement to betray its 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 success
fully with the follies either of infancy or age.
The most plausible plea which hath ever
been offered in favour of hereditary succes
sion 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 Con
quest, in which time there have been (in
cluding the Revolution) no less than eight
civil wars and nineteen rebellions. . Where
fore, instead of making for peace, it makes
against it, and destroys the very foundation
it seems to stand on.
The contest for monarchy and succes
sion, 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 un
certain is the fate of war, and 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.
.
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 sixty-seven years, viz., from 1422 to
1489.
,
In short, monarchy and succession have
laid, not this or that kingdom only, but the
world in blood and ashes. It is a form of
government which the word of God bears
testimony against, and blood will attend it.
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 ground. In the abso
lute monarchies the whole weight of busi
ness, 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.
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 of the constitution), that
the government of England is nearly as
monarchical as that of France or Spam.
Men fall out with names without under
standing them : for it is the republican,
and not the monarchical, part of the con
stitution 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 ?
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.
�COMMON SENSE
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 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.
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: and the
appeal was the choice of a king, and the
continent hath accepted the challenge.
It hath been reported of the late Mr.
Pelham, who, though an able minister, was
not without his taults, that on his being
attacked in the House of Commons on the
score that his measures were only of a
temporary kind, replied, “
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.
The sun never shined on a cause of
greater worth. It is 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. It is not the
concern of a day, a year, or an age ; pos
terity are 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
honour. 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.
By referring the matter from argument
to arms, a new era for politics is struck,
a new method of thinking hath arisen.
All plans, proposals, &c., prior to the nine
teenth of April, i.e., to the commencement
of hostilities,1 are like the almanacks of last
year, which, though proper then, are super
seded and useless now. Whatever was
advanced by the advocates on either side
of the question then terminated in one and
the same point, viz., an union with Great
Britain; the only difference between the
parties was the method of effecting it, the
1 At Lexington, Massachusetts, 1775.
19
one proposing force, the other friendship ;
but it hath so far happened that the first
hath failed, and the second hath withdrawn
her influence.
As much hath been said of the advan
tages of reconciliation, which, like an
agreeable dream, hath passed away and
left us as we were, it is but right that we
should view the contrary side of the argu
ment, and inquire into some of the many
material injuries which these colonies sus
tain, and always will sustain, by being con
nected with, and dependent on, Great
Britain. To examine that connection and
dependence, 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 dependent.
I have heard it asserted by some that,
as America had flourished under her former
connection with Great Britain, the same
connection 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 it is never to have meat, or that
the first twenty years of our lives are 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 pro
bably much more, had no European power
anything 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.
But she has protected us, say some.
That she has engrossed us is true, and
defended the continent at our expense as
well as her own, is admitted; and she
would have defended - Turkey from the
same motive, viz., the sake of trade and
dominion.
Alas 1 we have been long led away by
ancient prejudices, and made large sacri
fices to superstition. We have boasted of
the protection of Great Britain, without
considering that her motive was interest,
not attachment; but 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
waive her pretensions to the continent, or
the continent throw off the dependence,
and we should be at peace with France
and Spain were they at peace with Britain.
�JO
COMMON SENSE
The miseries of Hanover last war ought to
warn us against connections.
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
roundabout 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
never will be. our enemies as Americans,
but as our being the subjects of Great
Britain
But Britain is the parent country, say
some. Then the more shame upon her
conduct. Even brutes do not devoui- their
young, nor savages make war on 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 perse
cuted lovers of civil and religious liberty in
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 thefirst emigrants
from home pursues their descendants still.
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.
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 bom in any town
in England divided into parishes, wdl
naturally associate with his fellow
parishioner, because their interests in
many cases will be common, and dis
tinguish him by the name oi neighbour;
if he meet him but a few miles from home,
he salutes him by the name of townsman;
if he travel out of the country, and meet
him in any other, he forgets the minor
divisions of street and town, and calls him
countryman, i.e., countyman; but if in their
foreign excursions they should associate in
France, or in any other part of Europe,
their local remembrance would be enlarged
into that of Englishman. 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 com
pared 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 onethird of the inhabitants, even of this
province, are of English descent. Where
fore I reprobate the phrase of parent or
mother country applied to England only,
as being false, selfish, narrow, and un
generous.
But admitting that we were all of English
descent, what does it amount to ? Nothing.
Britain being now an open enemy, ex
tinguishes 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; wherefore by the same method
of reasoning, England ought to be governed
by France.
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 anything; for this
continent never would suffer itself to be
drained of inhabitants, to support the
British arms in either Asia, Africa, or
Europe.
Besides, what have we to do with setting
the world at defiance ? Our plan is com
merce, 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.
I challenge the warmest advocate for
reconciliation to show a single advantage
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 you will.
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, instructs us
�COMMON SENSE
to renounce the alliance : because, any
submission to, or dependence on Great
Britain, tends to involve this continent
in European wars and quarrels, and set us
at variance with nations who would other
wise 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 can never do, while by her dependence
on Britain she is made the makeweight
in the scale of British politics.
Europe is too thickly planted with
kingdoms to be long at peace, and when
ever a war breaks out between England
and any foreign power, the trade of
America goes to ruin, because of her connec
tion with Great Britain. The next war
may not turn out like the last, and should
it not, the advocates for reconciliation now,
will be wishing for a separation then, be
cause neutrality in that case would be a
safer convoy than a man of war. Every
thing that is right or natural pleads for a
separation. The blood of the slain, the
weeping voice of nature, cries, ;TlS 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 dis
covered, adds to the weight of the argu
ment, and the manner in which it was
peopled increases 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 perse
cuted in future years, when home should
afford neither friendship nor safety.
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 anything 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 hands, and fix our
station a few years farther into life ; that
21
eminence will present a prospect, which a
few present fears and prejudices concealed
from our sight.
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.
It is the good fortune of many to live
distant from the scene of sorrow; and the
evil is not sufficiently brought to thezr 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 inhabi
tants 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. Endan
gered 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.
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
which hath carried fire and sword into your
land ? If you cannot do all these, then you
are 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 pro
perty been destroyed before your face?
Are your wife and children destitute of a
�22
COMMON SENSE
bed to lie on or bread to live on.? Have
you lost a parent or child by their hands,
and you yourself the ruined and wretched
survivor ? If you have not, then are you a
judge of those who have? But if you have,
and still can shake hands with the mur
derers, then you are unworthy the name of
husband, father, friend, or lover; and what
ever may be your rank or title in life, you
have the heart of a coward, and the spirit
of a sycophant.
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. ’Tis not
in the power of England or of Europe to
conquer America, if she doth not conquer
herself by delay and timidity. The present
winter is worth an age, if rightly employed,
but if 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.
It is repugnant to reason, to the universal
order of things, to all examples of 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. Re
conciliation is nozv a fallacious dream.
Nature has deserted the connection, and
art cannot supply her place : for as Milton
wisely expresses, “Never can true recon
cilement grow, where wounds of deadly
hate have pierced so deep.”
Every quiet method for peace hath been
ineffectual. Our prayers have been rej ected
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 of throats, under
the violated, unmeaning names of parent
and child.
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.
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 petition, waiting four or. five
months for an answer, which, when obtained,
requires five or six more to explain it, 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.
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, reverse the
common order of nature, it is evident they
belong to different systems ; England, to
Europe : America, to itself.
I am not induced by motives of pride,
party, or resentment, to espouse the doc
trine of separation and independence. I
am clearly, positively, and conscientiously
persuaded, that it is the true interest of the
continent to be so : that everything short
of that is merely patch work,. that it can
afford no lasting felicity—that it is leaving
the sword to our children, and slinking
back at a time, when a little more, a little
farther, would have rendered the continent
the glory of the earth.
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.
The object contended for ought always
to bear some just proportion to the expence.
The removal of North, or the whole detest
able junto, is a matter unworthy the millions
we have expended. A temporary stoppage
of trade was an inconvenience which would
have sufficiently balanced the repeal of all
the acts complained of, had such repeals
�COMMON SENSE
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 independency
of this continent as an event which sooner
or later must arise, 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 while to have disputed a matter
which time would have finally redressed,
unless we meant to be in earnest ; other
wise it is like wasting an estate on a suit of
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 nineteenth1 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 disdained 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.
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.
First. The powers of governing still
remaining in the hands of the king, he will
have a negative over the whole legislation
of the continent. And as he hath shown
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 Iplease ? And is there any
inhabitant in America so ignorant as not
to know, that according to what is called
the present constitution, this continent can
make no laws but what the king gives leave
to : and is there any man so unwise as not
to see (considering what has happened), he
will suffer no law to be made here, but
such as suits his purpose ? We may be as
effectually enslaved by the want of laws in
America, as by submitting to laws made 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 as humble
as possible ? Instead of going forward,
1 Lexington.
23
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 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 Independent;
for independency means no more than this,
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.
But the king, you will say, has a nega
tive 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 seven millions of people, older
and wiser than himself, Iforbid this or that
act ofyours 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, make
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.
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. Where
fore 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 hap
pened ! Men do not change from enemies
to friends by the alteration of a name : and
in order to show 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 theprovinces; in order
that HE MAY ACCOMPLISH BY CRAFT AND
SUBTLETY, IN THE LONG RUN, WHAT HE
CANNOT DO BY FORCE AND VIOLENCE IN
the short one. Reconciliation and ruin
are nearly related.
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
�!4
COMMON SENSE
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 that is every day
tottering on the brink of commotion and dis
turbance, and numbers of the present inhabi
tants would lay hold of the interval to dispose
of their effects, and quit the continent.
But the most powerful of all arguments
is, that nothing but independence, 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 con
sequences of which may be far more fatal
than all the malice of Britain.
Thousands are already ruined by British
barbarity 1 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 Britain can do, whose power
will be wholly on paper, should a civil
tumult break out the very day after recon
ciliation? I have heard some men say, many
of whom, I believe, spoke without thinking,
that they dreaded an independence, fearing
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 connection than from indepen
dence. I make the sufferer’s case my own,
and I protest, that were I driven from
house and home, my property destroyed,
and my circumstances ruined, that, as a
man sensible of injuries, I could never
relish the doctrine of reconciliation, or
consider myself bound thereby.
The colonies have manifested such a
spirit of good order and obedience to con
tinental 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 ground
than such as are truly childish and ridicu
lous, viz., that one colony will be striving
for superiority over another.
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,
at peace. Holland and Switzerland are
without wars, foreign and domestic:
monarchical governments, it is true, are
never long at rest ; the crown itself is a
temptation to enterprising 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.
If there is any true cause of fear respect
ing independence, it is because no plan is
yet laid down : men do not see their way
out. Wherefore, as an opening to 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.
• Let the assemblies be annual, with a presisident only. The representation more equal:
their business wholly domestic, and subject
to the authority of a continental congress.
Let each colony be divided into six,
eight, or ten convenient districts, each
district to send a proper number of dele
gates to congress, so that each colony send
at least thirty. The whole number in con
gress will be at least three hundred and
ninety. Each congress to sit
1 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, 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 satis
factorily just, not less than three-fifths of
the congress to be called a majority. He
that will promote discord under a govern
ment so equally formed as this, would have
joined Lucifer in his revolt.
1 Left blank in original.
�COMMON SENSE
But as there is a peculiar delicacy, from
whom and 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 fol
lowing manner and for the following
purpose ;
A committee of twenty-six members of
congress, viz., two for each county. Two
members from each house of assembly or
provincial convention ; and five representa
tives 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 pro
vince for that purpose ; or, if more con
venient, 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 flower. The
members of congress, assemblies, or con
ventions, by having had experience in
national concerns, will be able and useful
counsellors ; and the whole, empowered by
the people, will have a truly legal authority.
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 free
dom 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 it is necessary
for a charter to contain. Immediately after
which the said conference to dissolve, and
the bodies which shall be chosen conform
able to the said charter to be the legislators
and governors of this continent for the
time being : Whose peace and happiness
may God preserve 1 Amen.
Should any body of men be hereafter
delegated for this or some similar purpose,
I offer them the following extract 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
25
should discover a mode of government
that contained the greatest sum of indi
vidual happiness, with the least national
expence.” (Dragonetti on “Virtue and
Rewards.”)
But where, say some, is the King of
America ? I will tell you, friend, he reigns
above, and does not make havoc of
mankind, like the Royal Brute of Britain.
Yet, that we may not appear to be defec
tive even in earthly honours, 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 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.
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 Masaniello1 may
hereafter arise, who, laying hold of popular
disquietudes, may collect together the des
perate and discontented, and, by assuming
to themselves the powers of government,
may sweep away the liberties of the con
tinent like a deluge. Should the govern
ment of America return again to 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 oppres
sion of the conqueror. Ye that oppose
independence 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 thou
1 Thomas Aniello, otherwise Masaniello, a
fisherman of Naples, who, after spiriting up his
countrymen in the public market-place against
the oppression of the Spaniards, to whom the
place was then subject, prompted them to revolt,
and in the space of a day became king.—AiwZ/jar.
�26
COMMON SENSE
sands 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.
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 ?
Ye that tell us of harmony and recon
ciliation, can ye restore to us the time that
is past? Can ye give to prostitution its
former innocence? Neither can ye recon
cile 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
murderers 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 from 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 temper
sustains provoke us into justice.
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 I receive the fugitive ; and pre
pare in time an asylum for mankind.
fessed his opinion that a separation
between the two countries would take
place one time or other. And there is no
instance in which we have shown less
judgment than in endeavouring to describe
what we call the ripeness or fitness of the
continent for independence.
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 con
currence, the glorious union of all things,
prove the fact.
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 disci
plined 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 a hundred years hence in
that branch than we are now ; but the
truth is, we shall be less so, because the
timber of the country is every day diminish
ing, and that which will remain at last will
be far off and difficult to procure.
Were the continent crowded with inhabi
tants, 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 pro
portioned to our wants, that no man need
to be idle. The diminution of trade affords
an army, and the necessities of an army
create a new trade.
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 independent constitution
of its own, the purchase at any price will
be cheap. But to expend millions for the
OF THE PRESENT ABILITY OF
sake of getting a few vile acts repealed, and
AMERICA: WITH SOME
routing the present ministry only, is un
MISCELLANEOUS REFLECTIONS.
worthy the charge, is using posterity with
I HAVE never met with a man, either in the utmost cruelty; because it is leaving
England or America, who hath not con them the great work to do, and a debt upon
�COMMON SENSE
their backs from which they derive no
advantage. Such a thought is unworthy a
man of honour, and is the true character
istic of a narrow heart and a piddling
politician.
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 fifty millions sterling, for
which she pays upwards of four millions
interest. As a compensation for the 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 more at
this time than three millions and a half
sterling.
The first and second editions of this
pamphlet were published without the follow
ing calculations, which are now given as
proof that the above estimation of the navy
is a just one. See Entic’s Naval History,
Intro., p. 56.
The charge of building a ship of each
rate, and furnishing her with masts, yards,
sails, and rigging, together with a propor
tion of eight months’ boatswain’s and
carpenter’s sea stores, as calculated by
Mr. Burchett, Secretary to the Navy, is as
follows :
For a ship of 100 guns
90
80
70
60
50
40
3°
20
£35,553
29,886
23,638
17,785
I4J97
10,606
7,558
5,846
3,7io
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 follow
ing ships and guns :—
Ships.
6
12
12
43
35
40
45
58
Guns.
Cost of one.
Cost of all.
IOO
£35,553
29,886
23,638
17,785
14,197
10,606
7,558
3,7io
£213,318
358,632
283,656
764,755
496,895
424,240
340,110
215,180
90
80
70
60
50
40
20
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
27
85 Sloops, bombs, and',
fireships, one with >• 2,000 ...
another.
J
170,000
Cost ... 3,266,786
Remains
for guns
233,214
£3,500,000
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 Portu
guese, 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.
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 landsmen 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 in both. The
vast empire of Russia is almost shut out
from the sea; wherefore, her boundless
�28
COMMON SENSE
forests, her tar, iron, and cordage, are only of disguised tories to discourage our begin
ning thereon. Nothing can be farther from
articles of commerce.
In point of safety ought we to be without truth than this ; for if America had only a
a fleet ? We are not the little people now twentieth part of the naval force of Britain,
which we were sixty years ago ; at that she would be by far an overmatch for her,
time we might have trusted our property in because, as we neither have, nor claim any
the street, or field rather, and slept securely foreign dominion, our whole force will be
without locks or bolts to our doors and employed on our own coast, where we
windows. The case now is altered, and should, in the long run, have two to one
our methods of defence ought to improve the advantage of those who had three or
with our increase of property. A common four thousand miles to sail over before they
pirate, twelve months ago, might have could attack us, and the same distance to
come up the Delaware and laid the city of return in order to refit and recruit. And
Philadelphia under contribution for what although Britain, by her fleet, hath a check
sum he please, and the same might have over our trade to Europe, we have as large
happened to other places. Nay, any daring a one over her trade to the West Indies,
fellow, in a brig of fourteen or sixteen guns, which, by lying in the neighbourhood of
might have robbed the whole continent, the continent, is entirely at its mercy.
Some method might be fallen on to keep
and carried off half a million of money.
These are circumstances which demand up a naval force in the time of peace, if we
our attention, and point out the necessity should not judge it necessary to support a
constant navy. If premiums were to be
of naval protection.
Some, perhaps, will say, that after we given to merchants, to build and employ in
have made it up with Britain,, she will their service ships mounted with twenty,
protect us. Can we be so unwise as to thirty, forty, or fifty guns (the premiums to
mean that she shall keep a navy in our be in proportion to the loss of bulk to the
harbours for that purpose ? Common sense merchants), fifty or sixty of those ships,
will tell us, that the power which hath with a few guardships on constant duty,
endeavoured to subdue us, is of all others would keep up a sufficient navy, and that
the most improper to defend us. Conquest without burdening ourselves with the evil
may be effected under the pretence of so loudly complained of in England, of
friendship : and ourselves, after a long and suffering their fleet, in time of peace, to lie
brave resistance, be at last cheated into rotting in the docks. To unite the sinews
slavery. And if her ships are not to be of commerce and defence is sound policy,
admitted into our harbours, I would ask, for when our strength and our riches play
how is she to protect us ? A navy three or into each other’s hands we need fear no
four thousand miles off can be of little use, external enemy.
In almost every article of defence we
and on sudden emergencies, none at all.
Wherefore, if we must hereafter protect abound. Hemp flourishes even to rank
ourselves, why not do it for ourselves? ness, so that we need not want cordage.
Our iron is superior to that of other
Why do it for another?
The English list of ships of war is long countries. Our small arms equal to any in
and formidable, but not a tenth part of the world. Cannon we can cast at pleasure.
them are at any one time fit for service, Saltpetre and gunpowder we are every day
numbers of them not in being, yet their producing. Our knowledge is hourly im
names are pompously contipued in the list, proving. Resolution is our inheient
if only a plank be left of the ship ; and not character, and courage hath never yet
a fifth part of such as are fit for service can forsaken us. Wherefore, what is it that
be spared on any one station at one time. we want ? Why is it that we hesitate ?
The East and West Indies, Mediterranean, From Britain we can expect nothing but
Africa, and other parts, over which Britain ruin. If she is once admitted to the
extends her claim, make large demands government of America again, this con
upon her navy. From a mixture of preju tinent will not be worth, living, in.
dice and inattention, we have contracted a Jealousies will be always arising,; insurfalse notion respecting the navy of England rections will be constantly happening \ and
and have talked as if we should have the who will go forth to quell them? Who
whole of it to encounter at once, and for will venture his life, to reduce his own
that reason supposed, that we must have countrymen to a foreign obedience ? JThe
one as large ; which not being instantly difference between Pennsylvania and Con
practicable, has been made use of by a set necticut, respecting some unlocated lands,
�COMMON SENSE
shows the insignificance of a British govern
ment, and fully proves that nothing but
continental authority can regulate con
tinental matters.
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
dependents, 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.
The infant state of the colonies, as it
is called, so far from being against, is
an argument in favour of independence.
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 nonage of a
nation. With the increase of commerce,
England hath lost its spirit. The city of
London, notwithstanding its numbers, sub
mits to continued insults with the patience
of a coward. The more men have to lose,
the less willing they are to venture. The
rich are in general slaves to fear, and sub
mit to courtly power with the trembling
duplicity of a spaniel.
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 in
terests, occasioned by an increase of trade
and population, would create confusion.
Colony would be against colony. Each
being able, might scorn each other’s assist
ance ; and while the proud and foolish
gloried in their little distinctions, the wise
would lament that the union had not been
fofm«d 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 mis
fortune, 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;
29
but our concord hath withstood our troubles,
and fixes a memorable era for posterity to
glory in.
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 afterwards; 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.
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 fortu
nate ruffian, who may treat us in the same
manner; and then, Where will be our
freedom ? Where our property ?
As to religion, I hold it to be the indis
pensable duty of all governments to protect
all conscientious professors thereof, and I
know of no other business which govern
ment 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 a diver
sity of religious opinions among us; it
affords a larger field for our Christian kind
ness. 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 Chris
tian names.
In page twenty-five 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
�3°
COMMON SENSE
bargain and a right reckoning make long
friends.
In a former page I likewise mentioned
the necessity of a large and equal represen
tation, 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 un
warrantable stretch, likewise, which that
Plouse 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 dele
gates 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 had entered on some necessary
public measures, they would not hesitate
a moment to think them unworthy of such
a trust.
Iomediate necessity makes many things
convenient, which, if continued, would
grow into oppressions. Experience and
right are different things.
When the
calamities of America required a consulta
tion, 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 considera
tion. And I put it as a question to those
who make a study of mankind, whether
representation and election are 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.
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
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 show that nothing can settle our affairs
so expeditiously as an open and determined
declaration for independence. Some of
which are :
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.
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 repair
ing the breach, and strengthening the con
nection between Britain and America;
because those powers would be sufferers
by the consequences.
Thirdly. While we profess ourselves
the subjects of Britain, we must, in the
eyes of foreign nations, be considered as
rebels. The precedent is somewhat danger
ous 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 understand
ings.
Fourthly. Were a manifesto to be
published, and dispatched to foreign Courts,
setting forth the miseries we have endured,
and the peaceable methods we have in
effectually 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 connection with her ; at the same time
1 Those who would fully understand of what
great consequence a large and equal representa
tion is to a State, should read Burgh’s Political
Disquisitions. —A uthor.
�COMMON SENSE
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.
Under our present denomination of
British subjects, we can neither be received
nor heard abroard : the custom of all Courts
is against us, and will be so until, by an
independence, we take rank with other
nations.
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 independence is
declared, the continent will find itself like
a man who continues putting off some un
pleasant 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.
APPENDIX.
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.1 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-minded
ness of the one shows the necessity of pur
suing 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 independence.
Ceremony, and even silence from what
ever motive they may arise, have a hurtful
tendency, when they give the least degree
of countenance to base and wicked per
formances : wherefore, if this maxim be
admitted, it naturally follows, that the
king’s speech, as being a piece of finished
villany, 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
the guardian of our peace and safety.
’ Philadelphia.
3i
And, perhaps, it is chiefly owing to this
prudent delicacy, that the King’s speech
hath not, before now, suffered a public
execration. 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 man
kind ; 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 privi
leges, 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.
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
whose
nod ALONE they were permitted to do anything" 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 ration
ality—an apostate from the order of man
hood ; 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.
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.
�32
COMMON SENSE
It is now the interest of America to pro
vide 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 what
soever 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 uncontami
nated 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 :—
First. That it is the interest of America
to be separated from Britain.
Secondly. Which is the easiest and
most practicable plan, Reconciliation or
Independence ? with some occasional re
marks.
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 dependence,
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 legisla
tive power 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 the 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 bene
fited ; and that would in a great measure
continue, were the countries as indepen
dent of each other as France and Spain;
because, in many articles, neither can go
to a better market. But it is the indepen
dence 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.
First. Because it will come to that one
time or other.
Secondly. Because the longer it is
delayed the harder it will be to accomplish.
I have frequently amused myself, both in j t
public and private companies, with silently id
remarking the specious errors of those who M
speak without reflecting. And among the ti
many which I have heard, the following |r
seems the most general, viz.: That had |
this rupture happened forty or fifty years fc
hence, instead of now, the continent would |i
have been more able to have shaken off the fc
dependence. To which I reply, that our jrj
military ability, at this time, arises from the S
experience gained in the last war, and I
which, in forty or fifty years’ time, would Bi
be totally extinct. The continent would
not, by that time, have a general, or even a
military officer left; and we, or those who H
may succeed us, would have been as !J
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 conclu k
sion of the last war we had experience, but X.
wanted numbers; and forty or fifty years h
hence we shall have numbers without i
experience ; wherefore, the proper point of c
time must be some particular point between i
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.
The reader will pardon this digression,
as it does not properly come under the fc
head I first set out with, and to which I
shall again return by the following posi
tion, viz.:—
Should affairs be patched up with Britain,
and she to remain the governing and sove
reign power of America (which, as matters
are now circumstanced, is giving up the ■'
point entirely), 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
extension of the limits of Canada, valued
at only 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.
It is by the sale of those lands that the E‘debt may be sunk, without burden to any,
and the quit-rent reserved thereon will 11
always lessen, and in time will wholly sup
port the yearly expense 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 th®
�COMMON SENSE
time being will be the continental trustees.
I proceed now to the second head, viz.,
Which is the easiest and most practical
plan, Reconciliation or Independence ;
with some occasional remarks.
He who takes nature for his guide is not
easily beaten out of his argument, and on
that ground I answer generally—that inde
pendence being a SINGLE SIMPLE line,
contained within ourselvesj and reconcilia
tion, a matter exceedingly perplexed and
complicated, and in which a treacherous,
capricious court is to interfere^ gives the
answer without a doubt.
The present state of America is truly
alarming to every man who is capable of
reflection. Without law, without govern
ment, without other mode of power than
what is founded on, and granted by, courtesy.
Held together by an unexampled concur
rence 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, a constitution with
out a name ; and what is strangely aston
ishing, perfect independence contending for
dependence. 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 to 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.
Notwithstanding our wisdom, there is a
visible feebleness in some of our proceed
ings which gives encouragement to dissen
sions. The continental belt is too loosely
buckled ; and if something be not done in
time, it will be too late to do anything,, and
we shall fall into a state, in which neither
Reconciliation nor Independence 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.
33
The artful and hypocritical letters which
appeared, a few months ago, in two _ of the
New York papers, and likewise in two
others, are evidence, that there are men
who want either judgment or honesty.
It is easy getting into holes or 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 situations 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.”
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 engage
ments? Another Parliament, nay, even
the present, may hereafter repeal the obli
gation, 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 in the same state,
but that our circumstances, likewise, be put
in the same state ; our burnt and destroyed
towns repaired or built up; our private
losses made good, our public debts (con
tracted 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
the con
tinent—but it is now too late. “The rubicon
is passed.”
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
c
�34
*
**
COMMON SENSE
and threatened to our persons ; the destruc
tion 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 independence of America should
have been considered as dating its era
from, and published by, the first musket
that was first 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.
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 independency
can 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 independency be brought about by the
first of those means, we have every oppor
tunity 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 till 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 reflection is awful; and in
this point of view, how trifling, how ridi
culous, do the little paltry cavillings of a
i few weak or interested men appear, when
weighed against the business of a world.
Should we neglect the present favourable
and inviting period, and an independence
be hereafter effected by any other means,
we must charge the consequence to our
selves, or to those rather whose narrow
and prejudiced souls are habitually op
posing the measure, without either inquiring
or reflecting. There are reasons to be
given in support of independence, which
men should rather privately think of, than
be publicly told of. We ought not now to
be debating whether we shall be inde
pendent or not, but anxious to accomplish
it on a firm, secure, and honourable basis,
and uneasy rather that it is not yet begun
upon. Every day convinces us of its neces
sity. 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 govern
ment will be the only certain means of con
tinuing it securely to them. Wherefore, if
they have not virtue enough to be Whigs,
they ought to have prudence enough to
wish for independence.
In short, independence 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 sub
jects,” 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, with
held our trade to obtain a redress of our
grievances, let us now try the alternative
by independently redressing them our
selves, 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.
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. Where
fore, 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 dissen
sion. 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 sup
porter of the RIGHTS of MANKIND and of
the FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES OF
America.
�COMMON SENSE
EPISTLE TO QUAKERS.1
To the Representatives of the Religious
Society of the People called Quakers, or to
so many of them as were concerned in
publishing a late Piece, intituled. “ 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 England**
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 pf 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
instructs you not to meddle with.
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 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.
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 ; however well adapted
it might appear to you, it is, nevertheless,
a jumble of good and bad put unwisely
together, and the conclusion drawn there
from, both unnatural and unjust.
The first two 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 as
the religious wish of all denominations of
1 This “ Epistle ” was issued as an Appendix
to the third edition of “ Common Sense,” and
was a reply to the ‘‘ Testimony ” published by
the Pennsylvania Quakers in January, 1776.
a “ England” in some editions, “general” in
others.
35
men. And on this ground, as men labour
ing to establish an independent 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 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 endeavouring, and will
steadily continue to endeavour, to separate
and dissolve a connection, 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.
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 in our
own land, 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 cold
ness of soul religion, nor put the Bigot in
the place of the Christian.
O ye partial ministers of your own
acknowledged principles 1 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 con
science, 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 a proof of your sincerity by publish
ing 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 repent
1 “ Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adver
sity ; thou knowest what it is to be banished thy
�36
COMMON SENSE
ance 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 ye because ye are Quakers,
but because ye pretend to be, and are not
Quakers.
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
tenour 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.
The quotation which ye have made from
Proverbs, in the third page of your testi
mony, 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 so
desirous of supporting do not please the
Lord, otherwise his reign would be in
peace.
I now proceed to the latter part of your
testimony, and that for which all the fore
going seems only an introduction, viz.:—■
It hath ever been our judgment and prin
native country, to be overruled 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.
ciple, since we are 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
hsnd 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 might 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 prin
ciples 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 testi
mony, if you fully believe what it contains ?
And, therefore, publishing it proves that
you either do not believe what ye profess,
or have not virtue enough to practise what
ye believe.
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 preroga
tive, he most certainly will not be robbed
thereof by us: wherefore the principle
itself leads you to approve of everything
which ever happened, or may happen to
kings, as being his work. Oliver Cromwell
thanks you. Charles, then, died, not by
the hands of men ; 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 government 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,
�COMMON SENSE
disapprove of its being independent of the
corrupt and abandoned court of Britain ;
unless, I say, ye can show 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 connec
tion 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 1 The incon
sistency 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 crabbed 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.
Here ends the examination of your Testi
mony (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
37
and putting down of kings,” must 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
dishonour your judgment, and for many
other reasons had better have been let
alone than published.
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.
Secondly. Because it exhibits a body of
men, numbers of whom disavow the pub
lishing political testimonies, as being con
cerned therein and approvers thereof.
Thirdly. Because it hath a tendency to
undo that continental harmony and friend
ship which yourselves, by your late liberal
and charitable donations, have lent a hand
to establish ; and the preservation of which
is of the utmost consequence to us all.
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 dis
avowed and reprobated by every inhabitant
of America.
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
38
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
I.
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 his 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.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too
lightly : it is dearness only that gives every
thing its value. Heaven knows how to put
a proper price upon its goods ; and it
would be strange indeed, if so celestial an
article as freedom should not be highly
rated. Britain, with an army to enforce
her tyranny, has declared that she has a
right {not only to tax) but “ to BIND us in
ALL cases WHATSOEVER,” and if being
bound in that matter, is not slavery, then
is there not such a thing as slavery upon
earth. Even the expression is impious;
for so unlimited a power can belong only
to God.
Whether the independence of the con
tinent was declared too soon, or delayed
too long, I will not now enter into as an
argument; my own simple opinion is, that
had it been eight months earlier, it would
have been much better. We did not make
a proper use of last winter, neither could
we, while we were in a dependent state.
However, the fault, if it were one, was all
our own ;1 we have none to blame but our
selves. But no great deal is lost yet. All
that Howe has been doing for this month
past, is rather a ravage than a conquest,
which the spirit of the J erseys a year ago
would have quickly repulsed, and which
time and a little resolution will soon re
cover.
I have as little superstition in me as any
1 “The present winter is worth an age, if
rightly employed : but if lost or neglected the
whole continent will partake of the evil : and
there is no punishment that man does not
deserve, be he who, or what, or where he will,
that may be the means of sacrificing a season so
precious and useful.” \Common Sense.}
man living, but my secret opinion has ever
been, and still is, that God Almighty will
not give up a people to military destruction,
or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who
have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought
to avoid the calamities of war, by every
decent method which wisdom could invent.
Neither have I so much of the infidel in
me, as to suppose that He has relinquished
the government of the world, and given us
up to the care of devils ; and as I do not,
I cannot see on what grounds the king of
Britain can look up to heaven for help
against us : a common murderer, a high
wayman, or a house-breaker, has as good
a pretence as he.
’Tis surprising to see how rapidly a
panic will sometimes run through a country.
All nations and ages have been subject to
them : Britain has trembled like an ague
at the report of a French fleet of flatbottomed boats; and in the fourteenth
[fifteenth] century the whole English army,
after ravaging the kingdom of France,
was driven back like men petrified with
fear ; and this brave exploit was performed
by a few broken forces collected and headed
by a woman, Joan of Arc. Would that
heaven might inspire some Jersey maid to
spirit up her countrymen, and save her
fair fellow sufferers from ravage and ravish
ment ! Yet panics, in some cases, have
their uses ; they produce as much good as
hurt. Their duration is always short; the
mind soon grows through them, and
acquires a firmer habit than before. But
their peculiar advantage is, that they are
the touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy,
and bring things and men to light, which
might otherwise have lain forever undis
covered. In fact, they have the same effect
on secret traitors, which an ’ imaginary
apparition would have upon a private
murderer. They sift out the hidden
thoughts of man, and hold them up in
public to the world. Many a disguised
tory has lately shown his head, that shall
penitentially solemnise with curses the day
on which Howe arrived upon the Delaware.
As I was with the troops at Fort Lee,
and marched with them to the edge of
Pennsylvania, I am well acquainted with
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
many circumstances, which those who live
at a distance, know but little or nothing
of. Our situation there was exceedingly
cramped, the place being a narrow neck
of land between the North River and the
Hackensack. Our force was inconsider
able, being not one fourth so great as
Howe could bring against us. We had no
army at hand to have relieved the garrison,
had we shut ourselves up and stood on our
defence. Our ammunition, light artillery,
and the best part of our stores, had been
removed, on the apprehension that Howe
would endeavour to penetrate the Jerseys,
in which case Fort Lee could be of no use
to us; for it must occur to every thinking
man, whether in the army or not, that these
kind of field forts are only for temporary
purposes, and last in use no longer than
the enemy directs his force against the
particular object, which such forts are
raised to defend. Such was our situation
and condition at Fort Lee on the morning
of November 20th, when an officer arrived
with information that the enemy with 200
boats had landed about seven miles above :
Major General Green,1 who commanded
the garrison, immediately ordered them
under arms, and sent express to General
Washington at the town of Hackensack,
distant by the way of the ferry, six miles.
Our first object was to secure the bridge
over the Hackensack, which laid up the
river between the enemy and us, about six
miles from us, and three from them.
General Washington arrived in about three
quarters of an hour, and marched at the
head of the troops towards the bridge,
which place I expected we should have a
brush for ; however, they did not choose to
dispute it with us, and the greatest part of
our troops went over the bridge, the rest
over the ferry except some which passed at
a mill on a small creek, between the bridge
and the ferry, and made their way through
some marshy grounds up to the town of
Hackensack, and there passed the river.
We brought off as much baggage as the
wagons could contain, the rest was lost.
The simple object was to bring off the
garrison, and march them on till they
could be strengthened by the Jersey or
Pennsylvania militia, so as to be enabled
to make a stand. We stayed four days at
Newark, collected our out-posts with some
of. the Jersey militia, and marched out
twice to meet the enemy, on being informed
that they were advancing, though our
1 Nathaniel Green.
39
numbers were greatly inferior to theirs.
Howe, in my little opinion, committed a
great error in generalship in not throwing
a body of forces off from Staten Island
through Amboy, by which means he might
have seized all our stores at Brunswick, and
intercepted our march into Pennsylvania :
but if we believe the power of hell to
be limited, we must likewise believe that
their agents are under some providential
control.
I shall not now attempt to give all the
particulars of our retreat to the Delaware ;
suffice for the present to say, that both
officers and men, though greatly harassed
and fatigued, frequently without rest, cover
ing, or provision, the inevitable conse
quences of a long retreat, bore it with a
manly and martial spirit. All their wishes
centred in one, which was, that the country
would turn out and help them to drive the
enemy back. Voltaire has remarked that
king William never appeared to full advan
tage but in difficulties and in action ; the
same remark may be made on General
Washington, for the character fits him.
There is a natural firmness in some minds
which cannot be unlocked by trifles, but
which, when unlocked, discovers a cabinet
of fortitude ; and I reckon it among those
kind of public blessings, which we do not
immediately see, that God hath blessed
him with uninterrupted health, and given
him a mind that can even flourish upon
care.
I shall conclude this paper with some
miscellaneous remarks on the state of our
affairs ; and shall begin with asking the
following question, Why is it that the
enemy have left the New England pro
vinces, and made these middle ones the
seat of war ? The answer is easy : New
England is not infested with tories, and we
are.. I have been tender in raising the. cry
against these men, and used numberless
arguments to show them their danger, but
it will not do to sacrifice a word either to
their folly or their baseness. The period
is now arrived, in which either they or we
must change our sentiments, or one or both
must fall. And what is a tory ? Good
God ! what is he ? I should not be afraid
to go with a hundred whigs against a
thousand tories, were they to attempt to
get into arms. Every tory is a coward ;
for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is the
foundation of toryism ; and a man under
such influence, though he may be cruel,
never can be brave.
But, before the line of irrecoverable
�40
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
separation be drawn between us, let us
reason the matter together : your conduct
is an invitation to the enemy, yet not one
in a thousand of you has heart enough to
join him. Howe is as much deceived by
you as the American cause is injured by
you. He expects you will all take up arms,
and flock to his standard, with muskets on
your shoulders. Your opinions are of no
use to him, unless you support him person
ally, for ’tis soldiers, and not tories that he
wants.
I once felt all that kind of anger, which
a man ought to feel, against the mean prin
ciples that are held by the tories : a noted
one, who kept a tavern at Amboy, was
standing at his door, with as pretty a child
in his hand, about eight or nine years old,
as I ever saw, and after speaking his mind
as freely as he thought was prudent,
finished with this unfatherly expression,
‘ Well / give me peace in my day I Not a
man lives on the continent but fully believes
that a separation must some time or other
finally take place, and a generous parent
should have said, “ If there must be trouble,
let it be in my day, that my child may have
peace;” and this single reflection, well
applied, is sufficient to awaken every man
to duty. Not a place upon earth might be
so happy as America. Her situation is
remote from all the wrangling world, and
she has nothing to do but to trade with
them. A man can distinguish himself
between temper and principle, and I am as
confident, as I am that God governs the
world, that America will never be happy
till she gets clear of foreign dominion.
Wars, without ceasing, will break out till
that period arrives, and the continent must
in the end be conqueror ; for though the
flame of liberty may sometimes cease to
shine, the coal can never expire.
America did not, nor does not want force;
but she wanted a proper application of that
force. Wisdom is not the purchase of a
day, and it is no wonder that we should err
at the first setting off. From an excess of
tenderness, we were unwilling to raise an
army, and trusted our cause to the temporary
defence of a well-meaning militia. A
summer’s experience has now taught us
better; yet with those troops, while they
were collected, we were able to set bounds
to the progress of the enemy, and thank
God ! they are again assembling. I always
considered militia as the best troops in the
world for a sudden exertion, but they will
not do for a long campaign. Howe, it is
probable, will make an attempt on this
city;1 should he fail on this side the
Delaware, he is ruined : if he succeeds, our
cause is not ruined. He stakes all on his
side against a part on ours; admitting he
succeeds, the consequence will be, that
armies from both ends of the continent will
march to assist their suffering friends in the
middle states ; for he cannot go everywhere,
it is impossible. I consider Howe the
greatest enemy the tories have ; he is bring
ing a war into their country, which, had it
not been for him and partly for themselves,
they had been clear of. Should he now be
expelled, I wish with all the devotion of a
Christian, that the names of whig and tory
may never more be mentioned ; but should
the tories give him encouragement to come,
or assistance if he come, I as sincerely wish
that our next year’s arms may expel them
from the continent, and the congress appro
priate their possessions to the relief of those
who have suffered in well doing. A single
successful battle next year will settle the
whole. America could carry on a two
years’ war by the confiscation of the property
of disaffected persons, and be made happy
by their expulsion. Say not that this is
revenge, call it rather the soft resentment
of a suffering people, who, having no object
in view but the good of all, have staked
their own all upon a seemingly doubtful
event. Yet it is folly to argue against
determined hardness ; eloquence may strike
the ear, and the language of sorrow draw
forth the tear of compassion, but nothing
can reach the heart that is steeled with
prejudice.
Quitting this class of men, I turn with
the warm ardor of a friend to those who
have nobly stood, and are yet determined
to stand the matter out; I call not upon
a few, but upon all: not on this state or
that state, but on every state : up and help
us ; lay your shoulders to the wheel; better
have too much force than too little, when
so great an object is at stake. Let it be
told to the future world, that in the depth
of winter, when nothing but hope and
virtue could survive, that the city and the
country, alarmed at one common danger,
came forth to meet and to repulse it. Say
not that thousands are gone, turn out your
tens of thousands; throw not the burden
of the day upon Providence, but “show
your faith by your works? that God may
bless you. It matters not where you live,
or what rank of life you hold, the evil 01 the
blessing will reach you all. The far and
1 Philadelphia.
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
the near, the home counties and the back,
the rich and the poor, will suffer or rejoice
alike. The heart that feels not now, is
dead : the blood of his children will curse
his cowardice, who shrinks back at a time
when a little might have saved the whole,
and made them happy. I love the man
that can smile at trouble, that can gather
strength from distress, and grow brave by
reflection. ’Tis the business of little minds
to shrink ; but he whose heart is firm, and
whose conscience approves his conduct, will
pursue his principles unto death. My own
line of reasoning is to myself as straight
and clear as a ray of light. Not all the
treasures of the world, so far as I believe,
could have induced me to support an
offensive war, for I think it murder ; but if
a thief breaks into my house, burns and
destroys my property, and kills or threatens
to kill me, or those that are in it, and to
“ bind me in all cases ‘whatsoever"1- to his
absolute will, am I to suffer it? What
signifies it to me, whether he who does it
is a king or a common man ; my country
man, or not my countryman ; whether it
be done by an individual villain, or an army
of them? If we reason to the root of
things we shall find no difference ; neither
can any just cause be assigned why we
should punish in the one case and pardon
in the other. Let them call me rebel, and
welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I
should suffer the misery of devils, were I
to make a whore of my soul by swearing
allegiance to one whose character is that
of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless,
brutish man. I conceive likewise a horrid
idea in receiving mercy from a being, who
at the last day shall be shrieking to the
rocks and mountains to cover him, and
fleeing with terror from the orphan, the
widow, and the slain of America.
There are cases which cannot be over
done by language, and this is one. There
are persons too who see not the full extent
of the evil which threatens them; they
solace themselves with hopes that the
enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It
is the madness of folly, to expect mercy
1 “That the King’s Majesty, by and with the
consent of the Lords spiritual and temporal,
and Commons of Great Britain in Parliament
assembled, had, hath, and of right ought to
have full power and authority to make laws and
statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind
the colonies and people of America, subjects of
the Crown of Great Britain, in all cases what
soever.” From the Declaratory Act, repealing
the Stamp Act. February 24th, 1766.
from those who have refused to do justice ;
and even mercy, where conquest is the
object, is only a trick of war; the cunning
of the fox is as murderous as the violence
of the wolf; and we ought to guard equally
against both. Howe’s first object is partly
by threats and partly by promises, to terrify
or seduce the people to deliver up their
arms and to receive mercy. The .ministry
recommended the same plan to Gage, and
this is what the tories call making their
peace, “ a peace which passeth all under
standing11 indeed! A peace which would
be the immediate forerunner of a worse
ruin than any we have yet thought of. Ye
men of Pennsylvania, do reason upon these
things ! Were the back counties to give
up their arms, they would fall an easy prey
to the Indians, who are all armed; this
perhaps is what some tories would not be
sorry for. Were the home counties to
deliver up their arms, they would be ex
posed to the resentment of the back
counties, who would then have it in their
power to chastise their defection at pleasure.
And were any one state to give up its arms,
that state must be garrisoned by Howe’s
army of Britons and Hessians to preserve
it from the anger of the rest. Mutual fear
is the principal link in the chain of mutual
love, and woe be to that state that breaks
the compact. Howe is mercifully inviting
you to barbarous destruction, and men
must be either rogues or fools that will not
see it. I dwell not upon the vapours of
imagination : I bring reason to your ears,
and in language as plain as A, B, C, hold
up truth to your eyes.
I thank God that I fear not. I see no
real' cause for fear. I know our situation
well, and can see the way out of it. While
our army was collected, Howe dared not
risk a battle; and it is no credit to him
that he decamped from the White Plains,
and waited a mean opportunity to ravage
the defenceless Jerseys; but it is great
credit to us, that, with a handful of men,
we sustained an orderly retreat for near an
hundred miles, brought off our ammunition,
all our field pieces, the greatest part of our
stores, and had four rivers to pass. None
can say that our retreat was precipitate, for
we were near three weeks in performing it,
that the country might have time to come
in. Twice we marched back to meet the
enemy, and remained out till dark. The
sign of fear was not seen in our camp, and
had not some of the cowardly and dis
affected inhabitants spread false alarms
through the country, the Jerseys had never
�42
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
been ravaged. Once more we are again
collected and collecting, our new army at
both ends of the continent is recruiting
fast, and we shall be able to open the next
campaign with sixty thousand men, well
armed and clothed. This is our situation,
and who will may know it. By perse
verance and fortitude we have the prospect
of a glorious issue ; by cowardice and sub
mission, the sad choice of a variety of
evils—a ravaged country—a depopulated
city—habitations without safety, and slavery
without hope—our homes turned into
barracks and bawdy-houses for Hessians,
and a future race to provide for, whose
fathers we shall doubt of. Look on this
picture and weep over it 1 and if there yet
remains one thoughtless wretch who believes
it not, let him suffer it unlamented.
Common Sense.
December 23, igf
II
TO LORD HOWE.1
What’s in the name of lord that I should fear
To bring my grievance to the public ear?
Churchill.
Universal empire is the prerogative of a
writer. His concerns are with all mankind,
and though he cannot command their
obedience, he can assign them their duty.
The Republic of Letters is more ancient
than monarchy, and of far higher character
in the world than the vassal court of
Britain ; he that rebels against reason is
a real rebel, but he that in defence of
reason rebels against tyranny, has a better
title to “ Defender of the Faith” than George
the third.
As a military man your lordship may
hold out the sword of war, and call it the
“ ultima ratio regum: ” the last reason of
Kings J we in return can show you the
sword of justice, and call it “ the best
scourge of tyrants.” The first of these two
may threaten, or even frighten for a while,
and cast a sickly languor over an insulted
people, but reason will soon recover the
debauch, and restore them again to tranquil
fortitude. Your lordship, I find, has now
1 Viscount Howe was sent to America in order
to open up negociations with Congress. He
issued a Proclamation from H.M.S. The Eagle
on June 30, and another from New York on
November 30, 1776.
commenced author, and published a Pro
clamation ; I have published a Crisis : as
they stand, they are the antipodes of each
other ; both cannot rise at once, and one of
them must descend; and so quick is the
revolution of things, that your lordship’s
performance, I see, has already fallen many
degrees from its first place, and is now
just visible on the edge of 'the political
horizon.
It is surprising to what a pitch of infatua
tion, blind folly and obstinacy will carry
mankind, and your lordship’s drowsy pro
clamation is a proof that it does not even
quit them in their sleep. Perhaps you
thought America too was taking a nap, and
therefore chose, like Satan to Eve, to
whisper the delusion softly, lest you should
awaken her. This continent, sir, is too
extensive to sleep all at once, and too
watchful, even in its slumbers, not to startle
at the unhallowed foot of an invader. You
may issue your proclamations, and welcome,
for we have learned to “reverence our
selves,” and scorn the insulting ruffian that
employs you. America, for your deceased
brother’s sake, would gladly have shown
you respect, and it is a new aggravation to
her feelings, that Howe should be forgetful,
and raise his sword against those, who at
their own charge raised a monument to his
brother.1 But your master has commanded,
and you have not enough of nature left to
refuse. Surely there must be something
strangely degenerating in the love of
monarchy, that can so completely wear a
man down to an ingrate, and make him
proud to lick the dust that kings have trod
upon. A few moreyears, should you survive
them, will bestow on you the title of “ an
old man ”; and in some hour of future
reflection you may probably find the fitness
of Wolsey’s despairing penitence—“had I
served my God as faithfully as I have
served my king, he would not thus have
forsaken me in my old age.”
The character you appear to us in, is
truly ridiculous. Your friends, the tories,
announced your coming, with high descrip
tions of your unlimited powers ; but your
proclamation has given them the lie, by
showing you to be a commissioner without
authority. Had your powers been ever so
great, they were nothing to us, further than
we pleased; because we had the same
1 George Augustus Howe, who fell at
Ticonderoga, July 8th, 1858. The General Court
of Massachusetts subscribed £250 for the monu
ment in Westminster Abbey.
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
right which other nations had, to do what
we thought was best. “ The united
states of AMERICA,” will sound as pom
pously in the world or in history, as “ the
kingdom of Great Britain”; the character
of General Washington will fill a place with
as much lustre as that of Lord Howe: and
the congress have as much right to command
the king and parliament in London, to
desist from legislation, as they or you have
to command the congress. Only suppose
how laughable such an edict would appear
from us, and then, in that merry moocl, do
but turn the tables upon yourself, and you
will see how your proclamation is received
here. Having thus placed you in a proper
position in which you may have a full view
of your folly, and learn to despise it, I hold
up to you, for that purpose, the following
quotation from your own lunarian pro
clamation.—“And we (lord Howe and
general Howe) do command (and in his
majesty’s name forsooth) all such persons
as are assembled together, under the name
of general or provincial congresses, com
mittees, conventions or other associations,
by whatever name or names known and
distinguished, to desist and cease from all
such treasonable actings and doings.”
You introduce your proclamation by
referring to your declarations of 14th of July
and 19th of September. In the last of these,
you sunk yourself below the character of a
private gentleman. That I may not seem
to accuse you unjustly, I shall state the
circumstance : by a verbal invitation of
yours, communicated to congress by General
Sullivan, then a prisoner on his parole, you
signified your desire of conferring with
some members of that body as private
gentlemen. It was beneath the dignity of
the American congress to pay any regard
to a message that at best was but a genteel
affront, and had too much of the ministerial
complexion of .tampering with private
persons ; and which might probably have
been the case, had the gentlemen who were
deputed on the business, possessed that
kind of easy virtue which an English
courtier is so truly distinguished by. Your
request, however, was complied with, for
honest men are naturally more tender of
their civil than their political fame. The
interview ended as every sensible man
thought it would ; for your lordship knows,
as well as the writer of the Crisis, that it is
impossible for the king of England to
promise the repeal, or even the revisal of
any acts of parliament; wherefore, on your
part, you had nothing to say, more than to
43
request, in the room of demanding, the
entire surrender of the continent; and then,
if that was complied with, to promise that
the inhabitants should escape with their
lives. This was the upshot of the con
ference. You informed the conferees that
you were two months in soliciting these
powers. We ask, what powers ? for as
commissioner you have none. If you mean
the powTer of pardoning, it is an oblique
proof that your master was determined to
sacrifice all before him : and that you were
two months in dissuading him from his
purpose. Another evidence of his savage
obstinacy ! From your own account of the
matter we may justly draw these two con
clusions : 1st, That you serve a monster;
and 2d, That never was a messenger
sent on a more foolish errand than yourself.
This plain language may perhaps sound
uncouthly to an ear vitiated by courtly
refinements ; but words were made for use,
and the fault lies in deserving them, or the
abuse in applying them unfairly.
Soon after your return to New-York, you
published a very illiberal and unmanly
handbill against the congress ; for it was
certainly stepping out of the line of common
civility, first to screen your national pride
by soliciting an interview with them as
private gentlemen, and in the conclusion to
endeavour to deceive the multitude by
making a handbill attack on the whole
body of the congress; you got them
together under one name, and abused them
under another. But the king you serve,
and the cause you support, afford you so
few instances of acting the gentleman, that
out of pity to your situation the congress
pardoned the insult by taking no notice of it.
You say in that handbill, “that they, the
congress, disavowed every purpose for
reconciliation not consonant with their
extravagant and inadmissible claim of
independence.”
Why, God bless me!
what have you to do with our indepen
dence ? We ask no leave of yours to set it
up ; we ask no money of yours to support
it; we can do better without your fleets and
armies than with them ; you may soon
have enough to do to protect yourselves
without being burdened with us. We are
very willing to be at peace with you, to buy
of you and sell to you, and, like young
beginners in the world, to work for our
living; therefore, why do you put your
selves out of cash, when we know you
cannot spare it, and we do not desire you
to run into debt ? I am willing, sir, that
you should see your folly in every point of
�44
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
view I can place it in, and for that reason
descend sometimes to tell you in jest what
I wish you to see in earnest. But to be
more serious with you, why do you say,
“their independence”? To set you right,
sir, we will tell you, that the independency
is ours, not theirs. The congress were
authorised by every state on the continent
to publish it to all the world, and in so
doing are not to be considered as the
inventors, but only as the heralds that pro
claimed it, or the office from which the
sense of the people received a legal form ;
and it was as much as any or all their
heads were worth, to have treated with you
on the subject of submission under any
name whatever. But we know the men in
whom we have trusted; can England say
the same of her parliament?
I come now more particularly to your
proclamation of 30th of November last. Had
you gained an entire conquest over all the
armies of America, and then put forth a
proclamation, offering (what you call)
mercy, your conduct would have had some
specious show of humanity ; but to creep
by surprise into a province, and there
endeavour to terrify and seduce the inhabi
tants from their just allegiance to the rest
by promises, which you neither meant, nor
were able to fulfil, is both cruel and un
manly : cruel in its effects ; because, unless
you can keep all the ground you have
marched over, how are you, in the words
of your proclamation, to secure to your
proselytes “ the enjoyment of their pro
perty ” ? What is to become either of your
new adopted subjects, or your old friends,
the tories, in Burlington, Bordentown,
Trenton, Mount Holly, and many other
places, where you proudly lorded it for a
few days, and then fled with the precipita
tion of a pursued thief ? What, I say, is to
become of those wretches? What is to
become of those who went over to you from
this city and state ? What more can you
say to them than “ shift for yourselves ” ?
Or what more can they hope for than to
wander like vagabonds over the face of the
earth ? You may now tell them to take
their leave of America, and all that once
was theirs. Recommend them, for conso
lation, to your master’s court; there
perhaps they may make a shift to live on
the scraps of some dangling parasite, and
choose companions among thousands like
t themselves. A traitor is the foulest fiend
; on earth.
J
In a political sense we ought to thank
you for thus bequeathing estates to the
continent; we shall soon, at this rate, be
able to carry on a war without expence, and
grow rich by the ill policy of lord Howe,
and the generous defection of the tories.
Had you set your foot into this city, you
would have bestowed estates upon us which
we never thought of, by bringing forth
traitors we were unwilling to suspect. But
these men, you’ll say, “are his majesty’s
most faithful subjects
let that honour,
then, be all their fortune, and let his
majesty take them to himself.
I am now thoroughly disgusted with
them ; they live in ungrateful ease, and
bend their whole minds to mischief. It
seems as if God had given them over to a
spirit of infidelity, and that they are open
to conviction in no other line but that of
punishment. It is time to have done with
tarring, feathering, carting, and taking
securities for their future good behaviour ;
every sensible man must feel a conscious
shame at seeing a poor fellow hawked for
a show about the streets, when it is known
he is only the tool of some principal
villain, biassed into his offence by the
force of false reasoning, or bribed thereto,
through sad necessity. We dishonour
ourselves by attacking such trifling char
acters while greater ones are suffered to
escape ; ’tis our duty to find them out, and
their proper punishment would be to exile
them from the continent for ever. The
circle of them is not so great as some
imagine; the influence of a few have
tainted many who are not naturally cor
rupt. A continual circulation of lies
among those who are not much in the
way of hearing them contradicted, will in
time pass for truth ; and the crime lies not
in the believer but the inventor. I am not
for declaring war with every man that
appears not so warm as myself: difference
of constitution, temper, habit of speaking,
and many other things, will go a great way
in fixing the outward character of a man,
yet simple honesty may remain at bottom.
Some men have naturally a military turn,
and can brave hardships and the risk of
life with a cheerful face ; others have not;
no slavery appears to them so great as the
fatigue of arms, and no terror so powerful
as that of personal danger. What can we
say? We cannot alter nature, neither
ought we to punish the son because the
father begot him in a cowardly mood.
However, I believe most men have more
courage than they know of, and that a
little at first is enough to begin with. I
knew the time when I thought the whistling
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
of a cannon ball would have frightened me
almost to death : but I have since tried it,
and find that I can stand it with as little
discomposure, and, I believe, with a much
easier conscience than your lordship. The
same dread would return to me again were
I in your situation, for my solemn belief of
your cause is, that it is hellish and damn
able, and, under that conviction, every
thinking man’s heart must fail him.
From a concern that a good cause should
be dishonoured by the least disunion among
us, I said in my former paper, No. i,
“ That should the enemy now be expelled,
I wish, with all the sincerity of a Christian,
that the names of whig and tory might
never more be mentioned,” but there is a
knot of men among us of such a venomous
cast, that they will not admit even one’s
good wishes to act in their favour. Instead
of rejoicing that heaven had, as it were,
providentially preserved this city from
plunder and destruction, by delivering so
great a part of the enemy into our hands
with so little effusion of blood, they stub
bornly affected to disbelieve it till, within
an hour, nay, half an hour, of the prisoners
arriving ; and the Quakers put forth a testi
mony, dated the 20th of December, signed
“John Pemberton,” declaring their attach
ment to the British Government.1 These
men are continually harping on the great
sin of our bearing arms, but the king of
Britain may lay waste the world in
blood and famine, and they, poor fallen
souls, have nothing to say.
In some future paper, I intend, to dis
tinguish between the different kinds, of
persons who have been denominated tories;
for this I am clear in, that all are not so
who have been called so, nor all men whigs
who were once thought so ; and as I mean
not to conceal the name of any true friend
when there shall be occasion to mention
him, neither will I that of an enemy, who
1 I have ever been careful of charging
offences upon whole societies of men, but as
the paper referred to is put forth by an unknown
set of men, who claim to themselves the right'
of representing the whole ; and while the whole
society of Quakers admit its validity by a silent
acknowledgment, it is impossible that any dis
tinction can be made by the public: and the
more so, because the New York paper of the
30th of December, printed by permission of our
enemies, says that “ the Quakers begin to speak
openly of their attachment to the British con
stitution.” We are certain that we have many
friends among thern, and wish to know them.
Author.
45
ought to be known, let his rank, station or
religion be what it may. Much pains have
been taken by some to set your lordship’s
private character in an amiable light, but
as it has chiefly been done by men who
know nothing about you, and who are no
ways remarkable for their attachment to us,
we have no just authority for believing it.
George the third has imposed upon us by
the same arts, but time, at length, has done
him justice, and the same fate may probably
attend your lordship. Your avowed purpose
here, is to kill, conquer, plunder, pardon
and enslave ; and the ravages of your army
through the Jerseys have been marked with
as much barbarism as if you had openly
professed yourself the prince of ruffians ;
not even the appearance of humanity has
been preserved either on the march or the
retreat of your troops; no general order
that I could ever learn, has ever been issued
to prevent or even forbid your troops from
robbery, wherever they came, and the only
instance of justice, if it can be called such,
which has distinguished you for impartiality,
is, that you treated and plundered all alike;
what could not be carried away has been
destroyed, and mahogany furniture has
been deliberately laid on fire for fuel, rather
than that men should be fatigued with
cutting wood.1 There was a time when the
whigs confided much in your supposed
candour, and the tories rested themselves in
your favour; the experiments have now
been made, and failed ; in every town, nay,
every cottage, in the Jerseys, where your
arms have been, is a testimony against you.
How you may rest under the sacrifice of
character I know not; but this I know,
that you sleep and rise with the daily
curses of thousands upon you ; perhaps the
misery which the tories have suffered by
your proffered mercy may give them, some
claim to their country’s pity, and be in the
end the best favour you could show them.
In a folio general-order book belonging
to Colonel Rhal’s battalion, taken at
Trenton, and now in the possession of the
council of safety for this state, the follow
ing barbarous order is frequently repeated,
“His excellency the commander-in-chief
1 As some people may doubt the truth of
such wanton destruction, I think it necessary
to inform them, that one of the people called
Quakers, who lives at Trenton, gave me this
information, at the house of Mr. Michael
Hutchinson, (one of the same profession,) who
lives near Trenton ferry on the Pennsylvania
side, Mr. Hutchinson being present. Author.
�4&
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
orders, that all inhabitants who shall be
found with arms, not having an officer with
them, shall be immediately taken and hung
up.” How many you may thus have
privately sacrificed, we know not, and the
account can only be settled in another
world. Your treatment of prisoners, in
order to distress them to enlist in your
infernal service, is not to be equalled by
any instance in Europe. Yet this is the
humane lord Howe and his brother, whom
the tories and their three-quarter kindred,
the Quakers, or some of them at least, have
been holding up for patterns of justice and
mercy I
A bad cause will ever be supported by
bad means and bad men ; and whoever will
be at the pains of examining strictly into
things, will find that one and the same
spirit of oppression and impiety, more or
less, governs through your whole party in
both countries ; not many days ago I acci
dentally fell in company with a person of
this city noted for espousing your cause,
and on my remarking to him, “ that it
appeared clear to me, by the late providen
tial turn of affairs, that God Almighty was
visibly on our side,” he replied, “ We care
nothing for that, you may have Him, and
welcome ; if we have but enough of the
devil on our side, we shall do.” However
carelessly this might be spoken, matters
not, ’tis still the insensible principle that
directs all your conduct, and will at last
most assuredly deceive and ruin you.
If ever a nation was mad or foolish, blind
to its own interest and bent on its own
destruction, it is Britain. There are such
things as national sins, and though the
punishment of individuals may be reserved
to another world,.national punishment can
only be inflicted in this world. Britain, as
a nation, is, in my inmost belief, the greatest
and most ungrateful offender against God
on the face of the whole earth ; blessed
with all the commerce she could have wished
for, and furnished, by a vast extension of
dominion, with the means of civilising both
the eastern and western world, she has
made no other use of both than proudly to
idolise her own “ thunder,” and rip up the
bowels of whole countries for what she
could get: Like Alexander, she has made
war her sport, and inflicted misery for
prodigality’s sake. The blood of India is
not yet repaid, nor the wretchedness of
Africa yet requited.
Of late she has
enlarged her list of national cruelties, by
her butcherly destruction of the Caribbs of
St. Vincent’s, and returning an answer by
the sword to the meek prayer for “Peace
liberty and safety! These are serious things,
and whatever a foolish tyrant, a debauched
court, a trafficking legislature, or a blinded
people may think, the national account
with heaven must some day or other be
settled; all countries have sooner or later
been called to their reckoning; the proudest
empires have sunk when the balance was
struck; and Britain, like an individual
penitent must undergo her day of sorrow,
and the sooner it happens to her the better:
as I wish it over, I wish it to come, but
withal wish that it may be as light as
possible.
Perhaps your lordship has no taste for
serious things; by your connections with
England I should suppose not : therefore
I shall drop this part of the subject, and
take it up in a line in which you will better
understand me.
By what means, may I ask, do you expect
to conquer America? If you could not
effect it in the summer, when our army was
less than yours, nor in the winter, when we
had none, how are you to do it ? In point
of generalship you have been outwitted,
and in point of fortitude outdone ; your
advantages turn out to your loss, and show
us that it is in our power to ruin you by
gifts : like a game of drafts, we can move
out of one square to let you come in, in
order that we may afterwards take two or
three for one : and as we can always keep
a double corner for ourselves, we can
always prevent a total defeat. You cannot
be so insensible, as not to see that we have
two to one the advantage of you, because
we conquer by a drawn game, and you lose
by it. Burgoyne might have taught your
lordship this knowledge ; he has been long
a student in the doctrine of chances.
I have no other idea of conquering
countries than by subduing the armies
which defend them : have you done this,
or can you do it ? If you have not, it would
be civil in you to let your proclamations
alone for the present; otherwise, you will
ruin more tories by your grace and favour,
than you will whigs by your arms.
Were you to obtain possession of this
city, you would not know what to do with
it more than to plunder it. To hold it in
the manner you hold New-York, would be
an additional dead weight upon your hands:
and if a general conquest is your object,
you had better be without the city than
with it. When you have defeated all our
armies, the cities will fall into your hands
of themselves; but to creep into them in
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
the manner you got into Princetown,
Trenton, etc., is like robbing an orchard
in the night before the fruit be ripe, and
running away in the morning. . Your experi
ment in the Jerseys is sufficient to teach
you that you have something more to do
than barely to get into other people’s
houses ; and your new converts, to whom
you promised all manner of protection,
and seduced into new guilt by pardoning
them from their former virtues, must begin
to have a very contemptible opinion both
of your power and your policy. Your
authority in the Jerseys is now reduced to
the small circle which your army occupies,
and your proclamation is nowhere else
seen unless it be to be laughed at. The
mighty subduers of the continent have
retreated into a nut-shell, and the proud
forgivers of our sins are fled from those
they came to pardon: and all this at a
time when they were despatching vessel
after vessel to England with the great news
of every day. In short, you have managed
your Jersey expedition so very dexterously,
that the dead only are conquerors, because
none will dispute the ground with them.
In all the wars which you have formerly
been concerned in, you had only armies to
contend with ; in this case you have both
an army and a country to combat with.
In former wars, the countries followed the
fate of their capitals ; Canada fell with
Quebec, and Minorca with Port Mahon or
St. Phillips ; by subduing those, the con
querors opened a way into, and became
masters of the country : here it is other
wise ; if you get possession of a city here,
you are obliged to shut yourselves up in it,
and can make no other use of it, than to
spend your country’s money in. This is
all the advantage you have drawn from
New-York ; and you would draw less from
Philadelphia, because it requires more force
to keep it, and is much further from the
sea. A pretty figure you and the tories
would cut in this city, with a river full of
ice, and a town full of fire ; for the imme
diate consequence of your getting here
would be that you would be cannonaded
out again, and the tories be obliged to
make good the damage; and this sooner
or later will be the fate of New-York.
I wish to see the city saved, not so much
from military, as from natural motives.
’Tis the hiding place of women and chil
dren, and lord Howe’s proper business is
with our armies. When I put all the cir
cumstances together which ought to be
taken, I laugh at your notion of conquering
47
America. Because you lived in a little
country, where an army might run over the
whole in a few days, and where a single
company of soldiers might put a multitude
to the rout, you expected to find it the
same here. It is plain that you brought
over with you all the narrow notions you
were bred up with, and imagined that a
proclamation in the king’s name was to do
great things ; but Englishmen always travel
for knowledge, and your lordship, I hope,
will return, if you return at all, much wiser
than you came.
We may be surprised by events we did
not expect, and in that interval of recollec
tion you may gain some temporary advan
tage : such was the case a few weeks ago,
but we soon ripen again into reason, collect
our strength, and while you are preparing
for a triumph, we come upon you with a
defeat. Such it has been, and such it
would be were you to try it a hundred
times over. Were you to garrison the
places you might march over, in order to
secure their subjection, (for remember you
can do it by no other means,) your army
would be like a stream of water running
to nothing. By the time you extended
from New-York to Virginia, you would be
reduced to a string of drops not capable of
hanging together ; while we, by retreating
from state to state, like a river turning back
upon itself, would acquire strength in the
same proportion as you lost it, and in the
end be capable of overwhelming you. The
country, in the mean time, would suffer, but
it is a day of suffering, and we ought to
expect it. What we contend for is worthy
the affliction we may go through. If we get
but bread to eat, and any kind of raiment
to put on, we ought not only to be con
tented, but thankful. More than that we
ought not to look for, and less than that
heaven has not yet suffered us to want.
He that would sell his birth right for a.
little salt, is as worthless as he who sold it
for porridge without salt. And he that
would part with it for a gay coat, or a. plain
coat, ought for ever to be a slave in buff.
What are salt, sugar and finery, to the
inestimable blessings of “ Liberty and
safety” ! Or what are the inconveniences
of a few months to the tributary bondage
of ages ? The meanest peasant in America,
blest with these sentiments, is a happy man
compared with a New-York tory; he can
eat his morsel without repining, and when
he has done, can sweeten it with a repast
of wholesome air ; he can take his child
by the hand and bless it, without feeling
�48
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
the conscious shame of neglecting a parent’s
duty.
In publishing these remarks I have
several objects in view.
On your part they are to expose the folly
of your pretended authority as a commis
sioner ; the wickedness of your cause in
general; and the impossibility of your con
quering us at any rate. On the part of the
public, my intention is, to show them their
true and solid interest; to encourage them
to their own good, to remove the fears and
falsities which bad men have spread, and
weak men have encouraged ; and to excite
in all men a love for union, and a cheerful
ness for duty.
I shall submit one more case to you
respecting your conquest of this country,
and then proceed to new observations.
Suppose our armies in every part of this
continent were immediately to disperse,
every man to his home, or where else he
might be safe, and engage to re-assemble
again on a certain future day ; it is clear
that you would then have no army to con
tend with, yet you would be as much at a
loss in that case as you are now; you
would be afraid to send your troops in
parties over the continent, either to disarm
or prevent us from assembling, lest they
should not return; and while you kept
them together, having no army of ours to
dispute with, you could not call it a con
quest ; you might furnish out a pompous
page in the London Gazette or a New-York
paper, but when we returned at the ap
pointed time, you would have the same
work to do that you had at first.
It has been the folly of Britain to suppose
herself more powerful than she really is,
and by that means has arrogated to herself
a rank in the world she is not entitled to :
for more than this century past she has not
been able to carry on a war without foreign
assistance. In Marlborough’s campaigns,
and from that day to this, the number of
German troops and officers assisting her
have been about equal with her own ; ten
thousand Hessians were sent to England
last war to protect her from a French
invasion ; and she would have cut but a
poor figure in her Canadian and WestIndian expeditions, had not America been
lavish both of her money and men to help
her along. The only instance in which she
was engaged singly, that I can recollect,
was against the rebellion in Scotland, in
the years 1745 an<^ 174^, and in that, out
of three battles, she was twice beaten, till
by thus reducing their numbers, (as we
shall yours,) and taking a supply ship that
was coming to Scotland with clothes, arms
and money, (as we have often done,) she
was at last enabled to defeat them. England
was never famous by land; her officers
have generally been suspected of cowardice,
have more of the air of a dancing-master
than a soldier, and by the samples which
we have taken prisoners, we give the pre
ference to ourselves. Her strength, of late,
has lain in her extravagance; but as her
finances and credit are now low, her sinews
in that line begin to fail fast. As a nation
she is the poorest in Europe ; for were the
whole kingdom, and all that is in it, to be
put up for sale like the estate of a bankrupt,
it would not fetch as much as she owes ;
yet this thoughtless wretch must go to war,
and with the avowed design, too, of making
us beasts of burden, to support her in riot
and debauchery, and to assist her after
wards in distressing those nations who are
now our best friends. This ingratitude
may suit a tory, or the unchristian peevish
ness of a fallen Quaker, but none else.
’Tis the unhappy temper of the English
to be pleased with any war, right or wrong,
be it but successful ; but they soon grow
discontented with ill-fortune, and it is an
even chance that they are as clamorous for
peace next summer, as the king and his
ministers were for war last winter. In this
natural view of things, your lordship stands
in a very critical situation : your whole
character is now staked upon your laurels ;
if they wither, you wither with them : if
they flourish, you cannot live long to look
at them; and at any rate, the black
account hereafter is not far off. What
lately appeared to us misfortunes, were
only blessings in disguise ; and the seeming
advantages on your side have turned out
t® our profit. Even our loss of this city, as
far as we can see, might be a principal
gain to us : the more surface you spread
over, the thinner you will be, and the easier
wiped away ; and our consolation under
that apparent disaster would be, that the
estates of the tories would become securi
ties for the repairs. In short, there is no
old ground we can fail upon, but some new
foundation rises again to support us. “We
have put, sir, our hands to the plough, and
cursed be he that looketh back.”
Your king, in his speech to parliament
last spring, declared, “ That he had no
doubt but the great force they had enabled
him to send to America, would effectually
reduce the rebellious colonies.” It has not,
neither can it: but it has done iust enough
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
to lay the foundation of its own next year’s
ruin. You are sensible that you left
England in a divided, distracted: state of
politics, and, by the command you had
there, you became the principal prop of the
court party; their fortunes rest on yours ;
by a single express you can fix their value
with the public, and the degree to which
their spirits shall rise or fall ; they are in
your hands as stock, and you have the
secret of the alley with you. Thus situated
and connected, you become the uninten
tional mechanical instrument of your own
and their overthrow. The king and his
ministers put conquest out of doubt, and
the credit of both depended on the proof.
To support them in the interim, it was
necessary that you should make the most
of every thing, and we can tell by Hugh
Gaine’s New-York paper what the com
plexion of the London Gazette is. With
such a list of victories the nation cannot
expect you will ask new supplies; and to
confess your want of them, would give the
lie to your triumphs, and impeach the king
and his ministers of treasonable deception.
If you make the necessary demand at
home, your party sinks ; if you make it not,
you sink yourself; to ask it now is too late,
and to ask it before was too soon, and
unless it arrive quickly will be of no use.
In short, the part you have to act, cannot
be acted; and I am fully persuaded that
all you have to trust to is, to do the best
you can with what force you have got, or
little more. Though we have greatly
exceeded you in point of generalship and
bravery of men, yet, as a people, we have
not entered into the full soul of enterprise ;
for I, who know England and the disposi
tion of the people well, am confident, that
it is easier for us to effect a revolution there,
than you a conquest here ; a few thousand
men landed in England with the declared
design of deposing the present king, bring
ing his ministers to trial, and setting up the
Duke of Gloucester in his stead, would
assuredly carry their point, while you were
grovelling here ignorant of the matter. As
I send all my papers to England, this, like
Common Sense, will find its way there;
and though it may put one party on their
guard, it will inform the other, and the
nation in general, of our design to help
them.
Thus far, sir, I have endeavoured to give
you a picture of present affairs : you may
draw from it what conclusions you please.
I wish as well to the true prosperity of
England as you can, but I consider inde
49
pendence America!s natural right and
interest, and never could see any real dis
service it would be to Britain. If an
English merchant receives an order, and is
paid for it, it signifies nothing to him who
governs the country. This is my creed of
politics. If I have any. where expressed
myself over-warmly, ’tis from a fixed,
immovable hatred I have, and ever had,
to cruel men and cruel measures. I have
likewise an aversion to monarchy, as being
too debasing to the dignity of man ; but I
never troubled others with my notions till
very lately, nor ever published a syllable in
England in my life. What I write is pure
nature, and my pen and my soul have ever
gone together. My writings I have always
given away, reserving only the expense of
printing and paper, and sometimes not
even that. I never courted either fame or
interest, and my manner of life, to those
who know it, will justify what I say. My
study is to be useful, and if your lordship
loves mankind as well as I do, you would,
seeing you cannot conquer us, cast about
and lend your hand towards accomplishing
a peace. Our independence, with God’s
blessing, we will maintain against all the
world; but as we wish to avoid evil our
selves, we wish not to inflict it on others.
I am never over-inquisitive into the secrets
of the cabinet, but I have some notion, that
if you neglect the present opportunity, that
it will not be in our power to make a
separate peace with you afterwards ; for
whatever treaties or alliances we form, we
shall most faithfully abide by; wherefore
you may be deceived if you think you can
make it with us at any time. A lasting,
independent peace is my wish, end and
aim ; and to accomplish that, “ I pray God
the Americans may never be defeated, and I
trust while they have good officers, and are
well commanded” and willing to be com
manded, “ that they never will be.”
Common Sense.
Philadelphia, Jan. 13, Z777.
III.
In the progress of politics, as in the
common occurrences of life, we are not only
apt to forget the ground we have travelled
over, but frequently neglect to gather up
experience as we go. We expend, if I may
so say, the knowledge of every day on the
circumstances that produce it, and journey
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
on in search of new matter and new refine so doing, but, as it were, embarrass Provi
ments : but as it is pleasant and sometimes dence in her good designs.
useful to look back, even to the first periods
I have been civil in stating this fault on
of infancy, and trace the turns and windings a large scale, for, as it now stands, it does
through which we have passed, so we not appear to be levelled against any par
may likewise derive many advantages by ticular set of men ; but were it to be refined
halting a while in our political career, a little further, it might afterwards be
and taking a review of the wondrous applied to the tories with a degree of
complicated labyrinth of little more than striking propriety : those men have been
yesterday.
remarkable for drawing sudden conclusions
Truly may we say, that never did men from single facts. The least apparent mis
grow old in so short a time ! We have hap on our side, or the least seeming
crowded the business of an age into the advantage on the part of the enemy, has
compass of a few months, and have been determined with them the fate of a whole
driven through such a rapid succession of campaign. By this hasty judgment they
things, that for the want of leisure to think, have converted a retreat into a defeat;
we unavoidably wasted knowledge as we mistook generalship for error ; while every
came, and have left nearly as much behind little advantage purposely given the enemy,
us as we brought with us : but the road is either to weaken their strength by dividing
yet rich with the fragments, and, before it, embarrass their councils by multiplying
we fully lose sight of them, will repay their objects, or to secure a greater post by
us for the trouble of stopping to pick' the surrender of a less, has been instantly
magnified into a conquest. Thus, by
them up.
Were a man to be totally deprived of quartering ill policy upon ill principles,
memory, he would be incapable of forming they have frequently promoted the cause
■any just opinion ; every thing about him they have designed to injure, and injured
would seem a chaos ; he would have even that which they intended to promote.
It is probable the campaign may open
his own history to ask from every one ; and
by not knowing how the world went in his before this number comes from the press.
absence, he would be at a loss to know how The enemy have long lain idle, and amused
it ought to go on when he recovered, or themselves with carrying on the war by
rather, returned to it again.
In like proclamations only. While they continue
manner, though in a less degree, a too their delay our strength increases, and were
great inattention to past occurrences retards they to move to action now, it is a circum
and bewilders our judgment in every things stantial proof that they have no reinforce
while, on the contrary, by comparing what ment coming ; wherefore, in either case,
is past with what is present, we frequently the comparative advantage will be ours.
hit on the true character of both, and Like a wounded, disabled whale, they want
become wise with very little trouble. It is only time and room to die in ; and though
a kind of counter-march, by which we get in the agony of their exit, it may be unsafe
into the rear of time, and mark the move to live within the flapping of their tail, yet
ments and meaning of things as we make every hour shortens their date, and lessens
our return.
There are certain circum their power of mischief. If any thing
stances, which, at the time of their happen happens while this number is in the press,
ing, are a kind of riddles, and as every it will afford me a subject for the last pages
riddle is to be followed by its answer, so of it. At present I am tired of waiting ;
those kind of circumstances will be followed and as neither the enemy, nor the state of
by their events, and those events are always politics have yet produced any thing new,
the true solution. A considerable space of I am thereby left in the field, of general
time may lapse between, and unless we matter, undirected by any striking or par
continue our observations from the one to ticular object. This Crisis, therefore, will
the other, the harmony of them will pass be made up rather of variety than novelty,
awhy unnoticed: but the misfortune is, that and consist more of things useful than
partly from the pressing necessity of some things wonderful.
The success of the cause, the union of
instant things, and partly from the impa
tience of our own tempers, we are frequently the people, and the means of supporting
in such a hurry to make out the meaning and securing both, are points which cannot
of every thing- as fast as it happens, that we be too much attended to. He who doubts
thereby never truly understand it; and not of the former is a desponding coward, and
only start new difficulties to ourselves by he who wilfully disturbs the latter is a
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
traitor. Their characters are easily fixed,
and under these short descriptions I leave
them for the present.
One of the greatest degrees of senti
mental union which America ever knew,
was in denying the right of the British par
liament “ to bind the colonies in all. cases
’whatsoever!1 . The declaration is in its
form, an almighty one, and is the loftiest
stretch of arbitrary power that ever one set
of men, or one country claimed over
another. Taxation was nothing more than
the putting the declared right into practice;
and this failing, recourse was had to arms,
as a means to establish both the right and
the practice, or to a worse purpose, which
will be mentioned in the course of this
number. And in order to repay themselves
the expence of an army, and to profit by their
own injustice, the colonies were, by another
law, declared to be in a state of actual rebel
lion, and of consequence all property therein
would fall to the conquerors.
The colonies, on their part, first, denied
the right; secondly, they suspended the use
of taxable articles, and petitioned against
the practice of taxation : and these failing,
they, thirdly, defended their property by
force, as soon as it was forcibly invaded,
and in answer to the declaration of rebellion
and non-protection, published their declara
tion of independence and right of self
protection.
These, in a few words, are the different
stages of the quarrel; and the parts are so
intimately and necessarily connected with
each other as to admit of no separation. A
person, to use a trite phrase, must be a
whig or a tory in a lump. His feelings, as a
man, may be wounded; his charity, as a
Christian, may be moved ; but his political
principles must go through all the cases on
one side or the other. He cannot be a
whig in this stage, and a tory in that. If
he says he is against the united indepen
dence of the continent, he is to all intents
and purposes against her in all the rest;
because this last comprehends the whole.
And he may just as we'll say, that Britain
was right in declaring us rebels ; right in
taxing us; and right in declaring her
right to bind the colonies in all cases what
soever! It signifies nothing what neutral
ground, of his own creating, he may skulk
upon for shelter, for the quarrel in no stage
of it hath afforded any such, ground ; and
either we or Britain are absolutely right or
absolutely wrong through the whole.
1 gee p. 41,
Britain, like a gamester nearly ruined,
hath now put all her losses into one bet,
and is playing a desperate game for the
total. If she wins it, she wins from me my
life ; she wins the continent as the forfeited,
property of rebels ; the right of taxing those
that are left as reduced subjects ; and the
power of binding them slaves : and the
single die which determines this unparal
leled event is, whether we support our
independence or she overturn it. This is.
coming to the point at once. Here is the
touchstone to try men by. He that is not a.
supporter of the independent states of
America, in the same degree that his reli
gious and political principles would suffer
him to support the government of any other
country, of which he called himself a subject,
is, in the American sense of the word, A
TORY; and the instant that he endeavours,
io bring his toryism into practice he becomes.
A TRAITOR. The first can only be detected
by a general test, and the law hath alreadyprovided for the latter.
It is unnatural and impolitic to admit,
men who would root up our independence
to have any share in our legislation, either
as electors or representatives ; because the
support of our independence rests, in a great,
measure, on the vigor and purity of our
public bodies. Would Britain, even in
time of peace, much less in war, suffer an
election to be carried by men who professed
themselves to be not her subjects, or allow
such to sit in parliament ? Certainly not.
But there are a certain species of tories.
with whom conscience or principle hath
nothing to do, and who are so from avarice
only. Some of the first fortunes on the
continent, on th,e part of the whigs, are
staked on the issue of our present measures.
And shall disaffection only be rewarded
with security ? Can any thing be a greater
inducement to a miserly man, than the hope
of making his mammon safe ? And though
the scheme be fraught with every character
of folly, yet, so long as he supposes, that by
doing nothing materially criminal against
America on one part, and by expressing
his private disapprobation against inde
pendence, as palliative with the enemy on
the other part, he stands in a safe line
between both; while, I say, this ground be
suffered to remain, craft, and the spirit of
avarice, will point it out, and men will not
be wanting to fill up this most contemptible
of all characters.
These men, ashamed to own the sordid
cause from whence their disaffection springs,
add thereby meanness to meanness, by
�5
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
endeavouring to shelter themselves under
the mask of hypocrisy ; that is, they had
rather be thought to be tories from some
kind of principle, than tories by having no
principle at all. But till such time as they
can show some real reason, natural, political,
or conscientious, on which their objections
to independence are founded, we are not
obliged to give them credit for being tories
of the first stamp, but must set them down
is torics of the last.
In the second number of the Crisis, I
endeavoured to show the impossibility of
the enemy’s making any conquest of
America, that nothing was wanting on our
part but patience and perseverance, and
that, with these virtues, our success, as far
as human speculation could discern, seemed
as certain as fate. But as there are many
among us, who, influenced by others, have
regularly gone back from the principles
they once held, in proportion as we have
gone forward ; and as it is the unfortunate
lot of many a good man to live within the
neighborhood of disaffected ones ; I shall,
therefore, for the sake of confirming the
one and recovering the other, endeavor, in
the space of a page or two, to go over some
of the leading principles in support of inde
pendence. It is a much pleasanter task to
prevent vice than to punish it, and, how
ever our tempers may be gratified by resent
ment, or our national expences be eased by
forfeited estates, harmony and friendship
is, nevertheless, the happiest condition a
country can be blest with.
The principal arguments in support of
independence may be comprehended under
the four following heads.
ist, The natural right of the continent to
independence.
2d, Her interest in being independent.
3d, The necessity,—and
4th, The moral advantages arising there
from.
I, The natural right of the continent to
independence, is a point which never yet
was called in question. It will not even
admit of a debate. To deny such a right,
would be a kind of atheism against nature :
and the best answer to such an objection
would be, “ The fool hath said in his heart
there is no God.”
II, The interest of the continent in being
independent is a point as clearly right as
the former. America, by her own internal
industry, and unknown to all the powers of
Europe, was, at the beginning of the dispute,
arrived at a pitch of greatness, trade and
population, beyond which it was the interest
' of Britain not to suffer her to pass, lest she
should grow too powerful to be kept subordi
nate. She began to view this countiy with
the same uneasy malicious eye, with which
a covetous guardian would view his ward,
whose estate he had been enriching himself
by . for twenty years, and saw him just
arriving at manhood. And America owes
no more to Britain for her present maturity,
than the ward would to the guardian for
being, twenty-one years of age. That
America hath flourished at the time she was
under the government of Britain, is true ;
but there is every natural reason to believe,
that had she been an independent country
from the first settlement thereof, uncon
trolled by any foreign power, free to make '
her own laws, regulate and encourage her
own commerce, she had by this time been
of much greater worth than now. The
case is simply this : the first settlers in the
different colonies were left to shift for them
selves, unnoticed and unsupported by any
European government: but as the tyranny
and persecution of the old world daily drove
numbers to the new, and as, by the favor
of heaven on their industry and perse
verance, they grew into importance, so, in
a like degree, they became an object of
profit to the greedy eyes of Europe. It
was impossible, in this state of infancy,
however thriving and promising, that they
could resist the power of any armed invader
that should seek to bring them under his
authority. In this situation, Britain thought
it worth her while to claim them, and the
continent received and acknowledged the
claimer. It was, in reality, of no very
great importance who was her master,
seeing, that from the force and ambition
of the different powers of Europe, she
must, till she acquired strength enough to
assert her own right, acknowledge some
one. As well, perhaps, Britain as another ;
and it might have been as well to have
been under the states of Holland as any.
The same hopes of engrossing and profiting
by her trade, by not oppressing it too
much, would have operated alike with any
master, and produced to the colonies the
same effects. The clamor of protection,
likewise, was all a farce ; because, in order
to make that protection necessary, she
must first, by her own quarrels, create us
enemies. Hard terms indeed I
To know whether it be the interest of
the continent to be independent, we need
only ask this easy, simple question : Is it
the interest of a man to be a boy all his
life ? The answer to one will be the
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
53
answer to both. America hath been one counteract her negociations, and by that
continued scene of legislative contention means she had the range of every foreign
from the first king’s representative to the court uncontradicted on our part. We
last; and this was unavoidably founded m even knew nothing of the treaty for the
the natural opposition of interest between Hessians till it was concluded, and the
the old country and the new. A governor troops ready to embark. Had we been
sent from England, or receiving his autho independent before, we had probably pre
rity therefrom, ought never to have been vented her obtaining them. We had no
considered in any other light than that of credit abroad, because of our rebellious
a genteel commissioned spy, whose private dependency. Our ships could claim no
business was information, and his public protection in foreign courts, because we
business a kind of civilized oppression. In afforded them no justifiable reason for
the first of these characters he was to granting it to us. The calling ourselves
watch the tempers, sentiments and dis subjects, and at the same time fighting
positions of the people, the growth of against the power which we acknowledged,
trade, and the increase of private fortunes ; was a dangerous precedent to all Europe.
and, in the latter, to suppress all such acts If the grievances justified the taking up
of the assemblies, however beneficial to arms, they justified our separation ; if they
the people, which did not directly or indi did not justify our separation, neither could
rectly, throw some increase of power . or they justify our taking up arms. All
profit into the hands of those that sent him. Europe was interested in reducing us as
America, till now, could never be called rebels, and all Europe (or the greatest part
a free country, because her legislation at least) is interested in supporting us as
depended on the will of a man three thou independent states. At home our condition
sand miles distant, whose interest was in was still worse ; our currency had no foun
opposition to ours, and who, by a single dation, and the fall of it would have ruined
whig and tory alike. We had no other law
“ no,” could forbid what law he pleased.
The freedom of trade, likewise, is, to a than a kind of moderated passion; no
trading country, an article of such import other civil power than an honest mob ; and
ance, that the principal source of wealth no other protection than the temporary
depends upon it; and it is impossible that attachment of one man to another. Had
any country can flourish, as it otherwise independence been delayed a few months
might do, whose commerce is engrossed, longer, this continent would have been
cramped and fettered by the laws and plunged into irrecoverable confusion : some
mandates of another—yet these evils, and violent for it, some against it, till, in the
more than I can here enumerate, the con general cabal, the rich would have beer
tinent has suffered by being under the ruined, and the poor destroyed. It is to
government of England. By an inde independence that every , tory. owes the
present safety which he lives in ; for by
pendence we clear the whole at once
put an end to the business of unanswered that, and that only, we emerged from a
petitions and . fruitless remonstrances— state of dangerous suspense, and became a
exchange Britain for Europe—shake hands regular people.
The necessity, likewise, of being inde
with the world—live at peace with the
world—and trade to any market where we pendent, had there been no rupture
between Britain and America, would, in. a
can buy and sell.
Ill, The necessity, likewise, of being little time, have brought one on. The in
independent, even before it was declared, creasing importance of commerce, the
became so evident and important, that, the weight and perplexity of legislation, and
continent ran the risk of. being ruined the entangled state of European politics,
every day that she delayed it. There was would daily have shown to the continent
reason to believe that Britain would en the impossibility of continuing subordinate;
deavour to make an European matter of for, after the coolest reflections on. the
it, and, rather than lose the whole, would matter, this must be allowed, that Britain
dismember it, like Poland, and dispose of was too jealous of America to govern it
her several claims to the highest bidder. justly ; too ignorant of it to govern it well;
Genoa, failing in her attempts to reduce and too far distant from it to govern it
Corsica, made a sale of it to the French, at all.
IV, But what weigh most with all men
and such traffics have been common in
the old world. We had at that time no of serious reflection are, the moral advan
ambassador in any part of Europe, to tages arising from independence : war and
�54
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
desolation have become the trade of the
old world ; and America neither could, nor
can be under the government of Britain
without becoming a sharer of her guilt,
and a partner in all the dismal commerce
of death. The spirit of duelling, extended
on a national scale, is a proper character
for European wars. They have seldom
any other motive than pride, or any other
object than fame. The conquerors and the
conquered are generally ruined alike, and
the chief difference at last is, that the one
marches home with his honours, and the
other without them. ’Tis the natural
temper of the English to fight for a feather,
if they suppose that feather to be an affront;
and America, without the right of asking
why, must have abetted in every quarrel,
and abided by its fate. It is a shocking
situation to live in, that one country must
be brought into all the wars of another,
whether the measure be right or wrong, or
whether she will or not; yet this, in the
fullest extent, was, and ever would be, the
unavoidable consequence of the connexion.
Surely the Quakers forgot their own prin
ciples, when, in their late Testimony, they
called this connexion, with these military
and miserable appendages hanging to it—
“ the happy constitution!
Britain, for centuries past, has been nearly
fifty years out of every hundred at war with
some power or other. It certainly ought to
be a conscientious as well as political con
sideration with America, not to dip her
hands in the bloody work of Europe. Our
situation affords us a retreat from their
cabals, and the present happy union of the
states bids fair for extirpating the future
use of arms from one quarter of the world ;
yet such have been the irreligious politics
of the present leaders of the Quakers, that,
for the sake of they scarce know what,
they would cut off every hope of such a
blessing by tying this continent to Britain,
like Hector to the chariot wheel of Achilles,
to be dragged through all the miseries of
endless European wars.
The connexion, viewed from this ground,
is distressing to every man who has the
feelings of humanity. By having Britain
for our master, we became enemies to the
greatest part of Europe, and they to us :
and the consequence was war inevitable.
By being our own masters, independent of
any foreign one, we have Europe for our
friends, and the prospect of an endless
peace among ourselves. Those who were
advocates for the British government over
these colonies, were obliged to. limit both
their arguments and their ideas to the
period of an European peace only: the
moment Britain became plunged in war,
every supposed convenience to us vanished,
and all we could hope for was not to be
ruined. Could this be a desirable condi
tion for a young country to be in ?
Had the French pursued their fortune
immediately after the defeat of Braddock
last war, this city and province had then
experienced the woful calamities of being
a British subject. A scene of the same
kind might happen again; for America,
considered as a subject to the crown of
Britain, would ever have been the seat of
war, and the bone of contention between
the two powers.
On the whole, if the future expulsion of
arms from one quarter of the world would
be a desirable object to a peaceable man ;
if the freedom of trade to every part of it
can engage the attention of a man of busi
ness ; if the support or fall of millions of
currency can affect our interests ; if the
entire possession of estates, by cutting off
the lordly claims of Britain over the soil,
deserves the regard of landed property;
and if the right of making our own laws,
uncontrolled by royal or ministerial spies
or mandates, be worthy our care as free
men ;—then are all men interested in the
support of independence ; and may he that
supports it not, be driven from the blessing,
and live unpitied beneath the servile suffer
ing of scandalous subjection !
We have been amused with the tales
of ancient wonders ; we have read, and
wept over the histories of other nations ;
applauded, censured, or pitied, as their
cases affected us. The fortitude and
patience of the sufferers—the justness of
their cause—the weight of their oppressions
and oppressors—the object to be saved or
lost—with all the consequences of a defeat
or a conquest—have, in the hour of sym
pathy, bewitched our hearts, and chained
it to their fate : but where is the power
that ever made war upon petitioners? Or
where is the war on which a world was
staked till now ?
We may not, perhaps, be wise enough to
make all the advantages we ought of our
independence; but they are, nevertheless,
marked and presented to us with every
character of great and good, and worthy
the hand of him who sent them. I look
through the present trouble to a time of
tranquillity, when we shall have it in our
power to set an example of peace to all the
world. Were the Quakers really impressed
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
and influenced by the quiet principles they
profess to hold, they would, however they
might disapprove the means, be the first of
all men to approve of independence, because,
by separating ourselves from the cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah, it affords an oppor
tunity never given to man before, of carrying
their favourite principle of peace into general
practice, by establishing governments that
shall hereafter exist without wars. O 1 ye
fallen, cringing, priest - and - Pembertonridden people ! What more can we say of
you than that a religious Quaker is a valuable
character, and a political Quaker a real
Jesuit.
Having thus gone over some of the
principal points in support of independence,
I must now request the reader to return
back with me to the period when it first
began to be a public doctrine, and to
examine the progress it has made among
the various classes of men. The era I
mean to begin at, is the breaking out of
hostilities, April 19th, 1775. Until this
event happened, the continent seemed to
view the dispute as a kind of law-suit for
a matter of right, litigating between the old
country and the new; and she felt the
same kind and degree of horror, as if she
had seen an oppressive plaintiff, at the
head of a band of ruffians, enter the court,
while the cause was before it, and put the
judge, the jury, the defendant and his
counsel, to the sword. Perhaps a more
heart-felt convulsion never reached the
country with the same degree of power and
rapidity before, and never may again. Pity
for the sufferers, mixed with indignation at
the violence, and heightened with appre
hensions of undergoing the same fate, made
the affair of Lexington the affair of the
continent. Every part of it felt the shock,
all vibrated together. A general promotion
of sentiment took place : those who had
drank deeply into whiggish principles, that
is, the right and necessity not only of
opposing, but wholly setting aside the
power of the crown as soon as it became
practically dangerous (for in theory it was
always so) stepped into the first stage of
independence; while another class of whigs,
equally sound in principle, but not so
sanguine in enterprise, attached themselves
the stronger to the cause, and fell close in
with the rear of the former ; their partition
was a mere point. Numbers of the
moderate men, whose chief fault, at that
time, arose from their entertaining a better
opinion of Britain than she deserved, con
vinced now of their mistake, gave her up,
.‘G
and publicly declared themselves good
whigs. While the tories, seeing it was no
longer a laughing matter, either sank into
silent obscurity, or contented themselves
with coming forth and abusing general
Gage : not a single advocate appeared toT
justify the action of that day ; it seemed to
appear to every one with the same magni
tude, struck every one with the same force,
and created in every one the same abhor
rence. From this period we may date the
growth of independence.
If the many circumstances which hap
pened at this memorable time, be taken in
one view, and compared with each other,
they will justify a conclusion which seems
not to have been attended to, I mean a
fixed design in the king and ministry of
driving America into arms, in order that
they might be furnished with a pretence for
seizing the whole continent, as the imme
diate property of the crown. A noble
plunder for hungry courtiers 1
It ought to be remembered that the first
petition from the congress was at this time
unanswered on the part of the British king.
That the motion, called Lord North’s
motion, of the 20th February, 1775, arrived
in America the latter end of March. This
motion was to be laid by the several
governors, then in being, before the
assembly of each province ; and the first
assembly before which it was laid, was the
assembly of Pennsylvania, in May follow
ing. This being a just state of the case, I
then ask, why were hostilities commenced
between the time of passing the resolve in
the house of commons, of the 20th of Febru
ary, and the time of the assemblies meeting
to deliberate upon it ? Degrading and in
famous as that motion was, there is, never
theless, reason to believe that the king and
his adherents were afraid the colonies
would agree to it, and lest they should,
took effectual care they should not, by
provoking them with hostilities in the
interim. They had not the least doubt at
that time of conquering America at one
blow ; and what they expected to get by a
conquest being infinitely greater than any
thing they could hope to get either by
taxation or accommodation, they seemed
determined to prevent even the possibility
of hearing each other, lest America should
disappoint their greedy hopes of the whole,
by listening even to their own terms. On
the one hand they refused to hear the
petition of the continent, and on the other
hand took effectual care the continent
should not hear them.
�56
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
That the motion of the 20th of February
and the orders for commencing hostilities
were both concerted by the same person or
persons, and not the latter by general Gage,
as was falsely imagined at first, is evident
from an extract of a letter of his to the
administration, read among other papers in
the house of commons; in which he informs
his masters, “ That though their idea of his
disarming certain counties was a right one,
yet it required him to be master of the
country, in order to enable him to execute it?
This was prior to the commencement of
hostilities, and consequently before the
motion of 20th February could be delibe
rated on by the several assemblies.
Perhaps it may be asked, why was the
motion passed, if there was at the same
time a plan to aggravate the Americans
not to listen to it ? Lord North assigned
one reason himself, which was a hofe of
dividing them. This was publicly tempting
them to reject it; that if, in case the injury
of arms should fail in provoking them
sufficiently, the insult of such a declaration
might fill it up. But by passing the motion
and getting it afterwards rejected in
America, it enabled them, in their wretched
idea of politics, among other things, to hold
up the colonies to foreign powers, with
every possible mark of disobedience and
rebellion. They had applied to those
powers not to supply the continent with
arms, ammunition, etc., and it was necessary
they should incense them against us, by
assigning on their own part some seeming
reputable reason why. By dividing, it had
a tendency to weaken the states, and like
wise to, perplex the adherents of America
in England. But the principal scheme,
and that which has marked their character
in every part of their conduct, was a design
of precipitating the colonies into a state
which they might afterwards deem rebellion,
and, under that pretence, put an end to all
future complaints, petitions and remon
strances, by seizing the whole at once.
They had ravaged one part of the globe,
till it could glut them no longer; their
prodigality required new plunder, and
through the East India article tea they
hoped to transfer their rapine from that
quarter of the world to this. Every
designed quarrel had its pretence; and the
same barbarian avarice accompanied the
flant to America, which ruined the country
that produced it.
That men never turn rogues without
turning fools is a maxim, sooner or later,
universally true. The commencement of
hostilities, being in the beginning of April,
was, of all times the worst chosen: the
congress were to meet the tenth of May
following, and the distress the continent
felt at this unparalleled outrage gave a
stability to that body, which no other
circumstance could have done. It sup
pressed, too, all inferior debates, and bound
them together by a necessitous affection,
without giving them time to differ upon
trifles. The suffering, likewise, softened
the whole body of the people into a degree
of pliability, which laid the principal foun
dation-stone of union, order and govern
ment ; and which, at any other time, might
only have fretted and then faded away
unnoticed and unimproved: but Providence,
who best knows how to time her misfortunes
as well as her immediate favours, chose this
to be the time, and who dare dispute it?
It did not seem the disposition of the
people, at this crisis, to heap petition upon
petition, while the former remained unan
swered : the measure, however, was carried
in congress, and a second petition was sent;
of which I shall only remark that it was
submissive even to a dangerous fault,
because the prayer of it appealed solely to
what is called the prerogative of the crown,
while the matter in dispute was confessedly
constitutional. But even this petition,
flattering as it was, was still not so har
monious as the chink of cash, and conse
quently not sufficiently grateful to the
tyrant and his ministry. From every
circumstance it is evident, that it was the
determination of the British court to have
nothing to do with America but to conquer
her fully and absolutely.
They were
certain of success, and the field of battle
was the only place of treaty. I am con
fident there are thousands and tens of
thousands in America who wonder now that
they should ever have thought otherwise ;
but the sin of that day was the sin of
civility, yet it operated against our present
good in the same manner that a civil opinion
of the devil would against our future peace.
Independence was a doctrine scarce and
rare, even towards the conclusion of the
year 1775 ; all our politics had been founded
on the hope or expectation of making the
matter up—a hope, which, though general
on the side of America, had never entered
the head or heart of the British court.
Their hope was conquest and confiscation.
Good heavens ! what volumes of thanks
does America owe to Britain 1 What
infinite obligation to the tool that fills, with
paradoxical vacancy, the throne ! Nothing
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
but the sharpest essence of villainy, com
pounded with the strongest distillation of
folly, could have produced a menstruum
that would have effected a separation.
The congress in 1774, administered an
abortive medicine to independence, by
prohibiting the importation of goods, and
the succeeding congress rendered the dose
still more dangerous by continuing it. Had
independence been a settled system with
America, (as Britain has advanced,) she
ought to have doubled her importation, and
prohibited in some degree her exportation.
And this single circumstance is sufficient to
acquit America before any jury of nations,
of having a continental plan of independ
ence in view : a charge which, had it been
true, would have been honorable, but is so
grossly false, that either the amazing
ignorance or the wilful dishonesty of the
British court, is effectually proved by it.
The second petition, like the first, pro
duced no answer ; it was scarcely acknow
ledged to have been received ; the British
court were too determined in their villainy
even to act it artfully and in their rage for
conquest neglected the necessary subtleties
for obtaining it. They might have divided,
distracted and played a thousand tricks
with us, had they been as cunning as they
were cruel.
This last indignity gave a new spring to
independence. Those who knew the
savage obstinacy of the king, and the
jobbing, gambling spirit of the court, pre
dicted the fate of the petition, as soon as it
was sent from America ; for the men being
known, their measures were easily fore
seen. As politicians we ought not so much
to ground our hopes on the reasonableness
of the thing we ask, as on the reasonable
ness of the person of whom we ask it; who
would expect discretion from a fool, candor
from a tyrant, or justice from a villain ?
As every prospect of accommodation
seemed now to fail fast, men began to
think seriously on the matter; and their
reason being thus stripped of the false hope
which had long encompassed it, became
approachable by fair debate; yet still the
bulk of the people hesitated ; they startled
at the novelty of independence, without
once considering that our getting into arms
at first was a more extraordinary novelty,
and that all other nations had gone through
the work of independence before us. They
doubted likewise the ability of the continent
to support it, without reflecting that it
required the same force to obtain an accom
modation by arms as an independence. If
57
the one was acquirable, the other was the
same ; because, to accomplish either, it was
necessary that our strength should be too
great for Britain to subdue ; and it was too
unreasonable to suppose, that with the
power of being masters, we should submit
to be servants.1 Their caution at this time
was exceedingly misplaced ; for if they
were able to defend their property and
maintain their rights by arms, they, conse
quently, were able to defend and support
their independence ; and in proportion as
these men saw the necessity and correct
ness of the measure, they honestly and
openly declared and adopted it, and the part
that they have acted since, has done them
honor and fully established their characters.
Error in opinion has this peculiar advantage
with it, that the foremost point of the con
trary ground may at any time be reached
by the sudden exertion of a thought; and
it frequently happens in sentimental dif
ferences, that some striking circumstance,
or some forcible reason quickly conceived
will effect in an instant what neither argu
ment nor example could produce in an age.
I find it impossible in the small compass
I am limited to, to trace out the progress
which independence has made on the minds
of the different classes of men, and the several
reasons by which they were moved. With
some, it was a passionate abhorrence against
1 In this state of political suspense the pam
phlet Common Sense made its appearance, and
the success it met with does not become me to
mention. Dr. Franklin, Mr. Samuel and John
Adams, were severally spoken of as the sup
posed author. I had not, at that time, the
pleasure either of personally knowing or being
known to the two last gentlemen. The favour
of Dr. Franklin’s friendship I possessed in
England, and my introduction to this part of the
world was through his patronage. I happened,
when a school-boy, to pick up a pleasing natural
history of Virginia, and my inclination from that
day ot seeing the western side of the Atlantic
never left me. In October, 1775, Dr. Franklin
proposed giving me such materials as were in
his hands, towards completing a history of the
present transactions, and seemed desirous of
having the first volume out next spring. I had
then formed the outlines of Common Sense, and
finished nearly the first part; and as I supposed
the doctor’s design in getting out a history, was
to open the new year with a new system, I
expected to surprise him with a production on
that subject, much earlier than he thought of;
and without informing him what I was doing,
got it ready for the press as fast as I conveniently
could, and sent him the first pamphlet that was
printed off, Author.
�58_________ ___________
THE AMERICAN CRISIS '
the king of England and his ministry, as
a set of savages and brutes; and these
men, governed by the agony of a wounded
jnind, were for trusting every thing to hope
and heaven, and bidding defiance at once.
With others, it was a growing conviction
that the scheme of the British court was to
create, ferment, and drive on a quarrel, for
the sake of confiscated plunder; and men
of this class ripened into independence in
proportion as the evidence increased. While
a third class conceived it was the true
interest of America, internally and externally,
to be her own master, and gave their support
to independence, step by step, as theysawher
abilities to maintain it enlarge. With many,
it was a compound of all these reasons; while
those who were too callous to be reached by
either, remained, and still remain tories.
The legal necessity of being independent,
with several collateral reasons, is pointed
out in an elegant masterly manner, in a
charge to the grand jury for the district of
Charleston, by the Hon. William Henry
Drayton, chief justice of South Carolina.
This performance, and the address of the
convention of New-York, are pieces, in my
humble opinion, of the first rank in America.
The principal causes why independence
has not been so universally supported as it
ought, are fear and indolence, and the causes
why it has been opposed, are, avarice,
down-right villainy, and lust of personal
power. There is not such a being in
America as a tory from conscience ; some
secret defect or other is interwoven in the
character of all those, be they men or women,
who can look with patience on the brutality,
luxury and debauchery of the British court,
and the violations of their army here. A
woman’s virtue must sit very lightly on her
who can even hint a favourable sentiment
in their behalf. It is remarkable that the
whole race of prostitutes in New-York were
tories ; and the schemes for supporting the
tory cause in this city, for which several
are now in jail, and one hanged, were
concerted and carried on in common bawdy
houses, assisted by those who kept them.
The connexion between vice and mean
ness is a fit subject for satire, but when the
satire is a. fact, it cuts with the irresistible
power of a diamond. If a Quaker, in defence
of his just rights, his property, and the
chastity of his house, takes up a musket, he
is expelled the meeting; but the present
king of England, who seduced and took
into keeping a sister of their society, is
reverenced and supported by repeated
Testimonies, while the friendly noodle
from whom she was taken (and who is now
in this city) continues a drudge in the
service of his rival, as if proud of being
cuckolded by a creature called a king.1
Our support and success depend on such
a variety of men and circumstances, that
every one who does but wish well, is of
some use: there are men who have a
strange aversion to arms, yet have hearts
to risk every shilling in the cause, or in
support of those who have better talents for
defending it. Nature, in the arrangement
of mankind, has fitted some for every service
in life : were all soldiers, all would starve
and go naked, and were none soldiers, all
would be slaves. As disaffection to inde
pendence is the badge of a tory, so affection
to it is the mark of a whig ; and the different
services of the whigs, down from those who
nobly contribute every thing, to those who
have nothing to render but their wishes,
tend all to the same centre, though with
different degrees of merit and ability. The
larger we make the circle, the more we
shall harmonize, and the stronger we shall
be. All we want to shut out is disaffection,
and, that excluded, we must accept from
each other such duties as we are best fitted
to bestow. A narrow system of politics,
like a narrow system of religion, is calculated
only to sour the temper, and be at variance
with mankind.
All we want to know in America is simply
this, who is for independence, and who is
not ? Those who are for it, will support it,
and the remainder will undoubtedly see the
reasonableness of paying the charges;
while those who oppose or seek to betray
it, must expect the more rigid fate of the
jail and the gibbet. There is a bastard
kind of generosity, which being extended
to all men, is as fatal to society, on one
hand, as the want of true generosity is on
the other. A lax manner of administering
justice, falsely termed moderation, has a
tendency both to dispirit public virtue, and
promote the growth of public evils. Had the
late committee of safety taken cognizance
of the last Testimony of the Quakers and
proceeded against such delinquents as were
concerned therein, they had, probably, pre
vented the treasonable plans which have
been concerted since. When one villain is
suffered to escape, it encourages another
1 This, of course, refers to Hannah Lightfoot.
“ It would appear,” says Dr. Conway (“Writings
of Paine,” vol. i., p. 216), “that Axford, to
whom she was said to have been married, was in
Philadelphia.”
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
to proceed, either from a hope of escaping
likewise, or an apprehension that we dare
not punish. It has been a matter of general
surprise, that no notice was taken of the
incendiary publication of the Quakers, of
the 20th of November last: a publication
evidently intended to promote sedition and
treason, and encourage the enemy, who
were then within a day’s march of this city, to
proceed on and possess it. I here present
the reader with a memorial which was laid
before the board of safety a few days after
the Testimony appeared. Not a member
of that board, that I conversed with, but
expressed the highest detestation of the
perverted principles and conduct of the
Quaker junto, and a wish that the board
would take the matter up ; notwithstanding
which, it was suffered to pass away un
noticed, to the encouragement of new acts
of treason, the general danger of the cause,
and the disgrace of the state.
Tq the honorable the Council of Safety of the
State of Pennsylvania.
At a meeting of a reputable number of
the inhabitants of the city of Philadelphia,
impressed with a proper sense of the justice
of the cause which this continent is engaged
in, and animated with a generous fervor for
supporting the same, it was resolved, that the
following be laid before the board of safety :
“We profess liberality of sentiment to all
men; with this distinction only, that those
who do not deserve it would become wise and
seek to deserve it. We hold the pure doc
trines of universal liberty of conscience, and
conceive it our duty to endeavour to secure that
sacred right to others, as well as to defend it
for ourselves; for we undertake not to judge
of the religious rectitude of tenets, but leave
the whole matter to Him who made us.
“We persecute no man, neither will we
abet in the persecution of any man for reli
gion’s sake; our common relation to others
being that of fellow-citizens and fellow-sub
jects of one single community; and in this
line of connexion we hold out the right hand
of fellowship to all men. But we should
conceive ourselves to be unworthy members
of the free and independent states of America,
were we unconcernedly to see or to suffer any
treasonable wound, public or private, directly
or indirectly, to be given against the peace
and the safety of the same. We inquire not
into the rank of the offenders, nor into their
religious persuasion; we have no business
with either, our part being only to find them
out and exhibit them to justice.
“A printed paper, dated the 20th of
November, and signed ‘John Pemberton, ’
whom we suppose to be an inhabitant of
this city, has lately been dispersed abroad,
59
a copy of which accompanies this. Had the
framers and publishers of that paper con
ceived it their duty to exhort the youth and
others of their society, to a patient submission
under the present trying visitations, and
humbly to await the event of heaven towards
them, they had therein showed a Christian
temper, and we had been silent; but the
anger and political virulence with which their
instructions are given, and the abuse with,
which they stigmatize all ranks of men, not
thinking like themselves, leave no doubt on>
our minds from what spirit their publication
proceeded: and it is disgraceful to the pure
cause of truth, that men can dally with words:
of the most sacred import, and play them off
as mechanically as if religion consisted only
in contrivance. We know of no instance in
which the Quakers have been compelled to bear
arms, or to do anything which might strain
their conscience, wherefore their advice, ‘ to
withstand and refuse to submit to the arbitrary
instructions and ordinances of men,’ appear
to us a false alarm, and could only be treason
ably calculated to gain favour with our enemies,
when they are seemingly on the brink of
invading this state, or what is still worse, to
weaken the hands of our defence, that their
entrance into this city might be made practic
able and easy.
“We disclaim all tumult and disorder in
the punishment of offenders ; and wish to be
governed, not by temper but by reason, in
the manner of treating them. We are sen
sible that our cause has suffered by the two
following errors; first, by ill-judged lenity
to traitorous persons in some cases ; and,
secondly, by only a passionate treatment of
them in others. For the future we disown
both, and wish to be steady in our proceed
ings, and serious in our punishments.
‘ ‘ Every state in America has, by the re
peated voice of its inhabitants, directed and
authorised the continental congress to publish
a formal declaration of independence of, and
separation from, the oppressive king and par
liament of Great Britain; and we look on
every man as an enemy who does not in some
line or other, give his assistance towards sup
porting the same; at the same time we con
sider the offence to be heightened to a degree
of unpardonable guilt, when such persons,
under the show of religion, endeavour, either
by writing, speaking, or otherwise, to subvert,
overturn, or bring reproach upon the inde
pendence of this continent as declared by
congress.
“ The publishers of the paper signed ‘John
Pemberton] have called in loud manner to
their friends and connexions, ‘ to withstand or
refuse ’ obedience to whatever ‘ instructions or
ordinances ’ may be published, not warranted
by (what they call) ‘that happy constitution
under which they and others long enjoyed
tranquillity and peace.’ If this be not treason,
�6o
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
we know not what may properly be called by pleasantly mistaking wrinkles for dimples,
that name.
conceive themselves yet lovely and wonder
“To us it is a matter of surprise and at the stupid world for not admiring them.
astonishment, that men with the word ‘peace,
Did no injury arise to the public by this
peace,' continually on their lips, should be so apostacy of the Quakers from themselves,
fond of living under and supporting a govern the public would have nothing to do with
ment, and at the same time calling it ‘ happy!
which is never better pleased than when at it; but as both the design and conse
war—that hath filled India with carnage and quences are pointed against a cause in
famine, Africa with slavery, and tampered which the whole community are interested,
with Indians and negroes to cut the throats it is therefore no longer a subject confined
of the freemen of America. We conceive it to the cognizance of the meeting only, but
a disgrace to this state, to harbour or wink at comes, as a matter of criminality, before
such palpable hypocrisy. But as we seek not either the authority of the particular state
to hurt the hair of any man’s head, when we in which it is acted, or of the continent
can make ourselves safe without, we wish against which it operates. Every attempt,
such persons to restore peace to themselves now, to support the authority of the king
and us, by removing themselves to some part and parliament of Great Britain over
of the king of Great Britain’s dominions, as America, is treason against every state ;
by that means they may live unmolested by
us and we by them ; for our fixed opinion is, therefore it is impossible that any one can
that those who do not deserve a place among pardon or screen from punishment an
offender against all.
us, ought not to have one.
But to proceed: while the infatuated
“We conclude with requesting the council
of safety to take into consideration the paper tories of this and other states were last
signed '■John Pemberton! and if it shall appear spring talking of commissioners, accom
to them to be of a dangerous tendency, or of modation, making the matter up, and the
a treasonable nature, that they would commit Lord knows what stuff and nonsense, their
the signer, together with such other persons good king and ministry were glutting them
as they can discover were concerned therein, selves with the revenge of reducing America
into custody, until such time as some mode of to unconditional submission, and solacing
trial shall ascertain the full degree of their each other with the certainty of conquering
guilt and punishment; in the doing of which, it in one campaign. The following quota
we wish their judges, whoever they may be,
to disregard the man, his connections, interest, tions are from the parliamentary register
riches, poverty, or principles of religion, and of the debates of the house of lords, March
5th, 1776 :
to attend to the nature of his offence only.”
“The Americans,” says lord Talbot,1
“have been obstinate, undutiful, and un
The most cavilling sectarian cannot
governable from the very beginning, from
accuse the foregoing with containing the
their first early and infant settlements ; and I
least ingredient of persecution. The free
am every day more and more convinced that
spirit on which the American cause is
this people never will be brought back to their
founded, disdains to mix with such an
duty, and the subordinate relation they stand
impurity, and leaves it as rubbish fit only
in to this country, till reduced to unconditional,
for narrow and suspicious minds to grovel
effectual submission ; no concession on ourpart,
in. Suspicion and persecution are weeds
no lenity, no endurance, will have any other
of the same dunghill, and flourish together.
effect but that of increasing their insolence.” _
Had the Quakers minded their religion
“ The struggle,” says lord Townsend,1 “is
2
now a struggle for power ; the die is cast, and
and their business, they might’ have lived
the only point which now remains to be deter
through this dispute in enviable ease, and
mined, is. in what manner the war can be
none would have molested them. The
most effectually prosecuted and speedily
common phrase with these people is, ‘ Our
finished, in order to procure that unconditional
principles are peace! To which may be
submission, which has been so ably stated by
replied, and your practices are the reverse;
the noble earl with the white staff;” (meaning
for never did the conduct of men oppose
lord Talbot,) “and I have no reason to doubt
their own doctrine more notoriously than
that the measures now pursuing will put an
the present race of the Quakers. _ They
end to the war in the course of a single
have artfully changed themselves into a
campaign. Should it linger longer, we shall
different sort of people to what they used
then have reason to expect that some foreign
to be, and yet have the address to persuade
each other that they are not altered ; like
antiquated virgins, they see not the havoc
deformity has made upon them, but
1 Steward of the king’s household. Author.
2 Formerly, general Townsend, at Quebec,
and late lord-lieutenant of Ireland. Author.
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
power will interfere, and take advantage of
our domestic troubles and civil distractions.”
Lord Littleton.
“ My sentiments are
pretty well known. I shall only observe now
that lenient measures have had no other effect
than to produce insult after insult; that the
more we conceded, the higher America rose
in her demands, and the more insolent she
hrs grown. It is for this reason that I am
now for the most effective and decisive
measures ; and am of opinion that no alterna
tive is left us, but to relinquish America for
ever, or finally determine to compel her to
acknowledge the legislative authority of this
country; and it is the principle of an uncon
ditional submission I would be for maintain
ing.”
Can words be more expressive than these ?
Surely the tories will believe the tory lords 1
The truth is, they
believe them, and
know as fully as any whig on the continent
knows, that the king and ministry never
had the least design of an accommodation
with America, but an absolute unconditional
conquest. And the part which the tories
were to act, was, by downright lying, to
endeavour to put the continent off its guard,
and to divide and sow discontent in the
minds of such whigs as they might gain an
influence over. In short, to keep up a
distraction here, that the force sent from
England might be able to conquer in “ one
campaign! They and the ministry were,
by a different game, playing into each
other’s hands. The cry of the tories in
England was, “ No reconciliation, no accom
modation? in order to obtain the greater
military force; while those in America
were crying nothing but “reconciliation and
accommodation? that the force sent might
conquer with the less resistance.
But this “single campaign” is over, and
America not conquered. The whole work
is yet to do, and the force much less to do
it with. Their condition is both despicable
and deplorable : out of cash—out of heart,
and out of hope. A country furnished with
arms and ammunition, as America now is,
with three millions of inhabitants, and three
thousand miles distant from the nearest
enemy that can approach her, is able to
look and laugh them in the face.
Howe appears to have two objects in
view, either to go up the North river, or
come to Philadelphia.
By going up the North river, he secures
a retreat for his army through Canada, but
the ships must return if they return at all,
the same .way they went ; as our army
would be in the rear, the safety of their
61
passage down is a doubtful matter. By
such a motion he shuts himself from all
supplies from Europe, but through Canada,
and exposes his army and navy to the
danger of perishing. The idea of his cutting
off the communication between the eastern
and southern states, by means of the North
river, is merely visionary. He cannot do it
by his shipping, because no ship can lay
long at anchor in any river within reach of
the shore ; a single gun would drive a first
rate from such a station. This was fully
proved last October at forts Washington
and Lee, where one gun only, on each side
of the river, obliged two frigates to cut and
be towed off in an hour’s time. Neither
can he cut it oft by his army ; because the
several posts they must occupy, would
divide them almost to nothing, and expose
them to be picked up by ours like pebbles
on a river’s bank. But admitting that he
could, where is the injury ? Because, while
his whole force is cantoned out, as sentries
over the water, they will be very innocently
employed, and the moment they march into
the country, the communication opens.
The most probable object is Philadelphia,
and the reasons are many. Howe’s business
is to conquer it, and in proportion as he
finds himself unable to the task, he will
employ his strength to distress women and
weak minds, in order to accomplish through
their fears what he cannot accomplish by
his own force. His coming or attempting
to come to Philadelphia is a circumstance
that proves his weakness : for no general
that felt himself able to take the field and
attack his antagonist, would think of bring
ing his army into a city in the summer time;
and this mere shifting the scene from place
to place, without effecting any thing, has
feebleness and cowardice on the face of it,
and holds him up in a contemptible light
to all who can reason justly and firmly. By
several informations from New-York, it
appears that their army in general, both
officers and men, have given up the expec
tation of conquering America ; their eye
now is fixed upon the spoil. They suppose
Philadelphia to be rich with stores, and as
they think to get more by robbing- a town
than by attacking an army, their movement
towards this city is probable. We are not
now contending against an army of soldiers,
but against a band of thieves, who had
rather plunder than fight, and have no
other hope of conquest than by cruelty.
They expect to get a mighty booty, and
strike another general panic, by making
a sudden movement and getting possession
�62
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
of this city ; but unless they can march out
as well as in, or get the entire command of
the river, to remove off their plunder, they
may probably be stopped with the stolen
goods upon them. They have never yet
succeeded wherever they have been opposed,
but at fort Washington. At Charleston
their defeat was effectual. At Ticonderoga
they ran away.
In every skirmish at
Kingsbridge and the White Plains they
were obliged to retreat, and the instant that
our arms were turned upon them in the
Jerseys, they turned likewise, and those
that turned not were taken.
The necessity of always fitting our internal
policy to the circumstances of the times we
live in, is something so strikingly obvious,
that no sufficient objection can be made
against it. The safety of all societies
•depends upon it; and where this point is
mot attended to, the consequences will
•either be a general languor or a tumult.
'The encouragement and protection of the
:good subjects of any state, and the suppres
sion and punishment of bad ones, are the
principal objects for which all authority is
instituted, and the line in which it ought to
operate. We have in this city a strange
variety of men and characters, and the
^circumstances of the times require that they
should be publicly known ; it is not the
number of tories that hurt us, so much as
the not finding out who they are; men
must now take one side or the other, and
abide by the consequences : the Quakers,
trusting to their short-sighted sagacity,
have, most unluckily for them, made their
declaration in their last Testimony, and we
ought now to take them at their word.
They have voluntarily read themselves out
of continental meeting, and cannot hope to
be restored to it again but by payment and
penitence. Men whose political principles
are founded on avarice, are beyond the
reach of reason, and the only cure of toryism
of this cast, is to tax it. A substantial good
drawn from areal evil, is of the same benefit
to society, as if drawn from a virtue ; and
where men have not public spirit to render
themselves serviceable, it ought to be the
study of government to draw the best use
possible from their vices. When the
governing passion of any man, or set of
men, is once known, the method of manag
ing them is easy ; for even misers, whom
: no public virtue can impress, would become
■generous, could a heavy tax be laid upon
• covetousness.
The tories have endeavoured to insure
their property with the enemy, by forfeiting
their reputation with us; from which may
be justly inferred, that their governing
passion is avarice. Make them as much
afraid of losing on one side as on the other,
and you stagger their toryism ; make them
more so, and you reclaim them; for their
principle is to worship the power which
they are most afraid of.
This method of considering men and
things together, opens into a large field for
speculation, and affords me an opportunity
of offering some observations on the state
of our currency, so as to make the support
of it go hand in hand with the suppression
of disaffection and the encouragement of
public spirit.
The thing which first presents itself in
inspecting the state of the currency, is, that
we have too much of it, and that there is
a necessity of reducing the quantity, in
order to increase the value. Men are daily
growing poor by the very means that they
take to get rich ; for in the same proportion
that the prices of all goods on hand are
raised, the value of all money laid by is
reduced. A simple case will make this
clear : let a man have a 100Z. in cash, and
as many goods on hand as will to-day sell
for 20Z., but not content with the present
market price, he raises them to 40Z. and by
so doing obliges others, in their own defence,
to raise cent, per cent, likewise ; in this
case it is evident that his hundred pounds
laid by, is reduced fifty pounds in value ;
whereas, had the market lowered cent, per
cent, his goods would have sold but for ten,
but his hundred pounds would have risen
in value to two hundred ; because it would
then purchase as many goods again, or
support his family as long again as before.
And, strange as it may seem, he is one
hundred and fifty pounds the poorer for
raising his goods, to what he would have
been had he lowered them ; because the
forty pounds which his goods sold for, is,
by the general raise of the market cent, per
cent., rendered of no more value than the
ten pounds would be had the market fallen
in the same proportion ; and, consequently,
the whole difference of gain or loss is on
the difference in value of the hundred
pounds laid by,
from fifty to two
hundred. This rage for raising goods is
for several reasons much more the fault of
the tories than the whigs ; and yet the
tories (to their shame and confusion ought
they to be told of it) are by far the most
noisy and discontented. The greatest part
of the whigs, by being now either in the
army or employed in some public service,.
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
are buyers only and not sellers, and as this
evil has its origin in trade, it cannot be
charged on those who are out of it.
But the grievance has now become too
general to be remedied by partial methods,
and the only effectual cure is to reduce the
quantity of money : with half the quantity
we should be richer than we are now,
because the value of it would be doubled,
and consequently our attachment to it
increased ; for it is not the number of
dollars a man has, but how far they will go,
that makes him either rich or poor.
These two points being admitted, viz.
that the quantity of money is too great, and
that the prices of goods can only be
effectually reduced by reducing the quantity
of the money, the next point to be con
sidered is, the method how to reduce it.
The circumstances of the times, as before
observed, require that the public characters
of all men should now be fully understood,
and the only general method of ascertaining
it is by an oath or affirmation, renouncing
all allegiance to the king of Great Britain,
and to support the independence of the
United States, as declared by congress.
Let, at the same time a tax of ten, fifteen,
or twenty per cent, per annum, to be
collected quarterly, be levied on all pro
perty. These alternatives, by being per
fectly voluntary, will take in all sorts of
people. Here is the test; here is the tax.
He who. takes the former, conscientiously
proves his affection to the cause, and binds
himself to pay his quota by the best
services in his power, and is thereby justly
exempt from the latter; and those who
choose the latter, pay their quota in money,
to be excused from the former, or rather, it
is the price paid to us for their supposed,
though mistaken, insurance with the enemy.
But this is only a part of the advantage
which would arise by knowing the different
characters of the men. The whigs stake
every thing on the issue of their arms,
while the tories, by their disaffection, are
sapping and undermining their strength ;
and, of consequence, the property of the
whigs is more exposed thereby; and what
ever injury their states may sustain by the
movements of the enemy, must either be
borne by themselves, who have done every
thing which has yel been done, or by the
tories, who have not only done nothing,
but have, by their disaffection, invited the
enemy on.
In the present crisis we ought to know,
square by square, and house by house, who
are in real allegiance with the United
63
Independent States, and who are not. Let
but the line be made clear and distinct, and
all men will then know what they are to
trust to. It would not only be good policy
but strict justice, to raise fifty or one
hundred thousand pounds, or more, if it is
necessary, out of the estates and property
of the king of England’s votaries, resident
in Philadelphia, to be distributed, as a
reward to those inhabitants of the city and
state, who should turn out and repulse the
enemy, should they attempt to march this
way ; and likewise, to bind the property of
all such persons to make good the damages
which that of the whigs might sustain. In
the undi ;tinguishable mode of conducting
war, we frequently make reprisals at sea,
on the vessels of persons in England, who
are friends to our cause, compared with the
resident tories among us.
In every former publication of mine, from
Common Sense down to the last Crisis, I
have generally gone on the charitable sup
position, that the tories were rather a mis
taken than a criminal people, and have
applied argument after argument, with all
the candor and temper which I was
capable of, in order to set every part of the
case, clearly and fairly before them, and if
possible to reclaim them from ruin to
reason. I have done my duty by them and
have now done with that doctrine, taking it
for granted, that those who yet hold their
disaffection, are, either a set of avaricious
miscreants, who would sacrifice the con
tinent to save themselves, or a banditti of
hungry traitors, who are hoping for a
division of the spoil. To which may be
added, a list of crown or proprietary
dependants, who, rather than go without a
portion of power, would be content to share
it with the devil. Of such men there is no
hope ; and their obedience will only be
according to the danger set before them,
and the power that is exercised over them.
A time will shortly arrive, in which, by
ascertaining the characters of persons now,
we shall be guarded against their mischiefs
then; for in proportion as the enemy
despair of conquest, they will be trying the
arts of seduction and the force of fear by
all the mischiefs which they can inflict. But
in. war we may be certain of these two
things, viz. that cruelty in an enemy, and
motions made with more than usual parade,
are always signs of weakness. He that can
conquer finds his mind too free and pleasant
to be brutish; and he that intends to
conquer never makes too much show of his
strength.
�64
fyc
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
We now know the enemy we have to do
with. While drunk with the certainty of
victory, they disdained to be civil; and in
proportion as disappointment makes them
sober, and their apprehensions of an
European war alarm them, they will
become cringing and artful; honest they
cannot be. But our answer to them, in
either condition they may be in, is short
and full—“ As free and independent states
we are willing to make peace with you to
morrow, but we neither can hear nor reply
in any other character.”
If Britain cannot conquer us, it proves
that she is neither able to govern nor
protect us, and our particular situation now
is such, that any connexion with her would
be unwisely exchanging a half-defeated
enemy for two powerful ones. Europe, by
every appearance, is now on the eve, nay,
on the morning twilight of a war, and any
alliance with George the third, brings
France and Spain upon our backs; a
separation from him attaches them to our
side; therefore, the only road to peace,
honour and commerce, is Independence.
Written this fourth year of the union,
which God preserve.
Common
Philadelphia, April 19, ipjq.
Sense.
IV.
THOSE who expect to reap the blessings of
freedom, must, like men, undergo the
fatigues of supporting it. The event of
yesterday1 was one of those kind of alarms
which is just sufficient to rouse us to duty,
without being of consequence enough to
depress our fortitude. It is not a field of a
few acres of ground, but a cause, that we
are defending, and whether we defeat the
enemy in one battle, or by degrees, the
consequence will be the same.
Look back at the events of last winter
and the present year; there you will find
that the enemy’s successes always con
tributed to reduce them. What they have
gained in ground, they paid so dearly for in
numbers, that their victories have in the
end amounted to defeats. We have always
been masters at the last push, and always
shall be while we do our duty. Howe has
been once on the banks of the Delaware,
and from thence driven back with loss and
disgrace : and why not be again driven
1 Battle of Brandywine, September n, 1777.
from the Schuylkill? His condition and
ours are very different. He has every body
to fight, we have only his one army to cope
with, and which wastes away at every
engagement: we can not only reinforce,
but can redouble our numbers ; he is cut
off from all supplies, and must sooner or
later inevitably fall into our hands.
Shall a band of ten or twelve thousand
.robbers, who are this day fifteen hundred
or two thousand men less in strength than
they were yesterday, conquer America, or
subdue even a single state ? The thing
cannot be, unless we sit down and suffer
them to do it. Another such a brush, not
withstanding we lost the ground, would, by
still reducing the enemy, put them in a
condition to be afterwards totally defeated.
Could our whole army have come up to
the attack at one time, the consequences
had probably been otherwise ; but our
having different parts of the Brandywine
creek to guard, and the uncertainty which
road to Philadelphia the enemy would
attempt to take, naturally afforded them
an opportunity of passing with their main
body at a place where only a part of ours
could be posted ; for it must strike every
thinking man with conviction, that it
requires a much greater force to oppose
an enemy in several places, than is sufficient
to defeat him in any one place.
Men who are sincere in defending their
freedom, will always feel concern at every
circumstance which seems to make against
them ; it is the natural and honest conse
quence of all affectionate attachments, and
the want of it is a vice. But the dejection
lasts only for a moment; they soon rise
out of it with additional vigor ; the glow of
hope, courage and fortitude, will, in a little
time, supply the place of every inferior
passion, and kindle the whole heart into
heroism.
There is a mystery in the countenance
of some causes, which we have not always
present judgment enough to explain. It is
distressing to see an enemy advancing into
a country, but it is the only place in which
we can beat them, and in which we have
always beaten them, whenever they made
the attempt. The nearer any disease ap
proaches to a crisis, the nearer it is to a
cure. Danger and deliverance make their
advances together, and it is only the last
push, in which one or the other takes the
lead.
There are many men who will do their
duty when it is not wanted ; but a genuine
public spirit always appears most when
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
there is most occasion for it. Thank God !
our army, though fatigued, is yet entire.
The attack made by us yesterday, was
under many disadvantages, naturally arising
from the uncertainty ot knowing which
route the enemy would take; and, from
that circumstance, the whole of our force
could not be brought up together time
enough to engage all at once. Our strength
is yet reserved ; and it is evident that Howe
does not think himself a gainer by the
affair, otherwise he would this morning
have moved down and attacked general
Washington.
Gentlemen of the city and country, it is
in your power, by a spirited improvement
of the present circumstance, to turn it to a
real advantage. Howe is now weaker than
before, and every shot will contribute to
reduce him. You are more immediately
interested than any other part of the con
tinent ; your all is at stake; it is not so
with the general cause ; you are devoted
by the enemy to plunder and destruction :
it is the encouragement which Howe, the
chief of plunderers, has promised his army.
Thus circumstanced, you may save your
selves by a manly resistance, and you can
have no hope in any other conduct. I
never yet knew our brave general, or any
part of the army, officers or men, out of
heart, and I have seen them in circum
stances a thousand times more trying than
the present. It is only those that are not
in action, that feel languor and heaviness,
and the best way to rub it off is to turn
out, and make sure work of it.
Our army must undoubtedly feel fatigue,
and want a reinforcement of rest, though
not of valour. Our own interest and happi
ness call upon us to give them every support
in our power, and make the burden of the
day, on which the safety of this city depends,
as light as possible. Remember, gentle
men, that we have forces both to the north
ward and southward of Philadelphia, and
if the enemy be but stopped till those can
arrive, this city will be saved, and the
enemy finally routed. You have too much
at stake to hesitate. You' ought not to
think an hour upon the matter, but to
spring to action at once. Other states
have been invaded, have likewise driven
off the invaders. Now our time and turn
is come, and perhaps the finishing stroke
is reserved for us. When we look back on
the dangers we have been saved from, and
reflect on the success we have been blessed
with, it would be sinful either to be idle or
to despair.
65
I close this paper with a short address
to general Howe. You, sir, are only linger
ing out the period that shall bring with it
your defeat. You have yet scarce begun
upon the war, and the further you enter,
the faster will your troubles thicken. What
you now enjoy is only a respite from ruin ;
an invitation to destruction; something
that will lead on to our deliverance at your
expence. We know the cause which we
are engaged in, and though a passionate
fondness for it may make us grieve at every
injury which threatens it, yet, when the
moment of concern is over, the determina
tion to duty returns. We are not moved
by the gloomy smile of a worthless king,
but by the ardent glow of generous patriot
ism. We fight not to enslave, but to set a
country free, and to make room upon the
earth for honest men to live in. In such a
case we are sure that we are right; and we
leave to you the despairing reflection of
being the tool of a miserable tyrant.
Common
Philadelphia, Sept. 12, 1777.
Sense.
V.
TO GEN. SIR WILLIAM HOWE.
To argue with a man who has renounced
the use and authority of reason, and whose
philosophy consists in holding humanity in
contempt, is like administering medicine
to the dead, or endeavouring to convert an
atheist by scripture. Enjoy, sir, your in
sensibility of feeling and reflecting. It is
the prerogative of animals. And no man
will envy you those honours, in which a
savage only can be your rival and a bear
your master.
As the generosity of this country rewarded
your brother’s services last war, with an
elegant monument in Westminster Abbey,
it is consistent that she should bestow some
mark of distinction upon you. You cer
tainly deserve her notice, and a conspicuous
place in the catalogue of extraordinary
persons. Yet it would be a pity to pass
you from the world in state, and consign
you to magnificent oblivion among the
tombs, without telling the future beholder
why. Judas is as much known as John,
yet history ascribes their fame to very
different actions.
Sir William hath undoubtedly merited a
monument; but of what kind, or with what
D
�66
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
inscription, where placed or how embel
lished, is a question that would puzzle all
the heralds of St. James's in the profoundest
mood of historical deliberation. We are
at no loss, sir* to ascertain your real char
acter, but somewhat perplexed how to
perpetuate its identity, and preserve it
uninjured from the transformations of time
or mistake. A statuary may give a false
expression to your bust, or decorate it with
some equivocal emblems, by which you
may happen to steal into reputation and
impose upon the hereafter traditionary
world. Ill nature or ridicule may conspire,
or a variety of accidents combine to lessen,
enlarge, or change Sir William’s fame;
and no doubt but he who has taken so
much pains to be singular in his conduct,
would choose to be just as singular in his
exit, his monument and his epitaph.
The usual honours of the dead, to be
sure, are not sufficiently sublime, to escort
a character like you to the republic of dust
and ashes ; for however men may differ in
their ideas of grandeur or of government
here, the grave is nevertheless a perfect
republic. Death is not the monarch of the
dead, but of the dying. The moment he
obtains a conquest he loses a subject, and,
like the foolish king you serve, will, in the
end, war himself out of all his dominions.
As a proper preliminary towards the
arrangement of your funeral honours, we
readily admit of your new rank of knight
hood. The title is perfectly in character,
and is your own, more by merit than crea
tion. There are knights of various orders,
from the knight of the windmill to the
knight of the post. The former is your
pattern for exploits, and the latter will
assist you in settling your accounts. No
honorary title could be more happily
applied 1 The ingenuity is sublime ! And
your royal master hath discovered more
genius in fitting you therewith, than in
generating the most finished figure for a
button, or descanting on the properties of
a button mould.
But how, sir, shall we dispose of you?
The invention of a statuary is exhausted,
and Sir William is yet unprovided with a
monument. America is anxious to bestow
her funeral favours upon you, and wishes
to do it in a manner that shall distinguish
you from all the deceased heroes of the
last war. The Egyptian method of embalm
ing is not known to the present age, and
hieroglyphical pageantry have outlived the
science of decyphering it. Some other
method, therefore, must be thought of to
immortalize the new knight of the windmill
and post. Sir William, thanks to his stars,
is not oppressed with very delicate ideas.
He has no ambition of being wrapped up
and handed about in myrrh, aloes and
cassia. Less expensive odours will suffice ;
and it fortunately happens, that the simple
genius of America hath discovered the art
of preserving bodies, and embellishing
them too, with much greater frugality than
the ancients. In balmage, sir, of humble
tar, you will be as secure as Pharaoh, and
in a hieroglyphic of feathers, rival in
finery all the mummies of Egypt.
As you have already made your exit
from the moral world, and by numberless
acts both of passionate and deliberate in
justice, engraved an '•'■here lyethn on your
deceased honour, it must be mere affecta
tion in you to pretend concern at the
humours or opinions of mankind respecting
you. What remains of you may expire at
any time. The sooner the better. For he
who survives his reputation, lives out of
despite of himself, like a man listening to
his own reproach.
Thus entombed and ornamented, I leave
you to the inspection of the curious, and
return to the history of your yet surviving
actions. The character of Sir William
hath undergone some extraordinary revolu
tions since his arrival in America. It is
now fixed and known; and we have nothing
to hope from your candour or to fear from
your capacity. Indolence and inability
have too large a share in your composition,
ever to suffer you to be anything more than
the' hero of little villainies and unfinished
adventures. That, which to some persons
appeared moderation in you at first, was
not produced by any real virtue of your
own, but by a contrast of passions, dividing
and holding you in perpetual irresolution.
One vice will frequently expel another,
without the least merit in the man ; as
powers in contrary directions reduce each
other to rest.
It became you to have supported a digni
fied solemnity of character ; to have shown
a superior liberality of soul; to have won
respect by an obstinate perseverance in
maintaining order, and to have exhibited
on all occasions, such an unchangeable
graciousness of conduct, that while we
beheld in you the resolution of an enemy,
we might admire in you the sincerity of a
man. You came to America under the
high sounding titles of commander and
commissioner ; not only to suppress what
you call rebellion, by arms, but to shame it
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
out of countenance, by the excellence of
your example. Instead of which, you have
been the patron of low and vulgar frauds,
the encourager of Indian cruelties ; and
have imported a cargo of vices blacker than
those which you pretend to suppress.
Mankind are not universally agreed in
their determination of right and wrong;
but there are certain actions which the
consent of all nations and individuals hath
branded with the unchangeable name of
meanness. In the list of human vices we
find some of such a refined constitution,
they cannot be carried into practice without
seducing some virtue to their assistance ;
but meanness hath neither alliance nor
apology. It is generated in the dust and
sweepings of other vices, and is of such a
hateful figure that all the rest conspire to
disown it. Sir William, the commissioner
of George the third, hath at last vouchsafed
to give it rank and pedigree. He has
placed the fugitive at the council board, and
dubbed it companion of the order of knight
hood.
The particular act of meanness which I
allude to in this description, is forgery.
You, sir, have abetted and patronized the
forging and uttering counterfeit continental
bills. In the same New-York newspapers
in which your own proclamation under
your master’s authority was published,
offering, or pretending to offer, pardon and
protection to these states, there were
repeated advertisements of counterfeit
money for sale, and persons who have come
officially from you, and under the sanction
of your flag, have been taken up in attempt
ing to put them off.
A conduct so basely mean in a public
character is without precedent or pretence.
Every nation on earth, whether friends or
enemies, will unite in despising you. ’Tis an
incendiary war upon society, which nothing
can excuse or palliate,—an improvement
upon beggarly villainy—and shows an
inbred wretchedness of heart made up
between the venomous malignity of a
serpent and a spiteful imbecility of an
inferior reptile.
The laws of any civilized country would
condemn you to the gibbet without regard
to your rank or titles, because it is an action
foreign to the usage and custom of war;
and should you fall into our hands, which
pray God you may, it will be a doubtful
matter whether we are to consider you as a
military prisoner or a prisoner for felony.
Besides, it is exceedingly unwise and
impolitic in you, or any other person in the
67
English service, to promote or even
encourage, or wink at the crime of forgery,
in any case whatever. Because, as the
riches of England, as a nation, are chiefly
in paper, and the far greater part of trade
among individuals is carried on by the
same medium, that is, by notes and drafts
on one another, they, therefore, of all
people in the world, ought to endeavour to
keep forgery out of sight, and, if possible,
not to revive the idea of it. It is dangerous
to make men familiar with a crime which
they may afterwards practise to much
greater advantage against those who first
taught them. Several officers in the
English army have made their exit at the
gallows for forgery on their agents ; for we
all know, who know any thing of England,
that there is not a more necessitous body
of men, taking them generally, than what
the English officers are. They contrive to
make a show at the expence of the tailors,
and appear clean at the charge of the
washer-women.
England hath, at this time, nearly two
hundred million pounds sterling of public
money in paper, for which she hath no
real property: besides a large circulation
of bank notes, bank post bills, and pro
missory notes and drafts of private bankers,
merchants and tradesmen. She hath the
greatest quantity of paper currency and the
least quantity of gold and silver of any
nation in Europe ; the real specie which is
about sixteen millions sterling serves only
as change in large sums, which are always
made in paper, or for payment in small
ones. Thus circumstanced, the nation is
put to its wit’s end, and obliged to be
severe almost to criminality, to prevent the
practice and growth of forgery. Scarcely
a session passes at the Old Bailey, or an
execution at Tyburn, but witnesseth this
truth, yet you, sir, regardless of the policy
which her necessity obliges her to adopt,
have made your whole army intimate with
the crime. And as all armies, at the con
clusion of a war, are too apt to carry into
practice the vices of the campaign, it will
probably happen, that England will here
after abound in forgeries, to which art, the
practitioners were first initiated under your
authority in America. You, sir, have the
honour of adding a new vice to the military
catalogue; and the reason, perhaps, why
the invention was reserved for you is,
because no general before was mean enough
ever to think of it.
That a man, whose soul is absorbed in
the low traffic of vulgar vice, is incapable of
�68
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
moving, in any superior region, is clearly
shown in you by the event of every cam
paign. Your military exploits have been
without plan, object, or decision. Can it
be possible that you or your employers
suppose that the possession of Philadelphia
will be any ways equal to the expence or
expectation of the nation which supports
you ? What advantages does England
derive from any achievement of yours ?
To her it is perfectly indifferent what place
you are in, so long as the business of
conquest is unperformed and the charge of
maintaining you remains the same.
If the principal events of the three cam
paigns be attended to, the balance will
appear against you at the close of each ;
but the last, in point of importance to us,
has exceeded the former two.
It is
pleasant to look back on dangers past, and
equally as pleasant to meditate on present
ones when the way out begins to appear.
That period is now arrived, and the long
doubtful winter of war is changing to the
sweeter prospects of victory and joy. At
the close of the campaign, in 1775, you
were obliged to retreat from Boston. In
the summer of 1776, you appeared with a
numerous fleet and army in the harbor of
New-York. By what miracle the continent
was preserved in that season of danger is
a subject of admiration 1 If instead of
wasting your time against Long-Island,
you had run up the North river, and landed
any where above New-York, the conse
quence must have been, that either you
would have compelled general Washington
to fight you with very unequal numbers,
or he must suddenly have evacuated the
city with the loss of nearly all the stores of
his army, or have surrendered forwantof pro
visions ; the situation of the place naturally
producing one or the other of these events.
The preparations made to defend NewYork were, nevertheless, wise and military;
because your forces were then at sea, their
numbers uncertain ; storms, sickness, or a
variety of accidents might have disabled
their coming, or so diminished them on
their passage, that those which survived
would have been incapable of opening the
campaign with any prospect of success ;
in which case the defence would have been
sufficient and the place preserved: for cities
that have been raised from nothing with
an infinitude of labour and expense, are not
to be thrown away on the bare probability
of their being taken. On these grounds
the preparations made to maintain NewYork were as judicious as the retreat after
wards. While you, in the interim, let slip
the very opportunity which seemed to put
conquest in your power.
Through the whole of that campaign you
had nearly double the forces which general
Washington immediately commanded.
The principal plan at that time, on our
part, was to wear away the season with as
little loss as possible, and to raise the army
for the next year. Long-Island, NewYork, forts Washington and Lee were riot
defended after your superior force was
known, under any expectation of their being
finally maintained, but as a range of out
works, in the attacking of which your time
might be wasted, your numbers reduced,
and your vanity amused by possessing
them on our retreat. It was intended to
have withdrawn the garrison from fort
Washington after it had answered the
former of those purposes, but the fate of
that day put a prize into your hands without
much honour to yourselves.
Your progress through the Jerseys was
accidental; you had it not even in contem
plation, or you would not have sent a
principal part of your forces to RhodeIsland before hand. The utmost hope of
America in the year 1776, reached no
higher than that she might not then be
conquered. She had no expectation of
defeating you in that campaign. Even the
most cowardly tory allowed, that, could
she withstand the shock of Z/?«Z summer
her independence would be past a doubt.
You had then greatly the advantage of her.
You were formidable. Your military know
ledge was supposed to be complete. Your
fleets and forces arrived without an accident.
You had neither experience nor reinforce
ments to wait for. You had nothing to do
but to begin, and your chance lay in the
first vigorous onset.
America was young and unskilled. She
was obliged to trust her defence to time
and practice ; and hath, by mere dint of
perseverance, maintained her cause, and
brought the enemy to a condition, in which
she is now capable of meeting him on any
grounds.
It is remarkable that in the campaign of
1776, you gained no more, notwithstanding
your great force, than what was given
you by consent of evacuation, except
fort Washington ; while every advantage
obtained by us was by fair and hard fighting.
The defeat of Sir Peter Parker was com
plete.1 The conquest of the Hessians at
1 At Cape Fear.
April 1776.
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
hd Trenton, by the remains of a retreating
m^ army, which but a few days before you
affected to despise, is an instance of their
lies heroic perseverance very seldom to be met
iith with. And the victory over the British
lOlitroops — ----------- , by a harassed^ and
---- r_ at Princeton, „
weary party, who had been engaged the
day before and marched all night without
refreshment, is attended with such a scene
jjtij of circumstances and superiority of general
ship, as will ever give it a place in the first
nd rank in the history of great actions.
When I look back “on the gloomy days
(••ic of last winter, and see America suspended
miby a thread, I feel a triumph of joy at the
..•’ J recollection of her delivery, and a reverence
gpifor the characters which snatched her from
soli destruction. To doubt now would be. a
9Cpf species of infidelity, and to forget the inraj^struments which saved us then would be
gxii ingratitude.
The close of that campaign left us with
the spirit of conquerors. The northern
districts were relieved by the retreat of
general o___ Carleton over the lakes. The army
md under your command were hunted back
and had their bounds prescribed. The
continent began to feel its military import
ance, and the winter passed pleasantly
.y/k away in preparations for the next campaign.
However confident you might be on your
first arrival, the result of the year. 1776
gave you some idea of the difficulty, if not
impossibility of conquest. To this reason
I ascribe your delay in opening the cam
paign of 1777. The face of matters, on the
close of the former year, gave you no
encouragement to pursue a discretionary
war as soon as the spring admitted the
taking the field; for though conquest, in
that case, would have given you a double
portion of fame, yet the experiment was too
hazardous. The ministry, had you failed,
would have shifted the whole blame upon
you, charged you with having acted without
orders, and condemned at once both your
plan and execution.
To avoid the misfortunes, which might
have involved you and your money accounts
in perplexity and suspicion, you prudently
waited the arrival of a plan of operations
from England, which was that you should
proceed to Philadelphia by way of the
Chesapeake, and that Burgoyne, after
eft reducing Ticonderoga, should take his route
(ft by Albany, and, if necessary, join you.
The splendid laurels of the last campaign
have flourished in the north. In that
quarter America has surprised the world,
and laid the foundation of this year’s glory.
I
69
The conquest of Ticonderoga, (if it may be
called a conquest) has, like all your other
victories, led on to ruin. Even the pro
visions taken in that fortress (which by
general Burgoyne’s return was sufficient in
bread and flour for nearly 5,000 men for ten
weeks, and in beef and pork for the same
number of men for one month) served only
to hasten his overthrow, by enabling him
to proceed to Saratoga, the place of his
destruction. A short review of the opera
tions of the last campaign will show the
condition of affairs on both sides.
You have takenTiconderogaand marched
into Philadelphia. These are all the events
which the year hath produced on your part.
A trifling campaign indeed, compared with
the expences of England and the conquest
of the continent. On the other side, a con
siderable part of your northern force has
been routed by the New-York militia
under general Herkemer. Fort Stanwix
has bravely survived a compound attack of
soldiers and savages, and the besiegers
have fled. The battle of Bennington has
put a thousand prisoners into our hands,
with all their arms, stores,, artillery and
baggage. General Burgoyne, in two engage
ments, has been defeated; himself, his
army, and all that were his and theirs are
now ours. Ticonderoga and Independence
[forts] are retaken, and not the shadow of
an enemy remains in all the northern
districts. At this instant we have upwards
of eleven thousand prisoners, between sixty
and seventy pieces of brass ordnance,
besides small arms, tents, stores, &c.
In order to know the real value of those
advantages, we must reverse the scene,
and suppose general Gates and the force
he commanded, to be at your mercy as
prisoners, and general Burgoyne, with his
army of soldiers and savages, to be already
joined to you in Pennsylvania. So dismal
a picture can scarcely be looked at. It
has all the tracings and colourings of horror
and despair ; and excites the most swelling
emotions of gratitude, by exhibiting the
■ miseries we are so graciously preserved
from.
I admire the distribution of laurels
around the continent. It is the earnest
of future union. South-Carolina has had
her day of sufferings and of fame ; and the
other southern states have exerted them
selves in proportion to the force that
invaded or insulted them. Towards the
close of the campaign, in 1776, these
middle states were called upon and did
their duty nobly. They were witnesses to
�7o
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
the almost expiring flame of human free
dom. It was the close struggle of life and
death, the line of invisible division : and
on which, the unabated fortitude of a
Washington prevailed, and saved the spark
that has since blazed in the north with un
rivalled lustre.
Let me ask, sir, what great exploits have
you performed ? Through all the variety
of changes and opportunities which the
war has produced, I know no one action of
yours that can be styled masterly. You
have moved in and out, backwards and
forwards, round and round, as if valour
consisted in a military jig. The history
and figure of your movements would be
truly ridiculous could they be justly deline
ated. They resemble the labours of a
puppy pursuing his tail; the end is still
at the same distance, and all the turnings
round must be done over again.
The first appearance of affairs of Ticon
deroga wore such an unpromising aspect,
that it was necessary, in July, to detach a
part of the forces to the support of that
quarter, which were otherwise destined or
intended to act against you; and this,
perhaps, has been the means of postponing
your downfall to another campaign. The
destruction of one army at a time is work
enough. We know, sir, what we are about,
what we have to do, and how to do it.
Your progress from the Chesapeake, was
marked by no capital stroke of policy or
heroism. Your principal aim was to get
general Washington between the Delaware
and Schuylkill, and between Philadelphia
and your army. In that situation, with a
river on each side of his flanks,_ which
united about five miles below the city, and
your army above him, you could have
intercepted his reinforcements and supplies,
cut off all his communications with the
country, and, if necessary, have despatched
assistance to open a passage for general
Burgoyne. This scheme was too visible
to succeed: for had general Washington
suffered you to command the open country
above him, I think it a very reasonable
conjecture that the conquest of Burgoyne
would not have taken place, because you
could, in that case, have relieved him. _ It
was therefore necessary, while that im
portant victory was in suspense, to trepan
you into a situation in which you could
only be on the defensive, without the
power of affording him assistance. The
manoeuvre had its effect, and Burgoyne
was conquered.
There has been something unmilitary
and passive in you from the time of your
passing the Schuylkill and getting posses
sion of Philadelphia, to the close of the
campaign. You mistook a trap for a con
quest, the probability of which had been
made known to Europe, and the edge of
your triumph taken off by your own infor
mation long before.
Having got you into this situation, a
scheme for a general attack upon you at
Germantown was carried into execution on
the 4th of October, and though the success
was not equal to the excellence of the plan,
yet the attempting it proved the genius of
America to be on the rise, and her power
approaching to superiority. The obscurity
of the morning was your best friend, for a
fog is always favourable to a hunted enemy.
Some weeks after this you likewise planned
an attack on general Washington, while at
Whitemarsh. You marched out with infinite
parade, but on finding him preparing to
attack you next morning, you prudently
turned about, and retreated to Philadelphia
with all the precipitation of a man con
quered in imagination.
Immediately after the battle of German
town, the probability of Burgoyne’s defeat
gave a new policy to affairs in Pennsylvania,
and it was judged most consistent with the
general safety of America, to wait the issue
of the northern campaign. Slow and sure
is sound work. The news of that victory
arrived in our camp on the 18th of October,
and no sooner did the shout of joy, and
the report of the thirteenth cannon reach
your ears, than you resolved upon a retreat,
and the next day, that is, the 19th, you with
drew your drooping army into Philadelphia.
This movement was evidently dictated by
fear; and carried with it a positive confes
sion that you dreaded a second attack. It
was hiding yourself among women and
children, and sleeping away the choicest
part of a campaign in expensive inactivity.
An army in a city can never be a conquering
army. The situation admits only of defence.
It is mere shelter: and every military
power in Europe will conclude you to be
eventually defeated.
The time when you made this retreat
was the very time you ought to have fought
a battle, in order to put yourself in a con
dition of recovering in Pennsylvania what
you had lost in Saratoga. And the reason
why you did not, must be either prudence
or cowardice; the former supposes your
inability, and the latter needs no explana
tion. I draw no conclusions, sir, but such
as are naturally deduced from known and
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
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visible facts, and such as will always have
a being while the facts which produced
them remain unaltered.
After this retreat a new difficulty arose
which exhibited the power of Britain in a
very contemptible light; which was the
attack and defence of Mud-Island. _ For
several weeks did that little unfinished
fortress stand out against all the attempts
of admiral and general Howe. It was the
fable of Bender realized on the Delaware.
Scheme after scheme, and force upon force
were tried and defeated. The garrison,
with scarce any thing to cover them but
their bravery, survived in the midst of mud,
shot and shells, and were at last obliged to
give it up more to the powers of time and
gun-powder than to military superiority of
the besiegers.
It is my sincere opinion that matters are
in a much worse condition with you than
what is generally known. Your master’s
speech at the opening of parliament, is
like a soliloquy on ill luck. It shows him
to be coming a little to his reason, for sense
of pain is the first symptom of recovery in
profound stupefaction. His condition is
deplorable. He is obliged to submit to all
the insults of France and Spain, without
daring to know or resent them; and thankful
for the most trivial evasions to the most
humble remonstrances. The time was
when he could not deign an answer to a
petition from America, and the time now
is when he dare not give an answer to an
affront from France. The capture of Burgoyne’s army will sink his consequence as
much in Europe as in America. In his
speech he expresses his suspicions at the
warlike preparations of France and Spain,
and as he has only the one army which
you command to support his character in
the world with, it remains very uncertain
tvhen, or in what quarter it will be most
wanted, or can be best employed ; and this
will partly account for the great care you
take to keep it from action and attacks, for
should Burgoyne’s fate be yours, which it
probably will, England may take her end
less farewell not only of America but of all
the West-Indies.
Never did a nation invite destruction
upon itself with the eagerness and the
ignorance with which Britain has done.
Bent upon the ruin of a young and un
offending country, she has drawn the
sword that has wounded herself to the
heart, and in the agony of her resentment
has applied a poison for a cure. Her
■conduct towards America is a compound
of rage and lunacy; she aims at _ the
government of it, yet preserves neither
dignity nor character in her methods to
obtain it. Were government a mere
manufacture or article of commerce, im
material by whom it should be made or
sold, we might as well employ her as
another, but when we consider it as the
fountain from whence the general manners
and morality of a country take their rise,
that the persons intrusted with the execu
tion thereof are by their serious example
and authority to support these principles,
how abominably absurd is the idea of
being hereafter governed by a set of men
who have been guilty of forgery, perjury,
treachery, theft, and every species of villainy
which the lowest wretches on earth could
practise or invent. What greater public
curse can befall any country than to be
under such authority, and what greater
blessing than to be delivered therefrom.
The soul of any man of sentiment would
rise in brave rebellion against them, and
spurn them from the earth.
The malignant and venomous tempered
general Vaughan has amused his savage
fancy in burning the whole town of
Kingston, in York government, and the
late governor of that state, Mr. Tyron,
in his letter to general Parsons, has en
deavoured to justify it, and declared his
wish to bum the houses of every com
mitteeman in the country. Such a con
fession from one who was once intrusted
with the powers of civil government, is a
reproach to the character. But it is the
wish and the declaration of a man, whom
anguish and disappointment have driven
to despair, and who is daily decaying into
the grave with constitutional rottenness.
There is not in the compass of language
a sufficiency of words to express the base
ness of your king, his ministry and his
army. They have refined upon villainy till
it wants a name. To the fiercer vices of
former ages they have added the dregs and
scummings of the most finished rascality,
and are so completely sunk in serpentine
deceit, that there is not left among them
one generous enemy.
From such men and such masters, may
the gracious hand of Heaven preserve
America 1 And though the sufferings she
now endures are heavy, and severe, they
are like straws in the wind compared to
the weight of evils she would feel under the
government of your king, and his pensioned
parliament.
There is something in meanness which
�72
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
excites a species of resentment that never
subsides, and something in cruelty which
stirs up the heart to the highest agony of
human hatred ; Britain hath filled up both
these characters till no addition can be
made, and hath not reputation left with us
to obtain credit for the slightest promise.
The will of God hath parted us, and the
deed is registered for eternity. When she
shall be a spot scarcely visible among the
nations, America shall flourish the favourite
of heaven, and the friend of mankind.
For the domestic happiness of Britain
and the peace of the world, I wish she had
not a foot of land but what is circumscribed
within her own island. Extent of dominion
has been her rum, and instead of civilizing
others has brutalized herself. Her late
reduction of India, under Clive and his
successors, was not so properly a conquest
as an extermination of mankind. She is
the only power who could practise the
prodigal barbarity of tying men to the
mouths of loaded cannon and blowing
them away.
It happens that general
Burgoyne, who made the report of that
horrid transaction, in the house of commons,
is now a prisoner with us, and though an
enemy, I can appeal to him for the truth of
it, being confident that he neither can nor
will deny it. Yet Clive received the appro
bation of the last parliament.
When we take a survey of mankind, we
cannot help cursing the wretch, who, to the
unavoidable misfortunes of nature, shall
wilfully add the calamities of war. One
would think there were evils enough in the
world without studying to increase them,
and that life is sufficiently short without
shaking the sand that measures ity> The
histories of Alexander, and Charles of
Sweden, are the histones of human devils ;
a good man cannot think of their actions
without abhorrence, nor of their deaths
without rejoicing. To see the bounties of
heaven destroyed, the beautiful face of
nature laid waste, and the choicest works
of creation and art tumbled into ruin, would
fetch a curse from the soul of piety itself.
But in this country the aggravation is
heightened by a new combination of affect
ing circumstances. America was young,
and, compared with other countries, was
virtuous. None but a Herod of uncommon
malice would have made war upon infancy
and innocence : and none but a people of
the most finished fortitude, dared under
those circumstances, have resisted the
tyranny. The natives, or their ancestors,
had fled from the former oppressions of
England, and with the industry of bees had
changed a wilderness into a habitable world.
To Britain they were indebted for nothing.
The country was the gift of heaven, and
God alone is their Lord and Sovereign.
The time, sir, will come when you, in a
melancholy hour, shall reckon up your
miseries by your murders in America.
Life, with you, begins to wear a clouded
aspect. The vision of pleasurable delusion
is wearing away, and changing to the
barren wild of age and sorrow. The poor
reflection of having served your king will
yield you no consolation in your parting
moments. He will crumble to the same
undistinguished ashes with yourself, and
have sins enough of his own to answer for.
It is not the farcical benedictions of a
bishop, nor the cringing hypocrisy of a
court of chaplains, nor the formality of an
act of parliament, that can change guilt
into innocence, or make the punishment
one pang the less. You may, perhaps, be
unwilling to be serious, but this destruction
of the goods of Providence, this havoc of
the human race, and this sowing the world
with mischief, must be accounted for to
him who made and governs it. To us
they are only present sufferings, but to him
they are deep rebellions.
If there is a sin superior to every other,
it is that of wilful and offensive war. Most
other sins are circumscribed within narrow
limits, that is, the power of one man cannot
give them a very general extension, and
many kinds of sins have only a mental
existence from which no infection arises ;
but he who is the author of a war, lets
loose the whole contagion of hell, and
opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.
We leave it to England and Indians to
boast of these honours; we feel no thirst
for such savage glory ; a nobler fame, a
purer spirit animates America. She has
taken up the sword of virtuous defence ;
she has bravely put herself between
Tyranny and Freedom, between a curse
and a blessing, determined to expel the one
and protect the other.
It is the object only of war that makes it
honourable. And if there was ever a just
war since the world began, it is this in
which America is now engaged. She
invaded no land of yours. She hired no
mercenaries to burn your towns, nor
Indians to massacre their inhabitants.
She wanted nothing from you, and was
indebted for nothing to you : and thus
circumstanced, her defence is honourable
and her posterity is certain.
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THE AMERICAN CRISIS
Yet it is not on the 7^//^ only,, but 11..^
like1 Cl 11 la 11VI Mil LHC JWJ..XO V.l.Jy
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wise on the importance of this cause that
I ground my seeming enthusiastical confidence of our success. The vast extension
of America makes her of too much value in
the scale of Providence, to be cast, like a
pearl before swine, at the feet of an European island ; and of much less consequence
would it be that Britain were sunk in the
sea than that America should miscarry.
There has been such a chain of extraordinary events in the discovery of this
country at first, in the peopling and plant
ing it afterwards, in the rearing and nursing
it to its present state, and in the protection
of it through the present war, that no man
can doubt, but Providence hath some
nobler end to accomplish, than the gratifi
cation of the petty elector of Hanover, or the
ignorant and insignificant king of Britain.
As the blood of the martyrs hath been
the seed of the Christian church, so the
political persecutions of England will and
have already enriched America with
industry, experience, union, and import
ance. Before the present era she was a
mere chaos of uncemented colonies, indi
vidually exposed to the ravages of the
Indians and the invasion of any power that
Britain should be at war with. She had
nothing that she could call her own. Her
felicity depended upon accident. The con
vulsions of Europe might have thrown her
from one conqueror to another, till she had
been the slave of all, and ruined by every
one ; for until she had spirit enough to
become her own master, there was no
knowing to which master she should
belong. That period, thank God, is past,
and she is no longer the dependant, dis
united colonies of Britain, but the Inde
pendent and United States of America,
knowing no master but heaven and herself.
You, or your king, may call this “delusion,”
“ rebellion,” or what name you please. To
us it is perfectly indifferent. The issue will
determine the character, and time will give
it a name as lasting as his own.
You have now, sir, tried the fate of three
campaigns, and can fully declare to
England, that nothing is to be got on your
part, but blows and' broken bones, and
nothing on hers but waste of trade and
credit, and an increase of poverty and taxes.
You are now only where you might have
been two years ago, without the loss of a
single ship, and yet not a step more
forward towards the conquest of the con
tinent ; because, as I have already hinted,
“ an army in a city can never be a conquer
73
ing army.” The full amount of your losses,
since the beginning of the war, exceeds
twenty thousand men, besides millions of
treasure, for which you have nothing in
exchange. Our expences, though great,
are circulated within ourselves. Yours is
a direct sinking of money, and that from
both ends at once ; first, in hiring troops
out of the nation, and in paying them after
wards, because the money in neither case
can return to Britain. We are already in
possession of the prize, you only in pursuit
of it. To us it is a real treasure, to you it
would be only an empty triumph. Our
expences will repay themselves with tenfold
interest, while yours entail upon you ever
lasting poverty.
Take a review, sir, of the ground which
you have gone over, and let it teach you
policy, if it cannot honesty. You stand but
on a very tottering foundation. A change
of the ministry in England may probably
bring your measures into question, and
your head to the block. Clive, with all his
successes, had some difficulty in escaping,
and yours being all a war of losses, will
afford you less pretensions, and your
enemies more grounds for impeachment.
Go home, sir, and endeavour to save the
remains of your ruined country, by a just
representation of the madness of her
measures. A few moments, well applied,
may yet preserve her from political destruc
tion. I am not one of those who wish to
see Europe in a flame, because I am per
suaded that such an event will not shorten
the war. The rupture, at present, is con
fined between the two powers of America
and England. England finds that she
cannot conquer America, and America has
no wish to conquer England. You are
fighting for what you can never obtain, and
we are defending what we never mean to
part with. A few words, therefore, settle
the bargain. Let England mind her own
business and we will mind ours. Govern
yourselves, and we will govern ourselves.
You may then trade where you please
unmolested by us, and we will trade where
we please unmolested by you ; and such
articles as we can purchase of each other
better than elsewhere may be mutually done.
If it were possible that you could carry on
the war for twenty years you must still come
to this point at last, or worse, and the sooner
you think of it the better it will be for you.
My official situation1 enables me to know
1 Paine was at this time Secretary to the Com
mittee of Foreign Affairs.
�74
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
the repeated insults which Britain is obliged
to put up with from foreign powers, and the
wretched shifts that she is driven to, to
gloss them over. Her reduced strength
and exhausted coffers in a three years’ war
with America, hath given a powerful supe
riority to France and Spain. She is not
now a match for them. But if neither
councils can prevail on her to think, nor
sufferings awaken her to reason, she must
e’en go on, till the honour of England
becomes a proverb of contempt, and Europe
dub her the Land of Fools.
I am, Sir, with every wish for an honour
able peace,
Your friend, enemy, and countryman,
Common Sense.
TO THE INHABITANTS OF AMERICA.
With all the pleasure with which a man
exchanges bad company for good, I take
my leave of Sir William and return to you.
It is now nearly three years since the
tyranny of Britain received its first repulse
by the arms of America. A period which
has given birth to a new world, and erected
a monument to the folly of the old.
I cannot help being sometimes surprised
at the complimentary references which I
have seen and heard made to ancient
histories and transactions. The wisdom,
civil governments, and sense of honour of
the states of Greece and Rome, are fre
quently held up as objects of excellence
and imitation. Mankind have lived to very
little purpose, if, at this period of the world,
they must go two or three thousand years
back for lessons and examples. We do
great injustice to ourselves by placing them
in such a superior line. We have no just
authority for it, neither can we tell why it
is that we should suppose ourselves inferior.
Could the mist of antiquity be cleared
away, and men and things be viewed as
they really were, it is more than probable
that they would admire us, rather than we
them. America has surmounted a greater
variety and combination of difficulties,
than, I believe, ever fell to the share of
any one people, in the same space of time,
and has replenished the world with more
useful knowledge and sounder maxims of
civil government than were ever produced
in any age before.
Had it not been for America, there had
been no such thing as freedom left through
out the whole universe. England hath lost
hers in a long chain of right reasoning from
wrong principles, and it is from this country,
now, that she must learn the resolution to
redress herself, and the wisdom how to
accomplish it.
The Grecians and Romans were strongly
possessed of the spirit of liberty but not the
principle, for at the time that they were
determined not to be slaves themselves,
they employed their power to enslave the
rest of mankind. But this distinguished
era is blotted by no one misanthropical
vice. In short, if the principle on which
the cause is founded, the universal blessings
that are to arise from it, the difficulties that
accompanied it, the wisdom with which it
has been debated, the fortitude by which
it has been supported, the strength of the
power which we had to oppose, and the
condition in which we undertook it, be all
taken in one view, we may justly style it
the most virtuous and illustrious revolution
that ever graced the history of mankind.
A good opinion of ourselves is exceed
ingly necessary in private life, but abso
lutely necessary in public life, and of the
utmost importance in supporting national
character. I have no notion of yielding
the palm of the United States to any
Grecians or Romans that were ever born.
We have equalled the bravest in times of
danger, and excelled the wisest in construc
tion of civil governments.
From this agreeable eminence let us take
a review of present affairs. The spirit of
corruption is so inseparably interwoven
with British politics, that their ministry
suppose all mankind are governed by the
same motives. They have no idea of a
people submitting even to temporary incon
venience from an attachment to rights and
privileges. Their plans of business are
calculated Af the hour and for the hour,
and are uniform in nothing but the corrup
tion which gives them birth. They never
had, neither have they at this time, any
regular plan for the cqnquest of America by
arms. They know not how to go about it,
neither have they power to effect it if they
did know. The thing is not within the
compass of human practicability, for
America is too extensive either to be fully
conquered or passively defended. But she
may be actively defended by defeating or
making prisoners of the army that invades
her. And this is the only system of defence
that can be effectual in a large country.
There is something in a war carried on
by invasion which makes it differ in circum
stances from any other mode of war, because
t
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
he who conducts it cannot tell whether the
ground he gains be for him, or against him,
when he first obtains it. In the winter of
1776, general Howe marched with an air of
victory through the Jerseys, the consequence
of which was his defeat; and general
Burgoyne at Saratoga experienced the
same fate from the same cause. The
Spaniards, about two years ago, were
defeated by the Algerines in the same
manner, that is, their first triumphs became
a trap in which they were totally routed.
And whoever will attend to the circum
stances and events of a war carried on by
invasion, will find, that any invader, in
order to be finally conquered must first
begin to conquer.
I confess mys-lf one of those who believe
the loss of Philadelphia to be attended
with more advantages than injuries. The
case stood thus: The enemy imagined
Philadelphia to be of more importance to
us than it really was ; for we all know that
it had long ceased to be a port; not a cargo
of goods had been brought into it for near
a twelvemonth, nor any fixed manufactories,
nor even ship-building, carried on in it;
yet as the enemy believed the conquest of
it to be practicable, and to that belief added
the absurd idea that the soul of all America
was centred there, and would be conquered
there, it naturally follows that their posses
sion of it, by not answering the end pro
posed, must break up the plans they had
so foolishly gone upon, and either oblige
them to form a new one, for which their
present strength is not sufficient, or to give
over the attempt.
We never had so small an army to fight
against, nor so fair an opportunity of final
success as now. The death wound is
already given. The day is ours if we follow
it up. The enemy, by his situation, is
within our reach, and by his reduced
strength is within our power. The ministers
of Britain may rage as they please, but our
part is to conquer theit armies. Let them
wrangle and welcome, but let it not draw
our attention from the one thing needful.
Here, in this spot is our own business to be
accomplished, our felicity secured. What
we have now to do is as clear as light, and
the way to do it as straight as a line. It
needs not to be commented upon, yet, in
order to be perfectly understood I will put
a case that cannot admit of a mistake.
Had the armies under generals Howe
and Burgoyne been united, and taken post
at Germantown, and had the northern
army under general Gates been joined to
75
that under general Washington, at White
marsh, the consequence would have been
a general action ; and if in that action we
had killed and taken the same number of
officers and men, that is, between nine and
ten thousand, with the same quantity of
artillery, arms, stores, etc. as have been
taken at the northward, and obliged general
Howe with the remains of his army, that is,
with the same number he now commands,
to take shelter in Philadelphia, we should
certainly have thought ourselves the greatest
heroes in the world ; and should, as soon
as the season permitted, have collected
together all the force of the continent and
laid siege to the city, for it requires a much
greater force to besiege an enemy in a town
than to defeat him in the field. The case
now is just the same as if it had been
produced by the means I havehere supposed.
Between nine and ten thousand have been
killed and taken, all their stores are in our
possession, and general Howe, in conse
quence of that victory, has thrown himself
for shelter into Philadelphia. He, or his
trifling friend Galloway, may form what
pretences they please, yet ho just reason
can be given for their going into winter
quarters so early as the 19th of October,
but their apprehensions of a defeat if they
continued out, or their conscious inability
of keeping the field with safety. I see no
advantage which can arise to America by
hunting the enemy from state to state. It
is a triumph without a prize, and wholly
unworthy the attention of a people deter
mined to conquer. Neither can any state
promise itself security while the enemy
remains in a condition to transport them
selves from one part of the continent to
another. Howe, likewise, cannot conquer
where we have no army to oppose, therefore
any such removals in him are mean and
cowardly, and reduces Britain to a common
pilferer. If he retreats from Philadelphia,
he will be despised; if he stays, he may
be shut up and starved out, and the country,
if he advances into it, may become his
Saratoga. He has his choice of evils and
we of opportunities. If he moves early, it
is not only a sign but a proof that he
expects no reinforcement, and his delay
will prove that he either waits for the
arrival of a plan to go upon, or force to
execute it, or both ; in which case our
strength will increase more than his, there
fore in any case we cannot be wrong if we
do but proceed.
The particular condition of Pennsylvania
deserves the attention of all the othei
�76
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
states. Her military strength must not be
estimated by the number of inhabitants.
Here are men of all nations, characters,
professions and interests. Here are the
firmest whigs, surviving, like sparks in the
ocean, unquenched and uncooled in the
midst of discouragement and disaffection.
Here are men losing their all with cheer
fulness, and collecting fire and fortitude
from the flames of their own estates. Here
are others skulking in secret, many making
a market of the times, and numbers who
are changing to whig or tory with the
circumstances of every day.
It is by mere dint of fortitude and per
severance that the whigs of this state have
been able to maintain so good a counte
nance, and do even what they have done.
We want help, and the sooner it can
arrive the more effectual it will be. The
invaded state, be it which it may, will
always feel an additional burden upon its
back, and be hard set to support its civil
power with sufficient authority : and this
difficulty will rise or fall, in proportion as
the other states throw in their assistance
to the common cause.
The enemy will most probably make
many manoeuvres at the opening of this
campaign, to amuse and draw off the atten
tion of the several states from the one
thing needful. We may expect to hear of
alarms and pretended expeditions to this
and that place, to the southward, the east
ward, and the northward, all intended to
prevent our forming into one formidable
body. The less the enemy’s strength is,
the more subtleties of this kind will they
make use of. Their existence depends
upon it, because the force of America,
when collected, is sufficient to swallow
their present army up. It is therefore our
business to make short work of it, by
bending our whole attention to this one
principal point, for the instant that the
main body under general Howe is defeated,
all the inferior alarms throughout the con
tinent, like so many shadows, will follow
his downfall.
The only way to finish a war with the
least possible bloodshed, or perhaps without
any, is to collect an army, against the
power of which the enemy shall have no
chance. By not doing this, we prolong
the war, and double both the calamities
and expences of it. What a rich and
happy countiy would America be, were
she, by a vigorous exertion, to reduce
Howe as she has reduced Burgoyne. Her
currency would rise to millions beyond its
present value. Every man would be rich,
and every man would have it in his power
to be happy. And why not do these
things ? What is there to hinder ? America
is her own mistress, and can do what she
pleases.
If we had not at this time a man in the
field, we could, nevertheless, raise an army
in a few weeks sufficient to overwhelm all
the force which general Howe at present
commands. Vigour and determination will
do any thing and every thing. We began j
the war with this kind of spirit, why not
end it with the same ? Here, gentlemen,
is the enemy. Here is the army. The
interest, the happiness of all America, is
centred in this half ruined spot. Come |
and help us. Here are laurels, come and j
share them. Here are tories, come and
help Us to expel them. Here are whigs
that will make you welcome, and enemies
that dread your coming.
!
The worst of all policy is that of doing |
things by halves. Pennywise and pound
foolish, has been the ruin of thousands.
The present spring, if rightly improved, *
will free us from all troubles, and save us j
the expence of millions. We have now i
only , one army to cope with. No oppor- I
tunity can be fairer; no prospect more |
promising. I shall conclude this paper |
with a few outlines of a plan, either for I
filling up the battalions with expedition, or
for raising an additional force, for any
limited time, on any sudden emergency.
That in which every man is interested, j
is every man’s duty to support. And any
burden which falls equally on all men, and |
from which every man is to receive an |
equal benefit, is consistent with the most |
perfect ideas of liberty. I would wish to j
revive something of that virtuous ambition
which first called America into the field.
Then every man was eager to do his part,
and perhaps the principal reason why we
have in any degree fallen therefrom, is,
because we did not set a right value by it
at first, but left it to blaze out of itself,
instead of regulating and preserving it by
just proportions of rest and service.
Suppose any state whose number of
effective inhabitants was 80,000, should be
required to furnish 3,200 men towards the
defence of the continent on any sudden
emergency.
1st, Let the whole number of effective
inhabitants be divided into hundreds ; then
if each of those hundreds turn out four
men, the whole number of 3,200 will be
had.
�77
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
2d, Let the name of each hundred men
be entered in a book, and let four dollars
be collected from each man, with as much
more as any of the gentlemen, whose
abilities can afford it, shall please to throw
in, which gifts likewise shall be entered
against the names of the donors.
3d, Let the sums so collected be offered
as a present, over and above the bounty of
twenty dollars, to any four who may be
inclined to propose themselves as volun
teers : if more than four offer, the majority
of the subscribers present shall determine
which: if none offer, then four out of the
hundred shall be taken by lot, who shall
be entitled to the said sums, and _ shall
either go, or provide others that will, in
the space of six days.
4th, As it will always happen, that in the
space of ground on which an hundred men
shall live, there will be always a number of
persons who, by age and infirmity, are
incapable of doing personal service, and
as such persons are generally possessed of
the greatest part of the property in any
country, their portion of service, therefore,
will be to furnish each man with a blanket,
which will make a regimental coat, jacket,
and breeches, or clothes in lieu thereof,
and another for a watch cloak, and two
pairs of shoes ; for however choice people
may be of these things matters not in cases
of this kind ; those who live always in
houses can find many ways to keep them
selves warm, but it is a shame and a sin to
suffer a soldier in the field to want a blanket
while there is one in the country.
Should the clothing not be wanted, the
superannuated or infirm persons possessing
property, may, in lieu thereof, throw in
their money subscriptions towards increas
ing the bounty; for though age will natu
rally exempt a person from personal service,
it cannot exempt him from his share of the
charge, because the men are raised for the
defence of property and liberty jointly.
There never was a scheme against which
objections might not be raised. But this
alone is not a sufficient reason for rejection.
The only line to judge truly upon, is to
draw out and admit all the objections
which can fairly be made, and place against
them all the contrary qualities, conveniences
and advantages, then by striking a balance
you come at the true character of any
scheme, principle or position.
The most material advantages of the
plan here proposed are, ease, expedition,
and cheapness ; yet the men so raised get
a much larger bounty than is any where at
present given; because all the expences,
extravagance, and consequent idleness of
recruiting are saved or prevented. The
country incurs no new debt nor interest
thereon ; the whole matter being all settled
at once and entirely done with. It is a
subscription answering all the purposes of
a tax, without either the charge or trouble
of collecting. The men are ready for the
field with the greatest possible expedition,
because it becomes the duty of the inhabi
tants themselves, in every part of the
country, to find their proportion of men,
instead of leaving it to a recruiting sergeant,
who, be he ever so industrious, cannot
know always where to apply.
I do not propose this as a regular digested
plan, neither will the limits of this paper
admit of any further remarks upon it. I
believe it to be a hint capable of much
improvement, and as such submit it to the
public.
Common Sense.
Lancaster, March 21, I77&
VI.
TO THE EARL OF CA RLISLE, GENERAL
CLINTON, AND WILLIAM EDEN,
ESQ., BRITISH COMMISSIONERS,
AT NEW-YORK.
There is a dignity in the warm passions
of a whig, which is never to be found in
the cold malice of a tory. In the one
nature is only heated—in the other she is
poisoned. The instant the former has it
in his power to punish, he feels a disposition
to forgive; but the canine venom of the
latter knows no relief but revenge. This
general distinction will, I believe, apply in
all cases, and suit as well the meridian of
England as America.
As I presume your last proclamation will
undergo the strictures of other pens, I shall
confine my remarks to only a few parts
thereof. All that you have said might
have been comprised in half the compass.
It is tedious and unmeaning, and only a
repetition of your former follies, with here
and there an offensive aggravation. Your
cargo of pardons will have no market. 11
is unfashionable to look at them—even
speculation is at an end. They have
become a perfect drug, and no way calcu
lated for the climate.
In the course of your proclamation you
say, “ The policy as well as the benevolence.
�578
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
of Great Britain have thus far checked the
extremes of war, when they tended to
distress a people still considered as their
fellow subjects, and to desolate a country
shortly to become again a source of mutual
advantage.” What you mean by “the
benevolence of Great Britain” is to me
inconceivable. To put a plain question ;
do you consider yourselves men or devils ?
For until this point is settled, no deter
minate sense can be put upon the expres
sion. You have already equalled, and in
many cases excelled, the savages of either
Indies ; and if you have yet a cruelty in
store you must have imported it, unmixed
with every human material, from the
original warehouse of hell.
To the interposition of Providence, and
her blessings on our endeavours, and not
to British benevolence, are we indebted for
the short chain that limits your ravages.
Remember you do not at this time, com
mand a foot of land on the continent of
America. Staten-Island, York-Island, a
small part of Long-Island, and RhodeIsland, circumscribe your power; and even
those you hold at the expence of the WestIndies. To avoid a defeat, or prevent a
desertion of your troops, you have taken up
your quarters in holes and corners of
inaccessible security; and in order to
conceal what every one can perceive, you
now endeavour to impose your weakness
upon us for an act of mercy. If you think
co succeed by such shadowy devices, you
are but infants in the political world ; you
have the A, B, C, of stratagem yet to learn,
and are wholly ignorant of the people you
have to contend with. Like men in a state
of intoxication, you forget that the rest of the
world have eyes, and that the same stupidity
which conceals you from yourselves ex
poses you to their satire and contempt.
The paragraph which I have quoted,
stands as an introduction to the following :
“ But when that country [America] professes
the unnatural design, not only of estranging
herself from us, but of mortgaging herself
and her resources to our enemies, the
whole contest is changed: and the question
is how far Great Britain may, by every
means in her power, destroy, or render
useless, a connexion contrived for her ruin,
and the aggrandizement of France. Under
such circumstances, the laws of self-preser
vation must direct the conduct of Britain,
and if the British colonies are to become
an accession to France, will direct her to
render that accession of as little avail as
possible to her enemy.”
I consider you in this declaration, like
madmen biting in the hour of death. It
contains likewise a fraudulent meanness;
for, in order to justify a barbarous conclu
sion, you have advanced a false position.
The treaty we have formed with France is
open, noble, and generous. It is true
policy, founded on sound philosophy, and
neither a surrender or mortgage, as you
would scandalously insinuate. I have
seen every article, and speak from positive
knowledge. In France, we have found an
affectionate friend and faithful ally; in
Britain, we have found nothing but tyranny,
cruelty, and infidelity.
But the happiness is, that the mischief
you threaten, is not in your power to
execute ; and if it were, the punishment
would return upon you in a ten-fold degree.
The humanity of America hath hitherto
restrained her from acts of retaliation, and
the affection she retains for many indi
viduals in England, who have fed, clothed
and comforted her prisoners, has, to the
present day, warded off her resentment, and
operated as a screen to the whole. But
even these considerations must cease, when
national objects interfere and oppose them.
Repeated aggravations will provoke a
retort, and policy justify the measure. We
mean now to take you seriously up upon
your own ground and principle, and as you
do, so shall you be done by.
You ought to know, gentlemen, that
England and Scotland are far more
exposed to incendiary desolation than
America, in her present state, can possibly
be. We occupy a country, with but few
towns, and whose riches consist in land and
annual produce. The two last can suffer
but little, and that only within a very
limited compass. In Britain it is other
wise. Her wealth lies chiefly in cities and
large towns, the depositories of manufac
tories and fleets of merchantmen. There
is not a nobleman’s country seat but may
be laid in ashes by a single person. Your
own may probably contribute to the proof:
in short, there is no evil which cannot be
returned when you come to incendiary
mischief. The ships in the Thames, may
certainly be as easily set on fire, as the
temporary bridge was a few years ago ; yet
of that affair no discovery was ever made ;
and the loss you would sustain by such an
event, executed at a proper season, is
infinitely greater than any you can inflict.
The East-India house, and the bank,
neither are, nor can be secure from
this sort of destruction, and, as Dr.
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
79
a much more ruinous act. Say not when
mischief is done, that you had not warning,
and remember that we do not begin it, but
mean to repay it. Thus much for your
savage and impolitic threat.
In another part of your proclamation you
say, “ But if the honours of a military life
are become the object of the Americans,
let them seek those honours under the
banners of their rightful sovereign, and in
fighting the battles of the united British
empire against our late mutual and natural
enemies.” Surely 1 the union of absurdity
with madness was never marked in more
distinguishable lines than these. Your
rightful sovereign, as you call him, may do
well enough for you, who dare not inquire
into the humble capacities of the man ; but
we, who estimate persons and things by
their real worth, cannot suffer our judg
ments to be so imposed upon ; and unless
it is your wish to see him exposed, it ought
to be your endeavour to keep him out . of
sight. The less you have to say about him
the better. We have done with him, and
that ought to be answer enough. You have
been often told so. Strange 1 that the
answer must be so often repeated. You
go a-begging with your king as with a brat,
or with some unsaleable commodity you
are tired of; and though every body tells
you nd, no, still you keep hawking him
about. But there is one that will have him
in a little time, and as we have no inclina
tion to disappoint you of a customer, we
bid nothing for him.
The impertinent folly o the paragraph
that I have just quoted, deserves no other
notice than to be laughed at and thrown
by, but the principle on which it is founded
is detestable. We are invited to submit to
a man who has attempted by every cruelty
to destroy us, and to join him in making
war against France, who is already at war
against him for our support.
Can Bedlam, ip concert .with Lucifer,
form a more mad and devilish request?
Were it possible a people could sink into
such apostacy they would deserve to be
swept from the earth like the inhabitants of
Sodom and Gomorrah. The proposition
is an universal affront to the rank which
man holds in the creation, and an indignity
to him who placed him there. It supposes
him made up without a spark of honour,
and under no obligation to God or man.
What sort of men or Christians must you
x The Rev. Dr. Price of London, who spoke
suppose the Americans to be, who, after
in defence of America.
■ General Clinton’s letter to Congress. seeing their most humble petitions insult
ingly rejected; the most grievous laws
AuthQr,
Price1 justly observes, a fire at the latter,
would bankrupt the nation. It has never
been the custom of France and England,
when at war, to make those havocs on each
other, because the ease with which they
could retaliate, rendered it as impolitic as
if each had destroyed his own.
But think not, gentlemen, that our
distance secures you, or our invention fails
us. We can much easier accomplish such
a point than any nation in Europe. We
talk the same language, dress in the same
habit, and appear with the same manners
as yourselves. We can pass from one part
of England to another unsuspected ; many
of us are as well acquainted with the
country as you are, and should you impolitically provoke us, you will most assuredly
lament the effects of it. Mischiefs of this
kind require no army to execute them.
The means are obvious, and the oppor
tunities unguardable. I hold up a warning
to your senses, if you have any left, and
“ to the unhappy people likewise, whose
affairs are committed to you.”2 I call not
with the rancour of an enemy, but the
earnestness of a friend, on the deluded
people of England, lest, between your
blunders and theirs, they sink beneath the
evils contrived for us.
“ He who lives in a glass house,” says a
Spanish proverb, “ should never begin
throwing stones.” This, gentlemen, is
exactly your case, and you must be the
most ignorant of mankind, or suppose us
so, not to see on which side the balance of
accounts will fall. There are many other
modes of retaliation, which, for several
reasons, I choose not to mention. But be
assured of this, that the instant you put
your threat into execution, a counter-blow
will follow it. If you openly profess your
selves savages, it is high time we should
treat you as such, and if nothing but distress
can recover you to reason, to punish will
become an office of charity.
While your fleet lay last winter in the
Delaware, I offered my service to the
Pennsylvania navy-board then at Trenton,
as one who would make a party with them,
or any four or five gentlemen, on an expe
dition down the river to set fire to it, and
though it was not then accepted, nor the
thing personally attempted, it is more than
probable that your own folly will provoke
�8o
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
passed to distress them in every quarter;
an undeclared war let loose upon them, and
Indians and negroes invited to the slaughter;
who, after seeing their kinsmen murdered,
their fellow citizens starved to death in
prisons, and their houses and property
destroyed and burned ; who, after the most
serious appeals to heaven ; the most solemn
abjuration by oath of all government con
nected with you, and the most heart-felt
pledges and protestations of faith to each
other; and who, after soliciting the friend
ship, and entering into alliances with other
nations, should at last break through all
these obligations, civil and divine, by com
plying with your horrid and infernal pro
posal ? Ought we ever after to be con
sidered as a part of the human race ? Or
ought we not rather to be blotted from the
society of mankind, and become a spectacle
of misery to the world ? But there is some
thing in corruption, which, like a jaundiced
eye, transfers the colour of itself to the
object it looks upon, and sees every thing
stained and impure ; for unless you were
capable of such conduct yourselves, you
would never have supposed such a character
in us. The offer fixes your infamy. It
exhibits you as a nation without faith ; with
whom oaths and treaties are considered as
trifles, and the breaking of them as the
breaking of a bubble. Regard to decency,
or to rank, might have taught you better;
or pride inspired you, though virtue could
not. There is not left a step in the degra
dation of character to which you can now
descend ; you have put your foot on the
ground floor, and the key of the dungeon is
turned upon you.
That the invitation may want nothing of
being a complete monster, you have thought
proper to finish it with an assertion which
has no foundation, either in fact or philo
sophy; and as Mr. Ferguson, your secretary,
is a man of letters, and has made civil
society his study, and published a treatise
on that subject, I address this part to him.
In the close of the paragraph which I
last quoted, France is styled the “ natural
enemy” of England, and by way of lugging
us into some strange idea, she is styled
“the late mutual and natural enemy” of
both countries. I deny that she ever was
a natural enemy of either ; and that there
does not exist in nature such a principle.
The expression is an unmeaning barbarism,
and wholly unphilosophical, when applied
to beings of the same species, let their
station in the creation be what it may. We
have a perfect idea of a natural enemy
when we think of the devil, because the
enmity is perpetual, unalterable, and unabateable.
It admits neither of peace,
truce or treaty; consequently the warfare
is eternal, and therefore it is natural. But
man with man cannot arrange in the same
opposition. Their quarrels are accidental
and equivocally created. They become
friends or enemies as the change of temper,
or the cast of interest inclines them. The
Creator of man did not constitute them the
natural enemy of each other. He has not
made any one order of beings so. Even
wolves may quarrel, still they herd together.
If any two nations are so, then must all
nations be so, otherwise it is not nature but
custom, and the offence frequently origi
nates with the accuser. England is as truly
the natural enemy of France, as France is
of England, and perhaps more so. Sepa
rated from the rest of Europe, she has
contracted an unsocial habit of manners,
and imagines in others the jealousy she
creates in herself. Never long satisfied
with peace, she supposes the discontent
universal, and buoyed up with her own
importance, conceives herself to be the
object pointed at. The expression has been
often used, and always with a fraudulent
design; for when the idea of a natural
enemy is conceived, it prevents all other
inquiries, and the real cause of the quarrel
is hidden in the universality of the conceit.
Men start at the notion of a natural enemy,
and ask no other question. The cry obtains
credit like the alarm of a mad dog, and is
one of those kind of tricks, which, by
operating on the common passions, secures
their interest through their folly.
But we, sir, are not to be thus imposed
upon. We live in a large world, and have
extended our ideas beyond the limits and
prejudices of an island. We hold out the
right hand of friendship to all the universe,
and we conceive that there is a sociality in
the manners of France, which is much
better disposed to peace and negotiation
than that of England, and until the latter
becomes more civilized, she cannot expect
to live long at peace with any power. Her
common language is vulgar and offensive,
and children with their milk suck in the
rudiments of insult—“The arm of Britain !
The mighty arm of Britain ! Britain that
shakes the earth to its centre and its poles !
The scourge of France ! The terror of the
world ! That governs with a nod, and
pours down vengeance like a God.” This
language neither makes a nation great or
little ; but it shows a savageness of manners,
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
and has a tendency to keep national
animosity alive. The entertainments of
the stage are calculated to the same end,
and almost every public exhibition is tinc
tured with insult. Yet England is always
in dread of France,—terrified at the appre
hension of an invasion, suspicious of being
outwitted in a treaty, and privately cringing
though she is publicly offending. Let her,
therefore, reform her manners and do
justice, and she will find the idea of a
natural enemy, to be only a phantom of
her own imagination.
Little did I think, at this period of the
war, to see a proclamation which could
promise you no one useful purpose what
ever, and tend only to expose you. One
would think that you were just awakened
from a four years’ dream, and knew nothing
of what had passed in the interval. Is
this a time to be offering pardons, or
renewing the long forgotten subjects of
charters and taxation ? Is it worth your
while, after eveiy force has failed you, to
retreat urder the shelter of argument and
persuasion? Or can you think that we,
with nearly half your army prisoners, and
in alliance with France, are to be begged
or threatened into submission by a piece
of paper? But as commissioners at a
hundred pounds sterling a week each, you
conceive yourselves bound to do something,
and the genius of ill fortune told you, that
you must write.
For my own part, I have not put pen to
paper these several months. Convinced of
our superiority by the issue of every cam
paign, I was inclined to hope, that that
which all the rest of the world now see,
would become visible to you, and therefore
felt unwilling to ruffle your temper by
fretting you with repetitions and discoveries.
There have been intervals of hesitation in
your conduct, from which it seemed a pity
to disturb you, and a charity to leave you
to yourselves. You have often stopped, as
if you intended to think, but your thoughts
have ever been too early or too late.
There was a time when Britain disdained
to answer, or even hear a petition from
America. That time is past, and she in
her turn is petitioning our acceptance.
We now stand on higher ground, and offer
her peace ; and the time will come when
she perhaps in vain, will ask it from us.
The latter case is as probable as the former
ever was. She cannot refuse to acknow
ledge our independence - with greater
obstinacy than she before refused to repeal
her laws; and if America alone could
bring her to the one, united with France
she will reduce her to the other. There is
something in obstinacy which differs from /
every other passion ; whenever it fails it 4
never recovers, but either breaks like iron, I
or crumbles sulkily away like a fractured /
arch. Most other passions have their J
periods of fatigue and rest; their suffer
ings and their cure ; but obstinacy has no
resource, and the first wound is mortal.
You have already begun to give it up, and
you will, from the natural construction of
the vice, find yourselves both obliged and
inclined to do so.
If you look back you see nothing but
loss and disgrace. If you look forward
the same scene continues, and the close is
an impenetrable gloom. You may plan
and execute little mischiefs, but are they
worth the expense they cost you, or will
such partial evils have any effect on the
general cause? Your expedition to EggHarbour, will be felt at a distance like an
attack upon a hen-roost, and expose you in
Europe, with a sort of childish phrenzy.
Is it worth while to keep an army to pro
tect you in writing proclamations, or to get
once a year into winter quarters ? Possess
ing yourselves of towns is not conquest,
but convenience, and in which you will one
day or other be trepanned. Your retreat
from Philadelphia, was only a timely
escape, and your next expedition may be
less fortunate.
It would puzzle all the politicians in the
universe to conceive what you stay for, or
why you should have staid so long. You
are prosecuting a war in which you confess
you have neither object nor hope, and that
conquest, could it be effected, would not
repay the charges : in the mean while the
rest of your affairs are running to ruin,
and a European war kindling against you.
In such a situation, there is neither doubt
nor difficulty ; the first rudiments of reason
will determine the choice, for if peace can
be procured with more advantages than
even a conquest can be obtained, he must
be an idiot indeed that hestitates.
But you are probably buoyed up by a set
of wretched mortals, who, having deceived
themselves, are cringing, with the duplicity
of a spaniel, for a little temporary bread.
Those men will tell you just what you
please. It is their interest to amuse, in
order to lengthen out their protection. ,
They study to keep you amongst them for /
that very purpose: and in proportion as
you disregard their advice, and grow callous
to their complaints, they will stretch into
�82
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
improbability, and season their flattery the for victory was past. The opposition, either
higher. Characters like these, are to be in or out of parliament, neither disconcerted
' found in every country, and every country your measures, retarded or diminished your
' will despise them.
force. They only foretold your fate. Every
Common Sense.
ministerial scheme was carried with as
Philadelphia, Oct. 20, 1778.
high a hand as if the whole nation had
been unanimous. Every thing wanted was
asked for, and every thing asked for was
granted.
A greater force was not within the
compass of your abilities to send, and the
VII.
time you sent it was of all others the most
TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.
favourable. You were then at rest with
There are stages in the business of serious the whole world beside. You had the
life in which to amuse is cruel, but to range of every court in Europe uncontra
deceive is to destroy; and it is of little dicted by us. You amused us with a tale
consequence, in the conclusion, whether of the commissioners, of peace, and under
men deceive themselves, or submit, by a that disguise collected a numerous army
kind of mutual consent, to the impositions and came almost unexpectedly upon us.
of each other. That England has long The force was much greater than we looked
been under the influence of delusion or for; and that which we had to oppose it
mistake, needs no other proof than the with, was unequal in numbers, badly armed,
unexpected and wretched situation that and poorly disciplined; beside which, it
she is now involved in : and so powerful was embodied only for a short time, and
has been the influence, that no provision expired within a few months after your
was ever made or thought of against the arrival. We had governments to form;
misfortune, because the possibility of its measures to concert; an army to train,
happening was never conceived.
and every necessary article to import or to
The general and successful resistance of create. Our non-importation scheme had
America, the conquest of Burgoyne, and a exhausted our stores, and your command
war in France, were treated in parliament by sea intercepted our supplies. We were
as the dreams of a discontented opposition, a people unknown, and unconnected with
or a distempered imagination. They were the political world, and strangers to the
beheld as objects unworthy of a serious disposition of foreign powers. Could you
thought, and a bare intimation of them possibly wish for a more favourable con
afforded the ministry a triumph of laughter. junction of circumstances? Yet all these
Short triumph indeed ! For every thing have happened and passed away, and, as it
which has been predicted has happened, were, left you with a laugh. They are like
and all that was promised has failed. A wise events of such an original nativity as
long series of politics so remarkably dis can never happen again, unless a new
tinguished by a succession of misfortunes, world should arise from the ocean.
without one alleviating turn, must certainly
If any thing can be a lesson to presump
have something in it systematically wrong. tion, surely the circumstances of this war
It is sufficient to awaken the most credulous will have their effect. Had Britain been
into suspicion, and the most obstinate into defeated by any European power, her pride
thought. Either the means in your power would have drawn consolation from the
are insufficient, or the measures ill planned; importance of her conquerors ; but in the
either the execution has been bad, or the present case, she is excelled by those that
thing attempted impracticable ; or, to speak she affected to despise, and her own
more emphatically, either you are not opinions retorting upon herself, become an
able or heaven is not willing. For, why is aggravation of her disgrace. Misfortune
it that you have not conquered us ? Who, and experience are lost upon mankind,
or what has prevented you ? You have had when they produce neither reflection nor
every opportunity that you could desire, reformation. Evils, like poisons, have their
and succeeded to your utmost wish in uses, and there are diseases which no other
every preparatory means. Your fleets and remedy can reach. It has been the crime
armies have arrived in America without an and folly of England to suppose herself
accident. No uncommon misfortune hath invincible, and that, without acknowledging
intervened. No foreign nation hath inter or perceiving that a full third of her strength
fered until the time which you had allotted was drawn from the country she is now at
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
gence in the London Gazette, they may
frame upon it what sentiments they please.
But the misfortune is, that a general igno
rance has prevailed over the whole nation
respecting America. The ministry and
minority have both been wrong.
The
former was always so, the latter only lately
so. Politics, to be executively right, must
have a unity of means and time, and a
defect in either overthrows the whole. The
ministry rejected the plans of the minority
while they were practicable, and joined in
them when they became impracticable.
From wrong measures they got into wrong
time, and have now completed the circle of
absurdity by closing it upon themselves.
I happened to come to America a few
months before the breaking out of hostilities.
I found the disposition of the people such,
that they might have been led by a thread
and governed by a reed. Their suspicion
was quick and penetrating, but their attach
ment to Britain was obstinate, and it was
at ffiat time a kind of treason to speak
against it. They disliked the ministry, but
they esteemed the nation. Their idea of
grievance operated without resentment, and
their single object was reconciliation. Bad
as I believed the ministry to be, I never
conceived them capable of a measure so
rash and wicked as the commencing of
hostilities ; much less did I imagine the
nation would encourage it. I viewed the
dispute as a kind of law-suit, in which I
supposed the parties would find a way either
to decide or settle it. I had no thoughts
of independence or of arms. The world
could not then have persuaded me that I
should be either a soldier or an author. If
I had any talents for either, they _ were
buried in me, and might ever have continued
so, had not the necessity of the times
dragged and driven them into action. I
had formed my plan of life, and conceiving
myself happy, wished every body else so.
But when the country, into which I had
just set my foot, was set on fire about my
ears, it was time to stir. It was time for
every man to stir. Those who had been
long settled had something to defend; those
who had just come had something to
pursue ; and the call and the concern was
equal and universal. For in a country
where all men were once adventurers, the
difference of a few years in their arrival
could make none in their right.
The breaking out of hostilities opened a
1 Dr. Conway suggests that this Was probably new suspicion in the politics of America,
the earliest use of the phrase “religion of which, though at that time very rare, has
since been proved to be very right. What
humanity.”
war with. The arm of Britain has been
spoken of as the arm- of the Almighty, and
she has lived of late as if she thought the
whole world created for her diversion.
Her politics, instead of civilizing, has
tended to brutalize mankind, and under
the vain, unmeaning title of “ Defender of
the Faith,” she has made war like an
Indian against the religion of humanity.1
Her cruelties in the East-Indies will never
be forgotten, and it is somewhat remarkable
that the produce of that ruined country,
transported to America, should there kindle
up a war to punish the destroyer. The
chain is continued, though with a mysterious
kind of uniformity both in the crime and
the punishment. The latter runs parallel
with the former, and time and fate will give
it a perfect illustration.
When information is withheld, ignorance
becomes a reasonable excuse; and one
would charitably hope that the people of
England do not encourage cruelty from
choice but from mistake. Their recluse
situation, surrounded by the sea, preserves
them from the calamities of war, and keeps
them in the dark as to the conduct of their
own armies. They see not, therefore they
feel not. They tell the tale that is told
them and believe it, and accustomed to no
other news than their own, they receive it,
stripped of its horrors and prepared for the
palate of the nation, through the channel of
the London Gazette. They are made to
believe that their generals and armies
differ from those of other nations, and have
nothing of rudeness or barbarity in them.
They suppose them what they wish them
to be. They feel a disgrace in thinking
otherwise, and naturally encourage the
belief from a partiality to themselves.
There was a time when I felt the same
prejudices, and reasoned from the same
errors ; but experience, sad and painful
experience, has taught me better. What
the conduct of former armies was, I know
not, but what the conduct of the present is,
I well know. It is low, cruel, indolent and
profligate ; and had the people of America
no other cause for separation than what
the army has occasioned, that alone is cause
sufficient.
The field of politics in England is far
more extensive than that of news. Men
have a right to reason for themselves, and
though they cannot contradict the intelli
�84
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
I allude to is, “ a secret and fixed determi
nation in the British cabinet to annex
America to the crown of England as a con
quered country.” If this be taken as the
object, then the whole line of conduct pur
sued by the ministry, though rash in its
origin and ruinous in its consequences, is
nevertheless uniform and consistent in its
parts. It applies to every case, and resolves
every difficulty. But if taxation, or any
thing else be taken in its room, there is no
proportion between the object and the
charge. Nothing but the whole soil and
property of the country can be placed as a
possible equivalent against the millions
which the ministry expended. No taxes
raised in America could possibly repay it.
A revenue of two millions sterling a year
would not discharge the sum and interest
accumulated thereon, in twenty years.
Reconciliation never appears to have
been the wish or the object of the adminis
tration, they looked on conquest as certain
and infallible, and under that persuasion,
sought to drive the Americans into what
they might style a general rebellion, and
then, crushing them with arms in their
hands, reap the rich harvest of a general
confiscation, and silence them for eyer.
The dependants at court were too numerous
to be provided for in England. The market
for plunder in the East-Indies was over;
and the profligacy of government required
that a new mine should be opened, and
that mine could be no other than America,
conquered and forfeited. They had no
where else to go. Every other channel
was drained ; and extravagance, with the
thirst of a drunkard, was gaping for
supplies.
If the ministry deny this to have been
their plan, it becomes them to explain what
was their plan. For either they have
abused us in coveting property they never
laboured for, or they have abused you in
expending an amazing sum upon an incom
petent object. Taxation, as I mentioned
before, could never be worth the charge of
obtaining it by arms ; and any kind of
formal obedience which America could
have made, would have weighed with the
lightness of a laugh against such a load of
expense. It is therefore most probable,
that the ministry will at last justify their
policy by their dishonesty, and openly
declare that their original design was con
quest ; and in this case, it well becomes
the people of England to consider how far
the nation would have been benefited by
the success.
In a general view, there are few con- I
quests which repay the charge of making /
them, and mankind are pretty well con- I
vinced that it can never be worth their I
while to go to war for profit’s sake. If they ’
are made war upon, their country in
vaded, or their existence at stake, it is
their duty to defend and preserve them
selves, but in every other light, and from
every other cause, is war inglorious and
detestable. But to return to the case in
question—
When conquests are made of foreign
countries, it is supposed that the commerce
and dominion of the country which made
them are extended. But this could neither
be the object nor the consequence of the
present war. You enjoyed the whole com
merce before. It could receive no possible
addition by a conquest, but on the contrary,
must diminish as the inhabitants were
reduced in numbers and wealth. You had
the same dominion over the country which
you used to have, and had no complaint
to make against her for breach of any part
of the contract between you or her, or con
tending against any established custom,
commercial, political or territorial. The
country and commerce were both your own
when you began to conquer, in the same
manner and form as they had been your
own an hundred years before. Nations
have sometimes been induced to make
conquests for the sake of reducing the
power of their enemies, or bringing it to a
balance with their own. But this could be
no part of your plan. No foreign authority
was claimed here, neither was any such
authority suspected by you, or acknow
ledged or imagined by us. What then, in
the name of heaven, could you go to war
for? Or what chance could you possibly
have in the event, but either to hold the
same country which you held before, and
that in a much worse condition, or to lose,
with an amazing expense, what you might
have retained without a farthing of charges.
I War never can be the interest of a I
trading nation, anymore than quarrelling I
'can be profitable to a man in business. 5
But to make war with those who trade with
us, is like setting a bull-dog upon a
customer at the shop-door. The least
degree of common sense shows the mad
ness of the latter, and it will apply with the
same force of conviction to the former.
Piratical nations, having neither commerce
or commodities of their own to lose, may
make war upon all the world, and lucra
tively find their account in it; but it is
(
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
quite otherwise with Britain : for, besides
the stoppage of trade in time of war, she
exposes more of her own property to be
lost, than she has the chance of taking from
others. Some ministerial gentlemen in
parliament have mentioned the greatness
of her trade as an apology for the greatness
of her loss. This is miserable politics
indeed ! Because it ought to have been
given as a reason for her not engaging in
a war at first. The coast of America com
mands the West-India trade almost as
effectually as the coast of Africa does
that of the Straits ; and England can no
more carry on the former without the
consent of America, than she can the latter
without a Mediterranean pass.
In whatever light the war with America
is considered upon commercial principles,
it is evidently the interest of the people of
England not to support it; and why it has
been supported so long, against the clearest
demonstrations of truth and national
advantage, is to me, and must be to all the
reasonable world, a matter of astonishment.
Perhaps it may be said that I live in
America, and write this from interest. To
this I reply, that my principle is universal.
My attachment is to all the world, and not
to any particular part, and if what I advance
is right, no matter where or who it comes
from. We have given the proclamation of
your commissioners a currency in our news
papers, and I have no doubt you will give
this a place in yours. To oblige and be
obliged is fair.
Before I dismiss this part of my address,
I shall mention one more circumstance in
which I think the people of England have
been equally mistaken, and then proceed
to other matters.
There is such an idea existing in the
world, as that of national honour, and this
falsely understood, is oftentimes the cause
of war. In a Christian and philosophical
sense, mankind seem to have stood still at
individual civilization, and to retain as
nations all the original rudeness of nature.
Peace by treaty is only a cessation of
violence for a reformation of sentiment. It
is a substitute for a principle that is want
ing and ever will be wanting till the idea of
national honour be rightly understood. As
individuals we profess ourselves Christians,
but as nations we are heathens, Romans,
and what not. I remember the late
admiral Saunders declaring in the house of
commons, and that in the time of peace,
“ That the city of Madrid laid in ashes was
not a sufficient atonement for the Spaniards
85
taking off the rudder of an English sloop
of war.” I do not ask whether this is
Christianity or morality, I ask whether it is
decency ? whether it is proper language
for a nation to use ? In private life we call
it by the plain name of bullying, and the
elevation of rank cannot alter its character.
It is, I think, exceedingly easy to define
what ought to be understood by national
honour; for that which is the best char
acter for an individual is the best character
for a nation ; and wherever the latter
exceeds or falls beneath the former, there
is a departure from the line of true great
ness.
I have thrown out this observation with
a design of applying it to Great Britain.
Her ideas of national honour, seem devoid
of that benevolence of heart, that universal
expansion of philanthropy, and that
triumph over the rage of vulgar prejudice,
without which man is inferior to himself,
and a companion of common animals. To
know whom she shall regard or dislike, she
asks what country they are of, what religion
they profess, and what property they enjoy.
Her idea of national honour seems to
consist in national insult, and that, to be a
great people, is to be neither a Christian, a
philosopher, or a gentleman, but to threaten
with the rudeness of a bear, and to devour
with the ferocity of a lion. This perhaps!
may sound harsh and uncourtly, but it is
too true, and the more is the pity.
I mention this only as her general char
acter. But towards America she has
observed no character at all; and destroyed!
by her conduct what she assumed in her
title. She set out with the title of parent!
or mother country. The association of
ideas which naturally accompany this
expression, are filled with every thing that
is fond, tender and forbearing. They have
an energy peculiar to themselves, and,
overlooking the accidental attachment of
common affections, apply with infinite soft
ness to the first feelings of the heart. It is
a political term which every mother carl
feel the force of, and every child can judge
of. It needs no painting of mine to set it
off, for nature only can do it justice.
But has any part of your conduct to
America corresponded with the title you
set up ? If in your general national char
acter you are unpolished and severe, in
this you are inconsistent and unnatural!
and you must have exceeding false notions!
of national honour, to suppose that the
world can admire a want of humanity, or
that national honour depends op the vio
�86
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
lence of resentment, the inflexibility of
temper, or the vengeance of execution.
I would willingly convince you, and that
with as much temper as the times will
suffer me to do, that as you opposed your
own interest by quarrelling with us, so like
wise your national honour, rightly con
ceived and understood, was no ways called
upon to enter into a war with America; had
you studied true greatness of heart, the first
and fairest ornament of mankind, you
would have acted directly contrary to all
that you have done, and the world would
have ascribed it to a generous cause;
besides which, you had (though with the
assistance of this country) secured a power
ful name by the last war. You were known
and dreaded abroad ; and it would have
been wise in you to have suffered the
world to have slept undisturbed under that
idea. It was to you a force existing without
expense. It produced to you all the advan
tages of real power ; and you were stronger
through the universality of that charm,
than any future fleets and armies may
probably make you. Your greatness was
so secured and interwoven with your
silence, that you ought never to have
awakened mankind, and had nothing to do
but to be quiet. Had you been true politi
cians you would have seen all this, and
continued to draw from the magic of a
name, the force and authority of a nation.
Unwise as you were in breaking the
charm, you were still more unwise in the
manner of doing it. Samson only told the
secret, but you have performed the opera
tion ; you have shaven your own head, and
wantonly thrown away the locks. America
was the hair from which the charm was
drawn that infatuated the world. You
ought to have quarrelled with no power;
but with her upon no account. You had
nothing to fear from any condescension you
might make. You might have humoured
her, even if there had been no justice in her
claims, without any risk to your reputation;
for Europe, fascinated by your fame, would
have ascribed it to your benevolence, and
America, intoxicated by the grant, would
have slumbered in her fetters.
But this method of studying the progress
of the passions, in order to ascertain the
probable conduct of mankind, is a philo
sophy in politics which those who preside
at St. James’s have no conception of. They
know no other influence than corruption,
and reckon all their probabilities from pre
cedent. A new case is to them a new
world, and while they are seeking for a
parallel they get lost. The talents of lord
Mansfield can be estimated at best no
higher than those of a sophist He under
stands the subtleties but not the elegance
of nature ; and by continually viewing man
kind through the cold medium of the law,
never thinks of penetrating into the warmer
region of the mind. As for lord North, it
is his happiness to have in him more philosophy than sentiment, for he bears flogging
like a top, and sleeps the better for it. His
punishment becomes his support, for while
he suffers the lash for his sins, he keeps
himself up by twirling about. In politics,
he is a good arithmetician, and in every
thing else nothing at all.
There is one circumstance which comes
so much within lord North’s province as a
financier, that I am surprised it should
escape him, which is, the different abilities
of the two countries in supporting the
expense: for, strange as it may seem,
England is not a match for America in this
particular. By a curious kind of revolution
in accounts, the people of England seem to
mistake their poverty for their riches ; that
is, they reckon their national debt as a part
of their national wealth. They make the
same kind of error which a man would do,
who after mortgaging his estate, should
add the money borrowed, to the full value
of the estate, in order to count up his worth,
and in this case he would conceive that he
got rich by running into debt. Just thus
it is with England. The government owed
at the beginning of this war one hundred
and thirty-five millions sterling, and though
the individuals to whom it was due, had a
right to reckon their shares as so much
private property, yet to the nation collec
tively it was so much poverty. There is as
effectual limits to public debts as to private
ones, for when once the money borrowed is
so great as to require the whole yearly
revenue to discharge the interest thereon,
there is an end to further borrowing ; in the
same manner as when the interest of a
man’s debts amounts to the yearly income
of his estate, there is an end to his credit.
This is nearly the case with England, the
interest of her present debt being at least
equal to one half of her yearly revenue, so
that out of ten millions annually collected
by taxes, she has but five that she can call
her own.1
1 Dr. Conway points out that when Paine in
his “ Common Sense ” was speaking of the
advantage of a national debt the advantage was
dependent upon the debt not bearing interest.
i
,1
i
i
/
\
*
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
The very reverse of this was the case
with America ; she began the war without
any debt upon her, and in order to carry it
on, she neither raised money by taxes, nor
borrowed it upon interest, but created it;
and her situation at this time continues so
much the reverse of yours that taxing would
make her rich, whereas it would make you
poor. When we shall have sunk the sum
which we have created, we shall then be
out of debt, be just as rich as when we
began, and all the while we are doing it
shall feel no difference, because the value
will rise as the quantity decreases.
There was not a country in the world so
capable of bearing the expense of a war as
America ; not only because she was not in
debt when she began, but because the
country is young and capable of infinite
improvement, and has an almost boundless
tract of new lands in store ; whereas
England has got to her extent of age and
growth, and has no unoccupied land or
property in reserve. The one is like a
young heir coming to a large improvable
estate; the other like an old man whose
chances are over, and his estate mortgaged
for half its worth.
In the second number of the Crisis,
which I find has been republished in
England, I endeavoured to set forth the
impracticability of conquering America.
I stated every case, that I conceived could
possibly happen, and ventured to predict
its consequences. As my conclusions were
-drawn not artfully, but naturally, they have
all proved to be true. I was upon the spot;
knew the politics of America, her strength
.and resources, and by a train of services,
the best in my power to render was honoured
with the friendship of the congress, the
army and the people. I considered the
cause a just one. I know and feel it a just
■one, and under that confidence never made
my own profit or loss an object. My
endeavour was to have the matter well
understood on both sides, and I conceived
myself tendering a general service, by
setting forth to the one the impossibility
of being conquered, and to the other the
impossibility of conquering. Most of the
arguments made use of by the ministry
for supporting the war, are the very argu
ments that ought to have been used against
supporting it; and the plans, by which they
thought to conquer, are the very plans in
which they were sure to be defeated. They
have taken every thing up at the wrong
end. Their ignorance is astonishing, and
were you in my situation you would see it.
87
They may, perhaps, have your confidence,
but I am persuaded that they would make
very indifferent members of congress. I
know what England is, and what America
is, and from the compound of knowledge,
am better enabled to judge of the issue,
than what the king or any of his ministers
can be.
In this number I have endeavoured to
show the ill policy and disadvantages of
the war. I believe many of my remarks
are new. Those which are not so, I have
studied to improve and place in a manner
that may be clear and striking. Your failure
is, I am persuaded, as certain as fate.
America is above your reach. She is at
least your equal in the world, and her inde
pendence neither rests upon your consent,
nor can it be prevented by your arms. In
short, you spend your substance in vain,
and impoverish yourselves without a hope.
But suppose you had conquered America,
what advantages, collectively or individually, as merchants, manufacturers, or
conquerors, could you have looked for ? This
is an object you seemed never to have
attended to. Listening for the sound of
victory, and led away by the phrenzy of
arms, you neglected to reckon either the
cost or the consequences. You must all
pay towards the expense ; the poorest
among you must bear his share, and it is
both your right and your duty to weigh
seriously the matter. Had America been
conquered, she might have been parcelled
out in grants to the favourites at court, but
no .share of it would have fallen to you.
Your taxes would not have been lessened,
because she would have been in no con
dition to have paid any towards your relief.
We are rich by a contrivance of our own,
which would have ceased as soon as you
became masters. Our paper money will
be of no use in England, and silver and
gold we have none. In the last war you
made many conquests, but were any of
your taxes lessened thereby ? On the contrary, were you not -taxed to pay for the
charge of making them, and have not the
same been the case in every war ?
To the parliament I wish to address my
self in a more particular manner. They
appear to have supposed themselves
partners in the chase, and to have hunted
with the lion from an expectation of a
right in the booty; but in this it is most
probable they would, as legislators, have
been disappointed. The case is quite a
new one, and many unforeseen diffi
culties would have arisen thereon. The
1
$
I
1
'
�88
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
parliament claimed a legislative right over
America, and the war originated from that
pretence. But the army is supposed to
belong to the crown, and if America had
been conquered through their means, the
claim of the legislature would have been
suffocated in the conquest. Ceded, or
conquered, countries are supposed to be
out of the authority of parliament. Taxa
tion is exercised over them by prerogative
and not by law. It was attempted to be
done in the Granadas a few years ago, and
the only reason why it was not done was
because the crown had made a prior relin
quishment of its claim. Therefore, parlia
ment have been all this while supporting
measures for the establishment of their
authority, in the same issue of which, they
would have been triumphed over by the
prerogative. This might have opened a
new and interesting opposition between
the parliament and the crown. The crown
would have said that it conquered for itself,
and that to conquer for parliament was an
unknown case. The parliament might
have replied, that America not being a
foreign country, but a country in rebellion,
could not be said to be conquered, but
reduced; and thus continued their claim
by disowning the term. The crown might
have rejoined, that however America might
be considered at first, she became foreign
at last by a declaration of independence,
and a treaty with France; and that her
case being, by that treaty, put within the
law of nations, was out of the law of parlia
ment, who might have maintained, that as
their claim over America had never been
surrendered, so neither could it be taken
away. The crown might have insisted,
that though the claim of parliament could
not be taken away, yet, being an inferior,
it might be superseded ; and that, whether
the claim was withdrawn from the object,
or the object taken from the claim, the
same separation ensued ; and that America
being subdued after a treaty with France,
was to all intents and purposes a regal
conquest, and of course the sole property of
the king. The parliament, as the legal
delegates of the people, might have con
tended against the term “inferior,” and
rested the case upon the antiquity of
power, and this would have brought on a
set of very interesting and rational ques
tions.
ist, What is the original fountain of
power and honour in any country ?
2d, Whether the prerogative does not
belong to the people?
3d, Whether there is any such thing as
the English constitution ?
4th, Of what use is the crown to .the
people ?
5 th, Whether he who invented a crown
was not an enemy to mankind ?
6th, Whether it is not a shame for a man
to spend a million a year and do no good
for it, and whether the money might not be
better applied ?
7th, Whether such a man is not better
dead than alive ?
8th, Whether a congress, constituted
like that of America, is not the most
happy and consistent form of government
in the world ?—With a number of others of
the same import.
In short, the contention about the divi
dend might have distracted the nation;
for nothing is more common than to agree
in the conquest and quarrel for the prize ;
therefore it is, perhaps, a happy circum
stance, that our successes have prevented
the dispute.
If the parliament had been thrown out
in their claim, which it is most probable
they would, the nation likewise would have
been thrown out in their expectation; for
as the taxes would have been laid on by
the crown without the parliament, the
revenue arising therefrom, if any could
have arisen, would not have gone into the
exchequer, but into the privy purse, and so
far from lessening the taxes, would not
even have been added to them, but served
only as pocket money to the crown. The
more I reflect on this matter, the more I
am astonished at the blindness and ill
policy of my countrymen, whose wisdom
seems to operate without discernment, and
their strength without an object.
To the great bulwark of the nation, I
mean the mercantile and manufacturing
part thereof, I likewise present my address.
It is your interest to see America an inde
pendent, and not a conquered country. If
conquered, she is ruined ; and if ruined,
poor; consequently the trade will be a
trifle, and her credit doubtful. If inde
pendent, she flourishes, and from her
flourishing must your profits arise. It
matters nothing to you who governs
America, if your manufactures find a con
sumption there. Some articles will conse
quently be obtained from other places, and
it. is right that they should ; but the demand
for others will increase, by the great influx
of inhabitants which a state of independ
ence and peace will occasion, and in the
final event you may be enriched. The
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
commerce of America is perfectly free,
and ever will be so. She will consign
away no part of it to any nation. She has
not to her friends, and certainly will not to
her enemies, though it is probable that
your narrow-minded politicians, thinking
to please you thereby, may some time or
other unnecessarily make such a proposal.
Trade flourishes best when it is free, and
it is weak policy to attempt to fetter it.
Her treaty with France is on the most
liberal and generous principles, and the
French, in their conduct towards her, have
proved themselves to be philosophers, poli
ticians and gentlemen.
To the ministry I likewise address my
self. You, gentlemen, have studied the
ruin of your country, from which it is not
within your abilities to rescue her. Your
attempts to recover her are as ridiculous as
your plans which involved her are detest
able. The commissioners, being about to
depart, will probably bring you this, and
with it my sixth number addressed to them ;
and in so doing they carry back more
Common Sense than they brought, and you
likewise will have more than when you sent
them.
Having thus addressed you severally, I
conclude by addressing you collectively.
It is a long lane that has no turning. A
period of sixteen years of misconduct and
misfortune, is certainly long enough for any
one nation to suffer under ; and upon a
supposition that war is not declared between
France and you, I beg to place a line of
conduct before you that will easily lead you
out of all your troubles. It has been hinted
before, and cannot be too much attended
to.
Suppose America had remained unknown
to Europe till the present year, and that
Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander, in another
voyage round the world, had made the
first discovery of her, in the same condition
that she is now in, of arts, arms, numbers
and civilization. What, I ask, in that case,
would have been your conduct towards her?
For that will point out what it ought to be
now. The problems and their solutions
are equal, and the right line of the one is
the parallel of the other. The question
takes in every circumstance that can possibly
arise. It reduces politics to a simple
thought and is moreover a mode of investi
gation, in which, while you are studying
your interest the simplicity of the case will
cheat you into good temper. You have
nothing to do but to suppose that you have
found America, and she appears found to
89
your hand, and while in the joy of your
heart you stand still to admire her, the
path of politics rises straight before you.
Were I disposed to paint a contrast, I
could easily set off what you have done in
the present case, against what you would
have done in Z7z«Zcase, and by justly oppos
ing them, conclude a picture that would
make you blush. But, as when any of the
prouder passions are hurt, it is much better
philosophy to let a man slip into a good
temper than to attack him in a bad one J
for that reason, therefore, I only state the
case, and leave you to reflect upon it.
To go a little back into politics, it will be
found that the true interest of Britain lay
in proposing and promoting the independ
ence of America immediately after the last
peace ; for the expense which Britain had
then incurred by defending America as her
own dominions, ought to have shown her
the policy and necessity of changing the
style of the country as the best probable
method of preventing future wars and ex
pense, and the only method by which she
could hold the commerce without the charge
of sovereignty. Besides which the title
which she assumed, of parent country, led
to, and pointed out the propriety, wisdom
and advantage of a separation ; for, as in
private life, children grow into men, and
by setting up for themselves, extend and
secure the interest of the whole family, so
in the settlement of colonies large enough
to admit of maturity, the same policy should
be pursued, and the same consequences
would follow. Nothing hurts the affections
both of parents and children so much, as
living too closely connected, and keeping
up the distinction too long. Domineering
will not do over those, who, by a progress
in life, have become equal in rank to their
parents, that is, when they have families of
their own ; and though they may conceive
themselves the subject of their advice, will
not suppose them the objects of their
government. I do not, by drawing this
parallel, mean to admit the title of parent
country, because, if it is due any where, it
is due to Europe collectively, and the first
settlers from England were driven here by
persecution. I mean only to introduce the
term for the sake of policy and to show
from your title the line of your interest.
When you saw the state of strength and
opulence, and that by her own industry,
which America had arrived at, you ought
to have advised her to set up for herself,
and proposed an alliance of interest with
her, and in so doing you would have drawn.
�90
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
and that at her own expense, more real
advantage, and more military supplies and
assistance, both of ships and men, than
from any weak and wrangling government
that you could exercise over her. In short,
had you studied only the domestic politics
of a family, you would have learned how to
govern the state ; but, instead of this easy
and natural line, you flew out into every
thing which was wild and outrageous, till,
by following the passion and stupidity of
the pilot, you wrecked the vessel within
sight of the shore.
Having shown what you ought to have
done, I now proceed to show why it was
not done. The caterpillar circle of the
court, had an interest to pursue, distinct
from, and opposed to yours ; for though by
the independence of America and an alliance
therewith, the trade would have continued,
if not increased, as in many articles neither
country can go to a better market, and
though by defending and protecting her
self, she would have been no expense to
you, and consequently your national
charges would have decreased, and your
taxes might have been proportionably
lessened thereby; yet the striking off so
many places from the court calendar was
put in opposition to the interest of the
nation. The loss of thirteen government
ships, with their appendages, here and in
England, is a shocking sound in the ear of
a hungry courtier. Your present king and
ministry will be the ruin of you ; and you
had better risk a revolution and call a
congress, than be thus led on from mad
ness to despair, and from despair to ruin.
America has set you the example, and you
may follow it and be free.
I now come to the last part, a war with
France. This is what no man in his senses
will advise you to, and all good men would
wish to prevent. Whether France will
declare war against you, is not for me in
this place to mention, or to hint, even if I
knew it; but it must be madness in you to
do it first. The matter is come now to a
full crisis, and peace is easy if willingly set
about. Whatever you may think, France
has behaved handsomely to you.
She
would have been unjust to herself to have
acted otherwise than she did ; and having
accepted our offer of alliance, she gave you
genteel notice of it. There was nothing in
her conduct reserved or indelicate, and
while she announced her determination to
support her treaty, she left you to give the
first offence. America, on her part, has
exhibited a character of firmness to the
world. Unprepared and unarmed, without
form or government, she singly opposed a
nation that domineered over half the globe.
The greatness of the deed demands respect;
and though you may feel resentment, you
are compelled both to wonder and admire.
Here I rest my arguments and finish my
address. Such as it is, it is a gift, and you
are welcome. It was always my design to
dedicate a Crisis to you, when the time
should come that would properly make it a
Crisis j- and when, likewise, I should catch
myself in a temper to write it, and suppose
you in a condition to read it. That time
has now arrived, and with it the opportunity
of conveyance. For the commissioners—
poor commissioners! having proclaimed,,
that “yet forty days and Nineveh shall beoverthrown/” have waited out the date,,
and, discontented with their God, are
returning to their gourd. And all the harm
I wish them is, that it may not wither about
their ears, and that they may not make
their exit in the belly of a whale.
Common
Philadelphia, Nov. 21, 1778.
Sense.
P.S. Though in the tranquillity of my
mind I have concluded with a laugh, yet I
have something to mention to the commis
sioners, which, to them, is serious and
worthy their attention. Their authority is
derived from an act of parliament, which
likewise describes and limits their official
powers. Their commission, therefore, is
only a recital, and personal investiture, of
those powers, or a nomination and descrip
tion of the persons who are to execute
them. Had it contained any thing con
trary to, or gone beyond the line of, the
written law from which it is derived, and
by which it is bound, it would, by the
English constitution, have been treason in
the crown, and the king been subject to an
impeachment. He dared not, therefore,
put in his commission what you have put
in your proclamation, that is, he dared not
have authorized you in that commission to
burn and destroy any thing in America.
You are both in the act and in the com
mission styled commissioners for restorings
peace, and the methods for doing it are
there pointed out. Your last proclamation
is signed by you as commissioners unde?
that act. You make parliament the patron
of its contents. Yet, in the body of it, you
insert matters contrary both to the spirit
and letter of the act, and what likewise'
your king dared not have put in his com
mission to you. The state of things in
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
England, gentlemen, is too ticklish for you
to run hazards. You are accountable to
parliament for the execution of that act
according to the letter of it. Your heads
may pay for breaking it, for you certainly
have broke it by exceeding it. And as a
friend, who would wish you to escape the
paw of the lion, as well as the belly of the
whale, I civilly hint to you, to keep within
compass.
Sir Harry Clinton, strictly speaking, is
as accountable as the rest; for though a
general, he is likewise a commissioner,
acting under a superior authority. His
first obedience is due to the act ; and his
plea of being a general, will not and
cannot clear him as a commissioner, for
that would suppose the crown, in its single
capacity, to have a power of dispensing
with an act of parliament. Your situation,
gentlemen, is nice and critical, and the
more so because England is unsettled.
Take heed I Remember the times of
Charles the first! For Laud and Strafford
fell by trusting to a hope like yours.
Having thus shown you the danger of
your proclamation, I now show you the
folly of it. The means contradict your
design ; you threaten to lay waste, in order
to render America a useless acquisition of
alliance to France. I reply, that the more
destruction you commit (if you could do it)
the more valuable to France you make that
alliance. You can destroy only houses and
goods ; and by so doing you increase our
demand upon her for materials and mer
chandize ; for the wants of one nation,
provided it has freedom and credit, natur
ally produces riches to the other; and, as
you can neither ruin the land nor prevent
the vegetation, you would increase the
exportation of our produce in payment,
which would be to her a new fund of wealth.
In short, had you cast about for a plan or
purpose to enrich your enemies, you could
not have hit upon a better.
C. S.
VIII.
ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE OF
ENGLAND.
“ Trusting (says the king of England in
his speech of November last,) in the divine
providence, and in the justice of my cause,
I am firmly resolved to prosecute the war
with vigour, and to make every exertion in
9i
order to compel our enemies to equitable
terms of peace and accommodation.” To
this declaration the United States of
America, and the confederated powers of
Europe will reply, if Britain will have war,
she shall have enough of it.
Five years have nearly elapsed since the
commencement of hostilities, and every
campaign by a gradual decay, has lessened
your ability to conquer, without producing
a serious thought on your condition or your
fate. Like a prodigal lingering in an
habitual consumption, you feel the relics of
life, and mistake them for recovery. New
schemes, like new medicines, have admini
stered fresh hopes, and prolonged the
disease instead of curing it. A change of
generals, like a change of physicians,
served only to keep the flattery alive, and
furnish new pretences for a new extrava
gance.
“ Can Britain fail?has been proudly
asked at the undertaking of every enter
prise, and that “ whatever she wills is fatef2
has been given with the solemnity of pro
phetic confidence, and though the question
has been constantly replied to by disap
pointment, and the prediction falsified by
misfortune, yet still the insult continued,
and your catalogue of national evils in
creased therewith. Eager to persuade the
world of her power, she considered destruc
tion as the minister of greatness, and con
ceived that the glory of a nation, like that
of an Indian, lay in the number of its scalps
and the miseries which it inflicts.
Fire, sword and want, as far as the arms
of Britain could extend them, have been
spread with wanton cruelty along the coast
of America; and while you, remote from
the scene of suffering, had nothing to lose
and as little to dread, the information
reached you like a tale of antiquity, in
which the distance of time defaces the con
ception, and changes the severest sorrows
into conversable amusement.
This makes the second paper, addressed
perhaps in vain to the people of England.
That advice should be taken where
example has failed; or precept be re
garded where warning is ridiculed, is like
a picture of hope resting on despair; but
when time shall stamp with universal
currency, the facts you have long encoun
tered with a laugh, and the irresistible
1 Whitehead’s new-year’s ode for 1776.
Author.
a Ode at the installation of lord North, for
Chancellor of the university of Oxford. Author.
�C)2
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
evidence of accumulated losses, like the
hand writing on the wall, shall add terror
to distress, you will then, in a conflict of
suffering, learn to sympathize with others
by feeling for yourselves.
The triumphant appearance of the com
bined fleets in the channel and at your
harbour’s mouth, and the expedition of
captain Paul Jones, on the western and
eastern coasts of England and Scotland,
will, by placing you in the condition of an
endangered country, read to you a stronger
lecture on the calamities of invasion, and
bring to your minds a truer picture of pro
miscuous distress, than the most finished
rhetoric can describe or the keenest
imagination conceive.
Hitherto you have experienced the
expenses, but nothing of the miseries of
war. Your disappointments have been
accompanied with no immediate suffering,
and your losses came to you only by intel
ligence. Like fire at a distance you heard
not even the cry ; you felt not the danger,
you saw not the confusion. To you every
thing has been foreign but the taxes to
support it. You knew not what it was to
be alarmed at midnight with an armed
enemy in the streets. You were strangers
to the distressing scene of a family in flight,
and to the thousand restless cares and
tender sorrows that incessantly arose. To
see women and children wandering in the
severity of winter, with the broken remains
of a well-furnished house, and seeking
shelter in every crib and hut, were matters
that you had no conception of. You knew
not what it was to stand by and see your
goods chopped for fuel, and your beds
ripped to pieces to make packages for
plunder. The misery of others, like a
tempestuous night, added to the pleasures
of your own security. You even enjoyed
the storm, by contemplating the difference
of conditions, and that which carried
sorrow into the breasts of thousands,
served but to heighten in you a species of
tranquil pride. Yet these are but the
fainter sufferings of war, when compared
with carnage and slaughter, the miseries of
a military hospital, or a town in flames.
The people of America, by anticipating
distress, had fortified their minds against
every species you could inflict. They had
resolved to abandon their homes, to resign
them to destruction, and to seek new settle
ments rather than submit. Thus familiar
ized to misfortune, before it arrived, they
bore their portion with the less regret: the
justness of their cause was a continual
source of consolation, and the hope of
final victory, which never left them, served
to lighten the load and sweeten the cup
allotted them to drink.
But when their troubles shall become
yours, and invasion be transferred upon
the invaders, you will have neither their
extended wilderness to fly to, their cause
to comfort you, nor their hope to rest upon.
Distress with them was sharpened by no
self-reflection. They had not brought it
on themselves. On the contrary, they had
by every proceeding endeavoured to avoid
it, and had descended even below the mark
of congressional character, to prevent a
war. The national honour or the advan
tages of independence were matters, which
at the commencement of the dispute, they
had never studied, and it was only at the
last moment that the measure was resolved
on. Thus circumstanced, they naturally
and conscientiously felt a dependence upon
providence. They had a clear pretension
to it, and had they failed therein, infidelity
had gained a triumph.
But your condition is the reverse of
theirs. Every thing you suffer you have
sought: nay, had you created mischiefs on
purpose to inherit them, you could not
have secured your title by a firmer deed.
The world awakens with no pity at your
complaints. You felt none for others ; you
deserve none for yourselves. Nature does
not interest herself in cases like yours, but,
on the contrary, turns from them with dis
like, and abandons them to punishment.
You may now present memorials to what
court you please, but so far as America is
concerned, none will listen. The policy of
Europe, and the propensity there in every
mind to curb insulting ambition, and bring
cruelty to judgment, are unitedly against
you; and where nature and interest rein
force each other, the compact is too inti
mate to be dissolved.
f Make but the case of others your own,
and your own theirs, and you will then
have a clear idea of the whole. Had
France acted towards her colonies as you
have done, you would have branded her
with every epithet of abhorrence ; and had
you, like her, stepped in to succour a
straggling people, all Europe must have
echoed with your own applauses. But
entangled in the passion of dispute, you
see it not as you ought, and form opinions
thereon which suit with no interest but
your own. You wonder that America does
not rise in union with you to impose on
herself a portion of your taxes, and reduce
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
herself to unconditional submission. You
are amazed that the southern powers of
Europe do not assist you in conquering a
country which is afterwards to be turned
against themselves ; and that the northern
ones do not contribute to reinstate you in
America who already enjoy the market for
naval stores by the separation. You seem
surprised that Holland does not pour in
her succours, to maintain you mistress of
the seas, when her own commerce is suffer
ing by your act of navigation ; or that any
country should study her own interest while
yours is on the carpet.
Such excesses of passionate folly, and
unjust as well as unwise resentment, have
driven you on, like Pharaoh, to unpitied
miseries, and while the importance of the
quarrel shall perpetuate your disgrace, the
flag of America will carry it round the
world. The natural feelings of every
rational being will be against you, and
wherever the story shall be told, you will
have neither excuse nor consolation left.
With an unsparing hand, and an insatiable
mind, you have desolated the world, to
gain dominion and to lose it; and while,
in a phrenzy of avarice and ambition, the
east and the west are doomed to tributary
bondage, you rapidly earned destruction as
the wages of a nation.
At the thoughts of a war at home, every
man amongst you ought to tremble. The
prospect is far more dreadful there than in
America. Here the party that was against
the measures of the continent were in
general composed of a kind of neutrals,
who added strength to neither army. There
does not exist a being so devoid of sense
and sentiment as to covet “ unconditional
submission” and therefore no man in
America could be with you in principle.
Several might from cowardice of mind,
prefer it to the hardships and dangers of
opposing it; but the same disposition that
gave them such a choice, unfitted them to
act either for or against us. But England
is rent into parties, with equal shares of
resolution. The principle which produced
the war divides the nation. Their ani
mosities are in the highest state of fermen
tation, and both sides, by a call of the
militia, are in arms. No human foresight
can discern, no conclusion can be formed,
what turn a war might take, if once set on
foot by an invasion. She is not now in a
fit disposition to make a common cause of
her own affairs, and having no conquests
to hope for abroad, and nothing but
expenses arising at home, her every thing
93
is staked upon a defensive combat, and
the further she goes the worse she is off.
There are situations that a nation may be
in, in which peace or war, abstracted from
every other consideration, may be politi
cally right or wrong. When nothing can
be lost by a war, but what must be lost
without it, war is then the policy of that
country; and such was the situation of
America at the commencement of hostili
ties ; but when no security can be gained
by a war, but what may be accom
plished by a peace, the case becomes
reversed, and such now is the situation of
England.
That America is beyond the reach of a
conquest, is a fact which experience has
shown and time confirmed, and this
admitted, what, I ask, is now the object
of contention ? If there be any honour in
pursuing self-destruction with inflexible
passion—if national suicide be the per
fection of national glory, you may, with all
the pride of criminal happiness, expire
unenvied and unrivalled. But when the
tumult of war shall cease, and the tempest
of present passions be succeeded by calm
reflection, or when those who, surviving its
fury, shall inherit from you a legacy of
debts and misfortunes, when the yearly
revenue shall scarcely be able to discharge
the interest of the one, and no possible
remedy be left for the other, ideas, far
different from the present, will arise, and
embitter the remembrance of former follies.
A mind disarmed of its rage, feels no
pleasure in contemplating a frantic quarrel.
Sickness of thought, the sure consequence
of conduct like yours, leaves no ability for
enjoyment, no relish for resentment; and
though, like a man in a fit, you feel not the
injury of the struggle, nor distinguish
between strength and disease, the weak
ness will nevertheless be proportioned to
the violence, and the sense of pain increase
with the recovery.
To what persons or to whose system
of politics you owe your present state of
wretchedness, is a matter of total indiffer
ence to America. They have contributed,
however unwillingly, to set her above
themselves, and she, in the tranquillity of
conquest, resigns the inquiry. The case
now is not so properly who began the war,
as who continues it. That there are men
in all countries to whom a state of war is a
mine of wealth, is a fact never to be doubted.
Characters like these naturally breed in the
putrefaction of distempered times, and after
fattening on the disease, they perish with
�94
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
it, or, impregnated with the stench, retreat
into obscurity.
But there are several erroneous notions
to which you likewise owe a share of your
misfortunes, and which, if continued, will
only increase your trouble and your losses.
An opinion hangs about the gentlemen of
the minority, that America would relish
measures under their administration, which
she would not from the present cabinet.
On this rock lord Chatham would have
split had he gained the helm, and several
of his survivors are steering the same
course. Such distinctions in the infancy
of the argument had some degree of foun
dation, but they now serve no other
purpose than to lengthen out a war, in
which the limits of a dispute being fixed
by the fate of arms, and guaranteed by
treaties, are not to be changed or altered
by trivial circumstances.
The ministry, and many of the minority,
sacrifice their time in disputing on a ques
tion with which they have nothing to do,
namely, whether America shall be inde
pendent or not ? Whereas the only ques
tion that can come under their determina
tion is, whether they will accede to it or
not? They confound a military question
with a political one, and undertake to
supply by a vote what they lost by a
battle. Say, she shall not be independent,
and it will signify as much as if they voted
against a decree of fate, or say that she
shall, and she will be no more independent
than before. Questions, which when deter
mined, cannot be executed, serve only to
show the folly of dispute and the weakness
of disputants.
From a long habit of calling America
your own, you suppose her governed by the
same prejudices and conceits which govern
yourselves. Because you have set up a
particular denomination of religion to the
exclusion of all others, you imagine she
must do the same, and because you, with
an unsociable narrowness of mind, have
cherished enmity against France and
Spain, you suppose her alliance must be
defective in friendship. Copying her notions
of the world from you, she formerly thought
as you instructed, but now feeling herself
free, and the prejudice removed, she thinks
and acts upon a different system. It
frequently happens that in proportion as we
are taught to dislike persons and countries,
not knowing why, we feel an ardour of
esteem upon the removal of the mistake:
it seems as if something was to be made
amends for, and we eagerly give into every
office of friendship, to atone for the injury
of the error.
But, perhaps, there is something in the
extent of countries, which, among the
generality of people, insensibly communi
cates extension of the mind. The soul of
an islander, in its native state, seems
bounded by the foggy confines of the water’s
edge, and all beyond affords to him matters
only for profit or curiosity, not for friend
ship. His island is to him his world, and
fixed to that, his every thing centres in it;
while, those, who are inhabitants of a
continent, by casting their eye over a
larger field, take in likewise a larger
intellectual circuit, and thus approaching
nearer to an acquaintance with the universe,
their atmosphere of thought is extended,
and their liberality fills a wider space. In
short, our minds seem to be measured by
countries when we are men, as they are by
places when we are children, and until
something happens to disentangle us from
the prejudice, we serve under it without
perceiving it.
In addition to this, it may be remarked,
that men who study any universal science,
the principles of which are universally
known, or admitted, and applied without
distinction to the common benefit of all
countries, obtain thereby a larger share of
philanthropy than those who only study
national arts and improvements. Natural
philosophy, mathematics and astronomy,
carry the mind from the country to the
creation, and give it a fitness suited to the
extent. It was not Newton’s honour,
neither could it be his pride, that he was
an Englishman, but that he was a philoso
pher ; the heavens had liberated him from
the prejudices of an island, and science had
expanded his soul as boundless as his
studies.
Common Sense.
Philadelphia, March, 1780.
IX.
Had America pursued her advantages with
half the spirit that she resisted her mis
fortunes, she would, before now, have been
a conquering and a peaceful people; but
lulled in the lap of soft tranquillity, she
rested on her hopes, and adversity only
has convulsed her into action. Whether
subtlety or sincerity at the close of the last
year, induced the enemy to an appearance
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
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for peace, is a point not material to know :
it is sufficient that we see the effects it has
had on our politics, and that we sternly
rise to resent the delusion.
The war, on the part of America, has
been a war of natural feelings. Brave in
distress ; serene in conquest; drowsy while
at rest; and in every situation generously
disposed to peace—a dangerous calm, and
a most heightened zeal, have, as circumstances varied, succeeded each other. Every
passion, but that of despair, has been called
to a tour of duty; and so mistaken has
been the enemy, of our abilities and disposition, that when she supposed us conquered, we rose the conquerors. The
extensiveness of the United States, and the
variety of their resources ; the universality
of their cause, the quick operation of their
feelings, and the similarity of their senti
ments, have, in every trying situation, pro
duced a something, which, favoured by
providence, and pursued with ardour, has
accomplished in an instant the business of
a campaign. We have never deliberately
sought victory, but snatched it: and bravely
undone in an hour, the blotted operations
of a season.
The reported fate of Charleston, like the
misfortunes of 1776, has at last called forth
a spirit, and kindled up a flame, which
perhaps no other event could have produced.
If the enemy have circulated a falsehood,
they have unwisely aggravated us into life,
and if they have told us a truth, they have
unintentionally done us a service. We
were returning with folded arms from the
fatigues of war, and thinking and sitting
leisurely down to enjoy repose.
The
dependence that has been put upon
Charleston threw a drowsiness over America.
We looked on the business done — the
conflict over—the matter settled—or that
all which remained unfinished would follow
of itself. In this state of dangerous relaxa
tion, exposed to the poisonous infusions of
the enemy, and having no common danger
to attract our attention, we were extinguish
ing, by stages, the ardour we began with,
and surrendering by piece-meal the virtue
that defended us.
Afflicting as the loss of Charleston may
be, yet if it universally rouse us from the
slumber of twelve months past, and renew
in us the spirit of former days, it will produce an advantage more important than its
' loss. America ever is what she thinks
herself to be. Governed by sentiment, and
acting her own mind, she becomes, as she
pleases the victor or the victim.
It is not the conquest of towns, nor the
accidental capture of garrisons, that can
reduce a country so extensive as this. The
sufferings of one part can never be relieved
by the exertions of another, and there is no
situation the enemy can be placed in, that
does not afford to us the same advantages
he seeks himself. By dividing his force,
he leaves every post attackable. It is a
mode of war that carries with it a confession
of weakness, and goes on the principle of
distress, rather than conquest.
The decline of the enemy is visible, not
only in their operations, but in their plans ;
Charleston originally made but a secondary
object in the system of attack, and it is now
become the principal one, because they
have not been able to succeed elsewhere.
It would have carried a cowardly appear
ance in Europe had they formed their
grand expedition? in 1776, against a part of
the continent where there was no army, or
not a sufficient one to oppose them; but
failing year after year in their impressions
here, and to the eastward and northward,
they deserted their capital design, and
prudently contenting themselves with what
they could get, give a flourish of honour to
conceal disgrace.
But this piece-meal work is not conquer
ing the continent. It is a discredit in them
to attempt it, and in us to suffer it. It is
now full time to put an end to a war of
aggravations, which, on one side, has no
possible object, and on the other, has every
inducement which honour, interest, safety
and happiness can inspire. If we suffer
them much longer to remain among us, we
shall become as bad as themselves. An
association of vice will reduce us more than
the sword. A nation hardened in the
practice of iniquity knows better how to
profit by it, than a young country newly
corrupted. We are not a match for them
in the line of advantageous guilt, nor they
for us on the principles which we bravely
set out with. Our first days were our days of
honour. They have marked the character
of America wherever the story of her wars
are told : and convinced of this, we have
nothing to do, but wisely and unitedly tread
the well known track. The progress of a
war is often as ruinous to individuals, as the
issue of it is to a nation ; and it is not only
necessary that our forces be such that we
be conquerors in the end, but that by timely
exertions we be secure in the interim. The
present campaign will afford an opportunity
which has never presented itself before, and
the preparations for it are equally necessary,
�96
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
whether Charleston stand or fall. Suppose
the first, it is in that case only a failure of
the enemy, not a defeat. All the conquest
that a besieged town can hope for, is, not
to be conquered ; and compelling an enemy
to raise the siege, is to the besieged a
victory. But there must be a probability
amounting almost to certainty, that would
justify a garrison marching out to attack
a retreat. Therefore should Charleston not
be taken, and the enemy abandon the siege,
every other part of the continent should
prepare to meet them ; and, on the contrary,
should it be taken, the same preparations
are necessary to balance the loss, and put
ourselves in a condition to co-operate with
our allies, immediately on their arrival.
We are not now fighting our battles
alone, as we were in 1776; England, from
a malicious disposition to America, has not
only not declared war against France and
Spain, but the better to prosecute her
passions here, has afforded those powers no
military object, and avoids them, to distress
us. She will suffer her West-India islands
to be overrun by France, and her southern
settlements to be taken by Spain, rather
than quit the object that gratifies her
revenge. This conduct, on the part of
Britain, has pointed out the propriety of
France sending a naval and land force to
co-operate with America on the spot.
Their arrival cannot be very distant, nor
the ravages of the enemy long. The
recruiting the army, and procuring the
supplies, are the two things most necessary
to be accomplished, and a capture of
either of the enemy’s divisions will restore,
to America peace and plenty.
At a crisis, big, like the present, with
expectation and events, the whole country
is called to unanimity and exertion. Not
an ability ought now to sleep, that can
produce but a mite to the general good,
nor even a whisper to pass that militates
against it. The necessity of the case, and
the importance of the consequences, admit
no delay from a friend, no apology from
an enemy. To spare now, would be the
height of extravagance, and to consult
present ease, would be to sacrifice it per
haps forever.
America, rich in patriotism and produce,
can want neither men nor supplies, when a
serious necessity calls them forth. The
slow operation of taxes, owing to the exten
siveness of collection, and their depreciated
value before they arrived in the treasury,
have, in many instances, thrown a burden
upon government, which has been artfully
interpreted by the enemy into a general
decline throughout the country. Yet this,
inconvenient as it may at first appear, is
not only remediable, but may be turned to
an immediate advantage; for it makes no
real difference, whether a certain number
of men, or company of militia (and in this
country every man is a militia-man) are
directed by law to send a recruit at their
own expense, or whether a tax is laid on
them for that purpose, and the man hired
by government afterwards. The first, if
there is any difference, is both cheapest
and best, because it saves the expense
which would attend collecting it as a tax,
and brings the man sooner into the field
than the modes of recruiting formerly
used; and, on this principle, a law has
been passed in this state, for recruiting
two men from each company of militia,
which will add upwards of a thousand to
the force of the country.
But the flame which has broke forth in
this city since the report from New-York,
of the loss of Charleston, not only does
honour to the place, but, like the blaze of
1776, will kindle into action the scattered
sparks throughout America. The valour of
a country may be learned by the bravery
of its soldiery, and the general cast of its
inhabitants, but confidence of success is
best discovered by the active measures
pursued by men of property; and when
the spirit of enterprise becomes so universal
as to act at once on all ranks of men, a
War may then, and not till then, be styled
truly popular.
In 1776, the ardour of the enterprising
part was considerably checked by the real
revolt of some, and the coolness of others.
But in the present case, there is a firmness
in the substance and property of the
country to the public cause. An associa
tion has been entered into by the merchants,
tradesmen, and principal inhabitants of the
city, to receive and support the new state
money at the value of gold and silver; a
measure which, while it does them honour,
will likewise contribute to their interest, by
rendering the operations of the campaign
convenient and effectual.
Nor has the spirit of exertion stopped
here. A voluntary subscription is likewise
begun, to raise a fund of hard money, to
be given as bounties, to fill up the full
quota of the Pennsylvania line.1 It has
1 Paine, who was now Clerk of the Pennsyl
vania Assembly, first proposed the subscription,
and headed it with $500.
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
been the remark of the enemy, that every
thing in America has been done by the
force of government; but when she sees
individuals throwing in their voluntary aid,
and facilitating the public measures in
concert with the established powers of the
country, it will convince her that the cause
of America stands not on the will of a few,
but on the broad foundation of property
and popularity.
Thus aided and thus supported, disaffec
tion will decline, and the withered head of
tyranny expire in America. The ravages
of the enemy will be short and limited,
and like all their former ones, will produce
a victory over themselves.
Philadelphia, June
Common
1780.
Sense.
gggT At the time of writing this number
of the Crisis, the loss of Charleston, though
believed by some, was more confidently
disbelieved by others. But thfere ought to
be no longer a doubt upon the matter.
Charleston is gone, and I believe fpr the
want of a sufficient supply of provisions.
The man that does not now feel for the
honour of the best and noblest cause that
ever a country engaged in, and exert him
self accordingly, is no longer worthy of a
peaceable residence among a people deter
mined to be free.
C. S.
THE CRISIS EXTRAORDINARY.
On the Subject of Taxation.
It is impossible to sit down and think
seriously on the affairs of America, but the
original principles upon which she resisted,
and the giowand ardourwhich theyinspired,
will occur like the undefaced remembrance
of a lovely scene. To trace over in imagi
nation the purity of the cause, the voluntary
sacrifices that were made to support it, and
all the various turnings of . the war in its
defence, is at once both paying and receiv
ing respect. The principles deserve to be
remembered, and to remember them rightly
is repossessing them. In this indulgence
of generous recollection, we become gainers
by what we seem to give, and the more we
bestow the richer we become.
So extensively right was the ground on
which America proceeded, that it not only
took in every just and liberal sentiment
which could impress the heart, but made
it the direct interest of every class and
97
order of men to defend the country. The
war, on the part of Britain, was originally
a war of covetousness. The sordid, and
not the splendid passions gave it being.
The fertile fields and prosperous infancy of
America appeared to her as mines for
tributary wealth. She viewed the hive,
and disregarding the industry that had
enriched it, thirsted for the honey. But in
the present stage of her affairs, the violence
of temper is added to the.rage of avarice ;
and therefore, that which at the first
setting out proceeded from purity of prin
ciple and public interest is now heightened
by all the obligations of necessity; for it
requires but little knowledge of human
nature to discern what would be the con
sequence, were America again reduced to
the subjection of Britain. Uncontrolled
power, in the hands of an incensed, im
perious and rapacious conqueror, is an
engine of dreadful execution, and woe be
to that country over which it can be exer
cised. The names of whig and tory would
then be sunk in the general term of rebel,
and the oppression, whatever it might .be,
would, with very few instances of exception,
light equally on all.
Britain did not go to war with America
for the sake of dominion, because she was
then in possession; neither was it for the
extension of trade and commerce, because
she had monopolized the whole, and the
country had yielded to it; neither was it
to extinguish what she might call rebellion,
because before she began no resistance
existed. It could then be from no other
motive than avarice, or a design of estab
lishing, in the first instance, the same taxes
in America as are paid in England (which,
as I shall presently show, are above eleven
times heavier than the taxes we now pay
for the present year, 1780) or, in the second
instance, to confiscate the whole property
of America, in case of resistance and con
quest of the latter, of which she had then
no doubt.
I shall now proceed to show what the
taxes in England are, and what the yearly
expense of the present war is to her
what the taxes of this country amount to,
and what the annual expense of defending
it effectually will be to us; and shall
endeavour concisely to point out the cause
of our difficulties, and the advantages on
one side, and the consequences on the
other, in case we do, or do not, put our
selves in an effectual state of defence. I
mean to be open, candid and sincere. I
see a universal wish to expel the enemy
K
�98
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
from the country, a murmuring because
the war is not carried on with more vigour,
and my intention is to show, as shortly as
possible, both the reason and the remedy.
The number of souls in England (exclu
sive of Scotland and Ireland) is seven
millions,1 and the number of souls in
America is three millions.
The amount of taxes in England (exclu
sive of Scotland and Ireland) was, before
the present war commenced, eleven million
six hundred and forty-two thousand six
hundred and fifty-three pounds sterling;
which, on an average, is no less a sum
than one pound thirteen shillings and three
pence sterling per head per annum, men,
women and children ; besides county taxes,
taxes for the support of the poor, and a
tenth of all the produce of the earth for
the support of the bishops and clergy.2
Nearly five millions of this sum went
annually to pay the interest of the national
debt, contracted by former wars, and the
remaining sum of six millions six hundred
1 This is taking the highest number that the
people of England have been, or can be rated
at. Author.
* The following is taken from Dr. Price’s
state of the taxes of England, pp. 96, 97, 98 :—
An account of the money drawn from the
public by taxes, annually, being the medium of
three years before the year 1776.
Amount of customs in England ... 2,528,275/.
Amount of the excise in England ... 4,649,892
Land tax at 3r.
1,300,000
Land tax at ir. in the pound
450,000
Salt duties ...
218,739
Duties on stamps, cards, dice, adver
tisements, bonds, leases, inden
tures, newspapers, almanacks, &c.
280,788
Duties on houses and windows
385,369
Post office, seizures, wine licences,
hackney coaches, &c.
250,000
150,000
Annual profits from lotteries
Expense of collecting the excise in
297,887
England ...
Expense of collecting the customs
in England
. 468,703
Interest of loans on the land tax at
4J. expenses of collection, militia,
&c....
250,000
Perquisites, &c. to custom-house
officers, &c. supposed
250,000
Expense of collecting the salt duties
27,000
in England 10 1-2 per cent.
18,000
Bounties on fish exported ...
Expense of collecting the duties on
stamps, cards, advertisements, &c.
18,000
at 5 and 1-4 per cent.................. ~
Total 11,542,653/.
Author.
and forty-two thousand six hundred pounds
was applied to defray the yearly expense of
government, the peace establishment of the
army and navy, placemen, pensioners, &c.;
consequently, the whole of the enormous
taxes being thus appropriated, she had
nothing to spare out of them towards
defraying the expenses of the present war
or any other. Yet had she not been in
debt at the beginning of the war, as we
were not, and, like us, had only a land and
not a naval war to carry on, her then
revenue of eleven millions and a half pounds
sterling would have defrayed all her annual
expenses of war and government within each
year.
But this not being the case with her, she
is obliged to borrow about ten million
pounds sterling, yearly, to prosecute the
war that she is now engaged in, (this year
she borrowed twelve) and lay on new taxes
to discharge the interest; allowing that the
present war 'has cost her only fifty millions
sterling, the interest thereon, at five per
cent, will be two millions and a half; there
fore the amount of her taxes now must be
fourteen millions, which on an average
is no less than forty shillings sterling per
head men, women and children, throughout
the nation. Now as this expense of fifty
millions was borrowed on the hopes of
conquering America, and as it was avarice
which first induced her to commence the
war, how truly wretched and deplorable
would the condition of this country be,
were she, by her own remissness, to suffer
an enemy of such a disposition, and so cir
cumstanced, to reduce her to subjection.
I now proceed to the revenues of
America.
I have already stated the number of souls
in America to be three millions, and by a
calculation that I have made, which I have
every reason to believe is sufficiently cor
rect, the whole expense of the war, and the
support of the several governments, may be
defrayed for two million pounds sterling
annually ; which, on an average, is thirteen
shillings and four pence per head, men,
women and children, and the peace estab
lishment at the end of the war, will be but
three quarters of a million, or five shillings
sterling per head. Now, throwing out of
the question every thing of honour, prin
ciple, happiness, freedom and reputation in'
the world, and taking it up on the simple
ground of interest, I put the following case:
Supposing Britain was to conquer Ame
rica, and, as a conqueror, was to lay her
under no other conditions than to pay the
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
99
same proportion towards her annual revenue two millions sterling, and the establishment'
which the people of England pay : our in the time of peace, for three quarters of a
share, in that case, wguld be. six million million.1
As to navy matters, they flourish so well,
pounds sterling yearly. Can it then be a
question, whether it is best to raise two and are so well attended to by individuals,
millions to defend the country, and govern that I think it consistent on every principle
it ourselves, and only three .quarters of a of real use and economy, to turn the navy
million afterwards, or pay six millions to into hard money (keeping only three or four
have it conquered, and let the enemy packets) and apply it to the service of the
army. We shall not have a ship the
govern it?
Can it be supposed that conquerors would less : the use of them, and the benefit from
Choose to put themselves in a worse con them, would be greatly increased, and
dition than what they granted to the con their expense saved. We are now allied
quered ? In England, the tax on rum is with a formidable naval power, from whom
five shillings and one penny sterling per we derive the assistance of a navy. And
gallon, which is one silver dollar and four the line in which we can prosecute the war,
teen coppers. Now would it not be laugh so as to reduce the common enemy, and
able to imagine, that after the expense they benefit the alliance most effectually, will be
have been at, they would let either whig or by attending closely to the land- service.
I estimate the charge of keeping up and
tory drink it cheaper than themselves?
Coffee, which is so inconsiderable an article maintaining an army, officering them, and
of consumption and support here, is there all expenses included, sufficient for the
loaded with a duty, which makes the price defence of the country to be equal to the
between five and six shillings per pound, expense of forty thousand men at thirty
and a penalty of fifty pounds sterling on pounds sterling per head, which is one
any person detected in roasting it in his million two hundred thousand pounds.
I likewise allow four hundred thousand
own house. There is scarcely a necessary
of life that you can eat, drink, wear, or pounds for continental expenses at home
enjoy, that is not there loaded with a tax ; and abroad.
And four hundred thousand pounds for
even the light from heaven is only per
mitted to shine into their dwellings by the support of the several state govern
paying eighteen pence sterling per window ments—the amount will then be :
annually; and the humblest drink of life, For the army...................................... 1,200,000?.
small beer, cannot there be purchased with Continental expenses at home and
out a tax of nearly two coppers per gallon ;
abroad............................................. 400,000
besides a heavy tax upon the malt, and Government of the several states . • 400,000
another on the hops before it is brewed,
Total 2,ooo,oooZ.
exclusive of a land-tax on the earth which
produces them. In short, the condition of
I take the proportion of this state, Penn
that country, in point of taxation, is so
oppressive, the number of her poor so sylvania, to be an eighth part of the thirteen
great, and the extravagance and rapacious United States ; the quota then for us to
ness of the court so enormous, that, were raise will be two hundred and fifty thousand
they to effect a conquest of America, it. is pounds sterling ; two hundred thousand of
then only that the distresses of America which will be our share for the support and
would begin. Neither would it signify any pay of the army, and continental expenses
thing to a man whether he be whig or tory. at home and abroad, and fifty thousand
The people of England, and the ministry of pounds for the support of the state govern
that country, know us by no such distinc ment.
In order to gain an idea of the proportion
tions. What they want is clear, solid
revenue, and the means which they would in which the raising such a sum will fall, I
take to procure it would operate alike on all. make the following calculation.
Pennsylvania contains three hundred and
Their manner of reasoning would be short,
because they would naturally infer, that if
1 I have made the calculations in. sterling,
we were able to carry on a war of five or because it is a rate generally known in all the
six years against them, we were able to pay states, and because, likewise, it admits of an
the same taxes which they do.
easy comparison between our expense to sup
I have already stated that the expense of port the war, and those of the enemy. Four
conducting the present war, and the govern silver dollars and a half is one pound sterling
ment of the several states, may be done for and three pence over. Author
�lco
the
AMERICAN CRISIS
seventy-five thousand inhabitants, men, done. The sum is too great for her to
women and children ; which is likewise an think of with any tolerable degree of temper;
eighth of the number of inhabitants of the and when we consider the burden she
whole United States : therefore two hun sustains, as well as the disposition she has
dred and fifty thousand pounds sterling to shown, it would be the height of folly in us
. be raised among three hundred and seventy- to suppose that she would not reimburse
five thousand persons is, on an average, herself by the most rapid means, had she
thirteen shillings and four pence per head’ America once more within her power.
per annum, or something more than one With such an oppression of expense, what
shilling sterling per month. And our pro would an empty conquest be to her! What
portion of three quarters of a million for the relief under such circumstances could she
government of the country, in time of derive from a victory without a prize ? It
peace, will be ninety-three thousand seven was money, it was revenue she first went
hundred and fifty pounds sterling: fifty to war for, and nothing but that would
thousand of which will be for the govern satisfy her. It is not the nature of avarice
ment expenses of the state, and forty-three to be satisfied with any thing else. Every
thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds passion that acts upon mankind has a
for continental expenses at home and peculiar mode of operation. Many of them
abroad.
are temporary and fluctuating ; they admit
The peace establishment then will, on an of cessation and variety. But avarice is a
average, be five shillings sterling per head. fixed, uniform passion. It neither abates
Whereas, was England now to stop, and of its vigour nor changes its object; and the
the war cease, her peace establishment reason why it does not, is founded in the
would continue the same as it now is, viz. nature of things, for wealth has not a rival
forty shillings per head : therefore was our where avarice is a ruling passion. One
taxes necessary for carrying on the war, as beauty may excel another, and extinguish
much per head as hers now is, and the dif from the mind of man the pictured remem
ference to be only whether we should, at brance of a former one : but wealth is the
. the end of the war, pay at the rate of five phoenix of avarice, and therefore it cannot
shillings per head, or forty shillings per seek a new object, because there is no!
head, the case needs no thinking of. But another in the world.
as we can securely defend and keep the
I now pass on to show the value of the
country for one third less than what our present taxes, and compare them with the
burden would be if it was conquered, and annual expense ; but this I shall preface
support the governments afterwards for one with a few explanatory remarks.
eighth of what Britain would levy on us,
There are two distinct things which make
and could I find a miser whose heart never the payment of taxes difficult ; the one is
felt the emotion of a spark of principle, the large and real value of the sum to be
even that man, uninfluenced by every love paid, and the other is the scarcity of the
but the love of money, and capable of no thing in which the payment is to be made ;
attachment but to his interest, would and and although these appear to be one and
must, from the frugality which governs him, the same, they are in several instances not
■ contribute to the,defence of the country, or only different, but the difficulty springs
he ceases to be a miser and becomes an from different causes.
idiot. But when we take in with it every
Suppose a tax to be laid equal to one
thing that can ornament mankind; when half of what a man’s yearly income is, such
the line of our interest becomes the line of a tax could not be paid, because the
our happiness ; when all that can cheer and property could not be spared ; and on the
animate the heart; when a sense of honour, other hand, suppose a very trifling tax was
fame, character at home and abroad, are laid, to be collected in pearls, such a tax
interwoven, not only with the security but likewise could not be paid, because they
the increase of property, there exists not a could not be had. Now any person may
man in America, unless he be an hired see that these are distinct cases, and the
. emissary, who does not see that his good latter of them is a representation of our
is connected with keeping up a sufficient own.
defence.
That the difficulty cannot proceed from
I do not imagine that an instance can be the former, that is, from the real value or
produced in the world, of a country putting weight of the tax, is evident at the first
herself to such an amazing charge to con view to any person who will consider it.
quer and enslave another, as Britain has
The amount of the quota of taxes for
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
this state, for the present year, 1780, (and
so in proportion for every other state) is
twenty millions of dollars, which, at seventy
for one, is but sixty-four thousand two
hundred and eighty pounds three shillings
sterling, and on an average, is no more
than three shillings and fivepence sterling
per head, per annum, per man, woman and
child, or three pence two-fifths per head per
month. Now here is a clear, positive fact,
that cannot be contradicted, and which
proves that the difficulty cannot be in the
weight of the tax, for in itself it is a trifle,
and far from being adequate to our quota
of the expense of the war. The quit-rents
of one penny sterling per acre on only one
half of the state, come to upwards of fifty
thousand pounds, which is almost as much
as all the taxes of the present year, and as
those quit-rents made no part of the taxes
then paid, and are now discontinued, the
quantity of money drawn for public service
this year, exclusive of the militia fines,
which I shall take notice of in the process
of this work, is less than what was paid
and payable in any year preceding the
revolution, and since the last war ; what I
mean is, that the quit-rents and taxes taken
together came to a larger sum then, than
the present taxes without the quit-rents do
now.
My intention by these arguments and
calculations is to place the difficulty to the
right cause, and show that it does not
proceed from the weight or worth of the
tax, but from the scarcity of the medium in
which it is paid; and to illustrate this point
still further, I shall now show, that if the
tax of twenty millions of dollars was of four
times the real value it now is, or nearly so,
which would be about two hundred and
fifty thousand pounds sterling, and would
be our full quota, this sum would have
been raised with more ease, and have been
less felt, than the present sum of only sixtyfour thousand two hundred and eighty
pounds.
The convenience or inconvenience of
paying a tax in money arises from the
quantity of money that can be spared out
of trade.
When the emissions stopped, the con
tinent was left in possession of two hundred
millions of dollars, perhaps as equally dis
persed as it was possible for trade to do it.
And as no more was to be issued, the rise
or fall of prices could neither increase nor
diminish the quantity. It therefore remained
the same through all the fluctuations of
trade and exchange.
to 1
Now had the exchange stood at twenty
for one, which was the rate congress
calculated upon when they arranged the
quota of the several states, the latter end
of last year, trade would have been carried
on for nearly four times less money than it
is now, and consequently the twenty millions
would have been spared with much greater
ease, and when collected would have been
of almost four times the value that they
now are. And on the other hand, was the
depreciation to be ninety or one hundred
for one, the quantity required for trade
would be more than at sixty or seventy for
one, and though the value of them would
be less, the difficulty of sparing the money
out of trade would be greater. And on
these facts and arguments I rest the matter,
to prove that it is not the want of property,
but the scarcity of the medium by which
the proportion of property for taxation is to
be measured out, that makes the embarrass
ment which we lie under. There is not
money enough, and, what is equally as
true, the people will not let there be money
enough.
While I am on the subject of the currency,
I shall offer one remark which will appear
true to every body, and can be accounted
for by nobody, which is, that the better the
times were, the worse the money grew ; and
the worse the times were, the better the
money stood. It never depreciated by any
advantage obtained by the enemy. The
troubles of 1776, and the loss of Philadelphia
in 1777, made no sensible impression on it,
and every one knows that the surrender of
Charleston did not produce the least altera
tion in the rate of exchange, which, for long
before, and for more than three months
after, stood at sixty for one. It seems as
if the certainty of its being our own, made
us careless of its value, and that the most
distant thoughts of losing it made us hug
it the closer, like something we were loth
to part with ; or that we depreciate it for
our pastime, which, when called to serious
ness by the enemy, we leave off to renew
again at our leisure. In short, our good
luck seems to break us, and our bad makes
us whole.
Passing on from this digression, I shall
now endeavour to bring into one view the
several parts which I have already stated,
and form thereon some propositions, and
conclude.
I have placed before the reader, the
average tax per head, paid by the people
of England : which is forty shillings
sterling.
�102
77/2? AMERICAN CRISIS
And I have shown the rate on an average
per head, which will defray all the expenses
of the war to us, and support the several
governments without running the country
into debt, which is thirteen shillings and
four pence.
I have shown what the peace establish
ment may be conducted for, viz. an eighth
part of what it would be, if under the
government of Britain.
And I have likewise shown what the
average per head of the present taxes is,
namely, three shillings and five pence
sterling, or threepence two-fifths per month;
and that their whole yearly value, in sterling,
is only sixty-four thousand two hundred
and eighty pounds. Whereas our quota,
to keep the payments equal with the
expenses, is two hundred and fifty thousand
pounds. Consequently, there is a deficiency
of one hundred and eighty-five thousand
seven hundred and twenty pounds, and the
same proportion of defect, according to the
several quotas, happens in every other
state. And this defect is the cause why
the army has been so indifferently fed,
clothed and paid. It is the cause, likewise,
of the nerveless state of the campaign, and
the insecurity of the country. Now, if a
tax equal to thirteen and four pence per
head, will remove all these difficulties, and
make the people secure in their homes,
leave them to follow the business of their
stores and farms unmolested, and not only
drive out but keep out the enemy from the
country ; and if the neglect of raising this
sum will let them in, and produce the evils
which might be prevented—on which side,
I ask, does the wisdom, interest and policy
lie ? Or, rather, would it not be an insult
to reason, to put the question ? The sum
when proportioned out according to the
several abilities of the people, can hurt no
one, but an inroad from the enemy ruins
hundreds of families.
Look at the destruction done in this city.
The many houses totally destroyed, and
others damaged ; the waste of fences in the
country around it, besides the plunder of
furniture, forage and provisions. I do not
suppose that half a million sterling would
reinstate the sufferers ; and does this, I
ask, bear any proportion to the expense
that would make us secure. The damage,
on an average, is at least ten pounds
sterling per head, which is as much as
thirteen shillings and four pence per head
comes to for fifteen years. The same has
happened on the frontiers, and in the
Jerseys, New-York, and other places where
the enemy has been—Carolina and Georgia
are likewise suffering the same fate.
That the people generally do not under
stand the insufficiency of the taxes to carry
on the war, is evident, not only from com
mon observation, but from the construction
of several petitions, which were presented
to the assembly of this state against the
recommendations of congress of the 18th of
March last, for taking up and funding the
present currency at forty to one, and issuing
new money in its stead. The prayer of the
petition was, that the currency might be
appreciated by taxes (meaning the present
taxes) and that part of the taxes be applied
to the support of the army, if the army
could not be otherwise supported. Now it
could not have been possible for such a
petition to have been presented, had the
petitioners known, that so far from part of
the taxes being sufficient for the support of
the army, the whole of them falls three
fourths short of the year’s expenses.
Before I proceed to propose methods by
which a sufficiency of money may be raised,
I shall take a short view of the general state
of the country.
Notwithstanding the weight of the war,
the ravages of the enemy, and the obstruc
tions she has thrown in the way of trade
and commerce, so soon does a young
country outgrow misfortune, that America
has already surmounted many that heavily
oppressed her. For the first year or two of
the war, we were shut up within our ports,
scarce venturing to look towards the ocean.
Now our rivers are beautified with large and
valuable vessels, our stores filled with mer
chandize, and the produce of the country
has a ready market, and an advantageous
price. Gold and silver, that for a while
seemed to have retreated again within the
bowels of the earth, have once more risen
into circulation, and every day adds new
strength to trade, commerce and agricul
ture. In a pamphlet, written by sir John
Dalrymple, and dispersed in America in the
year 1775, he asserted, that, two twenty-gun
ships, nay, says he, tenders of those ships,
stationed between Albemarle sound ana
Chesapeake bay, would shut up the trade
of America for 600 miles. How little did
sir John Dalrymple know of the abilities of
America.
While under the government of Britain,,
the trade of this country was loaded withrestrictions. It was only a few foreign
ports which we were allowed to sail to.
Now it is otherwise ; and allowing that the*
quantity of trade is but half what it was
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
before the war, the case must show the vast
advantage of an open trade, because the
present quantity under her restrictions could
not support itself; from which I infer, that
if half the quantity without the restrictions
can bear itself up nearly, if not quite, as well
as the whole when subject to them, how pros
perous must the condition of America be
when the whole shall return open with all
the world. By the trade I do not mean the
employment of a merchant only, but the
whole interest and business of the country
taken collectively.
It is not so much my intention, by this
publication, to propose particular plans for
raising money, as it is to show the necessity
and the advantages to be derived from it.
My principal design is to form the disposi
tion of the people to the measures which I
am fully persuaded it is their interest and
duty to adopt, and which need no other
force to accomplish them than the force of
being felt. But as every hint may be
useful, I shall throw out a sketch, and leave
others to make such improvements upon it
as to them may appear reasonable.
The annual sum wanted is two millions,
and the average rate in which it falls,
is thirteen shillings and four pence per
head.
Suppose, then, that we raise half the
sum and sixty thousand pounds over. The
average rate thereof will be seven shillings
per head.
In this case we shall have half the supply
that we want, and an annual fund of sixty
thousand pounds whereon to borrow the
other million ; because sixty thousand
pounds is the interest of a million at six
per cent.; and if at the end of another
year we should be obliged, by the con
tinuance of the war, to borrow another
million, the taxes will be increased to seven
shillings and six pence ; and thus for every
million borrowed, an additional tax, equal
to six pence per head, must be levied.
The sum to be raised next year will be
one million and sixty thousand pounds :
one half of which I would propose should
be raised by duties on imported goods, and
prize goods, and the other half by a tax on
landed property and houses, or such other
means as each state may devise.
But as the duties on imports and prize
goods must be the same in all the states,
therefore the rate per cent., or what other
form the duty shall be laid, must be ascer
tained and regulated by' congress, and in
grafted in that form into the law of each
state; and the monies arising therefrom
103
carried into the treasury of each state. The
duties to be paid in gold or silver.
There are many reasons why a duty on
imports is the most convenient duty or tax
that can be collected ; one of which is,
because the whole is payable in a few
places in a country, and it likewise ope
rates with the greatest ease and equality,
because as every one pays in proportion to
what he consumes, so people in general
consume in proportion to what they can
afford, and therefore the tax is regulated
by the abilities which every man sup
poses himself to have, or in other words,
everyman becomes his own assessor, and
pays by a little at a time, when it suits
him to buy. Besides it is a tax which
people may pay or let alone by not con
suming the articles ; and though the alter
native may have no influence on their
conduct, the power of choosing is an agree
able thing to the mind. For my own part,
it would be a satisfaction to me, was there
a duty on all sorts of liquors during the
war, as in my idea of things it would be an
addition to the pleasures of society to know,
that when the health of the army goes
round, a few drops from every glass becomes
theirs. How often have I heard an em
phatical wish, almost accompanied with a
tear, “ O, that our poor fellows in the field
had some of this / ” Why, then, need we
suffer under a fruitless sympathy when there
is a way to enjoy both the wish and the
entertainment at once ?
But the great national policy of putting a
duty upon imports is, that it either keeps
the foreign trade in our own hands, or
draws something for the defence of the
country from every foreigner who partici
pates it with us.
Thus much for the first half of the taxes,
and as each state will best devise means to
raise the other half, I shall confine my
remarks to the resources of this state.
The quota, then, of this state, of one
million and sixty thousand pounds, will be
one hundred and thirty-three thousand two
hundred and fifty pounds, the half of which
is sixty- six thousand six hundred and
twenty-five pounds ; and supposing one
fourth part of Pennsylvania inhabited, then
a tax of one bushel of wheat on every
twenty acres of land, one with another,
would produce the sum, and all the present
taxes to cease. Whereas, the tithes of the
bishops and clergy in England, exclusive of
the taxes, are upwards of half a bushel of
wheat on every single acre of land, good
and bad, throughout the nation.
�104
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
In the former part of this paper, I men
tioned the militia fines, but reserved speak
ing to the matter, which I shall now do.
The ground I shall put it upon is, that two
millions sterling a year will support a suffi
cient army, and all the expenses of war and
government, without having recourse to the
inconvenient method of continually calling
men from their employments, which, of all
others, is the most expensive and the least
♦ substantial. I consider the revenues created
by taxes as the first and principal thing,
and fines only as secondary and accidental
things. It was not the intention of the
militia law to apply the fines to any thing
else but the support of the militia, neither
do they produce any revenue to the state,
yet these fines amount to more than all the
taxes : for taking the muster-roll to be sixty
thousand men, the fine on forty thousand
who may not attend, will be sixty thousand
pounds sterling, and those who muster, will
give up a portion of time equal to half that
sum, and if the eight classes should be
called within the year, and one third turn
out, the fine on the remaining forty thou
sand would amount to seventy-two millions
of dollars, besides the fifteen shillings on
every hundred pounds of property, and the
charge of seven and a half per cent, for
collecting, in certain instances, which, on
the whole, would be upwards of two hun
dred and fifty thousand pounds sterling.
N ow if those very fines disable the
country from raising a sufficient revenue
without producing an equivalent advantage,
would it not be for the ease and interest of
all parties to increase the revenue, in the
manner I have proposed, or any better, if a
better can be devised, and cease the opera
tion of the fines? I would still keep the
militia as an organized body of men, and
should there be a real necessity to call
them forth, pay them out of the proper
revenues of the state, and increase the
taxes a third or fourth per cent, on those
who do not attend. My limits will not
allow me to go further into this matter,
which I shall therefore close with this
remark: that fines are, of all modes of
revenue, the most unsuited to the minds of
a free country. When a man pays a tax, he
knows that the public necessity requires it,
and therefore feels a pride in discharging
his duty; but a fine seems an atonement
for neglect of duty, and of consequence is
paid with discredit, and frequently levied
with severity.
I have now only one subject more to
speak of, with which I shall conclude, which
is, the resolve of congress of the 18th of
March last, for taking up and funding
the present currency at forty for one, and
issuing new money in its stead.
Every one knows that I am not the
flatterer of congress, but in this instance
they are right; and if that measure is sup
ported, the currency will acquire a value,
which, without it, it will not. But this is not
all: it will give relief to the finances until
such time as they can be properly arranged,
and save the country from being imme
diately double taxed under the present
mode. In short, support that measure, and
it will support you.
I have now waded through a tedious
course of difficult business, and over an
untrodden path. The subject, on every
point in which it could be viewed, was
entangled with perplexities, and enveloped
in obscurity, yet such are the resources of
America, that she wants nothing but system
to secure success.
Common
Philadelphia, Oct. 6, 1780.
Sense.
X.
ON THE KING OF ENGLAND’S SPEECH.
Of all the innocent passions which actuate
the human mind, there is none more uni
versally prevalent than curiosity. It reaches
all mankind, and in matters which concern
us, or concern us not, it alike provokes in
us a desire to know them.
Although the situation of America,
superior to every effort to enslave her,
and daily rising to importance and opu
lence, hath placed her above the region
of anxiety, it has still left her within the
circle of curiosity; and her fancy to see
the speech of a man who had proudly
threatened to bring her to his feet, was
visibly marked with that tranquil con
fidence which cared nothing about its con
tents. It was inquired after with a smile,
read with a laugh, and dismissed with
disdain.
But, as justice is due, even to an enemy,
it is right to say, that the speech is as well
managed as the embarrassed condition of
their affairs could well admit of; and
though hardly a line of it is. true, except
the mournful story of Cornwallis, it may
serve to amuse the deluded commons and
people of England, for whom it was calcu
lated.
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
105
graces even the character of perverseness.
Is he afraid they will send him to Hanover,
or what does he fear ? Why is the syco
phant thus added to the hypocrite, and the
man who pretends to govern, sunk into the
humble and submissive memorialist ?
What those essential rights and per
How easy it is to abuse truth and
language, when men, by habitual wicked manent interests are, on which the future
ness, have learned to set justice at defiance. strength and security of England must
That the very man who began the war, principally depend, are not so much as
who with the most sullen insolence refused alluded to. They are words which impress
to answer, and even to hear the humblest nothing but the ear, and are calculated only
of all petitions, who hath encouraged his for the sound.
But if they have any reference to America,
officers and his army in the most savage
cruelties, and the most scandalous plunder then do they amount to the disgraceful con
ings, who hath stirred up the Indians on fession, that England, who once assumed
one side, and the negroes on the other, and to be her protectress, has now become her
invoked every aid of hell in his behalf, dependant. The British king and ministry
should now, with an affected air of pity, are constantly holding up the vast import
turn the tables from himself, and charge to ance which America is of to England, in
another the wickedness that is his own, can order to allure the nation to carry on the
only be equalled by the baseness of the war : now, whatever ground there is for
this idea, it ought to have operated as a
heart that spoke it.
To be nobly wrong is more manly than reason for not beginning it; and, therefore,
to be meanly right, is an expression I once they support their present measures to their
used on a former occasion,1 and it is equally own disgrace, because the arguments which
applicable now. We feel something like they now use, are a direct reflection on
respect for consistency even in error. We their former policy.
lament the virtue that is debauched into a
“ The favourable appearance of affairs,”
vice, but the vice that affects a virtue
continues the speech, “in the East-Indies,
becomes the more detestable: and amongst
and the safe arrival of the numerous com
mercial fleets of my kingdom, must have
the various assumptions of character, which
given you satisfaction.”
hypocrisy has taught, and men have prac
tised, there is none that raises a higher
That things are not quite so bad every
relish of disgust, than to see disappointed
inveteracy twisting itself, by the most visible where as in America may be some cause
falsehoods, into an appearance of piety of consolation, but can be none for triumph.
One broken leg is better than two, but still
which it has no pretensions to.
it is not a source of joy: and let the
“ But I should not,” continues the speech,
“ answer the trust committed to the sovereign appearance of affairs in the East-Indies
of a free people, nor make a suitable return to be ever so favourable, they are neverthe
my subjects for their constant, zealous, and less worse than at first, without a prospect
affectionate attachment to my person, family of their ever being better. But the mournful
and government, if I consented to sacrifice, story of Cornwallis was yet to be told, and
either to my own desire of peace, or to their it was necessary to give it the softest intro
temporary ease and relief, those essential rights duction possible.
“The war,” says the speech, “is still un
happily prolonged by that restless ambition
which first excited our enemies to commence
it, and which still continues to disappoint my
earnest wishes and diligent exertions to restore
the public tranquillity.”
and permanent interests, upon the mainten
ance and preservation of which, the future
strength and security of this country must
principally depend.”
That the man whose ignorance and
obstinacy first involved and still continues
the nation in the most hopeless and expen
sive of all wars, should now meanly flatter
them with the name of a free people, and
make a merit of his crime, under the
disguise of their essential rights and per
manent interests, is something which dis
1 The Forrester’s letters.
“Writings of
Paine” (Conway), vol. i., p. 127.
“But in the course of this year,” continues
the speech, “ my assiduous endeavours to
guard the extensive dominions of my crown
have not been attended with success equal to
the justness and uprightness of my views.”
What justice and uprightness there was
in beginning a war with America, the world
will judge of, and the unequalled barbarity
with which it has been conducted, is not to
be worn from the memory by the cant of
snivelling hypocrisy.
‘ ‘ And it is with great concern that I inform
you that the events of war have been very
unfortunate to my arms in Virginia, having
�106
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
ended in the loss of my forces in that pro
vince. ”
And our great concern is that they are
not all served in the same manner.
“No endeavours have been wanting on my
part,” says the speech, “to extinguish that
spirit of rebellion which our enemies have
found means to foment and maintain in the
colonies ; and to restore to my deluded subjects
in America that happy and prosperous con
dition which they formerly derived from a
due obedience to the laws.”
The expression of deluded subjects is
become so hackneyed and contemptible,
and the more so when we see them
making prisoners of whole armies at a
time, that the pride of not being laughed
at would induce a man of common sense
to leave it off. But the most offensive
falsehood in the paragraph, is the attri
buting the prosperity of America to a wrong
cause. It was the unremitted industry of
the settlers and their descendants, the hard
labour and toil of persevering fortitude,
that were the true causes of the prosperity
of America. The former tyranny of England
served to people it, and the virtue of the
adventurers to improve it. Ask the man,
who, with his axe hath cleared a way in the
wilderness, and now possesses an estate,
what made him rich, and he will tell you
the labour of his hands, the sweat of his
brow, and the blessing of heaven. Let
Britaiif but leave America to herself and
she asks no more. She has risen into
greatness without the knowledge and
against the will of England, and has a
right to the unmolested enjoyment of her
own created wealth.
“ I will order,” says the speech, “ the esti
mates of the ensuing year to be laid before
you. I rely on your wisdom and public
spirit for such supplies as the circumstances
of our affairs shall be found to require.
Among the many ill consequences which
attend the continuation of the present war,
I most sincerely regret the additional burdens
which it must unavoidably bring upon my
faithful subjects.”
It is strange that a nation must run
through such a labyrinth of trouble, and
expend such a mass of wealth to gain the
wisdom which an hour’s reflection might
have taught. The final superiority of
America over every attempt that an island
might make to conquer her, was as natu
rally marked in the constitution of things,
as the future ability of a giant over a dwarf
is delineated in his features while an infant.
How far providence, to accomplish purposes
which no human wisdom could foresee, per
mitted such extraordinary errors, is still a
secret in the womb of time, and must
remain so till futurity shall give it birth.
“In the prosecution of this great and im
portant contest,” says the speech, “in which
we are engaged, I retain a firm confidence in
the protection of divine providence and a
perfect conviction in the justice of my cause,
and I have no doubt, but, that by the con
currence and support of my parliament, by
the valour of my fleets and armies, and by a
vigorous, animated, and united exertion of the
faculties and resources of my people, I shall
be enabled to restore the blessings of a safe
and honourable peace to all my dominions. ”
The king of England is one of the readiest
believers in the world. In the beginning
of the contest he passed an act to put
America out of the protection of the crown
of England, and though providence, for
seven years together, hath put him out of
her protection, still the man has no doubt.
Like Pharaoh on the edge of the Red sea,
he sees not the plunge he is making, and
precipitately drives across the flood that is
closing over his head.
I think it a reasonable supposition, that
this part of the speech was composed before
the arrival of the news of the capture of
Cornwallis : for it certainly has no relation
to their condition at the time it was spoken.
But, be this as it may, it is nothing to us.
Our line is fixed. Our lot is cast; and
America, the child of fate, is arriving at
maturity. We have nothing to do but by
a spirited and quick exertion, to stand
prepared for war or peace. Too great to
yield, and too noble to insult ; superior to
misfortune, and generous in success, let us
untaintedly preserve the character which
we have gained, and show the future ages
an example of unequalled magnanimity.
There is something in the cause and conse
quence of America that has drawn on her
the attention of all mankind. The world
has seen her brave. Her love of liberty;
her ardour in supporting it; the justice of
her claims, and the constancy of her forti
tude has won her the esteem of Europe,
and attached to her interest the first power
in that country.
Her situation now is such, that to what
ever point, past, present or to come, she
casts her eyes, new matter rises to convince
her that she is right. In her conduct
towards her enemy, no reproachful. senti
ment lurks in secret. No sense of injustice
is left upon the mind. Untainted with
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
ambition, and a stranger to revenge, her
progress hath been marked by providence,
and she, in every stage of the conflict, has
blest her with success.
But let not America wrap herself up in
delusive hope and suppose the business
done. The least remissness in preparation,
the least relaxation in execution, will only
serve to prolong the war, and increase
expenses. If our enemies can draw con
solation from misfortune, and exert them
selves upon despair, how much more ought
we, who are to win a continent by the
conquest, and have already an earnest of
success ?
Having in the preceding part, made my
remarks on the several matters which the
speech contains, I shall now make my
remarks on what it does not contain.
There is not a syllable in it respecting
alliances. Either the injustice of Britain is
too glaring, or her condition too desperate,
or both, for any neighbouring power to
come to her support. In the beginning of
the contest, when she had only America to
contend with, she hired assistance from
Hesse, and other smaller states of Germany,
and for nearly three years did America,
young, raw, undisciplined and unprovided,
stand against the power of Britain, aided
by twenty thousand foreign troops, and
made a complete conquest of one entire
army. The remembrance of those things
ought to inspire us with confidence and
greatness of mind, and carry us through
every remaining difficulty with content and
cheerfulness. What are the little sufferings
of the present day, compared with the
hardships that are past ? There was a
time, when we had neither house nor home
in safety; when every hour was the hour
of alarm and danger; when the mind,
tortured with anxiety, knew no repose, and
every thing but hope and fortitude, was
bidding us farewell.
It is of use to look back upon these
things; to call to mind the times of trouble
and the scenes of complicated anguish
that are past and gone. Then every
expense was cheap, compared with the
dread of conquest and the misery of sub
mission. We did not stand debating upon
trifles, or contending about the necessary
and unavoidable charges of defence. Every
one bore his lot of suffering and looked
forward to happier days, and scenes of rest.
Perhaps one of the greatest dangers
which any country can be exposed to,
arises from a kind of trifling which some
times steals upon the mind, when it supposes J
to7
the danger past; and this unsafe situation
marks at this time the peculiar crisis of
America. What would she once have
given to have known that her condition at
this day should be what it now is ? And
yet we do not seem to place a proper value
upon it, nor vigorously pursue the neces
sary measures to secure it. We know that
we cannot be defended, nor yet defend
ourselves, without trouble and expense.
We have no right to expect it ; neither
ought we to look for it. We are a people,
who, in our situation, differ from all the
world. We form one common floor of
public good, and, whatever is our charge,
it is paid for our own interest and upon our
own account.
Misfortune and experience have now
taught us system and method ; and the
arrangements for carrying on the war are
reduced to rule and order. The quotas of
the several states are ascertained, and I
intend in a future publication to show what
they are, and the necessity as well as the
advantages of vigorously providing them.
In the meantime, I shall conclude this
paper with an instance of British clemency,
from Smollett’s History of England, vol. xi.
p. 239, printed in London. It will serve to
show how dismal the situation of a con
quered people is, and that the only security
is an effectual defence.
We all know that the Stuart family and
the house of Hanover opposed each other
for the crown of England. The Stuart
family stood first in the line of succession,
but the other was the most successful.
In July, 1745, Charles, the son of the
exiled king, landed in Scotland, collected
a small force, at no time exceeding five or
six thousand men, and made some attempts
to re-establish his claim. The late duke of
Cumberland, uncle to the present king of
England, was sent against him, and on the
16th of April following, Charles was totally
defeated at Culloden, in Scotland. Success
and power are the only situations in which
clemency can be shown, and those who are
cruel, because they are victorious, can with
the same facility act any other degenerate
character.
“ Immediately after the decisive action at
Culloden, the duke of Cumberland took
possession of Inverness ; where six and thirty
deserters, convicted by a court martial, were
ordered to be executed: then he detached
several parties to ravage the country. One of
these apprehended the lady Mackintosh, who
was sent prisoner to Inverness, plundered
her house, and drove away her cattle, though
�108
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
her husband was actually in the service of the
government. The castle of lord Lovat was
destroyed. The French prisoners were sent
to Carlisle and Penrith : Kilmarnock, Balmerino, Cromartie, and his son, the lord Macleod,
were conveyed by sea to London ; and those
of an inferior rank were confined in different
prisons. The marquis of Tullibardine, to
gether with a brother of the earl of Dunmore
and Murray, the pretender’s secretary, were
seized and transported to the tower of London,
to which the earl of Traquaire had been com
mitted on suspicion ; and the eldest son of
lord Lovat was imprisoned in the castle of
Edinburgh. In a word, all the jails in Great
Britain, from the capital, northwards, were
filled with those unfortunate captives ; and
great numbers of them were crowded together
in the holds of ships, where they perished in
the most deplorable manner, for want of air
and exercise. Some rebel chiefs escaped in
two French frigates that arrived on the coast
of Lochaber about the end of April, and
engaged three vessels belonging to his Britan
nic majesty, which they obliged to retire.
Others embarked on board a ship on the
coast of Buchan, and were conveyed to Norway,
from whence they travelled to Sweden. In
the month of May, the duke of Cumberland
advanced with the army into the Highlands,
as far as fort Augustus, where he encamped ;
and sent off detachments on all hands, to hunt
down the fugitives, and lay waste the country
with fire and sword. The castles of Glengary
and Lochiel were plundered and burned;
every house, hut, or habitation, met with the
same fate, without distinction ; and all the
cattle and provision were carried off; the men
were either shot upon the mountains, like
wild beasts, or put to death in cold blood,
without form of trial: the women, after
having seen their husbands and fathers
murdered, were subjected to brutal violation,
and then turned out naked, with their
children, to starve on the barren heaths. One
whole family was enclosed in a barn, and
consumed to ashes.
Those ministers of
vengeance were so alert in the execution of
their office, that in a few days there was
neither house, cottage, man, nor beast, to be
seen within the compass of fifty miles ; all
was ruin, silence, and desolation.”
sary to secure the ground which we so
happily stand upon.
To the People of America.
On the expenses, arrangements and dis
bursements for carrying on the war, and
finishing it with honour and advantage.
When any necessity or occasion has
pointed out the convenience of addressing
the public, I have never made it a con
sideration whether the subject was popular
or unpopular, but whether it was right or
wrong ; for that which is right will become
popular, and that which is wrong, though
by mistake it may obtain the cry or fashion
of the day, will soon lose the power of
delusion, and sink into disesteem.
A remarkable instance of this happened
in the case of Silas Deane ; and I mention
this circumstance with the greater ease,
because the poison of his hypocrisy spread
over the whole country, and every man,
almost without exception, thought me wrong
in opposing him. The best friends I then
had, "except Mr. Laurens, stood at a dis
tance, and this tribute, which is due to his
constancy, I pay to him with respect, and
that the readier, because he is not here to hear
it. If it reaches him in his imprisonment,
it will afford him an agreeable reflection.
“As he rose like a rocket, he would fall <
like a stick?* is a metaphor which I
applied to Mr. Deane, in the first piece
which I published respecting him, and he
has exactly fulfilled the description. The
credit he so unjustly obtained from the
public, he lost in almost as short a time.
The delusion perished as it fell, and he
soon saw himself stripped of popular sup
port. His more intimate acquaintances
began to doubt, and to desert him long
before he left America, and at his departure
he saw himself the object of general sus
picion. When he arrived in France, he
endeavoured to effect by treason what he
had failed to accomplish by fraud. His
plans, schemes and projects, together with
his expectation of being sent to Holland to
negociate a loan of money, had all mis
carried. He then began traducing and
accusing America of every crime, which
could injure her reputation. “ That she
was a ruined country ; that she only meant
to make a tool of France, to get what
I have here presented the reader with
one of the most shocking instances of
cruelty ever practised, and I leave it to rest
on his mind, that he may be fully impressed
with a sense of the destruction he has
escaped, in case Britain had conquered
America : and likewise, that he may see
1 I do not find this now familiar phrase in
and feel the necessity, as well for his own The Affair of Silas Deane, in Mr. Conway’s
personal safety, as for the honour, the inte edition of Paine’s works. It is, however, used
rest, and happiness of the whole community, later on in the Rights of Man in reference to
to omit or delay no one preparation neces Burk?.
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
money she could out of her, and then to
leave her and accommodate with Britain.”
Of all which and much more, colonel
Laurens and myself when in France, in
formed Dr. Franklin, who had not before
heard of it. And to complete the character
of a traitor, he has, by letters to this
country since, some of which, in his own
hand writing, are now in the possession of
congress, used every expression and argu
ment in his power, to injure the reputation
of France, and to advise America to
renounce her alliance, and surrender up her
independence.1 Thus in France he abuses
America, and in his letters to America he
abuses France; and is endeavouring to
create disunion between the two countries,
by the same arts of double-dealing by
which he caused dissensions among the
commissioners in Paris, and distractions in
America. But his life has been fraud, and
his character is that of a plodding, plotting,
cringing mercenary, capable of any disguise
that suited his purpose. His final detection
has very happily cleared up those mistakes,
and removed that uneasiness, which his
unprincipled conduct occasioned. Every
one now sees him in the same light; for
towards friends or enemies he acted with
the same deception and injustice, and his
name, like that of Arnold, ought now to be
forgotten among us. As this is the first
time that I have mentioned him since my
return from France, it is my intention that
it shall be the last. From this digression,
which for several reasons I thought neces
sary to give, I now proceed to the purport
of my address.
I consider the war of America against
Britain as the country’s war, the public’s
war, or the war of the people in their own
behalf, for the security of their natural
rights, and the protection of their own pro
perty. It is not the war of congress, the
war of the assemblies, or the war of the
government in any line whatever. The
country first, by a mutual compact, resolved
to defend their rights and maintain their
1 Mr. William Marshall, of this city, formerly
a pilot, who had been taken at sea and carried
to England, and got from thence to France,
brought over letters from Mr. Deane to Ame
rica, one of which was directed to “Robert
Morris, Esq.” Mr. Morris sent it unopened to
congress, and advised Mr. Marshall to deliver
the others there, which he did. The letters
were of the same purport with those which have
been already published under the signature of S.
Deane, to which they had frequent reference.
Author,
109
independence, at the hazard of their lives
and fortunes, they elected their represen
tatives, by whom they appointed their
members of congress, and said, act you
for us, and voe will supfort you. This is
the true ground and principle of the war on
the part of America, and, consequently,
there remains nothing to do, but for every
one to fulfil his obligation.
It was next to impossible that a new
country, engaged in a new undertaking,
could set off systematically right at first.
She saw not the extent of the struggle that
she was involved in, neither could she avoid
the beginning. She supposed every step
that she took, and every resolution which
she formed, would bring her enemy to
reason and close the contest. Those fail
ing, she was forced into new measures ;
and these, like the former, being fitted to
her expectations, and failing in their turn,
left her continually unprovided, and without
system. The enemy, likewise, Was induced
to prosecute the war, from the temporary
expedients we adopted for carrying it on.
We were continually expecting to see their
credit exhausted, and they were looking to
see our currency fail; and thus, between
their watching us, and we them, the hopes
of both have been deceived, and the child
ishness of the expectation has served to
increase the expense.
Yet who, through this wilderness of error,
has been to blame ? Where is the man
who can say the fault, in part, has not been
his ? They were the natural, unavoidable
errors of the day. They were the errors of
a whole country, which nothing but expe
rience could detect and time remove.
Neither could the circumstances of Ame
rica admit of system, till either the paper
currency was fixed or laid aside. No cal
culation of a finance could be made on
medium failing without reason, and fluc
tuating without rule.
But there is one error which might have
been prevented and was not; and as it is
not my custom to flatter, but to serve man
kind, I will speak it freely. It certainly
was the duty of every assembly on the
continent to have known, at all times, what
was the condition of its treasury, and to
have ascertained at every period of depre
ciation, how much the real worth of the
taxes fell short of their nominal value.
This knowledge, which might have been
easily gained, in the time of it, would have
enabled them to have kept their constituents
well informed, and this is one of the greatest
duties of representation. They ought to
�IIO
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
have studied and calculated the expenses
of the war, the quota of each state, and the
consequent proportion that would fall on
each man’s property for his defence; and
this must easily have shown to them, that a
tax of one hundred pounds could not be
paid by a bushel of apples or an hundred of
flour, which was often the case two or three
years ago. But instead of this, which
would have been plain and upright deal
ing, the little line of temporary popularity,
the feather of an hour’s duration, was too
much pursued ; and in this involved con
dition of things, every state, for the want of
a little thinking, or a little information,
supposed that it supported the whole
expenses of the war, when in fact it fell,
by the time the tax was levied and col
lected, above three fourths short of its own
quota.
Impressed with a sense of the danger to
which the country was exposed by this lax
method of doing business, and the prevail
ing errors of the day, I published, last
October was a twelvemonth, the Crisis
Extraordinary, on the revenues of America,
and the yearly expense of carrying on the
war. My estimation of the latter, together
with the civil list of congress and the civil
list of the several states, was two million
pounds sterling, which is very nearly nine
millions of dollars.
Since that time, congress have gone into
a calculation, and have estimated the ex
penses of the war department and the civil
list of congress (exclusive of the civil list
of the several governments) at eight millions
of dollars; and as the remaining million
will be fully sufficient for the civil list of the
several states, the two calculations are ex
ceedingly near each other.
The sum of eight millions of dollars they
have called upon the states to furnish, and
their quotas are as follows, which I shall
preface with the resolution itself.
to ascertain the proportions of the several
states of the monies to be raised for the ex
penses of the ensuing year, report the follow
ing resolutions:
“That the sum of eight millions of dollars,
as required to be raised by the resolutions of
the 30th of October last, be paid by the states
in the following proportion :
New-Hampshire
- $373,598
Massachusetts
- 1,307,596
Rhode Island
... 216,684
Connecticut
... 747U96
New-York ...
- 373,598
New-Jersey...
... 485,679
Pennsylvania
- 1,120,794
Delaware ...
...
112,085
Maryland ...
933,996
Virginia
... U3O7,594
North Carolina
... 622,677
South Carolina
.<• 373,598
Georgia
24,905
$8,000,000
“ Resolved, That it be recommended to the
several states, to pay taxes for raising their
quotas of money for the United States, sepa
rate from those laid for their own particular
use.”
On these resolutions I shall offer several
remarks.
1st, On the sum itself, and the ability of
the country.
2d, On the several quotas, and the nature
of a union. And,
3d, On the manner of collection and
expenditure.
1st, On the sum itself, and the ability of
the country. As I know my own calculalation is as low as possible, and as the sum
called for by congress, according to their
calculation, agrees very nearly therewith, I
am sensible it cannot possibly be lower.
Neither can it be done for that, unless there
is ready money to go to market with ; and
even in that case, it is only by the utmost
management and economy that it can be
made to do.
“ By the United States in congress assembled.
By the accounts which were laid before
October 30, 1781.
the British parliament last spring, it ap
“ Resolved, That the respective states be peared that the charge of only subsisting^
called upon to furnish the treasury of the that is, feeding their army in America, cost
United States with their quotas of eight annually four million pounds sterling, which
millions of dollars, for the war department is very nearly eighteen millions of dollars..
and civil list for the ensuing year, to be paid Now if, for eight millions, we can feed,,
quarterly, in equal proportions, the first pay clothe, arm, provide for, and pay an army
ment to be made on the first day of April sufficient for our defence, the very com
next.
Resolved, That a committee consisting of a parison shows that the money must be well!
member from each state, be appointed to laid out
It may be of some use, either in debate
apportion to the several states the quota of the
or conversation, to attend to the progress,
above sum.
‘ ‘ November 2d. The committee appointed of the expenses of an army, because it will?
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
enable us to see on what part any deficiency
will fall.
The first thing is, to feed them and pro
vide for the sick.
Second, to clothe them.
Third, to arm and furnish them.
Fourth, to provide means for removing
them from place to place. And,
Fifth, to pay them.
The first and second are absolutely
necessary to them as men. The third and
fourth are equally as necessary to them as
an army. And the fifth is their just due.
Now if the sum which shall be raised
should fall short, either by the several acts
of the states for raising it, or by the manner
of collecting it, the deficiency will fall on
the fifth head, the soldiers’ pay, which would
be defrauding them, and eternally dis
gracing ourselves. It would be a blot on
the councils, the country, and the revolu
tion of America, and a man would hereafter
be ashamed to own that he had any hand
in it.
But if the deficiency should be still
shorter, it would next fall on the fourth
head, the means of removing the army from
place to place; and, in this case, the army
must either stand still where it can be of
no use, or seize on horses, carts, wagons,
or any means of transportation which it
can lay hold of; and in this instance the
country suffers. In short, every attempt
to do a thing for less than it can be done
for, is sure to become at last both a loss
and a dishonour.
But the country cannot bear it, say some.
This has been the most expensive doctrine
that ever was held out, and cost America
millions of money for nothing. Can the
country bear to be overrun, ravaged, and
ruined by an enemy? This will imme
diately follow where defence is wanting,
and defence will ever be wanting where
sufficient revenues are not provided. But
this is only one part of the folly. The
second is, that when the danger comes,
invited in part by our not preparing against
it, we have been obliged, in a number of
instances, to expend double the sums to
do that which at first might have been
done for half the money. But this is not
all. A third mischief has been, that grain
of all sorts, flour, beef, fodder, horses, carts,
wagons, or whatever was absolutely or im
mediately wanted, have been taken with
out pay. Now, I ask, why was all this
done, but from that extremely weak and
expensive doctrine, that the country could
not bear it I That is, that she could not
in
bear, in the first instance, that which would
have saved her twice as much at last; or,
in proverbial language, that she could not
bear to pay a penny to save a pound ; the
consequence of which has been, that she
has paid a pound for a penny. Why are
there so many unpaid certificates in almost
every man’s hands, but from the parsi
mony of not providing sufficient revenues ?
Besides, the doctrine contradicts itself;
because, if the whole country cannot bear
it, how is it possible that a part should ?
And yet this has been the case : for those
things have been had; and they must be
had; but the misfortune is, that they have
been obtained in a very unequal manner,
and upon expensive credit, whereas, with
ready money, they might have been pur
chased for half the price, and nobody dis
tressed.
But there is another thought which ought
to strike us, which is, how is the army to
bear the want of food, clothing and other
necessaries? The man who is at home,
can turn himself a thousand ways, and find
as many means of ease, convenience or
relief: but a soldier’s life admits of none
of those : their wants cannot be supplied
from themselves : for an army, though it is
the defence of a state, is at the same time
the child of a country, or must be provided
for in every thing.
And lastly, The doctrine is false. There
are not three millions of people in any part
of the universe, who live so well, or have
such a fund of ability as in America. The
income of a common labourer, who is
industrious, is equal to that of the gene
rality of tradesmen in England. In the
mercantile line, I have not heard of one
who could be said to be a bankrupt since
the war began, and in England they have
been without number. In America almost
every farmer lives on his own lands, and in
England not one in a hundred does. In
short, it seems as if the poverty of that
country had made them furious, and they
were determined to risk all to recover all.
Yet, notwithstanding those advantages
on the part of America, true it is, that had
it not been for the operation of taxes for
our necessary defence, we had sunk into a
state of sloth and poverty : for there was
more wealth lost by neglecting to till the
earth in the years 1776, ’77, ’78, than the
quota of taxes amounts to. That which is
lost by neglect of this kind, is lost for
ever : whereas that which is paid, and con
tinues in the country, returns to us again ;
and at the same time that it provides us
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
with defence, it operates not only as a spur,
but as a premium to our industry.
I shall now proceed to the second head,
viz. on the several quotas, and the nature
of a union.
There was a time when America had no
other bond of union, than that of common
interest and affection. The whole country
flew to the relief of Boston, and, making
her cause their own, participated in her
cares and administered to her wants. The
fate of war, since that day, has carried the
calamity in a ten-fold proportion to the
southward ; but in the mean time the union
has been strengthened by a legal compact
of the states, jointly and severally ratified,
and that which before was choice, or the
duty of affection, is now likewise the duty
of legal obligation.
The union of America is the foundationstone of her independence; the rock on
which it is built; and is something so
sacred in her constitution, that we ought
to watch every word we speak, and every
thought we think, that we injure it not,
even by mistake. When a multitude, ex
tended, or rather scattered, over a con
tinent in the ■ manner we were, mutually
agree to form one common centre whereon
the whole shall move, to accomplish a par
ticular purpose, all parts must act together
and alike, or act not at all, and a stoppage
in any one is a stoppage of the whole, at
least for a time.
Thus the several states have sent repre
sentatives to assemble together in congress,
and they have empowered that body, which
thus becomes their centre, and are no other
than themselves in representation, to con
duct and manage the war, while their con
stituents at home attend to the domestic
cares of the country, their internal legisla
tion, their farms, professions or employ
ments ; for it is only by reducing compli
cated things to method and orderly con
nexion that they can be understood with
advantage, or pursued with success. Con
gress, by virtue of this delegation, estimates
the expense, and apportions it out to the
several parts of the empire according to
their several abilities ; and here the debate
must end, because each state has already
had its voice, and the matter has undergone
its whole portion of argument, and can no
more be altered by any particular state,
than a law of any state, after it has passed,
can be altered by any individual. For with
respect to those things which immediately
concern the union, and for which the union
was purposely established, and is intended
to secure, each state is to the United States
what each individual is to the state he lives
in. And it is on this grand point, this
movement upon one centre, that our exist
ence as a nation, our happiness as a people,
and our safety as individuals, depend.
It may happen that some state or other
may be somewhat over or under rated, but
this cannot be much. The experience
which has been had upon the matter, has
nearly ascertained their several abilities.
But even in this case, it can only admit of
an appeal to the United States, but cannot
authorize any state to make the alteration
itself, any more than our internal govern
ment can admit an individual to do so in
the case of an act of assembly; for if one
state can do it, then may another do the
same, and the instant this is done the
whole is undone.
Neither is it supposable that any single
state can be a judge of all the comparative
reasons which may influence the collective
body in arranging the quotas of the conti
nent. The circumstances of the several
states are frequently varying, occasioned
by the accidents of war and commerce, and
it will often fall upon some to help others,
rather beyond what their exact proportion
at another time might be; but even this
assistance is as naturally and politically
included in the idea of a union, as that of
any particular assigned proportion; because
we know not whose turn it may be next to
want assistance, for which reason that state
is the wisest which sets the best example.
Though in matters of bounden duty and
reciprocal affection, it is rather a degeneracy
from the honesty and ardour of the heart
to admit anything selfish to partake in the
government of our conduct, yet in cases
where our duty, our affections and our
interest all coincide, it may be of some use
to observe their union. The United States
will become heir to an extensive quantity
of vacant land, and their several titles to
shares and quotas thereof, will naturally
be adjusted according to their relative
quotas during the war, exclusive of that
inability which may unfortunately arise to
any state by the enemy’s holding possession
of a part; but as this is a cold matter of
interest, I pass it by, and proceed to my
third head, viz. on the manner of collection
and expenditure.
It hath been our error, as well as our
misfortune, to blend the affairs of each
state, especially in money matters, with
those of the United States ; whereas, it is
our ease, convenience and interest, to keep
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
tMm separate. The expenses of the United
States for carrying on the war, and the
expenses of each state for its own domestic
government, are distant things, and to
involve them is a source of perplexity and
a cloak for fraud. I love method, because
I see and am convinced of its beauty and
advantage. It is that which makes all
business easy and understood, and without
which, everything becomes embarrassed
and difficult.
There are certain powers which the
people of each state have delegated to their
legislative and executive bodies, and there
are other powers which the people of every
state have delegated to congress, among
which is that of conducting the war, and,
consequently, of managing the expenses
attending it ; for how else can that be
managed, which concerns every state, but
by a delegation from each ? When a state
has furnished its quota, it has an undoubted
right to know how it has been applied, and
it is as much the duty of congress to inform
the state of the one, as it is the duty of the
state to provide the other.
In the resolution of congress already
recited, it is recommended to the several
states to lay taxes jor raising their quotas
of money for the United States, separate
from those laid far their own particular
use.
This is a most necessary point to be
observed, and the distinction should follow
all the way through. They should be
levied, paid and collected, separately, and
kept separate in every instance. Ne ther
have the civil officers of any state, or the
government of that state, the least right to
touch that money which the people pay for
the support of their army and the war, any
more than congress has to touch that which
each state raises for its own use.
This distinction will naturally be followed
by another. It will occasion every state to
examine nicely into the expenses of its civil
list, and to regulate, reduce and bring it
into better order than it has hitherto been ;
because the money for that purpose must
be raised apart, and accounted for to the
public separately. But while the monies
of both were blended, the necessary nicety
was not observed, and the poor soldier, who
ought to have been the first, was the last
who was thought of.
Another convenience will be, that the
people, by paying the taxes separately, will
know what they are for ; and will likewise
know that those which are for the defence
of the country will cease with the war, or
H3
soon after. For although, as I have before
observed, the war is their own, and for the
support of their own rights and the protec
tion of their own property, yet they have
the same right to know, that they have to
pay, and it is the want of not knowing that
is often the cause of dissatisfaction.
This regulation of keeping the taxes
separate has given rise to a regulation in
the office of finance, by which it was
directed :
“ That the receivers shall, at the end of
every month, make out an exact account of
the monies received by them respectively,
during such month, specifying therein the
names of the persons from whom the same
shall have been received, the dates and sums;
which account they shall respectively cause to
be published in one of the newspapers of the
state ; to the end that every citizen may know
how much of the monies collected from him,
in taxes, is transmitted to the treasury of the
United States for the support of the war ; and
also, that it may be known what monies have
been at the order of the superintendent of
finance. It being proper and necessary, that,
in a free country, the people should be fully
informed of the administration of their affairs
as the nature of things will admit.”
It is an agreeable thing to see a spirit of
order and economy taking place, after such
a series of errors and difficulties. A
government or an administration, who
means and acts honestly, has nothing to
fear, and consequently has nothing to
conceal ; and it would be of use if a
monthly or quarterly account was to be
published, as well of the expenditures as of
the receipts. Eight millions of dollars
must be husbanded with an exceeding deal
of care to make it do, and, therefore, as the
management must be reputable, the publi
cation would be serviceable.
*
I have heard of petitions which have
been presented to the assembly of this
state (and probably the same may have
happened in other states) praying to have
the taxes lowered. Now the only way to
keep taxes low is, for the United States to
have ready money to go to market with :
and though the taxes to be raised for the
present year will fall heavy, and there will
naturally be some difficulty in paying them,
yet the difficulty, in proportion as money
spreads about the country, will every day
grow less, and in the end we shall save
some millions of dollars by it We see
what a bitter, revengeful enemy we have
to deal with, and any expense is cheap
compared to their merciless paw. We
have seen the unfortunate Carolineans
�114
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
hunted. like partridges on the mountains,
and it is only by providing means for our
defence, that we shall be kept from the
same condition. When we think or talk
about taxes, we ought to recollect that we
he down in peace and sleep in safety ; that
we can follow our farms or stores or other
occupations, in prosperous tranquillity;
and that these inestimable blessings are
procured to us by the taxes that we pay.
In this view, our taxes are properly our
insurance money; they are what we pay
to be made safe, and, in strict policy, are
the best money we can lay out.
It was my intention to offer some
remarks on the impost law of five per cent,
recommended by congress, and to be estab
lished as a fund for the payment of the
loan-office certificates, and other debts of
the United States ; but I have already
extended my piece beyond my intention.
And as this fund will make our system of
finance complete, and is strictly just, and
consequently requires nothing but honesty
to do it, there needs but little to be said
upon it.
Common
Philadelphia, March 5, 1782.
Sense.
XI.
ON THE PRESENT STATE OF NEWS.
Since the arrival of two, if not three
packets, in quick succession, at New-York,
from England, a variety of unconnected
has circulated through the country,
and afforded as great a variety of specula
tion.
TJiat something is the matter in the
cabinet and councils of our enemies, on the
other side of the water, is certain—that
they have run their length of madness, and
are under the necessity of changing their
measures may easily be seen into; but to
what this change of measures may amount,
or how far it may correspond with our
interest, happiness and duty, is yet un
certain ; and from what we have hitherto
experienced, vve have too much reason to
suspect them in every thing.
I do not address this publication so much
to the people of America as to the British
ministry, whoever they may be, for if it is
their intention to promote any kind of
negotiation, it is proper they should know
beforehand, that the United States have
as much honour as bravery ; and that they
are no more to be seduced from their alliance
than their allegiance; that their line of poli
tics is formed and not dependant, like that of
their enemy, on chance and accident.
. On our part, in order to know, at any
time, what the British government will do,
we have only to find out what they ought
not to do, and this last will be their conduct.
Forever changing and forever wrong; too
distant from America to improve in circum
stances, and too unwise to foresee them ;
scheming without principle, and executing
without probability, their whole line of
management has hitherto been blunder and
baseness. Every campaign has added to
their loss, and every year to their disgrace :
till unable to go on, and ashamed to go
back, their politics have come to a halt, and
all their fine prospects to a halter.
Could our affections forgive, or humanity
forget the wounds of an injured country—
we might, under the influence of a momen
tary oblivion, stand still and laugh. But
they are engraven where no amusement
ican conceal them, and of a kind for which
there is no recompense. Can ye restore to
I us the beloved dead ? Can ye say to the
I grave, give up the murdered? Can ye
obliterate from our memories those who are
no more ? Think not then to tamper with
our feelings by insidious contrivance, nor
suffocate our humanity by seducing us to'
dishonour
In March, 1780, I published part of the
Crisis, No. VIII. in the newspapers, but
did not conclude it in the following papers,,
and the remainder has lain by me till the
present day.
There appeared about that time some
disposition in the British cabinet to cease
the further prosecution of the war, and as I
had formed my opinion that whenever such
a design should take place, it would be
accompanied with a dishonourable proposi
tion to America, respecting France, I had
suppressed the remainder of that number,
not to expose the baseness of any such pro
position. But the arrival of the next news
from England, declared her determination
to go on with the war, and consequently as
the political object I had then in view was
not become a subject, it was unnecessary
in me to bring it forward, which is the
reason it was never published.
The matter which I allude to in the
unpublished part, I shall now make a
quotation of, and apply it as the more
enlarged state of things, at this day, shall
make convenient or necessary.
It was as follows :
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
“ By the speeches which have appeared
from the British parliament, it is easy to
perceive to what impolitic and imprudent
excesses their passions, and prejudices have,
in every instance, carried them during the
present war. Provoked at the upright and
honourable treaty between America and
France, they imagined that nothing more
was necessary to be done to prevent its
final ratification, than to promise, through
the agency of their commissioners (Carlisle,
Eden and Johnstone) a repeal of their once
offensive acts of parliament. The vanity of
the conceit, was as unpardonable as the
experiment was impolitic. And so con
vinced am I of their wrong ideas of America,
that I shall not wonder, if in their last stage
of political phrenzy, they propose to her to
break her alliance with France, and enter
into one with them. Such a proposition,
should it ever be made, and it has been
already more than once hinted at in.parlia
ment, would discover such a disposition to
perfidiousness, and such disregard of
honour and morals, as would add the
finishing vice to national corruption.—I do
not mention this to put America on the
watch, but to put England on her guard,
that she do not, in the looseness of her
heart, envelope in disgrace every fragment
of her reputation.” Thus far the quotation.
By the complexion of some part of the
news which has transpired through the
New-York papers, it seems probable that
this insidious era in the British politics is
beginning to make its appearance. I wish
it may not; for that which is a disgrace to
human nature, throws something of a shade
over all the human character, and each
individual feels his share of the wound that
is given to the whole.
The policy of Britain has ever been to
divide America in some way or other. In
the beginning of the dispute, she practised
every art to prevent or destroy the union of
the states, well knowing that could she
once get them to stand singly, she could
conquer them unconditionally. Failing in
this project in America, she renewed it in
Europe ; and, after the alliance had taken
place, she made secret offers to France to
induce her to give up America ; and what
is still more extraordinary, she at the same
time made propositions to Dr. Franklin,
then in Paris, the very court to which she
was secretly applying, to draw off America
from France. But this is not all.
On the 14th of September, 1778, the
British court, through their secretary, lord
k Weymouth, made application to the marquis
IT5
d’Almodovar, the Spanish ambassador at
London, to “ask the mediation? for these
were the words, of the. court of Spain, for
the purpose of negociating a peace with
France, leaving America (as I shall here
after show) out of the question. Spain
readily offered her mediation, and likewise
the city of Madrid as the place of confer
ence, but withal, proposed, that the United
States of America should be invited to the
treaty, and considered as independent
during the time the business was negocia
ting. But this was not the view of England.
She wanted to draw France from the war,
that she might uninterruptedly pour out all
her force and fury upon America; and
being disappointed in this plan, as well
through the open and generous conduct of
Spain, as the determination of I* rance, she
refused the mediation which she had
solicited.
I shall now give some extracts from the
justifying memorial of the Spanish court,
in which she has set the conduct and
character of Britain, with respect to
America, in a clear and striking point of
light.
The memorial, speaking of the refusal of
the British court to meet in conference,
with commissioners from the United States,
who were to be considered as independent
during the time of the conference, says :
“ It is a thing very extraordinary and even
ridiculous, that the court of London, who
treats the colonies as independent, not only
in acting, but of right, during the war, should
have a repugnance to treat them as such only
in acting during a truce, or suspension of
hostilities. The convention of Saratoga ; the
reputing general Burgoyne as a lawful prisoner,
in order to suspend his trial; the exchange
and liberation of other prisoners made from
the colonies; the having named commissioners
to go and supplicate the Americans, at their
own doors, request peace of them, and treat
with them and the congress : and, finally, by
a thousand other acts of this sort, authorized
by the court of London, which have been,
and are true signs of the acknowledgment of
their independence.
“ In aggravation of all the foregoing, at the
same time the British cabinet answered the
king of Spain in the terms already mentioned,
they were insinuating themselves at the court
of France by means of secret emissaries, and
making very great offers to her, to abandon
the colonies and make peace with England.,
But there is yet more ; for at this same time
the English ministry were treating, by means
of another certain emissary, with Dr. Franklin,
minister plenipotentiary from the colonies,
residing at Paris, to whom they made various.
|
�116
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
proposals to disunite them from France, and
accommodate matters with England.
“ From what has been observed, it evidently
follows, that the whole of the British politics
was, to disunite the two courts of Paris and
Madrid, by means of the suggestions and
offers which she separately made to them ;
and also to separate the colonies from their
treaties and engagements entered into with
France, and induce them to arm against the
house of Bourbon, or more probably to oppress
them, 'when they found, from breaking their
engagements, that they stood alone and without
protection.
“ This, therefore, is the net they laid for
the American states ; that is to say, to tempt
them with flattering and very magnificent
promises to come to an accommodation with
them, exclusive of any intervention of Spain
or France, that the British ministry might
always remain the arbiters of the fate of the
colonies.
“ But the Catholic king (the king of Spain)
faithful on the one part of the engagements
which bind-him to the Most Christian king
(the king of France) his nephew; just and
upright on the other, to his own subjects,
whom he ought to protect and guard against
so many insults ; and finally, full of humanity
and compassion for the Americans and other
individuals who suffer in the present war ; he
is determined to pursue and prosecute it, and
to make all the efforts in his power, until he
can obtain a solid and permanent peace, with
full and satisfactory securities that it shall be
observed.”
Thus far the memorial ; a translation of
which into English, may be seen in full,
. under the head of State Papers, in the
Annual Register, for 1779, p. 367.
The extracts I have here given, serve to
show the various endeavours and contri
vances of the enemy, to draw France from
her connexion with America, and to prevail
on her to make a separate peace with
England, leaving America totally out of
the question, and at the mercy of a merciless,
unprincipled enemy. The opinion, like
wise, which Spain has formed of the British
cabinet character, for meanness and per
fidiousness, is so exactly the opinion of
America, respecting it, that the memorial,
in this instance, contains our own statements
f and language ; for people, however remote,
who think alike, will unavoidably speak
alike.
...
,• ,
Thus we see the insidious use which
Britain endeavoured to make of the propo
sitions of peace under the mediation of
Spain. I shall now proceed to. the second
proposition under the mediation of the
emperor of Germany and the empress of
Russia, the general outline of which was,
that a congress of the several powers at
war, should meet at Vienna, in 1781, to 7
settle preliminaries of peace.
I could wish myself at liberty to make
use of all the information I am possessed
of on this subject, but as there is a delicacy
in the matter, I do not conceive it prudent,
at least at present, to make references and
quotations in the same manner as I have
done with respect to the mediation of
Spain, who published the whole proceed
ings herself; and therefore, what comes
from me, on this part of the business, must
rest on my own credit with the public,
assuring them, that when the whole pro
ceedings, relative to the proposed congress
of Vienna, shall appear, they will find my
account not only true, but studiously mode
rate.
We know at the time this mediation was
on the carpet, the expectation of the British
king and ministry ran high with respect to
the conquest of America. The English
packet which was taken with the mail on
board, and carried into l’Orient, in France,
contained letters from lord G. Germaine to
sir Henry Clinton, which expressed in the
fullest terms the ministerial idea of a total
conquest. Copies of those letters were sent
to congress and published in the news
papers of last year. Colonel Laurens
brought over the originals, some of which,
signed in the hand writing of the then
secretary, Germaine, are now in my possession.
Filled with these high ideas,nothing could
be more insolent towards America than the
language of the British court on the pro
posed mediation. A peace with France
and Spain she anxiously solicited ; but
America, as before, was to be left to her
mercy, neither would she hear any pro
position for admitting an agent from the
United States into the congress of Vienna.
On the other hand, France, with an
open, noble and manly determination, and
the fidelity of a good ally, would hear no
proposition for a separate peace, nor even
meet in congress at Vienna, without an
agent from America : and likewise that the
independent character of the United States,
represented by the agent, should be fully
and unequivocally defined and settled
before any conference should be entered
on. The reasoning of the court of France
on the several propositions of the two im
perial courts, which relate to us, is rather
in the style of an American than an ally,
1 and she advocated the cause of America
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
as if she had been America herself.—Thus
the second mediation, like the first, proved
ineffectual.
But since thattime, a reverse of fortune
has overtaken the British arms, and all
their high expectations are dashed to the
ground. The noble exertions to the south
ward under general Greene; the successful
operations of the allied arms in the Chesa
peake ; the loss of most of their islands in
the West Indies, and Minorca in the Medi
terranean ; the persevering spirit of Spain
against Gibraltar ; the expected capture of
Jamaica ; the failure of making a separate*
peace with Holland, and the expense of an
hundred millions sterling, by which all
these fine losses were obtained, have read
them a loud lesson of disgraceful misfor
tune, and necessity has called on them to
change their ground.
In this situation of confusion and despair
their present councils have no fixed cha
racter. It is now the hurricane months of
British politics. Every day seems to have
a storm of its own, and they are scudding
under the bare poles of hope. Beaten, but
not humble ; condemned, but not penitent;
they act like men trembling at fate and
catching at a straw. From this convulsion,
in the entrails of their politics, it is more
than probable, that the mountain, groaning
in labour, will bring forth a mouse, as to its
size, and a monster in its make. They will
try on America the same insidious arts they
tried on France and Spain.
We sometimes experience sensations to
which language is not equal. The concep
tion is too bulky to be born alive, and in
the torture of thinking, we stand dumb.
Our feelings, imprisoned by their magni
tude, find no way out—and, in the struggle
of expression, every finger tries to be a
tongue. The machinery of the body seems
too little for the mind, and we look about
for helps to show our thoughts by. Such
must be the sensation of America, when
ever Britain, teeming with corruption, shall
propose to her to sacrifice her faith.
But, exclusive of the wickedness, there is
a personal offence contained in every such
attempt. It is calling us villains ; for no
man asks another to act the villain unless
he believes him inclined to be one. No
man attempts to seduce a truly honest
woman. It is the supposed looseness of
her mind that starts the thoughts of seduc
tion, and he who offers it calls her a pros
titute. Our pride is always hurt by the
same propositions which offend our prin
ciples ; for when we are shocked at the
117
crime we are wounded by the suspicion of
our compliance.
Could I convey a thought that might
serve to regulate the public mind, I would
not make the interest of the alliance the
basis of defending it. All the world are
moved by interest, and it affords them
nothing to boast of. But I would go a step
higher, and defend it on the ground of
honour and principle. That our public
affairs have flourished under the alliance—
that it was wisely made, and has been
nobly executed—that by its assistance we
are enabled to preserve our country from
conquest, and expel those who sought our
destruction—that it is our true interest to
maintain it unimpaired, and that while we
do so no enemy can conquer us, are matters
which experience has taught us, and the
common good of ourselves, abstracted from
principles of faith and honour, would lead
us to maintain the connexion.
But over and above the mere letter of the
alliance, we have been nobly and generously
treated, and have had the same respect
and attention paid to us, as if we had been
an old-established country. To oblige and
be obliged is fair work among mankind,
and we want an opportunity of showing to
the world that we are a people sensible
of kindness and worthy of confidence.
Character is to us, in our present circum
stances, of more importance than interest.
We are a young nation, just stepping upon
the stage of public life, and the eye of the
world is upon us to see how we act. We
have an enemy who is watching to destroy
our reputation, and who will go any length
to gain some evidence against us, that may
serve to render our conduct suspected, and
our character odious ; because, could she
accomplish this, wicked as it is, the world
would withdraw from us, as from a people
not to be trusted, and our task would then
become difficult.
There is nothing which sets the character
of a nation in a higher or lower light with
others, than the faithfully fulfilling or per
fidiously breaking of treaties. They are
things not to be tampered with : and
should Britain, which seems very probable,
propose to seduce America into such an act
of baseness, it would merit from her some
mark of unusual detestation. It is one of
those extraordinary instances in which we
ought not to be contented with the bare
negative of congress, because it is an
affront on the multitude as well as on the
government. It goes on the supposition
that the public are not honest men, and
�118
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
that they may be managed by contrivance,
though they cannot be conquered by arms.
But, let the world and Britain know, that
we are neither to be bought nor sold.
That our mind is great and fixed; our
prospect clear ; and that we will support
our character as firmly as our indepen
dence.
But I will go still further ; general
Conway, who made the motion, in the
British parliament, for discontinuing offen
sive war in America, is a gentleman of an
amiable character. We have no personal
quarrel with him. But he feels not as we
feel; he is not in our situation, and that
alone, without any other explanation, is
enough.
The British parliament suppose they have
many friends in America, and that, when
all chance of conquest is over, they will be
able to draw her from her alliance with
France. Now, if I have any conception
of the human heart, they will fail in this
more than in any thing that they have yet
tried.
This part of the business is not a question
of policy only, but of honour and honesty ;
and the proposition will have in it some
thing so visibly low and base, that their
partisans, if they have any, will be ashamed
of it. Men are often hurt by a mean
action who are not startled at a wicked
one, and this will be such a confession of
inability, such a declaration of servile
thinking, that the scandal of it will ruin
all their hopes.
In short, we have nothing to do but to go
on with vigour and determination. The
enemy is yet in our country. They hold
New-York, Charleston and Savannah, and
the very being in those places is an offence,
and a part of offensive war, and until they
can be driven from them, or captured in
them, it would be folly in us to listen to
an idle tale. I take it for granted that the
British ministry are sinking under the im
possibility of carrying on the war. Let
them then come to a fair and open peace
with France, Spain, Holland and America,
in the manner that she ought to do ; but
until then, we can have nothing to say to
them.
Common Sense.
Philadelphia, May 22, 1782.
A SUPERNUMERARY CRISIS.
To Sir Guy Carleton.’
It is the nature of compassion to associate
with misfortune ; and I address this to you
in behalf even of an enemy, a captain in
the British service, now on his way to the
headquarters of the American army, and
unfortunately doomed to death for a crime
not his own. A sentence so extraordinary,
an execution so repugnant to every human
sensation, ought never to be told without
the circumstances which produced it: and
as the destined victim is yet in existence,
and in your hands rest his life or death, I
shall briefly state the case, and the melan
choly consequence.
Captain Huddy, of the Jersey militia, was
attacked in a small fort on Tom’s River, by
a party of refugees in the British pay and
service, was made prisoner, together with
his company, carried to New-York and
lodged in the provost of that city : about
three weeks after which, he was taken out
of the provost down to the water-side, put
into a boat, and brought again upon the
Jersey shore, and there, contrary to the
practice of all nations but savages, was
hung up on a tree, and left hanging till
found by our people, who took him down
and buried him.
The inhabitants of that part of the
country where the murder was committed,
sent a deputation to general Washington
with a full and certified statement of the
fact. Struck, as every human breast must
be, with such brutish outrage, and deter
mined both to punish and prevent it for
the future, the general represented the case
to general Clinton, who then commanded,
and demanded that the refugee officer who
ordered and attended the execution, and
whose name is Lippincut, should be
delivered up as a murderer; and in case
of refusal, that the person of some British
officer should suffer in his stead. The
demand, though not refused, has not been
complied with; and the melancholy lot
(not by selection, but by casting lots) has
fallen upon captain Asgill, of the guards,
who, as I have already mentioned, is on
his way from Lancaster to camp, a martyr
to the general wickedness of the cause he
engaged in, and the ingratitude of those
whom he served.
1 Sir Guy Carleton—a humane and just man
—had succeeded sir Henry Clinton at New-
\
York.
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
119
The first reflection which arises on this of your own mind lies buried the fate of
black business is, what sort of men must Asgill. He becomes the corpse of your
Englishmen be, and what sort of order wilt, or the survivor of your justice. Deliver
and discipline do they preserve in their up the one, and you save the other ; with
army, when in the immediate place of their hold the one, and the other dies by your
head-quarters, and under the eye and nose choice.
On our part the case is exceeding plain;
of their commander-in-chief, a prisoner
can be taken at pleasure from his confine an officer has been taken from Jus confine
ment, and his death made a matter of ment and murdered^ and the murderer is
within your lines. Your army has been
sport.
The history of the most savage Indians guilty of a thousand instances of equal
does not produce instances exactly of this cruelty, but they have been rendered
kind. They, at least, have a formality in equivocal, and sheltered from personal
their punishments. With them it is the detection. Here the crime is fixed ; und
horridness of revenge, but with your army is one of those extraordinary cases which
it is a still greater crime, the horridness of can be neither denied nor palliated, and to
which the custom of war does not apply ;
diversion.
The British generals, who have succeeded for it never could be supposed that sucn a
each other, from the time of general Gage brutal outrage would ever be committed.
to yourself, have all affected to speak in It is an original in the history of civilized
language that they have no right to. In barbarians, and is truly British.
On your part you are accountable to us
their proclamations, their addresses, their
letters to general Washington, and their for the personal safety of the prisoners
supplications to congress (for they deserve within your walls. Here can be no mistake;
no other name) they talk of British honour, they can neither be spies nor suspected as
British generosity and British clemency, such ; your security is not endangered, nor
as if those things were matters of fact; your operations subjected to miscarriage,
whereas, we whose eyes are open, who by men immured within a dungeon. They
speak the same language with yourselves, differ in every circumstance from men in
many of whom were born on the same the field, and leave no pretence for severity
spot with you, and who can no more be of. punishment. But if to the dismal con
mistaken in your words than in your dition of captivity with you, must be added
actions, can declare to all the world, that the constant apprehensions of death ; if to
so far as our knowledge goes, there is not be imprisoned is so nearly to be entombed ;
a more detestable character, nor a meaner and if, after all, the murderers are to be pro
or more barbarous enemy, than the present tected, and thereby the crime encouraged,
British one. With us, you have forfeited wherein do you differ from Indians, either
all pretensions to reputation, and it is only in conduct or character?
We can have no idea of your honour, or
holding you like a wild beast, afraid of
your keepers, that you can be made man your justice, in any future transaction, of
ageable. But to return to the point in what nature it may be, while you shelter
within your lines an outrageous murderer,
question.
f Though I can think no man innocent and sacrifice in his stead an officer of your
who has lent his hand to destroy the own. If you have no regard to us, at least
, country which he did not plant, and to spare the blood which it is your duty to
ruin those that he could not enslave, yet, save. Whether the punishment will be
abstracted from all ideas of right and greater on him, who, in this case, innocently
wrong on the original question, captain dies, or on him whom sad necessity forces
Asgill, in the present case, is not the guilty to retaliate, is, in the nicety of sensation,
man. The villain and the victim are here an undecided question. It rests with you
separated characters. You hold the one to prevent the sufferings of both. You
and we the other. You disown, or affect have nothing to do but to give up the
to disown and reprobate the conduct of murderer, and the matter ends.
But to protect him, be he who he may,
Lippincut, yet you give him a sanctuary;
and by so doing you as effectually become is to patronise his crime, and to trifle it off
the executioner of Asgill, as if you had put by frivolous and unmeaning inquiries, is to
the rope on his neck, and dismissed him promote it. There is no declaration you
from the world. Whatever your feelings can make nor promise you can give that
on this interesting occasion may be are will obtain credit. It is the man and not
best known to yourself. Within the grave the apology that is demanded.
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THE AMERICAN CRISIS
You see yourself pressed on all sides to
spare the life of your own officer, for die
he will if you withhold justice. The murder
of captain Huddy is an offence not to be
borne with, and there is no security with
which vze can have, that such actions or
similar ones shall not be repeated, but by
making the punishment fall upon yourselves.
To destroy the last security of captivity,
and to take the unarmed, the unresisting
prisoner to private and sportive execution,
is carrying barbarity too high for silence.
The evil must be put an end to; and the
choice of persons rests with you. But if
your attachment to the guilty is stronger
than to the innocent, you invent a crime
that must destroy your character, and if
the cause of your king needs to be so sup
ported, for ever cease, sir, to torture our
remembrance with the wretched phrases
of British honour, British generosity, and
British clemency.
From this melancholy circumstance,
learn, sir, a lesson of morality. The
refugees are men whom your predecessors
have instructed in wickedness, the better
to fit them to their master’s purpose. To
make them useful, they have made them
vile, and the consequence of their tutored
villainy is now descending on the heads of
their encouragers. They have been trained
like hounds to the scent of blood, and
cherished in every species of dissolute
barbarity. Their ideas of right and wrong
are worn away in the constant habitude, of
repeated infamy, till, like men practised in
execution, they feel not the value of another’s
life.
The task before you, though painful, is
not difficult; give up the murderer, and
save your officer, as the first outset of
necessary reformation.
XII.
TO THE EARL OF SHELBURNE.1
My Lord,—A speech, which has been
printed in several of the British and NewYork newspapers, as coming from your
lordship, in answer to one from the duke of
Richmond, of the 10th of July last, contains
expressions and opinions so new and
singular, and so enveloped in mysterious
reasoning, that I address this publication
to you, for the purpose of giving them a
free and candid examination. The speech
that I allude to is in these words :
it will be seen that Paine lost no time in writing
“ His lordship said, it had been mentioned
in another place, that he had been guilty of
inconsistency. To clear himself of this, he
asserted that he still held the same principles
in respect to American independence which
he at first imbibed. He had been, and yet
was of opinion, whenever the parliament of
Great Britain acknowledges that point, the
sun of England’s glory is set for ever. Such
were the sentiments he possessed on a former
day, and such the sentiments he continued to
hold at this hour. It was the opinion of lord
Chatham, as well as many other able statesmen.
Other noble lords, however, think differently;
and as the majority of the cabinet support
them, he acquiesced in the measure, dissenting
from the idea ; and the point is settled for
bringing the matter into the full discussion of
parliament, where it will be candidly, fairly
and impartially debated. The independence
of America would end in the ruin of England ;
and that a peace patched up with France,
would give that proud enemy the means of yet
trampling on this country. The sun of
England’s glory he wished not to see set for
ever ; he looked for a spark at least to be left,
which might in time light us up to a new day.
But if independence was to be granted, if
parliament deemed that measure prudent, he
foresaw, in his own mind, that England was
undone. He wished to God that he had been
deputed to congress, that he might plead the
cause of that country as well as of this, and
that he might exercise whatever powers he
possessed as an orator, to save both from rum,
in a conviction to congress, that, if their
independence was signed, their liberties were
gone for ever.
“ Peace, his lordship added, was a desirable
object, but it must be an honourables'peace,
and not an humiliating one, dictated by
France, or insisted on by America. It. was
very true, that this kingdom was not in a
to the commander on his behalf. Dr. Conway
says that in September Paine wrote toWashington
a plea for Asgill’s life, but it was only after a
protest from the court of France that he was
released.
1 Afterwards lord Lansdowne, whose friend
ship Paine enjoyed when in England some years
later.- This letter was published separately in
England in 1791.
Common
Philadelphia, May 31, 1782.
Sense.1
’ As the lot fell on captain Asgill on May 27,
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
flourishing state, it was impoverished by war.
But if we were not rich, it was evident that
France was poor. If we were straitened in
our finances, the enemy were exhausted in
their resources. This was a great empire;
it abounded with brave men, who were able
and willing to fight in a common cause ; the
language of humiliation should not, therefore,
be the language of Great Britain. His lordship said, that he was not afraid nor ashamed
of those expressions going to America. There
were numbers, great numbers there, who were
of the same way of thinking, in respect to
that country being dependant on this, and
who, with his lordship, perceived ruin and
independence linked together.”
Thus far the speech ; on which I remark
—That his lordship is a total stranger to
the mind and sentiments of America ; that
he has wrapped himself up in fond delusion,
that something less than independence
may, under his administration, be accepted;
and he wishes himself sent to congress, to
prove the most extraordinary of all doctrines,
which is, that independence, the sublimest
of all human conditions, is loss of liberty.
In answer to which we may say, that in
order to know what the contrary word
dependance means, we have only to look
back to those years of severe humiliation,
when the mildest of all petitions could obtain
no other notice than the haughtiest of all
insults ; and when the base terms of uncon
ditional submission were demanded, or
undistinguishable destruction threatened.
It is nothing to us that the ministry have
been changed, for they may be changed
again. The guilt of a government is the
crime of a whole country ; and the nation
that can, though but for a moment, think
and act as England has done, can never
afterwards be believed or trusted. There
are cases in which it is as impossible to
restore character to life, as it is to recover
the dead. It is a phenix that can expire
but once, and from whose ashes there is no
resurrection. Some offences are of such a
slight composition, that they reach no
further than the temper, and are created
or cured by a thought. But the sin of
England has struck the heart of America,
and nature has not left in our power to say
we can forgive.
Your lordship wishes for an opportunity
to plead before congress the cause of
England and A merica, and to save, as you
say, both from ruin.
That the country, which, for more than
seven years has sought our destruction,
should now cringe to solicit our protection,
js adding the wretchedness of disgrace to
I 21
the miseiy of disappointment: and if
England has the least spark of supposed
honour left, that spark must be darkened
by asking, and extinguished by receiving,
the smallest favour from America : for the
criminal who owes his life to the grace and
mercy of the injured, is more executed by
the living, than he who dies.
But a thousand pleadings, even from
your lordship, can have no effect. Honour,
interest, and every sensation of the heart,
would plead against you. We are a people
who think not as you think ; and what is
equally true, you cannot feel as we feel.
The situations of the two countries are
exceedingly different. Ours has been the
seat of war ; yours has seen nothing of it.
The most wanton destruction has been
committed in our sight; the most insolent
barbarity has been acted on our feelings.
We can look round and see the remains of
burnt and destroyed houses, once the fair
fruit of hard industry, and now the striking
monuments of British brutality. We walk
over the dead whom we loved, in every part
of America, and remember by whom they
fell. There is scarcely a village but brings
to life some melancholy thought, and
reminds us of what we have suffered, and
of those we have lost by the inhumanity of
Britain. A thousand images arise to us,
which, from situation, you cannot see, and
are accompanied by as many ideas which
you cannot know ; and therefore your sup
posed system of reasoning would apply to
nothing, and all your expectations die of
themselves.
The question whether England shall
accede to the independence of America,
and which your lordship says is to undergo
a parliamentary discussion, is so very
simple, and composed of so few cases, that
it scarcely needs a debate.
It is the only way out of an expensive
and ruinous war, which has no object, and
without which acknowledgment there can
be no peace.
But your lordship says, the sun of Great
Britain will set whenever she acknowledges
the independence of America.—Whereas the
metaphor would have been strictly just, to
have left the sun wholly out of the figure,
and have ascribed her not acknowledging
it to the influence of the moon.
But the expression, if true, is the greatest
confession of disgrace that could be made,
and furnishes America with the highest
notions of sovereign independent im
portance. Mr. Wedderburne, about the
year 1776, made use pf an i<jea of much the
�122
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
same kind,—Relinquish America ! says he
— What is it but to desire a giant to shrink
spontaneously into a dwarf?
Alas ! are those people who call them
selves Englishmen, of so little internal
consequence that when America is gone,
or shuts her eyes upon them, their sun is
set, they can shine no more, but grope
about in obscurity, and contract into insig
nificant animals ? Was America, then, the
giant of the empire, and England only
her dwarf in waiting? Is the case so
strangely altered, that those who once
thought we could not live without them,
are now brought to declare that they can
not exist without us ? Will they tell to the
world, and that from their first minister of
state, that America is their all in all ; that
it is by her importance only that they can
live, and breathe and have a being ? Will
they, who long since threatened to bring us
to their feet, bow themselves at ours, and
own that without us they are not a nation ?
Are they become so unqualified to debate
on independence, that they have lost all
idea of it themselves, and are calling to the
rocks and mountains of America to cover
their insignificance ? Or, if America is lost,
is it manly to sob over it like a child for its
rattle, and invite the laughter of the world
by declarations of disgrace? Surely, a
more consistent line of conduct would be
to bear it without complaint; and to show
that England, without America, can pre
serve her independence, and a suitable rank
with other European powers. You were
not contented while you had her, and to
weep for her now is childish.
But lord Shelburne thinks something
may yet be done. What that something
is, or how it is to be accomplished, is a
matter in obscurity. By arms there is no
hope. The experience of nearly eight
years, with the expense of an hundred
million pounds sterling, and the loss of two
armies, must positively decide that point.
Besides, the British have lost their interest
in America with the disaffected. Every
part of it has been tried. There is no new
scene left for delusion : and the thousands
who have been ruined by adhering to them,
and have now to quit the settlements which
they had acquired, and be conveyed like
transports to cultivate the deserts of
Augustine and Nova Scotia, has put an
end to all further expectations of aid.
If you cast your eyes on the people of
England, what have they to console them
selves with for the millions expended ? Or,
what encouragement is there left to con
tinue throwing good money after bad ?
America can carry on the war for ten years
longer, and all the charges of government
included, for less than you can defray the
charges of war and government for one
year. And I, who know both countries,
know well, that the people of America can
afford to pay their share of the expense
much better than the people of England
can. Besides, it is their own estates and
property, their own rights, liberties and
government, that they are defending ; and
were they not to do it, they would deserve
to lose all, and none would pity them. The
fault would be their own, and their punish
ment just.
The British army in America care not
low long the war lasts. They enjoy an
;asy and indolent life. They fatten on the
"oily of one country and the spoils, of
another ; and, between their plunder and
'their pay, may go home rich. But the
case is very different with the labouring
farmer, the working tradesman, and the
necessitous poor in England, the sweat of
whose brow goes day after day to feed, in
prodigality and sloth, the army that is
robbing both them and us. Removed
from the eye of that country that supports
them, and distant from the government
that employs them, they cut and carve for
themselves, and there is none to call them
to account.
But England will be ruined, says lord
Shelburne, if America is independent.
Then, I say, is England already ruined,
for America is already independent : and
if lord Shelburne will not allow this, he
immediately denies the fact which he infers.
Besides, to make England the mere creature
of America, is paying too great a compli
ment to us, and too little to himself.
But the declaration is a rhapsody or
inconsistency. For to say, as lord Shelburne
has numberless times said, that the war
against America is ruinous, and yet to con
tinue the prosecution of that ruinous war
for the purpose of avoiding ruin, is a
language which cannot be understood.
Neither is it possible to see how the inde
pendence of America is to accomplish the
ruin of England after the war is over, and
yet not affect it before. America cannot
be more independent of her, nor a greater
enemy to her, hereafter than she now is;
nor can England derive less advantages
from her than at present : why then is ruin
to follow in the best state of the case, and
not in the worst? And if not in the worst,
why is it to follow at all ?
�i
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
That a nation is to be ruined by peace
and commerce, and fourteen or fifteen
millions a-year less expenses than before,
is a new doctrine in politics. We nave
heard much clamour of national savings
and economy ; but surely the true economy
would be, to save the whole charge of a
silly, foolish and headstrong war; because,
compared with this, all other retrenchments
are baubles and trifles.
But is it possible that lord Shelburne
can be serious in supposing that the least
advantage can be obtained by arms, or
that any advantage can be equal to the
expense or the danger of attempting it.
Will not the capture of one army after
another satisfy him, must all become
prisoners ? Must England ever be the
sport of hope, and the victim of delusion ?
Sometimes our currency was to fail;
another time our army was to disband;
then whole provinces were to revolt. Such
a general said this and that; another wrote
so and solord Chatham was of this
opinion ; and lord somebody else of another.
To-day 20,000 Russians and 20 Russian
ships of the line were to come ; to-morrow
the empress was abused without mercy or
decency. Then the emperor of Germany
was to be bribed with a million of money,
and the king of Prussia was to do wonderful
things. At one time it was, Lo here ! and
then it was, Lo there ! Sometimes this
power, and sometimes that power, was to
engage in the war, just as if the whole
world was as mad and foolish as Britain.
And thus, from year to year, has every
straw been catched at, and every Will-witha-wisp led them a new dance.
This year a still newer folly is to take
place. Lord Shelburne wishes to be sent
to congress, and he thinks that something
may be done.
Are not the repeated declarations of
congress, and which all America supports,
that they will not even hear any proposals
whatever, until the unconditional and un
equivocal independence of America is
recognised; are not, I say, these declara
tions answer enough ?
But for England to receive any thing
from America now, after so many insults,
injuries and outrages, acted towards us,
would show such a spirit of meanness in
her, that we could not but despise her for
accepting it. And so far from lord Shel
burne’s coming here to solicit it, it would
be the greatest disgrace we could do them
to offer it. England would appear a wretch
indeed^ at this time of day, to ask or owe
123
anything to the bounty of America. Has
not the name of Englishmen blots enough
upon it, without inventing more? Even
Lucifer would scorn to reign in heaven by
permission, and yet an Englishman can
creep for only an entrance into America.
Or, has a land of liberty so many charms,
that to be a door-keeper in it is better than
to be an English minister of state ?
But what can this expected something
be ? Or, if obtained, what can it amount
to, but new disgraces, contentions and
quarrels ? The people of America have for
years accustomed themselves to think and
speak so freely and contemptuously of
English authority, and the inveteracy is so
deeply rooted, that a person invested with
any authority from that country, and
attempting to exercise it here, would have
the life of a toad under a harrow. They
would look on him as an interloper, to
whom their compassion permitted a resi
dence. He would be no more than the
Mungo of a farce ; and if he disliked that,
he must set off. It would be a station of
degradation, debased by our pity, and des
pised by our pride, and would place England
in a more contemptible situation than any
she has yet been in during the war. We
have too high an opinion of ourselves, ever
to think of yielding again the least obedience to outlandish authority ; and for a
thousand reasons, England would be the
last country in the world to yield it to.
She has been treacherous, and we know it.
Her character is gone, and we have seen
the funeral.
,
Surely she loves to fish in troubled
waters, and drink the cup of contention, or
she would not now think of mingling her
affairs with those of America. It would be
like a foolish dotard taking to his arms the
bride that despises him, or who has placed
on his head the ensigns of her disgust. It
is kissing the hand that boxes his ears, and
proposing to renew the exchange. _ The
thought is as servile as the war is wicked,
and shows the last scene of the drama to be
as inconsistent as the first.
As America is gone, the only act of man
hood is to let her go.. Your lordship had
no hand in the separation, and you will gain
no honour by temporising politics. Besides,
there is something so exceedingly whimsical,
unsteady and even insincere in the present
conduct of England, that she exhibits her
self in the most dishonourable colours.
On the second of August last, general
Carleton and admiral Digby wrote to
general Washington in these words ;
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THE AMERICAN CRISIS
“ The resolution of the house of commons,
of the 25th of February last, has been placed
in your excellency’s hands, and intimations
given at the same time that further pacific
measures were likely to follow. Since which,
until the present time, we have had no direct
communications with England ; but a mail
is now arrived, which brings us very impor
tant information. We are acquainted, sir, by
authority, that negotiations for a general
peace have already commenced at Paris, and
that Mr. Grenville is invested with full powers
to treat with all the parties at war, and is now
at Paris in execution of his commission.
And we are further, sir, made acquainted,
that his majesty, in order to remove any
obstacles to that peace which he so ardently
■wishes to restore, has commanded his ministers
to direct Mr. Grenville, that the independence
of the Thirteen United Provinces should be
proposed by him in the first instance, instead
of making it a condition of a general treaty. ”
Now, taking your present measures into
view, and comparing them with the declara
tion in this letter, pray what is the word of
your king, or his ministers, or the parlia
ment, good for ? Must we not look upon
you as a confederated body of faithless,
treacherous men, whose assurances are
fraud, and their language deceit ? What
opinion can we possibly form of you, but
that you are a lost, abandoned, profligate
nation, who sport even with your own cha
racter, and are to be held by nothing but
the bayonet or the halter ?
To say, after this, that the sun of Great
Britain will be set whenever she acknow
ledges the independence of America, when
the not doing it is the unqualified lie of
government, can be no other than the
language of ridicule, the jargon of incon
sistency. There were thousands in America
who predicted the delusion, and looked
upon it as a trick of treachery, to take us
from our guard, and draw off our attention
from the only system of finance, by which
we can be called, or deserve to be called, a
sovereign, independent people. The fraud,
on your part, might be worth attempting,
but the sacrifice to obtain it is too high.
There are others who credited the assur
ance, because they thought it impossible
that men who had their characters to
establish, would begin it with a lie. The
prosecution of the war by the former
ministry was savage and horrid; since
which it has been mean, trickish and delu
sive. The one went greedily into the
passion of revenge, the other into the
subtleties of low contrivance ; till, between
the crimes of both, there is scarcely left
a man in America, be he whig or tory,
who does not despise or detest the conduct
of Britain.
The management of lord Shelburne,
whatever may be his views, is a caution to
us, and must be to the world, never to
regard British assurances. A perfidy so
notorious cannot be hid. It stands even
in the public papers of New-York, with the
names of Carleton and Digby affixed to
it. It is a proclamation that the king of
England is not to be believed ; that the
spirit of lying is the governing principle of
the ministry. It is holding up the character
of the house of commons to public infamy,
and warning all men not to credit them.
Such are the consequences which lord
Shelburne’s management has brought upon
his country.
After the authorized declarations con
tained in Carleton and Digby’s letter, you
ought, from every motive of honour, policy
and prudence, to have fulfilled them, what
ever might have been the event. It was
the least atonement that you could possibly
make to America, and the greatest kind
ness you could do to yourselves : for you
will save millions by a general peace, and
you will lose as many by continuing the
war.
Common
Philadelphia, Oct. 29, 1782.
Sense.
P.S. The manuscript copy of this letter
is sent your lordship, by the way of our
head-quarters, to New-York, inclosing a
late pamphlet of mine, addressed to the
abbe Raynal, which will serve to give your
lordship some idea of the principles and
sentiments of America.
C. S.
XIII.
THOUGHTS ON THE PEACE AND THE
PROBABLE ADVANTAGES THEREOF.
“The times that tried men’s souls,”1 are
over—and the greatest and completest
revolution the world ever knew, gloriously
and happily accomplished.
But to pass from the extremes of danger
to safety—from the tumult of war to the
1 “ These are the times that try men’s souls.”
The Crisis No. I. published December, 1776.
Author.
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
tranquillity of peace, though sweet in con
templation, requires a gradual composure
of the senses to receive it. Even calmness
has the power of stunning, when it opens
too instantly upon us. The long and raging
hurricane that should cease in a moment,
would leave us in a state rather of wonder
than enjoyment; and some moments of
recollection must pass, before we could be
capable of tasting the felicity of repose.
There are but few instances, in which the
mind is fitted for sudden transitions: it
takes in its pleasures by reflection and
comparison, and those must have time to
act, before the relish for new scenes is
complete.
In the present case—the mighty magni
tude of the object—the various uncertainties
of fate it has undergone—the numerous
and complicated dangers we have suffered
or escaped—the eminence we now stand
on, and the vast prospect before us, must
all conspire to impress us with contem
plation.
To see it in our power to make a world
happy—to teach mankind the art of being
so—to exhibit, on the theatre of the uni
verse, a character hitherto unknown—and
to have, as it were, a new creation intrusted
to our hands, are honours that command
reflection, and can neither be too highly
estimated, nor too gratefully received.
In this pause then of recollection—while
the storm is ceasing, and the long agitated
mind vibrating to a rest, let us look back
on the scenes we have passed, and learn
from experience what is yet to be done.
Never, I say, had a country so many
openings to happiness as this. Her setting
out in life, like the rising of a fair morning,
was unclouded and promising. Her cause
was good. Her principles just and liberal.
Her temper serene and firm. Her conduct
regulated by the nicest steps, and every
thing about her wore the mark of honour.
. It is not every country (perhaps there is
not another in the world) that can boast so
fair an origin. Even the first settlement
of America corresponds with the character
of the revolution. Rome, once the proud
mistress of the universe, was originally a
band of ruffians. Plunder and rapine
made her rich, and her oppression of
millions made her great. But America
need never be ashamed to tell her birth,
nor relate the stages by which she rose to
empire.
The remembrance, then, of what is past,
. if it operates lightly, must inspire her with
the most laudable of all ambition, that of
125
adding to the fair fame she began with.
The world has seen her great in adversity;
struggling, without a thought of yielding,
beneath accumulated difficulties ; bravely,
nay proudly, encountering distress, and
rising in resolution as the storm increased.
All this is justly due to her, for her fortitude
has merited the character. Let, then, the
world see that she can bear prosperity:
and that her honest virtue in time of peace,
is equal to the bravest virtue in time of war.
She is now descending to the scenes of
quiet and domestic life. Not beneath the
cypress shade of disappointment, but to
enjoy in her own land, and under her own
vine, the sweet of her labours, and the
reward of her toil. In this situation, may
she never forget that a fair national reputa
tion is of as much importance as independ
ence. That it possesses a charm that wins
upon the world, and makes even enemies
civil. That it gives a dignity which is
often superior to power, and commands
reverence where pomp and splendour fail.
It would be a circumstance ever to be
lamented and never to be forgotten, were
a single blot, from any cause whatever,
suffered to fall on a revolution, which to
the end of time must be an honour to the
age that accomplished it: and which has
contributed more to enlighten the world,
and diffuse a spirit of freedom and liberality
among mankind, than any human event (if
this may be called one) that ever preceded
it.
It is not among the least of the calamities
of a long continued war, that it unhinges
the mind from those nice sensations which
at other times appear so amiable. The
continued spectacle of woe blunts the finer
feelings, and the necessity of bearing with
the sight, renders it familiar. In like
manner, are many of the moral obligations
of society weakened, till the custom of
acting by necessity becomes an apology,
where it is truly a crime. Yet let but a
nation conceive rightly of its character, and
it will be chastely just in protecting it.
None never began with a fairer than
America, and none can be under a greater
obligation to preserve it.
The debt which America has contracted,
compared with the cause she has. gained,
and the advantages to flow from it, ought
scarcely to be mentioned. She has it in
her choice to do, and to live as happy as
she pleases. The world is in her hands.
She has no foreign power to monopolize
her commerce, perplex her legislation, or
control her prosperity. The struggle is
�126
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
over, which must one day have happened, whose exemplary greatness, and universal
and, perhaps, never could have happened liberality, have extorted a confession even
at a better time.1 And instead of a domi from her enemies.
With the blessings of peace, independ
neering master, she has gained an ally,
ence and an universal commerce, the
1 That the revolution began at the exact states, individually and collectively, will
period of time best fitted to the purpose, is have leisure and opportunity to regulate
sufficiently proved by the event.—But the great and establish their domestic concerns, and
hinge on which the whole machine turned, is
the Union of the States; and this union was to put it beyond the power of calumny to
naturally produced by the inability of any one throw the least reflection on their honour.
state to support itself against any foreign enemy Character is much easier kept than
recovered, and that man, if any such there
without the assistance of the rest.
Had the states severally been less able than be, who, from sinister views, or littleness of
they were when the war began, their united soul, lends unseen his hand to injure it,
strength would not have been equal to the contrives a wound it will never be in his
undertaking, and they must in all human proba power to heal.
bility, have failed.—And, on the other hand,
As we have established an inheritance
had they severally been more able, they might for posterity, let that inheritance descend,
not have seen, or, what is more, might not have with every mark of an honourable convey
felt, the necessity of uniting: and, either by ance. The little it will cost, compared
attempting to stand alone, or in small con with the worth of the states, the greatness
federacies, would have been separately conquered.
Now, as we cannot see a time (and many of the object, and the value of national
years must pass away before it can arrive) when character, will be a profitable exchange.
But that which must more forcibly strike
the strength of any one state, or several united,
can be equal to the whole of the present United a thoughtful, penetrating mind, and which
States, and as we have seen the extreme diffi includes and renders easy all inferior con
culty of collectively prosecuting the war to a cerns, is the Union of the States. On this
successful issue, and preserving our national our great national character depends. It
importance in the world, therefore, from the is this which must give us importance
experience we have had, and the knowledge we abroad and security at home. It is through
have gained, we must, unless we make a waste this only, that we are, or can be nationally
of wisdom, be strongly impressed with the known in the world ; it is the flag of the
advantage, as well as the necessity of strengthen United States which renders our ships and
ing that happy union which has been our salva
tion, and without which we should have been commerce safe on the seas, or in a foreign
port. Our Mediterranean passes must be
a ruined people.
While I was writing this note, I cast my eye obtained under the same style. All our
on the pamphlet, Common Sense, from which treaties, whether of alliance, peace or com
I shall make an extract, as it exactly applies to merce, are formed under the sovereignty of
the United States, and Europe knows us
the case. It is as follows :
“ I have never met with a man, either in by no other name or title.
England or America, who hath not confessed it
The division of the empire into states is
as his opinion that a separation between the for our own convenience, but abroad this
countries would take place one time or other; distinction ceases. The affairs of each
and there is no instance in which we have shown state are local. They can go no further
less judgment, than in endeavouring to describe, than to itself. And were the whole worth
what we call, the ripeness or fitness of the of even the richest of them expended in
continent for independence.
“ As all men allow the measure, and differ revenue, it would not be sufficient to
only in their opinion of the time, let us, in order support sovereignty against a foreign
to remove mistakes, take a general survey of attack. In short, we have no other national
things, and endeavour, if possible, to find out sovereignty than as United States. It
the very time. But we need not to go far, the would even be fatal for us if we had—too
inquiry ceases at once, for the time has found us. expensive to be maintained, and impossible
The general concurrence, the glorious union of to be supported. Individuals, or individual
all things prove the fact.
states may call themselves what they
“It is not in numbers, but in a union, that please ; but the world, and especially the
our great strength lies. The continent is just world of enemies, is not to be held in awe.
arrived at that pitch of strength in which no by the whistling of a name. Sovereignty
single colony is able to support itself, and the must have power to protect all the parts
whole, when united, can accomplish the matter;
and either more or less than this, might be fatal that compose and constitute it; and, as
united states we are equal to the imin its effects.” Author.
�127
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
portance of the title,’ but otherwise we are
not. Our union, well and wisely regulated
and cemented, is the cheapest way of being
great—the easiest way of being powerful,
and the happiest invention in government
which the circumstances of America can
admit of. Because it collects from each
state, that which, by being inadequate, can
be of no use to it, and forms an aggregate
that serves for all.
The states of Holland are an unfortu
nate instance of the effects of individual
sovereignty. Their disjointed condition
exposes them to numerous intrigues, losses,
calamities and enemies ; and the almost
impossibility of bringing their measures to
a decision, and that decision into execution,
is to them, and would be to us, a source of
endless misfortune.
It is with confederated states as with
individuals in society ; something must be
yielded up to make the whole secure. In
this view of things we gain by what we give,
and draw an annual interest greater than
the capital.—I ever feel myself hurt when I
hear the union, that great palladium of our
liberty and safety, the least irreverently
spoken of. It is the most sacred thing in
the constitution of America, and that which
every man should be most proud and tender
of. Our citizenship in the United States is
our national character. Our citizenship in
any particular state is only our local dis
tinction. By the latter we are known at
home, by the former to the world. Our
great title is Americans—our inferior one
varies with the place.
So far as my endeavours could go, they
have all been directed to conciliate the
affections, unite the interests, and draw and
keep the mind of the country together ; and
the better to assist in this foundation work
of the revolution, I have avoided all places
of profit or office, either in the state I live
in, or in the United States ; kept myself at
a distance from all parties and party con
nections, and even disregarded all private
and inferior concerns : and when we take
into view the great work which we have
gone through, and feel, as we ought to feel,
the just importance of it, we shall then see,
that the little wranglings and indecent
contentions of personal parley, are as dis
honourable to our characters, as they are
injurious to our repose.
It was the cause of America that made
me an author. The force with which it
struck my mind, and the dangerous con
dition the country appeared to me in, by
epurting an impossible and an unnatural
reconciliation with those who were deter
mined to reduce her, instead of striking out
into the only line that could cement and
save her, A DECLARATION OF INDEPEND
ENCE, made it impossible for me, feeling
as I did, to be silent : and if, in the course
of more than seven years, I have rendered
her any service, I have likewise added
something to the reputation of literature,
by freely and disinterestedly employing it
in the great cause of mankind, and showing
that there may be genius without prostitu
tion.
Independence always appeared to me
practicable and probable ; provided the
sentiment of the country could be formed
and held to the object: and there is no
instance in the world, where a people so
extended, and wedded to former habits of
thinking, and under such a variety of cir
cumstances, were so instantly and effectually
pervaded, by a turn in politics, as in the
case of independence ; and who supported
their opinion, undiminished, through such a
succession of good and ill fortune, till they
crowned it with success.
But as the scenes of war are closed, and
every man preparing for home and happier
times, I therefore take my leave of the sub
ject. I have most sincerely followed it from
beginning to end, and through all its turns
and windings ; and whatever country I may
hereafter be in, I shall always feel an
honest pride at the part I have taken and
acted, and a gratitude to nature and provi
dence for putting it in my power to be of
some use to mankind.
Common
Philadelphia, April 19, 1783.
Sense.
A SUPERNUMERARY CRISIS.
To the People of America.
In “Rivington’s New-York Gazette” of
December 6th is a publication, under the
appearance of a letter from London, dated
September 30th ; and is on a subject which
demands the attention of the United States.
The public will remember that a treaty of
commerce between the United States and
England was set on foot last spring, and
that until the said treaty could be com
pleted, a bill was brought into the British
parliament by the then chancellor of the
exchequer, Mr. Pitt, to admit and legalize
(as the case then required) the commerce of
�128
THE AMERICAN CRISIS
the United States into the British ports and
dominions. But neither the one nor the
other has been completed. The commercial
treaty is either broken off, or remains as it
began ; and the bill in parliament has been
thrown aside. And in lieu thereof, a selfish
system of English politics has started up,
calculated to fetter the commerce of Ame
rica, by engrossing to England the carrying
trade of the American produce to the West
India islands.
Among the advocates for this last mea
sure is lord Sheffield, a member of the
British parliament, who has published a
pamphlet entitled “ Observations on the
Commerce of the American States.” The
pamphlet has two objects; the one is to
allure the Americans to purchase British
manufactures ; and the other to spirit up
the British parliament to prohibit the citizens
of the United States from trading to the
West India islands.
Viewed in this light, the pamphlet,
though in some parts dexterously written,
is an absurdity. It offends, in the very act
of endeavouring to ingratiate ; and his
lordship, as a politician, ought not to have
suffered the two objects to have appeared
together. The letter alluded to, contains
extracts from the pamphlet, with . high
encomiums on lord Sheffield, for laboriously
endeavouring (as the letter styles it). “ to
show the mighty advantages of retaining
the carrying trade.”
Since the publication of this pamphlet
in England, the commerce of the United
States to the West Indies, in American
vessels, has been prohibited ; and all in
tercourse, except in British bottoms, the
property of, and navigated by British sub
jects, cut off.
That a country has a right to be as
foolish as it pleases, has'been proved by
the practice of England for many years
past: in her island situation, sequestered
from the world, she forgets that her
whispers are heard by other nations ; and
in her plans of politics and commerce, she
seems not to know, that other votes are
necessary besides her own.
America
would be equally as foolish as Britain,
were she to suffer so great a degradation
on her flag, and such a stroke on the free
dom of her commerce, to pass without a
balance.
We admit the right of any nation to
. prohibit the.commerce of another, into its
own dominions, where there are no treaties
to the contrary ; but as this right belongs to
one side as well as the other, there is always
a way left to bring avarice and insolence to
reason.
But the ground of security which lord
Sheffield has chosen to erect his policy
upon, is of a nature which ought, and I
think must, awaken, in every American, a
just and strong sense of national dignity.
Lord Sheffield appears to be sensible, that
in advising the British nation and parlia
ment to engross to themselves so great a
part of the carrying trade of America, he
is attempting a measure which cannot
succeed, if the politics of the United States
be properly directed to counteract the
assumption.
But, says he, in his pamphlet, “It will be
a long time before the American states can
be brought to act as a nation, neither are
they to be feared as such by us.”
What is this more or less than to tell us,
that while we have no national system of
commerce, the British will govern our trade
by their own laws and proclamations as
they please. The quotation discloses a
truth too serious to be overlooked, and too
mischievous not to be remedied.
Among other circumstances which led
them to this discovery, none could operate
so effectually as the injudicious, uncandid
and indecent opposition made by sundry
persons in a certain state,1 to the recom
mendations of congress last winter, for an
import duty of five per cent. It could not
but explain to the British a weakness in the
national power of America, and encourage
them to attempt restrictions on her trade,
which otherwise they would not have dared
to hazard. Neither is there any state in
the union, whose policy was more mis
directed to its interest than the state .1
allude to, because her principal support is
the carrying trade, which Britain, induced
by the want of a well-centred power in the
United States to protect and secure, is now
attempting to take away. It fortunately
happened (and to no state in the union
more than the state in question) that the
terms of peace were agreed on befoie the
opposition appeared, otherwise, there can
not be a doubt, that if the same idea of
the diminished authority of America had
occurred to them at that time as has
occurred to them since, but they- would
have made the same grasp at the fisheries,
as they have done to the carrying trade..
It is surprising that an authority which
can be supported with so much ease, and
so little expense, and capable of such ex
1 Rhode Island,
�THE AMERICAN CRISIS
tensive advantages to the country, should
be cavilled at by those whose duty it is to
watch over it, and whose existence as a
people depends upon it. But this, perhaps,
will ever be the case, till some misfortune
awakens us into reason, and the instance
now before us is but a gentle beginning of
what America must expect, unless she
guards her union with nicer care and
stricter honour. United, she is formidable,
and that with the least possible charge a
nation can be so: separated, she is a
medley of individual nothings, subject to
the sport of foreign nations.
It is very probable that the ingenuity of
commerce may have found out a method
to evade and supersede the intentions of
the British, in interdicting the trade with
the West India islands. The language of
both being the same, and their customs
well understood, the vessels of one country
may, by deception, pass for those of another.
But this would be a practice too debasing
for a sovereign people to stoop to, and too
profligate not to be discountenanced. An
illicit trade, under any shape it can be
placed, cannot be carried on without a
violation of truth. America is now sovereign
129
and independent, and ought to conduct her
affairs in a regular style of character. She
has the same right to say that no British
vessel shall enter her ports, or that no
British manufactures shall be imported,
but in American bottoms, the property of,
and navigated by American subjects, as
Britain has to say the same thing respecting
the West Indies. Or she may lay a duty of
ten, fifteen, or twenty shillings per ton
(exclusive of other duties) on every British
vessel coming from any port of the West
Indies, where she is not permitted to trade,
the said tonnage to continue as long on
her side as the prohibition continues on the
other.
But it is only by acting in union, that the
usurpations of foreign nations on the free
dom of trade can be counteracted, and
security extended to the commerce of
America. And when we view a flag, which
to the eye is beautiful, and to contemplate
its rise and origin inspires a sensation of
sublime delight, our national honour must
unite with our interest to prevent injury to
the one, or insult to the other.
Common Sense.
New York, December 9, 1783.
�ADDRESSES AND MANIFESTOES
13°
ADDRESSES AND MANIFESTOES AS DEPUTY TO
THE NATIONAL CONVENTION OF
FRANCE. 1792-1793
ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF
FRANCE.
Paris, Sept. 25 \j’g2\
/
( First year of the Repitblic).
Fellow Citizens,
I receive, with affectionate
gratitude, the honour which the late
National Assembly has conferred upon me,
by adopting me a Citizen of France : and
the additional honour of being elected by
my fellow citizens a Member of the National
Convention. Happily impressed, as I am,
by those testimonies of respect shown
towards me as an individual, I feel my
felicity increased by seeing the barrier
broken down that divided patriotism by
spots of earth, and limited citizenship to
the soil, like vegetation.
Had those honours been conferred in an
hour of national tranquillity, they would
have afforded no other means of showing
my affection, than to have accepted and
enjoyed them ; but they come accompanied
with circumstances that give me the
honourable opportunity of commencing my
citizenship in the stormy hour of difficulties.
I come not to enjoy repose. Convinced
that the cause of France is the cause of
all mankind, and that liberty cannot be
purchased by a wish, I gladly share with
you the dangers and honours necessary to
success.
I am well aware that the moment of any
great change, such as that accomplished
on the 10th of August, is unavoidably the
moment of terror and confusion. The
mind, highly agitated by hope, suspicion
and apprehension, continues without rest
till the change be accomplished. But let
us now look calmly and confidently forward,
and success is certain. It is no longer the
paltry cause of kings, or of this, or of that
individual, that calls France and her armies
into action. It is the great cause of <zZZ.
It is the establishment of a new aera, that
shall blot despotism from the earth, and
fix, on the lasting principles of peace and
citizenship, the great Republic of Man.
It has been my fate to have borne a
share in the commencement and complete
establishment of one Revolution, I mean
the Revolution of America. The success
and events of that Revolution are encourag
ing to us. The prosperity and happiness
that have since flowed to that country,
have amply rewarded her for all the hard
ships she endured and for all the dangers
she encountered.
The principles on which that Revolution
began, have extended themselves to Europe;
and an over-ruling Providence is regene
rating the Old World by the principles of
the New. The distance of America from
all the other parts of the globe, did not
admit of her carrying those principles
beyond her own situation. It is to the
peculiar honour of France, that she now
raises the standard of liberty for all nations;
and in fighting her own battles, contends
for the rights of all mankind.
The same spirit of fortitude that insured
success to America will insure it to France,
for it is impossible to conquer a nation
determined to be free 1 The military circum
stances that now unite themselves to France,
are such as the despots of the earth know
nothing of, and can form no calculation
upon. They know not what it is to fight
against a nation; they have only been
accustomed to make war upon each other,
and they know, from system and practice,
how to calculate the probable success of
despot against despot; and here their
knowledge and their experience end.
But in a contest like the present a new
and boundless varietyof circumstances arise,
that deranges all such customary calcula
tions. When a whole nation acts as an
army, the despot knows not the extent of
the power against which he contends.
New armies arise against him with the
necessity of the moment. It is then that
the difficulties of an invading enemy
multiply, as in the former case they
diminished ; and he finds them at their
height when he expected them to end.
The only war that has any similarity of
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ADDRESSES AND MANIFESTOES
circumstances with the present, is the late
revolution war in America. On her part,
as it now is in France, it was a war of the
whole nation : there it was that the enemy,
by beginning to conquer, put himself in a
condition of being conquered. His first
victories prepared him for defeat. He
advanced till he could not retreat, and
found himself in the midst of a nation of
armies.
Were it now to be proposed to the
Austrians and Prussians, to escort them
into the middle of France, and there leave
them to make the most of such a situation,
they would see too much into the dangers
of it to accept the offer, and the same
dangers would attend them, could they
arrive there by any other means. Where,
then, is the military policy of their attempt
ing to obtain, by force, that which they
would refuse by choice ? But to reason
with despots is throwing reason away.
The best of arguments is a vigorous pre
paration.
Man is ever a stranger to the ways by
which Providence regulates the order of
things. The interference of foreign despots
may serve to introduce into their own
enslaved countries the principles they come
to oppose. Liberty and Equality are bless
ings too great to be the inheritance of
France alone, lc is an honour to her to
be their first champion ; and she may now
say to her enemies, with a mighty voice,
■“ 0 ! ye Austrians, ye Prussians ! ye who
now turn your bayonets against us, it is
for you, it is for all Europe, it is for all
mankind, and not for France alone, that
she raises the standard of Liberty and
Equality 1”
The public cause has hitherto suffered
from the contradictions contained in the
Constitution of the Constituent Assembly.
Those contradictions have served to divide
the opinions of individuals at home, and to
obscure the great principles of the Revolu
tion in other countries. But when those
contradictions shall be removed, and the
Constitution be made conformable to the
declaration of Rights ; when the bagatelles
of monarchy, royalty, regency, and here
ditary succession, shall be exposed, with all
their absurdities, a new ray of light will be
thrown over the world, and the Revolution
will derive new strength by being univer
sally understood.
The scene that now opens itself to
France extends far beyond the boundaries
of her own dominions. Every nation is
becoming her colleague, and every court is
become her enemy. It is now the cause
of all nations, against the cause of all
courts. The terror that despotism felt,
clandestinely begot a confederation of
despots; and their attack upon France
was produced by their fears at home.
In entering on this great scene, greater
than any nation has yet been called to act
in, let us say to the agitated mind, be calm.
Let us punish by instructing, rather than
by revenge. Let us begin the new sera by
a greatness of friendship, and hail the
approach of union and success.
Your Fellow-Citizen,
Thomas Paine.
DECLARATION OF RIGHTS.
The object of all union of men in society
being maintenance of their natural rights,
civil and political, these rights are the basis
of the social pact: their recognition and
their declaration ought to precede the Con
stitution which assures their guarantee.
1. The natural rights of men, civil and
political, are liberty, equality, security, pro
perty, social protection, and resistance to
oppression.
2. Liberty consists in the right to do
whatever is not contrary to the rights of
others : thus, exercise of the natural rights
of each individual has no limits other than
those which secure to other members of
society enjoyment of the same rights.
3. The preservation of liberty depends
on submission to the Law, which is the
expression of the general will. Nothing
unforbidden by law can be hindered, and
none may be forced to do what the law
does not command.
4 Every man is free to make known his
thoughts and opinions.
5. Freedom of the press, and every other
means of publishing one’s opinion, cannot
be interdicted, suspended, or limited.
6. Every citizen shall be free in the exer
cise of his religion (culte).
7. Equality consists in the enjoyment by
every one of the same rights.
8. The law should be equal for all,
whether it rewards or punishes, protects or
represses.
9. All citizens are admissible to all
public positions, employments, and func
tions. Free nations recognise no grounds
of preference save talents and virtues.
10. Security consists in the protection
accorded by society to every citizen for the
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ADDRESSES AND MANIFESTOES
preservation of his person, property and
rights.
11. None should be sued, accused, ar
rested, or detained, save in cases deter
mined by the law, and in accordance with
forms prescribed by it. Every other act
against a citizen is arbitrary and null.
12. Those who solicit, further, sign, exe
cute, or cause to be executed, such arbi
trary acts are culpable, and should be
punished.
13. Citizens against whom the execution
of such acts is attempted have the right to
repel force by force ; but every citizen sum
moned or arrested by authority of the Law,
and in the forms by it prescribed, should
instantly obey: he renders himself guilty
by resistance.
14. Every man being presumed innocent
until legally pronounced guilty, should his
arrest be deemed indispensable, all rigour
not necessary to secure his person should
be severely repressed by law.
15. None should be punished save in
virtue of a law formally enacted, promul
gated anterior to the offence, and legally
applied.
16. Any law that should punish offences
committed before its existence would be an
arbitrary act. Retroactive effect given to
the law is a crime.
17. The law should award only penalties
strictly and evidently necessary to the
general safety. Penalties should be pro
portioned to offences, and useful to society.
18. The right of property consists in
every man’s being master in the disposal,
at his will, of his goods, capital, income,
and industry.
19. No kind of labour, commerce, or
culture, can be prohibited to any one: he
may make, sell, and transport every species
of production.
20. Every man may engage his services
and his time; but he cannot sell him
self ; his person is not an alienable pro
perty.
21. No one can be deprived of the least
portion of his property without his consent,
unless evidently required by public neces
sity, legally determined, and under the
condition of a just indemnity in advance.
22. No tax shall be imposed except for
the general welfare, and to meet public
needs. All citizens have the right to unite
personally, or by their representatives, in
the fixing of imposts.
23. Instruction is the need of all, and
society owes it to all its members equally.
24. Public succours are a sacred debt of
society ; it is for the law to determine their
extent and application.
25. The social guarantee of the rights of
man rests on the national sovereignty.
26. This sovereignty is one, indivisible,
imprescriptible, and inalienable.
27. It resides essentially in the whole
people, and every citizen has an equal right
to unite in its exercise.
28. No partial assemblage of citizens,
and no individual, may attribute to them
selves sovereignty, or exercise any autho
rity, or discharge any public function,
without formal delegation thereto by the
law.
29. The social guarantee cannot exist if
the limits of public administration are not
clearly determined by law, and if the
responsibility of all public functionaries is
not assured.
30. All citizens are bound to unite in this
guarantee, and in enforcing the law when
summoned in its name.
31. Men united in society should have
legal means of resisting oppression.
32. There is oppression when any law
violates the natural right, civil and political,
which it should guarantee.
There is oppression when the law is
violated by public officials in its application
to individual cases.
There is oppression when arbitrary
actions violate the rights of citizen against
the express purpose (expression) of the law.
In a free government the mode of resist
ing these different acts of oppression should
be regulated by the Constitution.
33. A people possesses always the right
to reform and alter its Constitution. A
generation has no right to subject a future
generation to its laws ; and all heredity in
offices is absurd and tyrannical.
(1793)
ON THE PROPRIETY OF BRINGING
LOUIS XVI. TO TRIAL.
Read to the Convention, November 21,
1792.
Paris, Nov. 20, 1792.
Citizen President,
As I do not know precisely
what day the Convention will resume the
discussion on the trial of Louis XVI., and,
on account of my inability to express my
self in French, I cannot speak at _ the
tribune, I request permission to deposit in
your hands the enclosed paper, which con
tains my opinion on that subject. I make
�ADDRESSES AND MANIFESTOES
133
A little time after the National Conven
this demand with so much more eagerness,
because circumstances will prove how much tion was constituted, the Minister for
it imports to France, that Louis XVI. Foreign Affairs presented the picture
should continue to enjoy good health. I of all the governments of Europe,—those
should be happy if the Convention would whose hostilities were public, and those
have the goodness to hear this paper read that acted with a mysterious circumspec
this morning, as I propose sending a copy tion. This picture supplied grounds for
of it to London, to be printed in the English just suspicions of the part the latter were
disposed to take, and since then various
journals.
circumstances have occurred to confirm
Thomas Paine.
those suspicions. We have already pene
A Secretary read the opinion of Thomas
trated into some part of the conduct of Mr.
Paine.
Guelph, elector of Hanover, and strong pre
I think it necessary that Louis XVI. sumptions involve the same man, his court
should be tried; not that this advice is and ministers, in quality of king of England.
suggested by a spirit of vengeance, but M. Calonne has constantly been favoured
because this measure appears to me just, with a friendly reception at that court.
lawful, and conformable to sound policy. The arrival of Mr. Smith, secretary to Mr.
If Louis is innocent, let us put him to Pitt, at Coblentz, when the emigrants were
prove his innocence ; if he is guilty, let the assembling there ; the recall of the English
national will determine whether he shall be ambassador ; the extravagant joy mani
fested by the court of St. James’ at the false
pardoned or punished.
But besides the motives personal to report of the defeat of Dumouriez, when it
Louis XVI., there are others which make was communicated by lord Elgin, then
his trial necessary. I am about to develope Minister of Great Britain at Brussels—all
these motives in the language which I these circumstances render him [George
]
think expresses them, and no other. I III. extremely suspicious; the trial of
forbid myself the use of equivocal expres Louis XVI. will probably furnish more
sion or of mere ceremony. There was decisive proofs.
The long subsisting fear of a revolution
formed among the crowned brigands of
Europe a conspiracy which threatened not in England, would alone, I believe, prevent
only French liberty, but likewise that of all that court from manifesting as much pub
nations. Every thing tends to the belief licity in its operations as Austria and
that Louis XVI. was the partner of this Prussia. Another reason could be added
horde of conspirators. You have this man to this, the inevitable decrease of credit, by
in your power, and he is at present the only means of which alone all the old govern
one of the band of whom you can make ments could obtain fresh loans, in propor
sure. I consider Louis XVI. in the same tion as the probability of revolutions in
point of view as the first two robbers taken creased. Whoever invests in the new loans
up in the affair of the Store Room ; their of such governments must expect to lose
trial led to discovery of the gang to which his stock.
Every body knows that the landgrave of
they belonged. We have seen the unhappy
soldiers of Austria, of Prussia, and the other Hesse fights only as far as he is paid. He
powers which declared themselves our has been for many years in the pay of the
enemies, torn from their fire-sides, and court of London. If the trial of Louis XVI.
drawn to butchery like wretched animals, could bring it to light, that this detestable
to sustain, at the cost of their blood, the dealer in human flesh has been paid with
common cause of these crowned brigands. the produce of the taxes imposed on the
They loaded the inhabitants of those English people, it would be justice to that
regions with taxes to support the expenses nation to disclose that fact. It would
of the war. All this was not done solely at the same time give to France an
for Louis XVI. Some of the conspirators exact knowledge of the character of that
have acted openly : but there is reason to court, which has not ceased to be the most
presume that this conspiracy is composed intriguing in Europe, ever since its con
of two classes of brigands; those who have nexion with Germany.
Louis XVI., considered as an individual,
taken up arms, and those who have lent
to their cause secret encouragement and is an object beneath the notice of the
clandestine assistance. Now it is indis Republic; but when he is looked upon as
pensable to let France and the whole world a part of that band of conspirators, as an
accused man whose trial may lead all
know all these accomplices.
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ADDRESSES AND MANIFESTOES
nations in the world to know and detest
the disastrous system of monarchy, and the
plots and intrigues of their own courts, he
ought to be tried.
If the crimes for which Louis XVI. is
arraigned were absolutely personal to him,
without reference to general conspiracies,
and confined to the affairs of France, the
plea of inviolability, that folly of the
moment, might have been urged in his
behalf with some appearance of reason ;
but he is arraigned not only for treasons
against France, but for having conspired
against all Europe, and if France is to be
just to all Europe we ought to use every
means in our power to discover the whole
extent of that conspiracy. France is now
a republic ; she has completed her revolu
tion ; but she cannot earn all its advantages
so long as she is surrounded with despotic
governments.
Their armies and their
marine oblige her also to keep troops
and ships in readiness. It is therefore
her immediate interest that all nations
shall be as free as herself; that revolutions
shall be universal ; and since the trial of
Louis XVI. can serve to prove to the
world the flagitiousness of governments in
general, and the necessity of revolutions,
she ought not to let slip so precious an
opportunity.
The despots of Europe have formed alli
ances to preserve their respective authority,
and to perpetuate the oppression of peoples.
This is the end they propose to themselves
in their invasion of French territory. They
dread the effect of the French revolution
in the bosom of their own countries ; and
in hopes of preventing it, they are come to
attempt the destruction of this revolution
before it should attain its perfect maturity.
Their attempt has not been attended with
success. France has already vanquished
their armies ; but it remains for her to
sound the particulars of the conspiracy, to
discover, to expose to the eyes of the world,
those despots who had the infamy to take
part in it; and the world expects from her
that act of justice.
These are my motives for demanding
that Louis XVI. be judged : and it is in
this sole point of view that his trial appears
to me of sufficient importance to receive
the attention of the Republic.
As to “inviolability” I would not have
such a word mentioned. If, seeing in
Louis XVI. only a weak and narrow
minded man, badly reared, like all his
kind, given, as it is said, to frequent ex
cesses of drunkenness—a man whom the
I national assembly imprudently raised again
J on a throne for which he was not made—
he is shown hereafter some compassion, it
shall be the result of the national mag
nanimity, and not the burlesque notion of a
pretended “ inviolability.”
Thomas Paine.
REASONS FOR PRESERVING THE
LIFE OF LOUIS CAPET,
As Delivered
tion,
to ti-ie National
January 15, 1793.
Conven
Citizen President,
My hatred and abhorrence of
monarchy are sufficiently known: they
originate in principles of reason and con
viction, nor, except with life, can they ever
be extirpated ; but my compassion for the
unfortunate, whether friend or enemy, is
equally lively and sincere.
I voted that Louis should be tried,
because it was necessary to afford proofs
to the world of the perfidy, corruption and
abomination of the monarchical system.
The infinity of evidence that has been
produced exposes them in the most glaring
and hideous colours ; thence it results that
monarchy, whatever form it may assume,
arbitrary or otherwise, becomes necessarily
a centre round which are united every
species of corruption, and the kingly trade
is no less destructive of all morality in the
human breast, than the trade of an execu
tioner is destructive of its sensibility. I
remember,..during my residence in another
country, that I was exceedingly struck with
a sentence of M. Autheine, at the Jacobins
(Club), which corresponds exactly with my
own idea,—“ Make me a king to-day,” said
he, “and I shall be a robber to-morrow.”
Nevertheless, I am inclined to believe
that if Louis Capet had been born in
obscure condition, had he lived within the
circle of an amiable and respectable neigh
bourhood, at liberty to practise the duties
of domestic life, had he been thus situated,
I cannot believe that he would have shown
himself destitute of social virtues : we are,
in a moment of fermentation like this,
naturally little indulgent to his vices or
rather to those of his government; we
regard them with additional horror and
indignation ; not that they are more
heinous than those of his predecessors,
but because our eyes are now open, and
�ADDRESSES AND MANIFESTOES
'the veil of delusion at length withdrawn ;
yet the lamentable, degraded state to which
he is actually reduced, is surely far less
imputable to him than to the Constituent
Assembly, which, of its own authority,
I without consent or advice of the people,
restored him to the throne.
I was in Paris at the time of the flight,
or abdication of Louis XVI., and when he
was taken and brought back. The pro
posal of restoring him to supreme power
struck me with amazement; and although
at that time I was not a French citizen, yet
as a citizen of the world I employed all the
efforts that depended on me to prevent it.
A small society, composed only of five
persons, two of whom are now members of
the Convention, took at that time the name
of the Republican Club (Societe Republicaine). This society opposed the restora
tion of Louis, not so much on account of
his personal offences, as in order to over
throw the monarchy, and to erect on its
ruins the republican system and an equal
representation.
With this design, I traced out in the
English language certain propositions,
which were translated with some trifling
alterations and signed by Achille Duchatelet, now Lieutenant-General in the army
of the French republic, and at that time
one of the five members which composed
our little party : the law requiring the sig
nature of a citizen at the bottom of each
printed paper.
The paper was indignantly torn by
Malouet; and brought forth in this very
room as an article of accusation against
the person who had signed it, the author
and their adherents ; but such is the revolu
tion of events, that this paper is now
received and brought forth for a very
opposite purpose—to remind the nation of
the errors of that unfortunate day, that
fatal error of not having then banished
Louis XVI. from its bosom, and to plead
this day in favour of his exile, preferable to
his death.
The paper in question was conceived in
the following terms :
“ The Republican Proclamation.
“Brethren and Fellow Citizens :
“The serene tranquillity, the
mutual confidence which prevailed amongst
us, during the time of the late King’s
escape, the indifference with which we
beheld him return, are unequivocal proofs
that the absence of a king is more desirable
than his presence, and that he is not only
135
a political superfluity, but a grievous
burden, pressing hard on the whole nation.
“ Let us not be imposed on by sophisms;
all that concerns this is reduced to four
points.
“ He has abdicated the throne in having
fled from his post. Abdication and deser
tion are not characterized by the length of
absence; but by the single act of flight.
In the present instance, the act is every
thing, and the time nothing.
“The nation can never give back its
confidence to a man who, false to his trust,
perjured to his oath, conspires a clandestine
flight, obtains a fraudulent passport, conceals
a King of France under the disguise of a
valet, directs his course towards a frontier
covered with traitors and deserters, and
evidently meditates a return into our
country, with a force capable of imposing
his own despotic laws.
“Ought his flight to be considered as his
own act, or the act of those who fled with
him ? Was it a spontaneous resolution of
his own, or was it inspired by others ? The
alternative is immaterial; whether fool or
hypocrite, idiot or traitor, he has proved
himself equally unworthy of the important
functions that had been delegated to him.
“ In every sense in which the question
can be considered, the reciprocal obligation
which subsisted between us is dissolved.
He holds no longer any authority. We
owe him no longer obedience. We see in
him no more than an indifferent person .we can regard him only as Louis Capet.
“The history of France presents little
else than a long series of public calamity,
which takes its source from the vices of
Kings ; we have been the wretched victims
that have never ceased to suffer either for
them or by them. The catalogue of their
oppressions was complete, but to complete
the sum of their crimes, treason was yet
wanting. Now the only vacancy is filled
up, the dreadful list is full ; the system is
exhausted; there are no remaining errors
for them to commit; their reign is conse
quently at an end.
“What kind of office must that be in a
government which requires for its execution
neither experience nor ability, that may be
abandoned to the desperate chance of birth,
that may be filled by an idiot, a madman,
a tyrant, with equal effect as by the good,
the virtuous, the wise ? An office of this
n ature is a mere nonentity ; it is a place of
show, not of use. Let France then, arrived
at the age of reason, no longer be deluded
by the sound of words, and let her deli
�136
ADDRESSES AND MANIFESTOES
berately examine, if a King, however insig
nificant and contemptible in himself, may
not at the same time be extremely danger
ous.
“ The thirty millions which it costs to
support a King in the eclat of stupid brutal
luxury, presents us with an easy method of
reducing taxes, which reduction would at
once relieve the people, and stop the pro
gress of political corruption. The grandeur
of nations consists, not, as Kings pretend,
in the splendour of thrones, but in a con
spicuous sense of their own dignity, and in
a just disdain of those barbarous follies
and crimes which, under the sanction of
Royalty, have hitherto desolated Europe.
“ As to the personal safety of Louis Capet,
it is so much the more confirmed, as France
will not stoop to degrade herself by a spirit
of revenge against a wretch who has so dis
honoured himself. In defending a just and
glorious cause, it is not possible to degrade
it, and the universal tranquillity which pre
vails is an undeniable proof that a free
people know how to respect themselves.”
Having thus explained the principles and
the exertions of the republicans at that fatal
period, when Louis was reinstated in full
possession of the executive power which by
his flight had been suspended, I return to
the subject, and to the deplorable situation
in which the man is now actually involved.
What was neglected at the time of which
I have been speaking, has been since
brought about by the force of necessity.
The wilful, treacherous defects in the former
constitution have been brought to light;
the continual alarm of treason and con
spiracy aroused the nation, and produced
eventually a second revolution. The people
have beat down royalty, never, never, to
rise again ; they have brought Louis Capet
to the bar, and demonstrated in the face of
the whole world, the intrigues, the cabals,
the falsehood, corruption, and rooted de
pravity, the inevitable effects of monarchical
government. There remains then only one
question to be considered, what is to be
done with this man ?
For myself I seriously confess, that when
I reflect on the unaccountable folly that
restored the executive power to his hands,
all covered as he was with perjuries and
treason, I am far more ready to condemn
the Constituent Assembly than the unfor
tunate prisoner Louis Capet.
But abstracted from every other con
sideration, there is one circumstance in his
life which ought to cover or at least to
palliate a great number of his transgres
sions, and this very circumstance affords to
the French nation a blessed occasion of
extricating itself from the yoke of kings,
without defiling itself in the impurities of
their blood.
It is to France alone, I know, that the »
United States of America owe that support
which enabled them to shake off the unjust
and tyrannical yoke of Britain. The ardour
and zeal which she displayed to provide
both men and money, were the natural
consequence of a thirst for liberty. But as
the nation at that time, restrained by the
shackles of her own government, could
only act by the means of a monarchical
organ, this organ — whatever in other
respects the object might be—certainly
performed a good, a great action.
Let then those U nited States be the safe
guard and asylum of Louis Capet There,
hereafter, far removed from the miseries
and crimes of royalty, 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 honour
able representation.
In relating this circumstance, and in sub
mitting this proposition, I consider myself
as a citizen of both countries. I submit it
as a citizen of America, who feels the
debt of gratitude which he owes to every
Frenchman. I submit it also as a man,
who, although the enemy of kings, cannot
forget that they are subject to human frail
ties. I support my proposition as a citizen
of the French republic, because it appears
to me the best, the most politic measure
that can be adopted.
As far as my experience in public life
extends, I have ever observed, that the
great mass of the people are invariably just,
both in their intentions and in their objects;
but the true method of accomplishing an
effect does not always show itself in the
first instance. For example : the English
nation had groaned under the despotism of
the Stuarts. Hence Charles I. lost his
life ; yet Charles II. was restored to all the
plenitude of power, which his father had
lost. Forty years had not expired when
the same family strove to re-establish their
ancient oppression ; so the nation then
banished from its territories the whole race.
The remedy was effectual. The Stuart
family sank into obscurity, confounded
itself with the multitude, and is at length
extinct.
The French nation, more enlightened
than England was at that time, has carried
her measures of government to a greater
�ADDRESSES AND MANIFESTOES
length. France is not satisfied with exposing
the guilt of the monarch. She has pene
trated into the vices and horrors of the
monarchy. She has shown them clear as
daylight, and for ever crushed that system ;
•and he, whoever he may be, that should
ever dare to reclaim those rights would be
regarded not as a pretender, but punished
as a traitor.
Two brothers of Louis Capet have
banished themselves from the country; but
they are obliged to comply with the spirit
and etiquette of the courts where they
reside. They can advance no pretensions
on their own account, so long as Louis
Capet shall live.
The history of monarchy, in France, is
that of a system pregnant with crime and
murders, cancelling all natural ties, even
those by which brothers are united. We
know how often they have assassinated
each other to pave a way to power. As
those hopes which the emigrants had
reposed in Louis XVI. are fled, the last
that remains rests upon his death, and
.their situation inclines them to desire this
catastrophe, that they may once again rally
around a more active chief, and try one
further effort under the fortune of the cidevant Monsieur and d’Artois. That such
an enterprize would precipitate them into
a new abyss of calamity and disgrace, it is
not difficult to foresee ; yet it might be
attended with mutual loss, and it is our
duty as legislators not to spill a drop of
blood when our purpose may be effectually
•accomplished without it.
It has already been proposed to abolish
the punishment of death, and it is with
infinite satisfaction that I recollect the
humane and excellent oration pronounced
by Robespierre on that subject in the
Constituent Assembly. This cause must
find its advocates in every corner where
enlightened politicians and lovers of
humanity exist, and it ought above all to
find them in this assembly.
Monarchical governments have trained
the human race, and inured it to the
sanguinary arts and refinements of punish
ment ; and it is exactly the same punish
ment which has so long shocked the sight
and tormented the patience of the people,
that now, in their turn, they practise in
revenge upon their oppressors. But it
becomes us to be strictly on our guard
against the abomination and perversity of
monarchical examples : as France has been
the first of European nations to abolish
royalty, let her also be the first to abolish
*37
the punishment of death, and to find out
a milder and more effectual substitute.
In the particular case now under con
sideration, I submit the following proposi
tions : ist, That the National Convention
shall pronounce sentence of banishment on
Louis and his family. 2nd, That Louis
Capet shall be detained in prison till the
end of the war, and at that epoch the
sentence of banishment to be executed.
SHALL LOUIS XVI. HAVE
RESPITE ?
Speech in the Convention, January
i9> U93(Read in French by Deputy Bancal.)
Very sincerely do I regret the Conven
tion’s vote of yesterday for death.
Marat (interrupting): I submit that
Thomas Paine is incompetent to vote on
this question ; being a Quaker his religious
principles are opposed to capital punish
ment.
(Much confusion, quieted by cries for
“freedom of speech" on which Bancal
proceeds with Paine's speech.)
I have the advantage of some experience;
it is near twenty years that I have been
engaged in the cause of liberty, having
contributed something to it in the revolu
tion of the United States of America. My
language has always been that of liberty
and humanity, and I know that nothing so
exalts a nation as the union of these two
principles, under all circumstances. I know
that the public mind of France, and par
ticularly that of Paris, has been heated
and irritated by the dangers to which they
have been exposed ; but could we carry
our thoughts into the future, when the
dangers are ended and the irritations for
gotten, what to.-day seems an act of
justice may then appear an act of vengeance.
(Murmurs.) My anxiety for the cause of
France has become for the moment con
cern for her honour. If, on my return to
America, I should employ myself on a
history of the French Revolution, I had
rather record a thousand errors on the
side of mercy, than be obliged to tell one
act of severe justice. I voted against an
appeal to the people, because it appeared
to me that the Convention was needlessly
wearied on that point; but I so voted in
the hope that this Assembly would pro
nounce against death, and for the same
�138
ADDRESSES AND MANIFESTOES
punishment that the nation would have
voted, at least in my opinion, that is for
reclusion during the war, and banishment
thereafter. That is the punishment most
efficacious, because it includes the whole
family at once, and. none other can so
operate. I am still against the appeal to
the primary assemblies, because there is a
better method. This Convention has been
elected to form a Constitution, which will
be submitted to the primary assemblies.
After its acceptance a necessary conse
quence will be an election and another
assembly. We cannot suppose that the
present Convention will last more than
five or six months. The choice of new
deputies will express the national opinion,
on the propriety or impropriety of your
sentence, with as much efficacy as if those
primary assemblies had been consulted on
it. As the duration of our functions here
cannot be long, it is a part of our duty to
consider the interests of those who shall
replace us. If by any act of ours the
number of the nation’s enemies shall be
needlessly increased, and that of its friends
diminished at a time when the finances
may be more strained than to-day, we
should not be justifiable for having thus
unnecessarily heaped obstacles in the path
of our successors. Let us therefore not be
precipitate in our decisions.
France has but one ally—the United
States of America. That is the only nation
that can furnish France with naval pro
visions, for the kingdoms of northern
Europe are, or soon will be, at war with
her. It unfortunately happens that the
person now under discussion is considered
by the Americans as having been the friend
of their revolution. His execution will be
an affliction to them, and it is in your
power not to wound the feelings of your
ally. Could I speak the French language
I would descend to your bar, and in their
name become your petitioner to respite the
execution of the sentence on Louis.
Thuriot : This is not the language of
Thomas Paine.
Marat : I denounce the interpreter. I
maintain that it is not Thomas Paine’s
opinion. It is an untrue translation.
Garran : I have read the original and
the translation is correct.
(Prolonged uproar. Paine still
standing in the tribune beside his
interpreter, Deputy Bancal, declared
the sentiments to be his.')
Your Executive Committee will nominate
an ambassador to Philadelphia; my sincere
wish is that he may announce to America
that the National Convention of France,
out of pure friendship to America, has con
sented to respite Louis. That people, by
my vote, ask you to delay the execution.
Ah, citizens, give not the tyrant of
England the triumph of seeing the man
perish on the scaffold who had aided my
much-loved America to break his chains.
Marat (launching himself into the
middle of the hall): Paine voted against
the punishment of death because he is a
Quaker.
Paine : I voted against it from both
moral motives and motives of public policy.
LETTER TO DANTON.
Paris, May 6, 2nd year of the
Republic [z/9j].
CiTOYEN Danton : As you read Eng
lish, I write this letter to you without
passing it through the hands of a translator.
I am exceedingly disturbed at the distrac
tions, jealousies, discontents, and uneasiness
that reign among us, and which, if they
continue, will bring ruin and disgrace on
the republic. When I left America in the
year 1787, it was my intention to return the
year following, but the French Revolution,
and the prospect it afforded of extending
the principles of liberty and fraternity
through the greater part of Europe, have
induced me to prolong my stay upwards of
six years. I now despair of seeing the
great object of European liberty accom
plished, and my despair arises not from the
combined foreign powers, not from the
intrigues of aristocracy and priestcraft, but
from the tumultuous misconduct with which
the internal affairs of the present revolution
are conducted.
All that now can be hoped for is limited
to France only, and I agree with your
motion of not interfering in the govern
ment of any foreign country, nor permitting
any foreign country to interfere in the
government of France. This decree was
necessary as a preliminary towards ter
minating the war. But while these internal
contentions continue, while the hope re
mains to the enemy of seeing the republic
fall to pieces, while not only the representa
tives of the departments, but representation
itself is publicly insulted, as it has lately
been and now is by the people of Paris, or
at least by the tribunes, the enemy will be
�ADDRESSES AND MANIFESTOES
encouraged to hang about the frontiers and
await the issue of circumstances.
I observe that the confederated powers
have not yet recognized Monsieur, or d’Ar
tois, as regent, nor made any proclamation
in favour of any of the Bourbons ; but this
negative conduct admits of two different
conclusions. The one is that of abandon
ing the Bourbons and the war together;
the other is that of changing the object of
the war and substituting a partition scheme
in the place of their first object, as they
have done by Poland. If this should be
their object, the internal contentions that
now rage will favour that object far more
than it favoured their former object. The
danger every day increases of a rupture
between Paris and the departments. The
departments did not send their deputies to
Paris to be insulted, and every insult shown
to them is an insult to the departments that
elected and sent them. I see but one
effectual plan to prevent this rupture taking
place, and that is to fix the residence of the
convention, and of the future assemblies, at
a distance from Paris.
I saw, during the American Revolution,
the exceeding inconvenience that arose
by having the government of Congress
within the limits of any Municipal Jurisdic
tion. Congress first resided in Philadelphia,
and after a residence of four years it found
it necessary to leave it. It then adjourned
to the State of Jersey. It afterwards
removed to New-York; it again removed
from New-York to Philadelphia, and after
experiencing in every one of these places
the great inconvenience of a government, it
formed the project of building a Town, not
within the limits of any municipal jurisdic
tion, for the future residence of Congress.
In any one of the places where Congress
resided, the municipal authority privately
or openly opposed itself to the authority of
Congress, and the people of each of these
places expected more attention from
Congress than their equal share with the
other States amounted to. The same
thing now takes place in France, but in a
far greater excess.
I see also another embarrassing circum
stance arising in Paris of which we have
had full experience in America. I mean
that of fixing the price of provisions. But
if this measure is to be attempted it ought
to be done by the Municipality. The Con
vention has nothing to do with regulations
of this kind; neither can they be carried
into practice. The people of Paris may
say they will not give more than a certain
139
price for provisions, but as they cannot
compel the country people to bring pro
visions to market the consequence will be
directly contrary to their expectations, and
they will find dearness and famine instead
of plenty and cheapness. They may force
the price down upon the stock in hand, but
after that the market will be empty.
I will give you an example. In Phila
delphia we undertook, among other regula
tions of this kind, to regulate the price of
Salt; the consequence was that no Salt
was brought to market, and the price rose
to thirty-six shillings sterling per Bushel.
The price before the war was only one
shilling and sixpence per Bushel; and we
regulated the price of flour (farina) till there
was none in the market, and the people
were glad to procure it at any price.
There is also a circumstance to be taken
into the account which is not much attended
to. The assignats are not of the same
value they were a year ago, and as the
quantity increases the value of them will,
diminish. This gives the appearance of
things being dear when they are not so in
fact, for in the same proportion that any
kind of money falls in value articles rise in
price. If it were not for this the quantity
of assignats would be too great to be
circulated. Paper money in America fell
so much in value from this excessive quan
tity of it, that in the year 1781 I gave three
hundred paper dollars for one pair of
worsted stockings. What I write you upon
this subject is experience and not merely
opinion. I have no personal interest in any
of these matters, nor in any party disputes.
I attend only to general principles.
As soon as a constitution shall be estab
lished I shall return to America; and be
the future prosperity of France ever so
great, I shall enjoy no other part of it than
the happiness of knowing it. In the mean
time I am distressed to see matters so
badly conducted, and so little attention
paid to moral principles. It is these things
that injure the character of the Revolution
and discourage the progress of liberty all
over the world. When I began this letter
I did not intend making it so lengthy, but
since I have gone thus far I will fill up the
remainder of the sheet with such matters
as occur to me.
There ought to be some regulation with
respect to the spirit of denunciation that
now prevails. If every individual is to
indulge his private malignancy or his
private ambition, to denounce at random
and without any kind of proof, all confidence
�140
ADDRESSES AND MANIFESTOES
will be undermined and all authority be
destroyed.
Calumny is a species of
Treachery that ought to be punished as
well as any other kind of Treachery. It is
a private vice productive of public evils ;
because it is possible to irritate men into
disaffection by continual calumny who
never intended to be disaffected. It is
therefore, equally as necessary to guard
against the evils of unfounded or malignant
suspicion as against the evils of blind con
fidence. It is equally as necessary to pro
tect the characters of public officers from
calumny as it is to punish them for treachery
or misconduct. For my own part I shall
hold it a matter of doubt, until better
evidence arises than is known at present,
whether Dumouriez has been a traitor from
policy or resentment. There was certainly
a time when he acted well, but it is not
every man whose mind is strong enough to
bear up against ingratitude, and I think he
experienced a great deal of this before he
revolted. Calumny becomes harmless and
defeats itself, when it attempts to act upon
too large a scale. Thus the denunciation
of the Sections (of Paris) against the twentytwo deputies (Girondists) falls to the ground.
The departments that elected them are better
judgesof their moral and political characters
than those who have denounced them.
This denunciation will injure Paris in the
opinion of the departments because it has
the appearance of dictating to them what
sort of deputies they shall elect. Most of
the acquaintances that I have in the Con
vention are among those who are in that
list, and I know there are not better men
nor better patriots than what they are.
I have written a letter to Marat of the
same date as this but not on the same
subject. He may show it to you if he chuse.
Votre Ami,
Thomas Paine.
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Paine's political writings during the American and French Revolutions : including "Common Sense, "The Crisis, and Speeches upon the Trial and Death of Louis XVI Edited, with an introduction, by Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner.
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Bonner, Hypatia Bradlaugh [1858-1935] (ed)
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 144 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Annotations in ink. Printed in double columns. Publisher's list: p.[141]-144, continued inside and on back cover. Initials on front cover: 'H.B.B.' [Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner].
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1789-1799
American War of Independence
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United States-Politics and Government-1775-1783
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Text
THE BOOK
FOR THE NATION
AND
THE TIMES.
BY
A CITIZEN U.S.N.A.
PHILADELPHIA:
WILLIAM S. & ALFRED MARTIEN,
No. 606 Chestnut Stheet.
1864.
�Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1864,
By WILLIAM S. & ALFRED MARTIEN,
In the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United States, in
and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Stereotyped by a New Process, at Martien’s Foundry,
No. 21 South 7th street, Philadelphia.
�TO THE PEOPLE
the Bnited states;
FROM MAINE TO TEXAS,
AND FROM OREGON TO FLORIDA;
OUR
GREAT
ONE
AND
AND
FREE REPUBLIC
INDIVISIBLE:
HOPING THEY MAY TEND
TO ITS STRENGTH AND STABILITY,
THESE PAGES
.
ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED,
BY THE AUTHOR,
��THE BOOK FOB THE NATION.
Stop! my fellow-citizens, stop! Why be carried head
long, we know not whither, by the rapid current of these
excited times? Stop! and let us reason together. You
love your country, and fondly desire for it, honor, great
ness, and prosperity. But is it not for us to make it
honorable, great and prosperous? How can we expect it
to be such, unless we make it such? What do we need,
then, in order to be great and happy as a nation? Only one
thing; and that one thing is Goodness. All know that
we can never be truly great, without being good. With
out goodness, there may seem to be greatness for a time;
but the evil day is sure to come. Goodness is the very
soul and vitality of greatness, and of happiness. God is
infinitely great and happy, because he is infinitely good.
Let us, as a nation, be like him in the one respect, and
we shall be like him in the other. He is the fountain,
and the model, of all that is truly great and good; and
let it be our aim and ambition, to bring up our national
character to the resemblance of that exalted model.
Are we not a Christian people? We surely believe in
God. We believe that he is, and that he is our Sove
(5)
�6
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
reign Ruler. We believe that he is good, and that we
ought to be like him, and to seek his favor. But if we
refuse to listen to his voice, how can we be or do either?
If we refuse to be guided by his counsel, how can we be
like him, or he be pleased with us? To have our nation
conformed to him, and pleasing in his sight, it must be
our effort to mould it by his will. And now, when our
nation is heaving and shaking, and passing through this
great revolution, let us stop and consider what is the
matter; and what it really needs, in order to make it, in
all time to come, both prosperous and secure. If we love
our country, and would have it redeemed from all its
evils, how can we refuse to do this ? And if we love our
country, and desire its redemption, and enduring exalta
tion, how can we refuse the application to it, of those
principles of divine, eternal truth, without which every
nation must eventually totter and fall. “ For the nation
and kingdom, that will not serve the cause of right
eousness, shall perish.”—The mouth of the Lord hath
spoken it.
It is not for an avowedly Christian people, to turn
away from the subject with the impression that it is
merely religious; nor is it by any means such. Allimportant state matters are involved; matters compre
hending the best and dearest interests of the nation.
True, indeed, the subject embraces our duty to God, as a
nation, and has, therefore, its religious aspect; but has
none the less its political aspect also. Nor should any
be alarmed about a blending together of religion and
politics; as any such alarm would be quite irrational.
Because, without a constant blending of politics and reli
gion, it is utterly impossible for national duties to be dis-
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
7
charged. All duties owing to civil society are twofold in
their nature. Divine claims are involved, as well as human;
and their discharge is, therefore, a religious duty. In its
nature, the oath administered in our courts of justice, is
a solemn act of religious worship. Rendering obedience
to civil authority has its religious aspect, because God
requires it. And so also has the administration of civil
government; for it is his ordinance, and its officers are
the “ministers of God.” The notion of keeping separate
politics and religion, is silly and absurd; it is worse, for
it is wicked. Religion ought to be blended with politics
always and everywhere. That is, all state matters ought
to be leavened with religion, but religion ought never to
be leavened with politics. Men ought to be influenced,
not by sectarianism, which is not religion, but by “pure
and undefiled religion,” in all their management of state
affairs. The spirit and principles of this religion ought
to be carried everywhere, and men be ruled by them,
whatever they do, in their politics, as in all things else.
It is not at all improbable, that the effort to separate
religion from politics, has been in no small measure the
bane of our nation. If men lay aside their religion, and
disregard its claims, when engaged in politics, how can
they prosper? To suppose they could, would be absurd.
And a nation or people who attempt to do it, will be sure
to find out that there is something seriously wrong; and
they may have to pass through many calamities, before
they attain to a knowledge of the truth.
Our nation is now suffering under very serious afflic
tions. And at such a time as this, it would certainly be
proper in the people to earnestly inquire, why it is that
we are in this sad condition. When a people, in the
�8
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
midst of their calamities, remain stolid and indifferent,
careless about their cause, it indicates a reckless and
abandoned condition of society; and that their calamities
are not likely soon to cease, nor they themselves to be
much improved by what is passing over them. It would,
indeed, be indicative of a people not worthy of continu
ance as a nation, but destined speedily to become extinct.
Better things we hope, however, are in store for our
nation. We may fondly hope, that our end is not
approaching; that we are not to perish quite so abruptly.
We do not suppose that the mission, for which the great
Ruler raised up the nation, has yet been accomplished.
He raised it up for some great and good purpose, and
that purpose has^not yet been fully attained. We doubt
not the design was, that this land should be a land of
liberty, an asylum for the oppressed, a home for the
downtrodden of other lands. And such in some respects
it has hitherto been; and such in every respect, it has
yet to become, by the purpose and providence of God.
We look forward to the time when, as a nation, we shall
be exalted by righteousness, and be that “ happy people,
whose God is the Lord.” For this end we hope he is
now dealing with us, to make us such as he will approve
and bless, and perpetuate for good.
That the Almighty Ruler of nations hath a contro
versy with us, there are but few, we presume, who will
venture to deny. These great and sore calamities, which
have befallen the nation, are not the result of chance:
they are brought upon the land by the overruling provi
dence of God. We are assured by unerring authority,
that even a “sparrow cannot fall to the ground without”
his direction; and much less can a nation be convulsed,
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
9
as is ours, without his immediate control. We are
inured, too, that there is no evil with which men are
visited, but is sent of God. Amos iii. 6: “Shall there
be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?” What
ever evil befalls a city or nation, the Lord sends it upon
that city or nation. The import of the whole Word of
God plainly is, that the Lord is the disposer of all the
affairs of both individuals and nations; and that the
calamities which befall either, are his visitations on
account of their sins—either for their punishment merely,
or else for both punishment and reformation. The same
infallible authority teaches also, that the Lord never
sends calamities upon nations, when they are innocent.
To suppose him doing so, would be utterly derogatory to
his righteous character. “ Will not the Judge of all the
earth do right?” So saith the Bible. And for him to
punish a nation, not for its sins, but while it is innocent,
just for its improvement, would be far from right. There
must be guilt, either by transgression or imputation, else
the infliction of punishment would be utterly unjust—
incompatible with all sense of right.
The doctrine has been advanced that the Lord is chas
tising us, not for our iniquity, but merely for our improve
ment, so as to fit us for a more exalted and useful position
among the nations. Those who do not see our national
sins, and yet believe in the overruling providence of God,
are necessarily forced into some such unscriptural posi
tion. Admitting that afflictions from God are upon us,
and not being able to see our ill-desert, it must be
assumed that he afflicts us merely for our good, and not
at all in the way of punishment. And men, by refusing
to see our national sins, may at length become quite
�10
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
unable to see them. A man, who persists for a long time
in keeping his eyes closed and refuses to see, may at
length have his sight so impaired that he cannot see.
And a man, who habitually, for a long time, closes his
eyes to the sins of the nation, may become so blind to
them, that he cannot discern them at all. And then,
when national judgments come, he cannot, of course,
understand the cause, and is ready to invent some theory,
even though it should be inconsistent with the Word of
God. But taking that Word for our all-sufficient and
infallible guide, we cannot hesitate to believe, that the
Lord never sends calamities upon innocent nations—never
afflicts but when they are guilty; though he may design
not merely punishment, but improvement also. And in
our present national calamities, we apprehend that both
punishment and improvement are his design—to bring us
to a knowledge of our sins, so as to confess and forsake
them, and thus turn to him, that He may turn to us, with
deliverance and abiding favor.
To be made sensible of our sins is what we, as a nation,
especially require, in order to realize that the hand of the
Lord is stretched forth against us in these calamities.
Indeed, these themselves might be sufficient to force con
viction upon every mind, that we have sinned against
Heaven, and in an aggravated manner, else, in the provi
dence of God, we should not be visited with such terrible
judgments.
By the pen of inspiration we have upon record, “ for
our learning,” the Lord’s dealings with a single nation.
And the whole history of that Israelitish nation proves
most clearly, that national calamities are the punishment
of national sins; and, also, that national repentance and
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
11
reformation are sure to be met by the returning favor of
the Lord, granting deliverance and peace. And from
Israel’s history, the great practical lesson to be impressed
upon all nations, in their calamities, is embodied in the
words—“ Come, and let us return unto the Lord ; for he
hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he
will bind us up.”—Hos. vi. 1. Whenever we, as a peo
ple, are brought to use this language in sincerity, it will
then be well with us; it expresses so fully that state of
feeling which is appropriate to a suffering nation. There
is the acknowledgment that the Lord has been forgotten,
and hence his claims and counsels disregarded; and that
their calamities are the inflictions of his hand: and also a
purpose to return to Him, with a recognition of his mer
ciful character—that he will pardon and bless all who
repent and obey. But evidently it is impossible for us to
be brought to a sincere use of this language, unless we
are led to understand our national sins. And our wish is
to aid in the acquisition of this indispensable knowledge.
While attempting to set forth the cause of the Lord’s
displeasure against us, it is the intention to speak of, not
individual, but national sins—the sins of the people, in
their national capacity. There are individual acts, and
there are national acts; there are individual sins, and
there are national sins. And both individual and national
sins may go to make up the guilt of a nation. Nor need
it be doubted that both have contributed to make up the
guilt of our own. National sins are those committed by
the people, in the transacting of national business; such
as adopting constitutions—voting for officers of govern
ment, whether high or low—enacting laws—interpreting
and executing laws. All such acts are national, because
�12
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
performed in the transaction of national affairs. And all
sins committed in these and such relations, are national
sins. Nor can we doubt that many and great sins have
been committed in all departments, in the management of
our national affairs; even from the laying the foundation
of our national system, and during the direction and
management of it ever since. We have sinned in the
adoption of our Constitution—we sin in appointing our
rulers—in the enactment of our laws—in our judicial
decisions—and also in the executing of our laws. But
the primary and radical sin is, no doubt, found in our
Constitution; and lays a foundation for the easy and
ready commission of all the others.
It will be the part of wisdom, then, honestly, consci
entiously, and in the light of divine truth, to examine
into the nature of this Constitutional and radical sin,
which doubtless entails upon us many others, and leaves
us so much exposed to the Divine displeasure. And if
we are willing to submit to a Scriptural examination, it
will probably appear that our great Constitutional and
radical sin consists in a kind of practical, national atheism.
Not avowed atheism, but latent, practical atheism—refus
ing to acknowledge G~od, and his sovereign authority over
us as a nation.
If we are a Christian people, how can we object to
being tried by the Word of God ? Our leading statesmen
and orators everywhere assume that the nation is Chris
tian ; and if such, how can we refuse to take Christ’s
law for our standard and test of character. A people
who believe in the Word of God, cannot consistently
refuse to be tried by that Word. And if we seek to
have the nation such as it ought to be, then must we
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
13
have it moulded by the Divine will, and if moulded by His
will it must be through the application of His Word. If
we, as a nation, despise the Word of the Lord, how can we
ever expect to be prosperous and secure ? “ The Lord
hath magnified his Word above all his name.” He has
honored it above all else, whereby he makes himself
known, and we ought to honor it too. As a nation,
we ought to honor the heaven-given Book of God, and
feel that we are honored by having the privilege. But
we have neglected it: we have slighted it: we have disre
garded its counsels, and set it at naught. This is one of
our national sins, and is recoiling upon our own heads.
See where we are now! What wasting floods of evil have
flown over our formerly God-favored land I and all
through the rejection of Iris Word, “ which is perfect, and
makes wise the simple.” This is our fatal Pandora’s box,
from which have issued the countless miseries now afflict
ing us as a nation. The leaven of divine truth would
have saved us. It will cause any nation to grow great,
stable, and enduring. It is the genuine balm to heal the
wounds of our torn and bleeding land. Why should we
hesitate to have recourse at once to its application. It is
the true and only remedy; and will save the nation from
the deadly maladies still wasting its vitality. Let us,
then, build upon this true foundation; having our Consti
tution and the Bible blended together, as the immovable
basis of our national fabric. The edifice will then be firm
and abiding—the Bible being imperishable, so also will be
our Constitution—assaults upon either will be assaults
upon both; and both will have the same Almighty defence
and shield.
But in order to the blending together of the Bible and
�14
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
our Constitution, the latter must be made to harmonize
with the former ; and this can be done only by the adop
tion of certain amendments, for which provision has been
made in the instrument itself. What they are, we learn
only from the Word of God, as this is the standard
by which the deficiencies of our Constitution are to be
ascertained. According to human authority, our Constitu
tion might be considered almost faultless, as it is doubtless
the best ever framed by merely human wisdom. But the
question is not what it ought to be in the estimation
of men, but what it ought to be in the sight of God. We
are not now treating of our responsibility, as a nation, to
men or other nations, but of our responsibility to God
himself; and hence, the standard by which we must
be tried is his Word, and not th'e views and expositions of
politicians and statesmen, however distinguished they may
be. The elaborate disquisitions, settled principles and
dogmas of learned and profound statesmen, are of no
weight, when brought into competition with the wisdom
and requirements of the Almighty. As we are not
discussing our duty to men or nations, but our duty to
God, so from God we must learn what that duty is—
measure ourselves by the standard of his Word. And it
is a standard of supreme and divine excellence. Had
our nation been framed and fabricated in all its parts, in
accordance with the pattern there exhibited, happy would
it be for us this day. Instead of being under the dark
cloud—under the anger and displeasure of a righteous
God, we should be sitting in the sunlight of his favor,
sweet peace and prosperity smiling around every habita
tion. For “ when a man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh
even his enemies to be at peace with him.” And so with
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
15
a nation. When its ways please the Lord, he makes it
to sit in peace and safety, “ under the shadow of the
Almighty,” free from alarms within, and the assaults of
enemies from without.—“Blessed is that people whose
God is the Lord.”
But, alas! we are not that people; and with shame we
ought to confess it, that in the framing of our Constitu
tion, we have refused to take the Lord to be our God;
and have framed it without any reference, either to his
existence, his authority over us, or to his law. It has
been framed, in short, just as though there were no God.
“The fool hath said in his heart, No God.” The import
of the workings of his heart is, “No God.” The lan
guage or voice, sent forth by these workings, says, “No
God.” And such is the import of our Constitution. “No
God,” is the meaning of its voice—the signification of it,
from the beginning to the end. There is no God recog
nised in it, for the nation to look to for help, to honor, to
trust, or to obey! And, my dear fellow-citizens, may I
not appeal to your sense of propriety—is it desirable for
us to have a nation, that has no God?
The great and radical defect in our Constitution is, that
the sovereignty of God over the nations of the earth is not
acknowledged. The government of God over our nation,
is not recognised nor admitted in any way. The entire
instrument is drawn up in such a manner as to imply,
that in conducting the affairs of the nation, the govern
ment of God is to be left entirely out of the account. And
God is thus dethroned, so far as this disowning of his
authority can do it. And all our State Constitutions are
defective in the same way : none of them acknowledges
the government of God, as it really exists, as he main
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THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
tains it over the nations. This, then, is the great primary
and radical sin of the nation. God’s government, as it
actually exists by his own appointment, is disowned and
set at naught by our Constitution, by all our Constitu
tions, and generally in the management of our national
affairs. Some may imagine that this can scarcely be pos
sible ; but let us calmly examine and see.
The Bible teaches very fully, that God hath established
a government over the nations; not merely over the indi
viduals who compose the nations, but over the nations, as
such. And the Bible as clearly teaches the nature of that
government. It is a delegated government—the govern
ment of the Son of God, in his mediatorial capacity—the
man Christ Jesus ruling over the nations, for the good of
man, and the glory of God.
The divine arrangement for the government of the
nations is clearly, fully, and forcibly set forth in the
second Psalm. It commences with a description of the
organized opposition of the nations to the “Lord and his
anointed”—God and his Son, the Messiah, the conse
crated, Supreme Ruler over all: “Why do the heathen
rage?” Though the heathen are mentioned, yet the
reference is not merely to the opposition of heathen civil
rulers; for the rulers of the Jews themselves are also
comprehended, as we are told in Acts iv. 27. Nor is
the language to be restricted to the events connected
immediately with the condemnation and crucifixion of the
Redeemer. Those events were only a continuation of
what is implied in the language; and until this very day,
there is still a continuance of the same. The language
of the Psalm had a significance and application, before
Christ came, and when he came, and still has its applica
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17
tion until this present time. It is descriptive of the oppo
sition made to the “Lord and his anointed,” as these
were represented and shadowed forth by the theocracy
established in the nation of Israel. And so the prophecy
still has its fulfilment, in the opposition of the nations,
refusing to acknowledge and submit to Christ’s claims and
authority; and in various ways preventing the establish
ment of his reign of righteousness in the earth.
“ The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers
take counsel together against the Lord, and against his
anointed; saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and
cast away their cords from us.” The rulers of all nomi
nally Christian nations have been, and still are, pursuing
this guilty course. Because, in framing Constitutions,
enacting laws, in the execution of laws, and in the whole
management of governmental affairs, they refuse to be
controlled and regulated by the authority of God and his
Christ. They “cast away their cords, and break their
bands asunder,” by refusing to recognise and submit to
the requirements of the divine law, and the rightful
authority of King Jesus, “the Prince of the kings of the
earth.”
And having described the organized opposition of the
nations, to God and his Christ, the Psalm proceeds to set
forth the arrangement which the Lord hath made with
his Son, for their government. He says, “Yet,” or not
withstanding this opposition, “have I set my King upon
my holy hill of Zion.” And he gives to him “the heathen
for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth
for his possession;” and also to “rule them with a rod
of^iron,” and to “break them in pieces like a potter’s
vessel.”
2
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THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
Thus there is set before us the divine appointment of
the Lord’s anointed, the Messiah, the Son of God, in his
mediatorial capacity, to be the sovereign Ruler of the
nations. And the various Scriptures which teach the
same doctrine, are numerous and explicit. Some of them
are the following, Ps. lxxxix. 27 : “I will make him first
born,” that is, preeminent, above all others in authority,
as explained in the next clause, “higher than the kings
of the earth,” being invested with power and authority to
reign over them. Ps. ex. 1: “The Lord said unto my
Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine ene
mies thy footstool.” He sits at the right-hand of the
Father, the place of supreme honor and authority over
all—He alone being excepted, who hath placed him there.
And there, we are told, “he shall strike through kings in
the day of his wrath;” and “judge among the heathen;”
and “fill places with the dead bodies;”—see the fulfil
ment in our own bleeding land!—and “wound the heads”
or chief ones “over many countries.” And in Ps. lxxii.
it is foretold of him, that “ He shall have dominion also
from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the
earth.” The import of which is, that his authority is
universal, over the whole earth. It is there said also,
“Yea, all kings shall fall do'wn before him: all nations
shall serve him.” Not merely people, but “kings” and
“nations;” so that civil rulers and governments ought to
acknowledge his sovereignty over them.
And what is foretold in the Old Testament is declared
in the New to have passed into actual fulfilment. For
instance, in Eph., first chapter, it is said that God raised
Christ from the dead, and “ set him at his own right
hand in the heavenly places; far above all principality
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
19
and power, and might and dominion, and every name that
is named; not only in this world, but also in that which
is to come: And hath put all under his feet, and hath
given him to be head over all to his body the church.”
Here, then, it is explicitly declared, that the man Christ
Jesus, after his crucifixion and resurrection, was exalted
to the throne of supreme dominion, and sways a sceptre
of universal empire over the wide creation of God. He
sits upon the holy hill of Zion, in the heavenly Jerusa
lem, exercising his delegated authority over all rulers and
nations of the earth. And the same doctrine is clearly
taught in Phil, ii.: “Wherefore God also hath highly
exalted him, and given him a name which is above every
name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow, of those in heaven, and on earth, and under the
earth: and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” “Jesus Christ
is Lord,” that is, supreme and universal governor; and
the exercise of this delegated authority is to the glory of
God the Father. This supreme^ authority of Christ is
set forth again in Col. ii. 10, where he is declared to
be “the head of all principality and power.” And in
1 Pet. iii. 22, the same is emphatically expressed ; for it
is said of Christ that “ H<?is gone into heaven, and is on
the right hand of God; angels, and authorities, and pow
ers being made subject unto him.” And so also, in Rev.
i. 5, he is declared to be “ the Prince of the kings of the
earth.” So that all earthly rulers are the subjects of his
universal dominion.
Thus we see that the prophecy contained in the Psalm
has its fulfilment in the exaltation of the man Christ
Jesus to the right hand of God; where he sits as king
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THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
upon the holy hill of Zion, in the heavenly Jerusalem.
There is reference, no doubt, to the earthly mount Zion,
the seat and centre of the theocracy established over
Israel, and administered by the house of David. His
descendants were to occupy that throne; but the succession
terminated in the Son of David, the Messiah, “ the
Lord’s anointed,” with preeminence. And when he
came to the throne the seat of dominion was transferred
from the earthly to the heavenly mount Zion. The
nationality of God’s people then ceased, and their govern
ment was no longer to be circumscribed by the bounda
ries of a single nation. Their Prince was to rule over all
nations; but with a “kingdom not of this world”—not
with an earthly, but a heavenly reign; and hence, the
seat of his empire must be, not the earthly, but the hea
venly mount Zion. It is the same throne as that occupied
by king David ; but when it comes to be occupied by
“ Messiah the Prince,” the “ Governor among the nations,”
the seat of empire must be transferred to heaven: the
only suitable place for the throne of Him, whose “king
dom ruleth over all.” It is there, upon the holy hill of
Zion, that the Lord hath set his King; where he is to sit
and reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet, that
is, till the end of time; the iast enemy, which is death,
being destroyed, by the resurrection of all the dead.
When he shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the
Father, and cease to reign, laying aside the crown and
the sceptre, and becoming subject to the Father; “ that
God may be all in all.” 1 Cor. xv. 26, 28.
There is no room for doubt, then, as to the nature
of that government which God hath established over the
nations. It is a delegated, mediatorial government, com
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
21
mitted to the hands of the man Christ Jesus, the Divine
Son of God, exercising the regal functions which pertain
to him as the “Lord’s anointed.” And this Godappointed, mediatorial government, all nations ought to
acknowledge and obey. The nation that does not
acknowledge the mediatorial government of Christ, does
not acknowledge the government of God; because this is
God’s government over the nations; and when this is
ignored, God’s government is ignored. But the rightful
authority of Christ over the nations is not acknowledged
in our Constitution; nor in a single Constitution of any
of our States.
Perhaps it may be assumed, that it is not incumbent
upon nations, in their national capacity, to make any such
acknowledgment. But in relation to this the Word of
God is very explicit. After the divine arrangement for
the government of the nations is set forth in the Psalm,
then comes the injunction, for all civil rulers to recog
nize it; and to act in accordance therewith; that is, as
civil rulers to have regard to the Lord’s authority; and to
engage in the discharge of all their official duties, under
a sense of their responsibility to Him. Here is the
injunction—“ Be wise now, therefore, 0 ye kings; be
instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with
fear, and rejoice with trembling.” The appellations—
“kings,” “judges of the earth”—comprehend all classes
and grades of civil rulers, from the highest to the lowest,
and under every form of civil government. And not as
private persons, but as rulers, WMkin ruling, it is enjoined
upon them to serve the Lord—to serve him in the adminis
tration of civil government, which he has ordained for
the good of men. And “with fear,” it is enjoined upon
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THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
them to serve the Lord; fearing lest they should displease
him, by administering his ordinance in an improper man
ner, while discharging the duties of their office. They
are to discharge these duties under a sense of responsibil
ity to the Lord; remembering that at last they shall
answer to him for the fidelity maintained, in filling the
position to which they have been called. It is enjoined
upon them, too, to “rejoice with trembling.” They will,
and may rejoice, in the honor and emoluments pertaining
to the positions of authority, which in the providence of
God they are called to fill; but while they do thus rejoice,
they should not forget the danger there is of incur
ring the Divine displeasure, by any abuse or misuse
of the important trust committed to their hands. They
should “tremble” in view of their final reckoning with
God. Hence, then, it is evident that, as rulers, they are
to acknowledge the Lord’s authority over them, and to
make it an object to please him in the performance of all
their duties.
And that there may be no possibility of overlooking
the claims of “Messiah the Prince,” as the rightful sove
reign of all rulers, they are enjoined to “ kiss the Son,
that is, to render to him homage and submission—to
acknowledge his authority over them—to do him rever
ence ; and in the discharge of all their duties, to have
respect to his claims and prerogatives, and the require
ments of his law. And when civil rulers are required to
do this, in their official capacity, it is evident that these
duties are incumbent upon nations. Rulers are the repre
sentatives of nations, and the duties of the former are
the duties of the latter. And it ought to be carefully
observed, that the obedience to be rendered to the “ Lord
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
23
and his anointed,” is not required of persons in their pri
vate capacity, but only of rulers: teaching in the most
unmistakable manner, that this obedience is demanded of
nations, in their national capacity.
But, my fellow-citizens, is it not undeniably true, that
our nation has utterly refused to acknowledge the obliga
tion, or to render any measure of this obedience? On
the contrary, by the course pursued, we have said, “Let
us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords
from us.” We have disowned the restraints of the divine
law, and ignored the claims and authority of God and his
Christ. And for this high-handed rebellion', hath not
“the Lord had us in derision?”—hath he not “spoken
unto us in his wrath ?”—and “ vexed us in his sore displea
sure?” We have been wonderfully vexed, indeed; baf
fled, foiled, and disappointed in our efforts to suppress the
rebellion, and restore peace to the nation.
If we are a Christian people, we ought surely to see the
need of reformation in this matter. As a nation, we owe
a duty to the Lord Jesus, which ought not to be neglected,
but promptly and faithfully discharged. It will be for
the nation’s lasting honor and advantage. By divine
appointment, Christ is the Ruler of our nation, and how
can we claim to be Christian, if we in no way acknow
ledge him ? Is it not remarkable, that his claims upon
the nation have been so entirely overlooked, by the people
of the land ? that there should be so few to “ stand up for
Jesus?” Where are all his commissioned ambassadors?
Have they not a word to say in behalf of his just claims
to the nation’s homage? How is it, that while they are
zealous in urging his claims upon individuals, as a
Saviour, they neglect to urge his no less just and
�24
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
undoubted claims upon nations, as a Sovereign ? Perhaps
it is that the salvation of the former is involved; but so
also is the salvation of the latter. For “the nation and
kingdom that will not serve him shall perish; yea, those
nations shall be utterly wasted.” It is true, indeed, that
the eternal salvation of individuals is vastly more impor
tant than the salvation of nations ; but this will not jus
tify silence on the part of Christ’s ambassadors as to his
claims over the latter. And if they are silent as to the
rights and prerogatives of their Divine King and Lord,
“ the Prince of the kings of the earth,” who else can be
expected to speak out? or how can the nation be supposed
to understand its duty in this vital matter ? It is a vital
matter. The Jews said, “We will not have this man to
reign over us;” and see the terrible desolation with
which He swept their nation into utter ruin I We ought
to take the alarm, lest such may be our doom.
Are we Christians ? And would not Christians desire
to see Christ, their Lord and Redeemer, honored and
exalted by the nation? Would they not wish, that “the
glory due unto his name,” his rights and prerogatives,
should be given unto him in the state, as well as in the
church? Would they not rejoice, if their beloved nation
were to “bring forth the royal diadem, and crown him
Lord of all?” Would it be repugnant to their Christian
feelings, or to our republicanism, for us all to say—We
have no king but Christ, “the King of righteousness;”
that we acknowledge the authority of no prince, but
“Messiah the Prince,” “the Prince of peace;” that our
sovereign is, “the Prince of the kings of the earth;” and
to say, “The Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Law
giver, the Lord is our King; he will save us?” We are
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
25
Republicans, and we want no king, but “the King of kings
and Lord of lords” to reign over us. And as a nation
we ought to proclaim it, and exult in the fact, that we are
subject to Him, whose “kingdom ruleth over all.” When
we formally take the Lord to be our King, then will our
government be like to that given of God himself to his
people of old; when he was their Sovereign, and human
rulers only officers under him, governing in his name, for
his glory, and the true happiness of the nation. Then,
indeed, would our national glory be truly great—glorious
in the eyes of the nations; for the Lord would be our
glory and defence. Of us it would then be said, “ Happy
art thou, 0 nation! Who is like unto thee, 0 people I
saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and the sword
of thy excellency! And thine enemies shall be found
liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high
places.”
And as we have not admitted God nor his claims into
our Constitution, so we transgress in another respect;
that is, in ignoring his teachings as to the true nature of
civil government. We hold it to be nothing but a human
institution—the ordinance of man—while his Word de
clares it to be the ordinance of God, and worthy of reve
rence as such. Our current doctrine oh this point is
embodied in the common maxim, so frequently uttered,
and so generally received, that in civil government, “ the
people are the fountain of power;” that all authority is
from the people themselves; that there is no power but
of the people. And in accordance with this, in our
national halls of legislation, the idea has been sneered
and scoffed at, that there is any “ higher law” than the
enactments of Congress. For, as all authority to rule is
�26
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION.
from the people, then the enactments of the people’s
representatives must be paramount and final. But on this
subject we are quite aside from the true foundation. Our
prevailing doctrine, however, that “the people are the
fountain of power,” no doubt had its origin among us, in
opposition to “the divine right of kings,” the darling
dogma of the old world’s despots. But while we repudi
ate their dogma, in their sense of it, we should not fly to
the opposite extreme, and deny that God is the fountain
of all legitimate governing authority.
In Romans xiii. it is expressly declared, that “There
is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained
of God.” By “the powers that be,” existing, established
civil governments are meant. Neither the usurped power
of pretenders, nor the power of organized rebellion
against an established government, is implied in the
phrase, “powers that be.” It is not the power of any
man, or any number of men, who may rise up against a
government, and assume the right to oppose it, that is
“ordained of God.” Such a power as that is only the
power of sedition, rebellion, treason; and this is not an
ordinance of God, established for the good of men. God,
for good, wise, and righteous ends, may in his providence
permit a rebellion to succeed; so that the issue shall be
the establishment of a new and independent government.
And then this new government will be the ordinance of
God, and as such ought to be conscientiously obeyed. But
the power of the preceding rebellion is not his ordi
nance, and has no divine warrant to exact obedience—no
man is bound to obey it “for conscience’ sake.” It is
evident that, though “the powers that be, are ordained
of God,” yet every existing power cannot claim the
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
27
sanction of his ordination. A people in rebellion may
adopt a government for themselves, and regulate their
affairs by it; but they have not yet an established govern
ment. All they do amounts to no more than an attempt
to establish one: hence, what they call their government,
has no place among “the powers that be,” and “are
ordained of God.” It is evident, then, that resistance to
their authority is not resistance to the ordinance of God;
nor can they claim obedience on the same ground, as that
of an established civil government. Rebels, in the exer
cise of their usurped authority, will claim obedience, and
those in their power “ must needs be subject” to them; yet
“only for wrath,” but not “for conscience’ sake,” as they
have no authority from God to make any such claim. A
rebellion or revolution is purely an ordinance of man;
but God in his providence may permit it, and overrule it
for good.
Civil government is the ordinance of God, because he
hath appointed it for the benefit of men. And civil rulers,
we are told, are “God’s ministers attending upon this
very thing;” that is, dispensing God’s ordinance among
the people. From the highest to the lowest, in all depart
ments, from the President to the constable, each one is
the “minister of God,” and accountable to him for the
manner in which his ordinance is administered; and each
one will have to answer to God, for the fidelity with which
the duties of his office have been discharged. Men in
power may be so ignorant of the true nature of civil
government, and of their own official character, as not to
know that they are the “ministers of God;” but they are
none the less so, on that account. Men may administer
the ordinance of God in a very unworthy manner; they
�28
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
may prostitute and abuse it, and in the office they fill,
commit all manner of wickedness; but they are still “the
ministers of God;” and it is still his ordinance, which
they are abusing and prostituting to their base and wicked
ends: and hence their danger of having a terrible reckon
ing to render at last, to God, for their unfaithfulness,
while filling an office under him.
A civil government may be very defective, far from
what it ought to be; but it is none the less the ordinance
of God on that account. The government of Israel was
the ordinance of God when administered by Ahab and
Jezebel, though it was idolatrous, tyrannical, and wicked.
And so the Roman government was the ordinance of
God, when administered by the cruel monster Nero. And
on the ground of its being such, did the Apostle enjoin
obedience to it, on the part of the Christians to whom he
wrote. The defects of a civil government, constitutional,
legislative, judicial or executive, do not deprive it of its
character, as God’s ordinance; this it is still, though it
may be marred by blemishes both numerous and great.
Were we to assume that the defects of a government would
deprive it of its character, as God’s ordinance, it would
be difficult to decide when any government is such.
Because the questions would arise, what are the defects
which deprive a government of its divinely appointed
character ? and what degree of perfection must it have in
order to be his ordinance? And these are questions
which never could be settled; inasmuch as there is no
basis anywhere upon which to settle them. The Word of
God affords no such basis; and it would be vain to look
for it anywhere else. It is the Bible which informs us
that civil government is the ordinance of God, and it
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
29
prescribes no measure of goodness or perfection as essen
tial to the sustaining of that character. In speaking of
civil government it says, “ The powers that be are ordained
of God,” and, therefore, they are to be obeyed, “not
only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake.”
And as civil government is the ordinance of God, and
all officers of government are his ministers, and responsi
ble to him for the faithful discharge of their respective
duties; so all who enjoy the advantages of this ordinance,
ought to respect and honor it as such; giving to it that
support and encouragement which an ordinance of God
may claim as its due. None ought to disown or despise
it, because it does not please them, in the form in which
it has been established, or the manner in which it is con
ducted. The defects may be great and numerous, but it
is the ordinance of God, notwithstanding, and ought to be
honored and obeyed as such. And good men, by taking
active part in the administration of it, may do much to
have its defects removed—all that is wrong in it righted,
and all that is wanting supplied; so as to realize in its
administration what the ordinance implies—the best inter
ests of the nation, and the glory of God.
Yet though civil government is the ordinance of God,
it does not follow, that civil rulers are to be actively
obeyed in all that they enjoin; because they are fallible,
and may enjoin what is in conflict with the laws of God;
and then they are to be disobeyed, in order to render
obedience to Him. Though they are God’s ministers,
they have no authority from him to require the violation
of his law. When they do so, it is the authority of man
coming in conflict with the authority of God; and then,
it is evident that God ought to be obeyed rather than
�30
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
men.—Acts v. 29. But while on this ground civil rulers
may be disobeyed, it is not implied that they may be
resisted by force. Passive obedience ought to be ren
dered ; that is, suffer the penalty of disobedience to them,
rather than sin against God.
But though civil government is the ordinance of God,
it is in some respects the ordinance of man. And the
Scriptures recognize this. 1 Pet. ii. 13. “ Submit your
selves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake:
whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto governors,”
&c. It is especially an ordinance of man in this, that
the people are the sole fountain of power, as to what
form of government they shall establish. God is the
source of authority as to the existence of civil govern
ment, but man the source of authority as to its form;
because God has not ordained any form. Men may estab
lish a pure Democracy, or a Republic, or a Monarchy, or
any other form, as may seem to them best. The people
are the only legitimate fountain of power as to this: for
in this there is no authority higher than themselves. It
is an ordinance of man, too, because men administer it;
and for men it has been ordained.
Now in this matter, with respect to the fountain of
power in civil government, it is wrong for us as, a nation,
to take from God his right and prerogative, by assuming
to ourselves what he claims as his. Such conduct must
be highly criminal in any people; and will not remain
unpunished. It is robbing God of his glory, and giving
it to others. May he not say to us as he said to Israel—
“ Will a man rob God ? Yet ye have robbed me. Ye are
cursed with a curse; for ye have robbed me; even this
whole nation.” But, my fellow-citizens, should we not
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
31
cease to rob God ? Should we not fear the Lord—hearken
to his voice—cease to do evil, learn to do well, and “give
to him the glory due unto his name?”
And by recognizing civil government in its divinely
appointed character, dignity and value, and acknowledg
ing our authority to maintain it as coming from God, we
shall gain other important advantages. The tendency
will be to have the minds of all impressed with the value
and importance of civil institutions ; as having a measure
of sacred and divine authority and responsibility connected
with them. And in this way will be cherished in both the
rulers and the ruled, a proper estimate of the relative duties
to be discharged—as even in the presence of God, and to
be accounted for to him in the end. Nor can there be
any reasonable doubt, that an abiding feeling of this
kind would contribute very much to the proper and faith
ful discharge of these relative duties. And thus our
duty to God, as a nation, would redound exceedingly to
our own good order, stability, and peace.
There is still another respect in which we are culpable
as a nation. For as God is not in our Constitution, and
as we disregard the teachings of his Word, as to the true
nature of civil government, so also we transgress his law
in the choosing of our rulers. His word is very explicit in
describing the character of those who are to be chosen for
rulers. For instance, in Exod. xviii. 21: “Moreover, thou
shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear
God, men of truth, hating covetousness ; and place such
over them to be rulers.” 0 how different it would be
with us this day, had we been careful to choose such men
for our rulers in times past. If they had been able men,
fearing God, men of truth, never, never would the nation
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THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
have been visited with the desolations of this terrible civil
war. Bad men in power, men of falsehood and dishon
esty, godless, unprincipled, perjured men, dragged the
nation into the devouring whirlpool of civil discord, car
nage, and death. It is the fruits of our own doings, in dis
regarding the requirements of God’s law as to the moral
character of our rulers. See, again, what that law says,
in 2 Sam. xxiii. 2, 3: “The Spirit of the Lord spake by
me, and his word was in my tongue. The God of Israel
said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over
men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.” Here is
the voice of God’s law—-for all times—and all nations—
and all people. And how careful the inspired writer is,
to state the authority by which the law is promulgated.
He says the Spirit of the Lord spake by him : and if pos
sible, to make it more forcible, that the Grod of Israel
said it. And, hence, men can have no way of evading
the force of the injunction, or plea to offer in extenuation
of their guilt, if they disregard its demands. The only
plea for disobedience, that any people having the Bible
could offer, would be that they were willingly ignorant
of the law, or if not ignorant, that they did not like to
obey it. For the law is so plain and pointed, that there
can be no doubt about its meaning and application. It is
God’s authority, and binding upon every nation, to
whom the Word of God comes. It is His law, as laid
down in the Old Testament, with respect to what civil
rulers ought to be; and the law in the New is not at all
different. All that is said, concerning civil government
in Rom. xiii., implies that rulers ought to be good men—
“Rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil”
—“ He is the minister of God to thee for good”—“ They
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
33
are God’s ministers attending upon this very thing.”
Reason and common-sense teach, that if they are God’s
ministers, they ought to be good men, “just, and ruling
in the fear of God.” And in 1 Pet. ii. 14, the doctrine
is the same, namely, that rulers “ are sent for the punish
ment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do
well.” And thus we have the will of God expressly
^revealed, in both the Old and New Testaments, as to what
the moral character of civil rulers ought to be. If we,
then, disregard the will of God, so fully and clearly made
known, how can we, as a nation, expect to prosper?
How can we expect to escape the anger and displeasure
of the righteous Ruler of all, whose law we so defiantly
trample under our feet ?
And what, in all candor, has been our course in rela
tion to this matter ? Has it not undeniably been, to
leave the law of God entirely out of the account, when
proceeding to choose and appoint our rulers ? When
have we, on any occasion, in primary meeting, or political
convention, referred to the requirements of the divine
law, as to the moral character of the men to be chosen
and appointed? Truth must answer, Never! All are
aware, that the whole course has been to proceed in this
matter just as though there had been no such law in
existence. It must be confessed that we have chosen
and set over us in authority, characters the very reverse
of what the law of God requires—godless men, profane
swearers, drunkards, debauchees, gamblers, Sabbath
breakers, haters of God, revilers of his law, and scoffers
at his claims and his authority. There may have been
happy exceptions, but the rule has been to select men,
who have “no fear of God before their eyes.”
3
�34
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
The very places and practices associated with politics,
are forcibly indicative of the men’s character who are
usually chosen to manage our state affairs. If bar-rooms
and groggeries, lager beer, whiskey, and tobacco, were
favorable to the production of good civil rulers, we might
certainly boast of having such; for all these have no little
to do with their choice and elevation. It is notorious,
that in our large cities, the centres of influence, very
little can be done in politics, outside the shadow of a
tavern. If a man wishes to attend the primary meeting,
where the nominations are made, he will probably have
to visit the tavern. If he has to seek the assessor, that
he may have his name placed on the tax-list, where can
he find him and his books, but in the tavern? lie must
enter the nasty place, and have his olfactories assailed
with the combined stench of rum and tobacco, and his
ears greeted with the sounds of vulgarity and profane
ness, while seeking to have his name enrolled. And if he
desires to discharge his duty as a citizen, by casting his
vote, he must go at least within smelling distance of the
tavern, in order to have the privilege. And thus, appa
rently, the tavern is the all controlling power in our
politics—as if the inmates and the frequenters of the
tavern had the whole matter committed to their control,
and it were the prerogative of the tavern-men to manage
the all-important affairs of the nation!
A sad condition of things, indeed, that this ordinance
of God—civil government—should be so prostituted, and
given over to the hands of the godless and profane, to be
polluted and deformed with all that is degrading and
vile, and by the associations of its management, dragged
down to the portals of perdition! Why is it, that the
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
35
God-fearing people of the land have suffered this heaven
given ordinance to be dishonored and trampled under
foot, without an effort to rescue and save it? May they
not well apprehend severe chastisement, through the mis
management of this very institution, which ought to have
been jealously guarded by them, so as to be made fruitful
in blessings to the nation ? Why is it, that the patriotic,
the virtuous, and the good, have allowed an institution of
such magnitude and vital importance, for the nation’s
safety, to be so debased and perverted, by such corrupt
ing and ruinous influences ? But, then, is it not just what
might have been expected?—the natural result of the
whole course from the beginning—adopting a Constitu
tion in which there is no God; erecting a government,
assumed to be without any divine warrant or authority;
and choosing our rulers in utter defiance of the express
injunctions of the divine law ? It is not now to be thought
strange, if our politics have become a byeword and
reproach; or that in us should be verified the declaration
of Scripture: “When the wicked bear rule, the people
mourn”—“ They would none of my counsel; they despised
all my reproof. Therefore, shall they eat of the fruit of
their own way, and be filled with their own devices”—
“Thus saith the Lord.”
But, have the truly Christian people of the land, no
interest in this whole matter of civil government? In
some respects, they show that they have; for they usually
manifest a lively interest in party politics. But have they
no zeal for the honor and purity of God’s ordinance—
civil government? Is it not both their duty and their
interest, to have such zeal, and to show it? Their party
zeal and diligence, they say, are to promote the good of
�36
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
the nation. But have they to be told, that it is not the
success of a party, which will bless a nation; unless it be
a righteous party? Do they not know, that it is “right
eousness which exalteth a nation;” and that nothing else
will? Do Christians believe that they can benefit their
country by voting for party men, while they and their
men are both disregarding the counsels and claims of the
Most High? Are they so much engaged in advancing
the welfare of their country, as to lose sight of the neces
sity of having in office, “just men, ruling in the fear of
God?” If so, their whole course is glaringly inconsistent,
ruinous, and absurd.
It ought to be manifest to all, that a thorough and
radical change is absolutely necessary in this whole
matter. It is surely time that an effort were made for
the purpose of securing upright and virtuous men, for
every position, to conduct our state affairs. We ought to
have the best of men for our rulers, because we have the
selecting of them ourselves. Not like the citizens of other
lands, who have their rulers not by choice, but by chance,
as to the people, and must put up with them, be they good
or bad. But if we have not good rulers, we have no such
reason to assign. We make our rulers, and we ought to
make them good. If we do not, we do not deserve to have
such. And if we do not make good rulers, we show that
we are neither fit, nor worthy, to have the privilege of
making them at all. The complaint is often heard, that
we have such bad men for rulers; and yet we ourselves
have chosen these men, and placed them in power! When
we put bad men in office, how can we expect to be ruled
by good men? And when have we ever made it a point,
to reject the bad, and choose the good? Never!
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
37
Now, my fellow-citizens, we ought to seek for reforma
tion. We need a change. Wicked and unprincipled rulers
are a great curse to any nation. And if we are careless
about the moral character of our rulers, we shall certainly
be cursed with that curse. Our only safety is, to obey
the voice of divine wisdom, and change our political base
to the heaven-given platform—“ He that ruleth over men,
must be just; ruling in the fear of God.” Then, as a
nation, we shall be secure; and undoubtedly so.
But, my fellow citizens, let me put the question, in all
kindness and candor, Are we a Christian nation, or are
we not? If we are, where is the evidence? Is it in any
of our national documents? Is it in our Constitution,
which lies at the foundation of the whole structure ? Cer
tainly not. The name of Christ, or any allusion to him,
or his institutions, is not found in it from the begin
ning to the end. And do our national Acts contain the
evidence that we are a Christian nation? Can any
man point out where, in these Acts, it is to be found?
We shall very much rejoice to know where. Was it
when, to secure a treaty with an anti-Christian power,
our government formally declared, that as a nation we
were not Christian, for we had no religion? Did the
course pursued toward the pagan ambassadors from
Japan, evince that we were a Christian nation, when the
tendency of the government’s whole procedure was, to
leave the impression on their minds, that we had no reli
gion, no Sabbath, no sacred books, nor institutions; and
were not a Christian nation at all?
Shall it be said, that we have Christians and Christian
institutions in the land, therefore we are a Christian
nation. And so we have Jews and Jewish institutions in
�38
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
the land; and, therefore, we are a Jewish nation. And
we have Mormons and Mormon institutions in the land;
and, therefore, we are a Mormon nation. Shall it he
said, that we have Christians for government officers, and
hence we are a Christian nation. And so we have Jews,
and Mormons, and Infidels, for officers of government;
and, therefore, we are a Jewish, Mormon, and Infidel
nation. It is evident, that such circumstances as these
do not give us naiz’onaZiiy; and do not make us any one
of the above, as a nation. It is our Constitution and
governmental Acts, which give us nationality; and if
these have not the evidence of our being a Christian
nation, it is nowhere. And, my fellow-citizens, is it
not a reproach to us, that we can point to no decisive
evidence of ours being a Christian nation?
And if not a Christian, so neither are we a Jewish, a
Mormon, nor an Infidel nation. And what, then, are we?
Are we a Pagan nation? No, not quite; only half such.
Ours is only a semi-pagan nation. Paganism consists in
disowning the true God, and putting idol gods in his
place. We do only the first, not the second. Our dis
owning of God, and his Christ, and his Word and author
ity, in our Constitution and Government, is only the one
side of paganism; and, hence, ours is only a semi-pagan
government. It is of that reign of Gentilism, spoken of
in prophecy, as antagonistic to Christ and his cause—
holding on to the civil power throughout Christendom,
trampling under foot sacred things, and prostituting even
Christianity, to the basest of secular and selfish ends.
But in the other semi-Christian nations, this has been
much more the case than in ours.
This semi-paganism of the civil governments of Chris
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89
tendom, was revealed to both Daniel and John, as contin
uing for a considerable period. They both saw it as in
conflict with Christ’s kingdom, and as long hindering the
reign of righteousness and peace in these nations.
Daniel beheld it in the conflict between “the stone cut
out without hands” and the golden-headed clay-iron-toed
image, which received the shock of the stone upon its
feet. The “stone” undoubtedly symbolized the kingdom
of Christ, and not any earthly kingdom, or civil govern
ment; because it was cut out without hands;” which
implies that it was not man-made, but made by Him whose
“kingdom is not of this world;” and, hence, not any
earthly civil government; but the cause of righteousness
and peace—Christ’s kingdom, which is eventually to des
troy all pagan and semi-pagan civil governments over the
whole earth. And the smitten image symbolized the pagan
power, as concentrated and embodied in the Roman
empire at the introduction of Christianity. The strength
and the evil of the preceding empires, Babylonian, MedoPersian, and Grecian, were absorbed by it; and all in one
were shivered by the shock, and tottered to their fall.
But a considerable time was to elapse, before the final
extinction of the pagan element of these kingdoms, with
which the stone came in conflict.
This was made known in Daniel’s vision of the four
beasts, which came up out of the sea. The fourth of
these symbolized the Roman empire, which came into
collision with the kingdom of the “ one like unto the Son
of man”—“Immanuel, God with us,” the Messiah. And
both kingdoms for a long time were to occupy the same
territory, though antagonistic. The beast, with its
instruments of power, the “ten horns” and the “little
�40
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
horn,” the ten kingdoms of Western Europe, and the
Papacy, was to hold the civil power, even after the rise
of the Papacy, for a period of 1260 years; for the saints
were to “ be given into his hand, until a time and times,
and the dividing of time.” And thus paganism in the
state was to have power over the saints during all this
time: and at the end of it “ the saints were to possess
the kingdomthat is, the power of civil government was
to pass into their hands. It does not mean that the
saints will anywhere set up a civil government, separate
and distinct from other governments; but merely that
they will, in every nation and kingdom, be the leading
men in civil affairs; conducting the government in the
fear of God, in accordance with his revealed will: ruling
in righteousness, peace and love, for the glory of God
and his Christ, and the true happiness of the nations.
The same reign of righteousness, in state affairs, is set
forth in Rev. xi. 15: “ There were great voices in heaven
saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the king
doms of the Lord, and of his Christ”—“the Lord and
his anointed” of the second Psalm. “ Kings” and
“ rulers” now cease to plot against them; not wishing any
longer to “ cast away their cords,” nor to “ break their
bands asunder,” as formerly. Not the people merely,
but the kingdoms, as such, do this—“kissing the Son”—
“serving the Lord with fear,” and ruling in accordance
with the requirements of his Word. It is evident that
the great change in the kingdoms of Christendom, here
spoken of, is a change in the moral character of their
civil governments; for the “Lord and his Christ” reigned
over them previous to this change; but the kingdoms did
not recognize their claims, nor render obedience to them;
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
41
whereas now they do, and thus become the kingdoms of
the Lord, and of his Christ, by a voluntary, national
recognition of, and surrender to their authority.
The long continuance of semi-paganism, in the civil
governments of Christendom, is foretold in Rev. xi. 2.
The great Reformation in religion, which occurred in
Christendom early in the sixteenth century, when the
Bible became an open book for the use of the people, is
set forth in the tenth chapter. In the progress of that
vision the prophet himself is made a symbol—a represen
tative of the ministers of Christ: and in what he was
directed to do, is set forth the special work of the min
istry from the time to which the prophecy has reference.
He was to prophesy, or preach; to “ measure the altar
and the temple, and them that worship therein:” that is,
to define the true doctrine of the atonement, and to des
cribe the true people and church of God, in opposition to
the degenerate system which prevailed previous to the
Reformation. But the court without the temple he was
forbidden to measure, for it had been given to the Gen
tiles ; and the holy city they were to tread under foot
forty and two months, or 1260 years.
The things mentioned here, pertaining to the Jewish
dispensation, are all employed as symbols, having refer
ence to the Christian church. The temple in Jerusalem
was a type of Christ, or God incarnate. As the glory of
God filled the temple, and the Divine presence abode
there, so the fulness of the Godhead bodily dwelt in
Christ. And accordingly he calls himself the temple,
saying, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will
raise it up.” And hence, the temple and its worshippers
symbolize Christ and his people, who are in him by faith,
�42
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
the true worshippers; “who worship the Father in spirit
and in truth.” The altar is the symbol of sacrifice, and
represents the doctrine of atonement. “ The court with
out the temple,” pertaining to the Gentiles, was the inter
mediate place, between the idolatrous world and the wor
shippers of the true God—the place where those who
were not his people, but professed a love for him and his
cause, might draw near, and enjoy an outward connection
with his people and his service; and, accordingly, it sym
bolizes the visible church under the gospel. Here, those
who merely profess to be his people, may enter in, and
take part in the services; and even direct, and rule, and
have the control. And hence this court was not to be
measured—the influence of Gentilism—until the end of
the time predicted, would prevent it from being what it
ought to be: pagan forms, irregularity, disorder, and
want of uniformity would prevail, and hinder its perfec
tion. The “holy city,” Jerusalem, was the city of the
Lord, and the capital of the nation of his people. There
were the symbols of the Divine presence; and thither the
tribes of the Lord went up to worship. And thus Jeru
salem represented the whole nation, and became the
^emblem of the heritage of the Lord; that is, his people,
as a whole. And, therefore, the “holy city” symbolizes
the people of God, together with their sacred institutions,
wherever they are found; and that is all over Christen
dom. Christendom, then, as the abode of God’s people,
and his sacred institutions, is the “holy city,” which the
Gentiles “tread under foot.” And as they were to tread
these under foot, it is evident they were to have the
dominion, wherever these are found. They could not
tread them under foot unless they had the power to do
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
43
it; and hence, in these lands, they must have the civil
government in their hands. Gentilism was to rule in the
Btate, throughout Christendom, forty and two months.
Paganism, in its nature, and semi-paganism, in its prac
tice, was, to fill the high places of civil authority; tram
pling under foot, destroying, and desecrating, holy people
and sacred things. And, accordingly, the former have
been persecuted, and the latter have been prostituted, to
strengthen the civil power, and advance the interests of
the state. Paganism in the state, desecrates and profanes
religion, for merely civil and secular ends. This has
always been the case, in the semi-pagan governments of
European Christendom. In their secularizing use and
abuse of religion and Christianity, they are far more
guilty than our government has ever been. Ours has
never persecuted the people of God; nor for the blood
of the saints, has it to be called to account. Sacred
things have not been prostituted to civil ends, as in the
other nominally Christian nations.
Though our government desecrates the Lord’s day in
its postal arrangements, and otherwise; yet we have not
employed religion for the aggrandizement of the state, as
has been the common practice with the semi-Christian
governments of Europe. They have all made use of reli
gion for merely selfish, worldly, state purposes; but we
have not. Paganism has always employed religion as a
mere state engine, to fortify and strengthen the civil gov
ernment; and the semi pagan governments of Europe have
always done the same. Wherever in Christendom there
has been a union of church and state, this has always
been the case. The civil has always used the sacred, for
the purpose of gaining strength, glory, and stability to
�44
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
itself; whether the church has been made preeminent,
and the state subordinate; or the state preeminent, and
the church subordinate—as exemplified in Italy and Eng
land. In the former, the recognized head of the church,
assumes to be the head of the state; and in the latter, the
recognized head of the state, assumes to be the head of
the church. But the design of the union, in each, is the
aggrandizement of the civil power, pertaining to them
respectively: the prostitution of sacred things for civil
purposes—the “holy city” trampled under foot by Gentilism; because it has the power in its hands, and uses all
for secular ends. But our government, notwithstanding
its defects, has never been guilty of prostituting the holy
religion of Jesus, as an instrument of state policy. This
results from the wise and scriptural arrangement of keep
ing the church and the state, as organizations, separate
and distinct from each other. And this is quite an ad
vance in the right direction. This not abusing of sacred
things for civil ends, is casting away a portion of the
semi-paganism, which is still retained by the governments
of Europe.
It is evident, then, that we are still partakers of this
semi-paganism, which maintains the ascendency in the
state, through all the nations of Christendom; and from
which it would assuredly be both for our honor and
advantage, to free ourselves entirely. As we have taken
the lead of the other nations in discarding one important
part of semi-paganism, let us go on unto perfection, and
cast away from us the remains of this plague and reproach
of the nation. All nations must be freed from it, either
by voluntary reform, or by the overturning judgments of
Ilim, “ who sits King upon the holy hill of Zion,” and
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
45
will “break them with a rod of iron, like a potter’s
vessel.” Let us, as a nation, bend and not break—bend
to the Divine pleasure, and not be broken by his power.
Let us reform more and more, not only refraining from
the abuse of sacred things, but also by conceding to them
that relation to the state which is their due. Would it
not, my fellow-citizens, be both our glory and our gain,
to keep, as a nation, in the advance of all other nations,
God-ward and Christ-ward, and thus upward; rising in
excellence, glory, strength and beauty; till we shall be
the admiration of them all: and they, copying our exam
ple, and emulating our moral greatness and grandeur, set
to their seal, that our free Republican institutions are
right, and we worthy of our exalted place among the
nations of the earth? But we never can appear in our
full majesty and glory, until we acknowledge the
sovereignty of the “Lord and his anointed” over us, and
submit to their counsels and dictation, in the management
of our national affairs. For “Thus saith the Lord”—
“ Them that honor me I will honor, and they that despise
me shall be lightly esteemed.” Well now, Americans, let
us honor Him, and He will honor us; He will exalt us
among the nations; and cause us to ride upon the high
places of the earth. Our light shall be seen from afar,
and hither shall they flock from the nations, both near
and remote, to share in the blessings of that “happy
people, whose God is the Lord.”
But I am aware, my fellow-citizens, that you are afraid
of a union of church and state; and justly so: for from
it have issued many monstrous evils. But we may do
our duty to God and his Christ, his Word and authority,
without any union of church and state; and without a
�46
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
national establishment of religion, or any of the evils
which result therefrom. If we were to have our Consti
tution amended by a prefatory article, acknowledging the
sovereignty of the Lord and his anointed over the nation,
and the paramount authority of his law over all human
laws, and our duty to submit to its requirements in the
choice of our rulers, and in everything else, there would,
in this, be no union of church and state, nor any national
establishment of religion. Nor would there be any neces
sity for adopting religious tests, in order to the holding
of office under the government.
Suppose such as Jews and infidels would be unwilling to
subcribe to, and bind themselves by oath to support such
a Constitution, in order to the holding of office, would this
be any serious loss to a Christian people ? If we are a
Christian nation, is it indispensable to have such as Jews
and infidels for our civil rulers ? Is there any circumstance
that requires it? But would not the rights of such citi
zens be interfered with, and withheld from them ? Pray,
where did they get their rights, to rule over a Christian
nation, the proper Constitution of which they would be
unwilling to support? Are the rights of a Christian
nation not paramount to the rights of a few Jews and
infidels, who may be dwelling in it ? Is it not the right
of a Christian people to acknowledge their Lord and
Redeemer as their Sovereign Ruler? Is it not the absolute right of the “Lord and his anointed,” to require
this acknowledgment of all nations ? and are the rights
of Jews and infidels higher than the rights of God
Almighty ? No man, nor set of men, can possibly have
any rights contravening the rights of the Lord God of
Hosts. There can be no rights, which would require the
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
47
ignoring of what he enjoins. And as He enjoins it upon
nations to acknowledge his sovereignty over them, none
can have any rights which would prevent this. Those
objecting to it, would be utterly unfit to rule over a Chris
tian nation.
But while attempting, for the sake of reformation,
to direct attention to some of our chief national sins, on
account of which the anger of the Lord burns hot against
us, it were great unfaithfulness to pass unnoticed, the sin
of negro slavery. As we have now, in the providence
of God, ample evidence, that this is especially the sin,
for which his judgments are at present so heavy upon
us. Rebellion is the rod with which the Lord is chastis
ing the nation, and negro slavery is the cause of that
rebellion. So that our sin is now punishing us. The
nation supported and fostered the vile system, until it
became a great monster, and rose up to devour the nation
itself. And thus the nation’s iniquity recoils upon itself.
The nation’s sin is the nation’s plague; its crime, its
canker; its destroyer of men, the destroyer of its men.
We maintained slavery for the sake of gain; and now
slavery is causing us to disgorge that ill-gotten gain, with
terrible vengeance, and noted rapidity. The Righteous
Disposer of all things is now, in his providence, scattering
to the winds the wealth, which we made out of the bodies
and the souls of men. And thus our punishment points
so unmistakably to our sin, that it is only the wilfully
blind who cannot see it. And the manner, too, in which
the punishment is apportioned to the two sections of the
land, points clearly to the sin for which it is sent. The
whole nation suffers, North as well as South; and
therefore, the whole nation must be guilty: but the South
�48
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
especially suffers, and hence, the South must be especially
guilty. Slavery is the sin of the nation, because the
national government upheld it; but the greater measure
of the iniquity lay in the South, and now in the Lord’s
national retribution, the larger cup of his vengeance is
placed in their hands. The calamities of the Southern
people are exceedingly great, and their guilt is doubtless
in proportion: but slavery, with its concomitant evils, is
assuredly the overwhelming sin of that people.
That slavery has been the cause of the civil war, and
the resulting national calamities, is just as evident as that
the earth is lighted by the sun. We might as well doubt
that we have a war, as to doubt that slavery has been its
cause. The rebels certainly know what it was, that led
them to commence the war against the United States, and
they affirm that it was slavery. Their Vice-President,
Stephens, publicly declared, that their object in making
war, to cast off the national government, was to establish
a new government founded upon slavery—of which slavery
was to be the “corner-stone.” And he only avowed the
designs of his coadjutors, who commenced the war, and
persist in continuing it ever since. Look at the following
extract from the Richmond Examiner of May 30th,
1863, and see the corroboration of what we affirm:
“ If the Confederacy is at a premium, she owes it to
herself. And so much the better. We shall be all the
more free to run the grand career which opens before us,
and grasp our own lofty destiny. Would that all of us
understood and laid to heart the true nature of that career,
and that destiny, and the responsibility it imposes! The
establishment of the Confederacy is, verily, a distinct reac
tion against the whole course of the mistaken civilization
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
49
of the age. And this is the true reason why we have
been left without the sympathy of the nations, until we
conquered that sympathy with the sharp edge of our
sword. For '•Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,’ we have
deliberately substituted Slavery, Subordination, and G-overnment. Those social and political problems, which
rack and torture modern society, we have undertaken
to solve for ourselves, in our own way, and upon our
own principles. That, ‘among equals equality is right;’
among those who are naturally unequal, equality is
chaos; that there are slave races born to serve, master
races born to govern. Such are the fundamental princi
ples which we inherit from the ancient world, which
we lifted up in the face of a perverse generation, that has
forgotten the wisdom of its fathers; by those principles
we live, and in their defence we have shown ourselves
ready to die. Reverently we feel, that our Confederacy
is a God-sent missionary to the nations, with great truths
to preach. We must speak them boldly, and whoso hath
ears to hear, let him hear.”
Such is the monstrous doctrine of the leading rebels
on this subject; and in view of it, who can doubt the
design of the slaveholders in making the war? It is as
clear as sunshine, that they declare they made it for the
sake of slavery: and if made for the sake of slavery,
then, this was its cause. Those who deny this, make
these men to be public liars. The rebels at the South
openly declare that they made the war in behalf of sla
very, and though their advocates at the North, deny
that they did any such thing, yet, it is not difficult
to decide where the truth lies. Those who made it, know
the reason why, and when they say it was for slavery,
4
�50
THE BOOK FOB THE NATION.
there is then no room to doubt. And thus our punish
ment points plainly to our sin; as our sin is made the
avenging rod to afflict us. A righteous Providence com
pels us to understand, what that great special sin is,
for which he has visited us with these heavy calamities.
The people of our land have had their eyes sadly
blinded to the sin of slavery, by the fallacious reasoning
of the Bible advocates of that system. They have reassoned thus: The Lord allowed the Israelites to purchase
and hold slaves; and slavery existed also in the Christian
church in the days of the Apostles, yet they did not con
demn it; therefore, our system of slavery is no sin in the
sight of God. The fallacy of their reasoning lies in this,
that the conclusion is not contained in the premises. It
would not follow, that our system of slavery is no sin,
even though the Lord allowed slavery in both the Jewish
and Christian churches. Nor even if he had, in a specific
manner, authorized us as a nation to hold slaves, would
it follow, that our system of slavery is no sin; because
our system might be entirely different from what he could
approve. And it is evident, too, that though the Lord
authorizes certain things to be done in certain circum
stances, it does not follow that these same things are
right in all other circumstances. The Lord authorized
the Israelites to make war upon the Canaanites, and on
several other occasions; but it does not follow, that every
war is therefore right. But such is the nature of their
fallacious reasoning—because the Lord tolerated a kind
of slavery in certain circumstances, they jump to the con
clusion, that, therefore, our slavery is no sin!
These Bible advocates of slavery have thus deceived
the people, by professing to examine our slavery in the
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
51
light of God’s Word, while they have never done any
such thing. They have contended for a mere abstrac
tion—a thing called slavery—and have justified it; but
our slave system they have not brought into the light of
divine truth at all. And they have thus thrown dust in
the eyes of the people, and deceived them exceedingly;
leading them into a false position, respecting this matter,
which is of such vital importance to the best interests of
the nation.
It is evident that the question relating to slavery,
which concerns us is, whether our slavery is a sin in the
sight of God or not. As to whether the Lord has or has
not allowed of slavery, is to us comparatively of no impor
tance. He may have done so, and we may be spending
our time in proving it, and that slavery, “per se,” is not
wrong; while our own horrible system of slavery may be
eating out the very vitals of our nation—“treasuring up
for us wrath against the day of wrath”—the day of God’s
righteous visitation upon the land.
If the Bible advocates of slavery had done their duty,
they would have examined our system of slavery, in the
light of the Word of God: they would have compared our
slave laws, and our slave practices, with the requirements
of that Word; endeavoring to know the truth, and set the
people right in relation to the whole matter. But they
have always avoided this. They have never tried to
investigate and expose the great iniquities of our slave
system; but, on the contrary, they have always endeav
ored to conceal them: thus blinding the eyes of the
people, and deceiving them as to the true issue in the
case. If they had honestly taken up our slave laws,
explaining what they forbid and what they require, and
�52
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
exposed the practices of our slavery—comparing all with
the requirements of the pure Word of God—the inhu
manity, barbarous cruelty, and filthy pollution of the
system, would have been so glaring, that a universal out
burst of indignation would have gone forth from the
people, dooming the odious system to a sure and speedy
end: for when our people know the truth and the right,
they act accordingly. But, of course, the leaders will be
followed, in both church and state. And thus the masses
have been deluded, as to the true character of the mon
strous system of oppression maintained in the land. But
those who have deluded them have the greater sin, and
have enhanced not a little our national guilt.
There is no small measure of guilt incurred by justify
ing slavery from the Bible, and at the same time, refusing
to try our slavery by the Bible. The result of this
course has been, not only to blind the eyes of the nation,
as to the wickedness of the system, but also to justify
the slaveholders, and lead them to believe they were
right; and thus to encourage and embolden them, even to
rise up in rebellion, for the purpose of fortifying and per
petuating this great evil. So that the present horrors
and calamities abounding in the land, may be traced,
in no small measure, to the fallacious manner of dealing
with the subject, by the Bible advocates of our slavery.
Had it not been for their influence, the people of the
South, and partially of the North, never would have set
tled down in the belief, that our system of slavery
is a “divine institution,” to be indefinitely perpetuated;
nor by this belief would have brought down the wrath of
Heaven upon the whole land. As long as the system was
viewed as an evil, to be remedied, and a remedy sought
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
53
for, the Lord, in his forbearance, spared the nation; but
when the system came to be advocated as good and right,
and no change to be desired, then He interposed with his
own avenging hand, to break up, and root out this great
evil, in a most effectual manner. This He did by visiting
slaveholders with judicial blindness, through which they
might “stumble, and fall, and be snared, and be taken,”
by adopting a treasonable policy, which would bring
heavy calamities on the whole nation, as a punishment for
this sin, and also utterly consume, and bring to a total
end, the cruel system, in the behalf of which, the treason
was concocted. But if the people of the land had been
taught correctly, by the proper application of the Word
of God to the system, they would have seen the evil, and
discovered a remedy also, instead of being led to provoke
the Divine displeasure, to come with such vehemence
against the nation.
Our slave system would not bear the slightest measure
of investigation in the pure light of the Divine Word. A
system, which dooms and degrades millions of human
beings, to the condition of brutes, can have no counte
nance from the God of justice, love, and truth; nor any
sanction from His holy Word. And that such is the
nature of the system, both in its laws and in its practices,
is just as true as that it exists.
The limits of these pages will not allow the citation
of slave laws, nor the enumeration of slave practices, but
the testimony is abundant, and can be produced at any
time, to prove, that our slave system, dooms and degrades
millions of human beings, to the same level as the brutes.
For instance, the laws of the system forbid the slaves to
learn to read, and as brutes cannot read, it makes the
�54
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION.
slaves like them, in this respect, and puts them both in
the same condition. Men and women, and sheep and
hogs, must all be alike—incapable of reading the Word
of God, or anything else! Our slave system, also, annuls
the divine institution of marriage, among slaves. tThe
laws of the system, do not recognize the relation of hus
band and wife among slaves at all, nor anything like the
institution of marriage. And the system thus consigns
men and women, to the condition of brutes, and compels
them to herd together like the cattle of the field. But
this is only in accordance with the spirit and operations of
the whole system, which make them chattels and things,
and not human beings.
And the practice of the slaveholders has been in har
mony with their laws; because it is common, when their
interests demand it, to “ put asunder” men and women,
who were living together as husband and wife, and were
really such by the law of God; but their system justifies
it, and they practise accordingly. Indeed, the very core
and vitality of our slave system is, to view and treat the
slaves as cattle, that is, to make money out of them, (rat
tle are well kept, fed and cared for, that they may be
vigorous, multiply, and be profitable; and our slaves
have generally been treated in the same manner, and
from precisely the same motives.
And as cattle are made articles of trade and commerce,
so are the slaves. In slave raising States, for instance
Virginia, it has been common for men to go out over the
country, and buy up men, women and children, just as
sheep and hogs are bought up, and drive them in a drove
into Richmond, to be sold to the highest bidder. And in
these, and many other respects, does the system doom
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
55
and degrade millions of human beings to the very condi
tion of the brute creation. And for men to appeal to the
Bible, to justify such a system, is simply an outrage upon
common-sense and decency; and a gross insult to that
just and holy God, who is the author of the Bible. How
preposterous I to appeal to the Bible, in justification of a
system, the whole tendency of which is, to make brutes
of the slaves, and barbarians of the slaveholders, as the
history of events has now fully verified. And when the
leading men in the nation, and chief guides in morality,
filling the highest stations, have been pursuing this course,
is it any marvel that the Lord is much incensed against
us, and his visitations heavy upon the land?
Now, my fellow-citizens, is it not time to consider these
things, and avoid being any longer deluded by sophistical
reasonings? If we want to know the truth respecting
our slave system, let us honestly seek to find out what it
is, and measure it by the infallible standard of the Divine
Word; so as to learn its enormous wickedness, and con
sign it to perdition, where it properly belongs. Surely,
if we are a Christian people, we cannot bear to deal with
any class of human beings, as our slave system deals
with our slaves. Nor would it be amiss to inquire what
our duty was, as Christians, to the Africans found in our
midst, when we became a nation. By English cupidity
and rapacity, the poor Africans were dragged here, and
slavery planted in the land. But when we became an
independent nation, we ought not to have set the seal of
our approbation, to the evil course of England, by con
tinuing the unrighteous system which she had introduced.
And as we were proclaiming ourselves “ the land of the
free,” it was especially inconsistent in us, to establish sla
�56
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
very as one of our institutions. We found the Africans
among us, and they were pagans; what, then, was our
duty, as Christians, toward these pagans? Was it our
duty to make slaves of them ? to oppress them ? to whip,
and buy, and sell, and to make money out of them, as
though they had been so many brutes ? Was this our
duty, as a Christian people, to these pagans? Every
one with any conscience knows the answer. How ought
a Christian people to deal with a handful of pagans found
in their midst, and in their power? Certainly, not in
cruelty, but in kindness. And is it kindness to make
slaves of them ? to make brutes of them ? to use them
merely for the purpose of turning them into money?
Ought we not to have dealt with them for their good, not
for our own? Christian magnanimity, Christian mercy,
and Christian justice, all say we ought. And was it the
duty of a Christian people to add to the number of these
pagans, with the view of making money? As there
never was a single one of them, shipped from the shores
of Africa for any other purpose. In every instance the
motive was the greed of gain. Many of the poor Afri
cans have been benefitted by it; for the Lord can bring
good out of evil, and has done so in this case; but this
does not render the authors of the evil one whit the less
guilty.
These pagans, brought here, were “strangers” in a
strange land, and they ought to have received the sympa
thy, protection, and help of a Christian people, with the
view of making them Christians, not slaves. Is it the
way in which Christians ought to treat pagan strangers,
to make slaves of them ? Very numerous are the injunc
tions to the Jewish nation, to deal kindly with the “stran
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
57
gers” found among them. And these injunctions are
applicable to us. For though we, as a nation, are gath
ered out of all lands, yet, as a white race, we are the
people of the land; the Lord having given it to us as our
inheritance: and the African is emphatically the “stran
ger in our midst.” He ought, then, to be treated by us,
with no less kindness, than was required of the Jews to
»the “stranger within their gates.”
In the Bible, the “strangers,” the “fatherless,” and
the “widows,” are classed together as objects of the
Lord’s special regard; whose cause he will vindicate; and
who are to be treated with much tenderness and compas
sion. We have our “strangers,” and of them there are
great multitudes of “fatherless” and “widows;” for our
slave system has made them. Multitudes of wives have
been torn from their husbands, and sold into cruel and
helpless bondage. Multitudes of children have been torn
from their parents, and doomed to serve under the lash
of hard-hearted and pitiless taskmasters. But these
“widows” and “fatherless” of the African “stranger,”
have a double claim. Nor are they forgotten of the Lord.
He hears their cry. Exod. xxii. 21—24: “Thou shalt
neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: .... Ye shall
not afflict any widow, or fatherless child. If thou afflict
them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely
hear their cry. And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will
kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows,
and your children fatherless.” A great cry, prolonged
for many weary years, has gone up to heaven from
the South land. And though these “fatherless” and
“widows, are dark colored, debased by oppression, and
despised, yet the Lord has heard their cry. And all over
�53
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
the nation, we behold a terrible verification of this portion
of God’s holy Word. It is enough to make any thought
ful person tremble and be afraid ; and to teach all, that
it is a fearful thing for a nation to disregard the counsels
of the Most High.
How touchingly the Bible describes the sad condition
of these “strangers,” “fatherless,” and “widows!”—
“Behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they
had no comforter: and on the side of their oppressor
there was power; but they had no comforter.” Eccl. iv. 1.
And forcibly, too, it describes the cry which went up from
their broken and crushed hearts to heaven :—“ 0 Lord
God, to whom vengeance belongeth; 0 God, to whom
vengeance belongeth, show thyself. Lift up thyself, thou
Judge of the earth: render a reward to the proud. Lord,
how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked
triumph? They slay the widow and the stranger, and
murder the fatherless.” And though the Lord waited
long, that the wicked might repent, and cease from
violence and oppression, yet the cry of the helpless is
answered at length. The “Judge of the earth hath lifted
up himself,” and is rendering “a reward to the proud.”
The pride, and haughty, overbearing insolence of the
oppressor, is being returned into his own bosom—as
saith the Lord: “The people of the land have used*
oppression, and exercised robbery, and have vexed the
poor and needy: yea, they have oppressed the stranger
wrongfully. Therefore, have I poured out mine indig
nation upon them ; I have consumed them with the fire
of my wrath: their own way have I recompensed upon
their heads, saith the Lord God.” Ezek. xxii. 29, Si.
Now, my fellow-citizens, we have, as a nation, a duty
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
59
to discharge, in relation to this evil system. Nor is it
merely to remove it; for it is rapidly being removed,
whether we intend it or not. We never could discover a
method by which to bring our slavery to an end; and
simply because we never were willing that it should end.
If the people of the land had sincerely desired its end, it
would have ended long, long ago. Because there has
been nothing on the face of the earth, nor under it, to
prevent its removal, but the unwillingness of the people.
But “the Lord, in righteousness, is now making a short
work” of it; and by his all-controlling providence, will
bring it to an end, and that before long. But we, as a
nation, should gladly concur, and devote our energies to
the speedy consummation of the just and blessed work;
rejoicing to have wiped away this foul stain, which has
been to us, such a provocation for the Lord’s anger, and
standing reproach among the nations. And, besides, we
ought, as a nation, before all men, and in the sight of
Heaven, acknowledge our guilt, in so long upholding a
system, of such enormous wickedness and oppression.
And, as a nation, too, protect and make provision for
those we have so long oppressed—the “harmless, land
less, and homeless” multitudes now cast upon our care.
And thus “break off our sins by righteousness, and our
iniquities by showing mercy to the poor;” that the Lord
may return, and heal our land, and bless us again, with
peace and prosperity in all our borders.
The sins of the inhabitants of the land might be
dwelt upon; for they are numerous and great. Such as
Sabbath desecration, drunkenness and falsehood ; derelic
tion of duty in the family—a sad want of family govern
ment; and, hence, a lamentable disregard of parental
�GO
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
authority: a reckless spirit of insubordination generally;
with national pride and self-sufficiency; but there is
ground to believe that all these, in a measure, spring from
our national forgetfulness of Grod—that this is the foun
tain whence flow these evil streams. And in order to
have healthful streams, we must purify the fountain;
casting into it the salt of divine and unchangeable truth,
concerning God, his law, his claims and supremacy over
us as a nation. We commenced to build aside from the
true foundation, and numerous evils must be the conse
quence. Let us begin anew, where we ought to begin:
recognizing the rightful authority of God over us, and
acknowledging our national subordination to that author
ity. This will be to begin at the beginning, and will have
promise of a happy continuance: it will be laying a
foundation for law, order, and stability, in every depart
ment of the social fabric. When the fountain is purified,
by a recognition of our proper relations to God and his
government, it will have a healing and saving influence
on all the streams of our civil and social life.
Our sorrowful civil war has been protracted, much
beyond our expectation when it commenced. A vast and
inighty power has been brought to bear upon the rebel
lion, to crush it: the slaughter and destruction of the
lives of our people have been fearful and distressing: the
prayers of God’s people have been ascending on both
special and ordinary occasions; but the Lord’s hand
is stretched out against us still. And why so? The
Book, that never mistakes, informs us why—“Behold,
the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save;
neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your
iniquities have separated between you and your God, and
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
61
your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not
hear.”—Isa. xlix. 1, 2. This is it, our iniquities have
separated between us and our God. He says to a nation
praying and yet transgressing—“ When ye spread forth
your hands I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when
ye make mapy prayers, I will not hear.” In such cases
it is not merely prayer that is required; it is this—
“ Wash ye, make you clean, put away the evil of your
doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to
do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the
fatherless, plead for the widow.” This is the remedy
which a God of infinite wisdom and loving-kindness pre
scribes; and if we adopt it, soon we shall realize the
advantage of being guided by infinite wisdom. Peace
will flow to us like a river, and prosperity like the waves
of the sea.
“Whatsoever things were writen aforetime, were writ
ten for our learning;” and see the case of Israel, when
smitten before their enemies on account of Achan’s sin.
Joshua and the Elders had recourse to, and continued in
prayer: but prayer was not what was needed.—“The
Lord said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou
thus upon thy face ? * * * * Israel hath sinned; thou
canst not stand before thine enemies, until ye take away
the accursed thing from among you.” This is what is
requisite in our case—to cease to do evil; and learn to do
well—to repent, confess our sins, and forsake them. A
great change is being wrought in our land; and let us all
see to it, that it be for the better; a thorough and radical
change, reaching to all our evils, and removing them; so
as to have ours that nation, which the Most High will
especially favor.
�62
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION,
The great struggle of the nations is coming on apace:
the judgments of the Almighty will soon descend; for the
“Lord is arising to shake terribly the earth”—to shake
the wicked, and wicked institutions out of it—“ to destroy
them that destroy the earth,” and in their stead establish
his own reign of righteousness and peace. And in the
great conflict the only place of safety for us, will be
“under the shadow of the Almighty.” In the conflict we
shall doubtless have to share; but let us see that we go
into it duly prepared. Not in the strength of national
pride, vainglorious boasting, and self-confidence; nor yet
relying upon armies and navies, though we may have
them. Of all this we have surely had enough; and
recently, not a few impressive lessons, teaching us the
folly and impiety of trusting in our own strength, and of
giving the praise to the mere agency, instead of to the
God of providence, who sent deliverance in the time of
need. Many instances might be noted, but let two suf
fice. The “Merrimac” came forth on her mission of
destruction to our navy, and ruin seemed inevitable, when
there was no help! But the God of providence brought
in the “Monitor,” just at the hour of extremity, and we
were saved ! Then the glory and the praise of the nation
were given to the Monitor; and so the Lord raised his
winds and waves, and sunk her deep in the quick-sands,
off the Albemarle coast! Afterwards the rebel ram
“Atlanta” came forth, purposing, and probably compe
tent, to destroy our fleets. But the unseen hand of a
friendly Providence fastened her aground; so that “gal
lant Rogers,” with the “Weehawken,” made a quick and
easy capture. Then the praise of Captain Rogers and
the Weehawken sounded out from the voice of the
�AND FOR THE TIMES.
63
nation; and the Lord, from whom it was withheld, soon
brought to an end the agency of both. The good cap
tain he removed from earth, and with his mighty waters,
carried the Weehawken down to the bottom of the deep;
just at the very side of the cradle of rebellion! IIow
striking these providences of God! to teach us the folly
and wickedness of forgetting Him: refusing to acknow
ledge his timely interposition for our help: leaning upon
human strength and wisdom—“Thus saith the Lord;
Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh
flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.”
“It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence
in man: it is better to trust in the Lord than to put con
fidence in princes.” If the Lord be on our side, we
need not be afraid. And to have him on our side, let us
own him as the God of our nation, acknowledge his
supremacy over us, and regulate our affairs in accordance
with his will. How could we go into a conflict with the
nations, acknowledging no Giod, and having no Grod?
The time has now almost come, for the breaking up
and overturning of the nations, both pagan and semi
pagan. Semi-paganism is to be cleaned out of Christen
dom ere long: the reign of Gentilism must soon come to
an end; and it will be effected, either by national dissolu
tion or reformation. Let us take care, then, to be a
reforming nation, and not a broken and shattered, help
less wreck. If we do as we might and ought, we may
escape this doom; and, on the contrary, be “strong in
the Lord, and the power of his might.” Our peace with
other nations may not continue long. We have seen the
disposition of some of them towards us; and with some
of the European powers, we may have to reckon, for
�64
THE BOOK FOR THE NATION.
their mean, cowardly, and unrighteous treatment of our
nation, in the time of its sore trial and conflict for
national existence.
But whatever our relations may be with other govern
ments, let us be careful to secure good relations with
Heaven’s government; and then, for certain, the “strong
est power” will be on our side, and we shall gloriously
triumph over every foe. For, “In the name of the Lord,
we shall lift up our banners;” and, “In the name of
the Lord, we shall destroy them.” “One shall chase a
thousand, and two shall put ten thousand to flight.”
Then shall we be a truly great and happy people—per
manent, peaceful, and prosperous. For, “The work of
righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteous
ness, quietness and assurance for ever. And the people
shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, in sure dwellings,
and in quiet resting-places”—Isa. xxxii. 17, 18—having
verified in us the truthful saying—“ Righteousness exalteth a nation”—and we the happy people, “whose God is
the Lord:” Love, peace, and prosperity going forth
together, and joyously smiling over the face of our entire
broad land—the teeming millions, glad and harmonious,
in the full realization of the countless advantages dis
pensed by our glorious Union—one vast Republic of
Freemen, liberty-loving and happy, in our own institu
tions, in the boundless munificence of earth, and the
sweet approbation of Heaven!
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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The book for the nation and the times
Creator
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Morton, George [1832-1907.]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Philadelphia
Collation: 64 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Published anonymously 'by a citizen U.S.N.A.'. Author believed to be the Rev. George Morton.
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Politics
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PRICE QNE PENNY.]
[SEVENTIETH THOUSAND.
WHAT SHALL I DO
WITH MY VOTE?
A Few Plain Words to the New Voters.
BY
ERNEST PARKE.
■4-
The Right Hon. JOHN BRIGHT writes: “I have read your pamphlet, which
■contains much that is good. It is not easy to write as briefly and as simply as
is needed for the instruction of a large portion of the new voters ; but they will
understand much that you have written for them.”
Mr JOSEPH ARCH writes t “I have read your pamphlet very carefully. It
contains some very good advice to the new electors. Any one contesting a
county division would do well to widely circulate your pamphlet.”
-------- ♦--------
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made.
But a bold pe santry, their country’s pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
The Deserted Village
--------- *--------
London
W. Reeves, 185 Fleet St., E.C.; The Cobden Club ; or, The Author.
Birmingham: The National Liberal Federation, Colmore Row.
Manchester: The National Reform Union, 46, Brown Street.
Liverpool: The Financial Reform Association, 18, Hackins Hey.
All Booksellers in town and country.
�JRead these Facts
-------- ~0--------------
There are about 520 members of the House of Lords.
490 of them are Landowners, owning 15,213,000 acres, and
the rental is at least .£12,750,000.
They draw out of the national moneys for salaries, pensions,
etc., over £600,000 a year, of which the Royal princes take
£104,642, the Bishops £165,771, and other peers the rest.
Since 1850, the peers and their relations have had over
£100,000,000 out of the taxes.
If you want to know what they have done for it, look at
page 8.
The annual income of the bishops and parsons of the Church
of England is about £6,000,000.
The greater part of this belongs to the whole nation, and
might go to pay for the schooling of the children.
In about 120 years over 8,000,000 acres of common lands
have been enclosed.
Taxes on food and other goods brought into a country arepaid, not by the foreigner who sends them, but by the people
who buy them, because taxes make the goods dearer. It is
not the Chinaman, but the Englishman who pays the tax on
our tea.
If a tax were put on corn, every man who bought a loaf
would help to pay it and the benefit would go into the land
lords’ pockets.
If Tories deny this, read to them what Sir Stafford Northcote,
their leader, lately wrote, (see page 12).
�A TALK ON THE QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.
THE VOTE.
At last, after many years of waiting and hoping, you have the
vote, and you will be able to use it most likely this autumn. Up
till now you have been of very little account in politics. No one
cared what you thought because you had no power. But that is
all changed, and as your class is now very powerful, many people
will be telling you not only what to do, but what to think. But
you will be wise to think for yourselves, and not take your
opinions second-hand from anybody.
IT IS SECRET.
The first thing you should remember about the vote is that it
is quite secret, and no one can know how you have voted unless
you tell him. If any persons say that they can find out, it is not
true, and they are merely trying to make you vote for somebody
whom they think you dare not vote against. If you don’t say
how you vote, no one else can. This way of voting secretly, or
by Ballot, was made law by the Liberals in 1872, though the
House of Lords did all they could to prevent it. They were
afraid that the farmers would vote against their landlords some
times instead of voting for them. Many of you, I dare say, know
cases where, years ago, farmers have been turned out of their
farms for voting against the landlord or his friends; but that
cannot happen now, unless the farmer tells somebody how he
voted. Some years past the Marquis of Exeter, a great Tory
landowner, since dead, ordered all his tenants who were widows
to get married again or else leave their farms. . The women had
no votes, and he wanted only men as tenants, so that he could
make them vote as he liked. The Ballot has put a stop to doings
of that sort, and that is the chief reason why the House of Lords
opposed it so long.
WHOM WILL YOU VOTE FOR?
Feeling now quite sure that the vote is secret, the next thing
is, to whom will you give it ? It seems natural that you should
support that party which has for so many years tried to get you
the franchise. You know that the men who have struggled to
fet you your rights are Liberals. They have worked for you in
'arliament and out of Parliament. They have shown themselves
to be your friends before you had any power, and they are still
more likely to keep friends now you have got it The Tories,
�4
till a very few months back, always said you were not fit to have
the franchise because you were not educated. Then the Liberals
passed the Education Act in 1870, which gives every child in the
land an education, and soon we hope to make the schools free,
because it is for the good of all that every child should be educated’
The Tories thus lost this excuse, and then they took to saying
that you did not care anything about the vote, and would n®t
know what to do with it when you had got it. Last of all,
when they found it was of no use trying to keep it from you, they
said they had been in favour of your having it all along. They
became afraid you would vote against them, and so they are now
trying to make you believe they have always been your friends.
I don’t think you will be deceived so easily. You will most
likely agree with me that these facts form very good reasons why
you should trust your votes to the Liberals. But there are very
many other reasons.
ARE YOU CONTENTED?
A short time ago Sir Stafford Northcote, the leading Con
servative in the House of Commons, said he was afraid people
would be going about telling you that you had wrongs to be
righted and ends to gain, and that you were as good as your
betters. It is plain that he does not think so. He seems to
believe that you are quite happy and contented. If you are, it
will be of no use any one telling you otherwise. But if you are
not, if you think the laws, as they concern you, want altering,
then Liberals and Radicals mean, if you will help them, to get
the laws altered so that they may be just towards you and favour
you as much as others. Your vote will enable you to do this.
Up till now you have otly had to obey the laws ; now you can
help to make them as well as obey them.
THE LAND LAWS.
The Land Laws will have most interest for you, because they
affect your means of getting a living. If they are not good laws
as they stand now, farming must be bad, and you cannot get
better wages. Now, Liberals and Radicals believe that our
present Land Laws need altering, for they partly account for
there being so many millions of acres of land not being tilled
now. The result is that wages are low and thousands of labourers
have left the land, and either gone into the towns to try to get a
living, or else gone to America and other countries where men
are better paid for working on the soil. Mr. Chamberlain, M.P.,
says it is reckoned that there are about 800,000 fewer persons
living on the land in England now than fifteen years ago. Think
of that! It is the same as if two thousand villages, each with
400 people in, were all empty and the people gone away—God
knows where. I can tell you of a case in my native county
arwickshire—which will show you one way how this has
come about. A landlord there has about 3,000 acres, and besides
that he is a rich man. When times got bad, about 1875, his
�5
tenants asked him to reduce their rent. He refused, and they
left their farms. He had plenty of money, and it did not matter
to him if the farms were not taken. But what became of the
labourers on this estate ? They had to work or starve, and as
there was no work for them there, they had to go wherever they
could get it. I dare say most of you can call to mind cases like
this one. This landlord, who never lifted his finger to work,
had the power under the present law to send scores of hard
working farmers and labourers out of their homes, and
besides that the land produced no food, and the other rate
payers in the parish had to pay the rates that this land should
have paid. This is one way in which the law wants altering. If
the land will produce enough for the farmer and the labourer—
the men who really work—it ought to be farmed to grow food
for the nation. The landlord—the man who does not work—
can take his share out of the land after the other two have got
their living, but he should not be allowed to let the land lie idle
and starve the labourer because he cannot get as much rent as
he wants. He cannot be allowed to act like a dog in a manger,
who won’t eat the bait of corn himself, or let the horse eat it.
When a ship is in a storm, the passengers don’t throw the captain
and the crew overboard, but they pitch the useless lumber out.
So, when farming is bad, either through bad laws, bad seasons, or
bad prices, the farmer and the labourer should justly be the last
to suffer, and the rich, do-nothing landlord should feel the pinch
first. One good way to effect this is that suggested by Joseph
Arch—make landlords let their farms by compelling them to
pay rates, whether, empty or not. They would be glad to let
them then, if only to get rent enough for the rates.
THE DEAD MAN'S CLUTCH.
Other laws which must be done away with are the laws which
permit settlement and entail. These allow a landowner to tie
up his land for three generations, so that his son and his son’s
son do not own the land to do what they like with, but only
receive the rents as long as they live. The result of these laws
is that the landlord is not ©ften willing to spend any money
to improve the land, because all he cares about is to get as
much rent as he can as long as he lives, and if the farmer
makes the soil bear better, the landlord will only raise the
rent. Consequently the land is not tilled nearly so well as it
should be, and it does not find work for so many labourers as
it ought to. These laws the Liberals and Radicals will try to
do away with, and if you help them, they will certainly do it.
THE GAME LAWS.
In the same way, we must do away with the game laws. The
game feeds on the farmer’s crops, and as he keeps the game,
it ought to belong to him—if it belongs to anybody. I wonder
how many thousand English labourers have been sent to prison
for disturbing the sleep of those sacred rabbits and hares ! Land
�6
lords and parsons sit on the bench and try the cases, and they
order men to pay heavy fines or to go to prison, without ever
thinking of how great a temptation it is to a poor man to kill a
rabbit for his children’s dinner. But the game has been preserved
long enough. We must now make some laws to preserve the
labourers.
ABOUT ALLOTMENTS.
The law as to allotments is the one in which you will, perhaps,
feel most interest. In many parishes there have been allotments
for years which have been let out to a favored few, often at rents
much higher than were paid by the farmer on the other side of
the hedge, and when one of the labourers offended the parson or
the squire, the allotment was taken from him. In 1882, however,
as you may know, the Allotments Extension Act was passsed by
Parliament. Mr. Howard Evans, who has for many years worked
hard for the labourer’s rights, and whose name is well-known to
every reader of the Labourer's Chronicle, collected the facts and
figures for this Act of Parliament; and Mr. Jesse Collings, M.P.,
whose political life has also been mainly given up to the good of
the labourer, got it passed into law. By this Act it is ordered
that all land left for charity shall be let to labourers in allotments
if they ask for it, at the same rent as the farmers round about
pay. As Mr. Collings made the Bill, if a labourer could not get
the charity land, he was to apply to the judge of the nearest
County Court, who would inquire into the reason why he was
not allowed to have it, and the matter would soon have been put
right. But when the House of Lords examined the Bill, they
ordered that the labourers had to apply to the Charity Commis
sioners in London, instead of the County Court, which meant in
most cases they could not get the land at all if any difficulty arose.
To help labourers who were in this trouble, Mr. Collings started a
society for which a lot of Liberal gentlemen find the money, and
now any labourer who cannot get the people who manage the
Charity lands to let it out in allotments, should write to the
Secretary, Allotments Extension Association, Birmingham, and
he will advise and help him. But this is another law which must
be altered so that all Charity land shall be let out to labourers
who requre it If you show that you mean to have this done,
the law will be changed very soon. Mr. Collings is trying to get
another bill passed, called the Yeomen’s and Small Holdings Bill,
which will make it much easier for labourers to get allotments
•md plots of their own. But if you want good laws like this to
be passed, ask the men who come to you to be sent to Parliament
whether they will vote for such bills, and then you will know
what to do when you hear their answer. The Liberals and
"Radicals mean to get the people back on the land again, and that
the labourer shall have a bit of land to farm for himself, so that
he will have something to look forward to in his old age besides
the workhouse.
�7
TAKING THE PEOPLE'S COMMONS.
They alfeo mean to stop landlords putting fences round com
mon lands, which do not belong to them, but which belong to
the people of the parish. Landlords are very fond of enclosing
land like this, and often say they do it so that the land may
grow something instead of lying idle. But that is no reason why
they should farm it for their own good. Why not let it out in
allotments to labourers, and let the rent go to the good of the
parish instead of into the pockets of the landlords ? Mr. Jesse
Collings is going to try to pass a Bill making landlords who have
fenced in land that does not belong to them in the last fifty years
give it up again. In the last 120 years about eight millions of
acres, or land equal to one-third part of all the workable land in
England, have been enclosed by landlords. Parliament was, and
is now, full of landlords ; and they can pass Acts which favour
their own class very easily. For instance, when a fstrmer becomes
bankrupt, the landlord can send the bailiffs and seize his cattle
and goods for rent, but other people to whom he owes money
have to take their chance of getting paid, and often lose their
money because the landlord has taken all the farmer has got.
Why should not the farmer’s goods be sold and the money divided
fairly amongst those to whom he owes debts ?
LAWS MADE BY LANDLORDS FOR LANDLORDS.
But there are many ways besides this in which the lords and
landlords in Parliament have made laws to suit themselves. When
a man dies and leaves a lot of money, the people who come into
it have to pay a heavy tax. But, if a landlord leaves a lot of
land instead of money, those who come after him hardly pay
anything for tax. Do you think this is fair ? Then, again, the great
squires and lords often do not pay as much for rates as they
ought to. The reason of this is because they are so rich and
powerful that the people who charge them dare not charge them
their full share. I could name six or more of our noblemen, all
of them with over £50,000 a year, who pay much less rates for
their parks than their tenants do for their farms, and they
pay nothing at all for their immense palaces. It would seem
fairer if these very rich landlords were to pay rather more
instead of less, than poorer folks. But there is a worse case
than all these of how they have put their taxes on to the
backs of the common people. About two hundred years ago,
in 1660, when that immoral and base king, Charles II., came
to the throne, the nobles stopped paying him the rents for their
lands which they had always paid to the Government, and instead
they imposed Excise and Customs duties. This meant that they
taxed beer and other things that the people used, and thus the
people paid to the Crown the taxes which the land had always
paid. Then, in 1692, as the taxes did not bring in enough money,
the nobles agreed to pay 4s. out of every pound they received as
rent, but when land got worth more and rents rose they did not
�8
pay any m6re taxes; and the result is that now, instead of the
landlords paying about thirty-four million pounds in taxes for
their land, they only pay a little more than one million. They
have made the poor pay the biggest part by taxing the things
that are used most—such as tea, tobacco, and beer. Here are
some of the taxes which the poor pay though most of them do
not know it. Out of every shilling they pay
For cocoa, l|d. is for tax;
For coffee, l|d. is for tax;
For currants and raisins, 2|d. is for tax;
For tea, 4|d. is for tax.
For every 8d. spent in tobacco 2|d. is for tax, and |d. for
tobacco. Taxes make a shillingsworth of spirits cost 4s. 4|d.
The tax on a shillingsworth of champagne (which poor men
don’t buy) is £cL
TAXING THE POOR.
I will give you an instance of how the poor were taxed. This
case was brought before Parliament in 1842. William Gladstone,
a labourer, earned 11s. a week, and spent 7s. 7d. on food, as
follows :— 1 ounce of tea, 2 ounces of coffee, 8 ounces of sugar,
8 ounces of meat, 8 pounds of flour, seven pints of ale, and a
quartern of brandy.
s. d.
The real cost of these was .................. 2 4^
The taxes on these were
.................. 5 2|
7 7
Thus out of the £28 a year that this poor man earned, £18
went in taxes. A man who had £10,000 a year ought, at the same
rate, to have paid about £4,700 a year in taxes. Instead of that
he paid not more than about £500—that is the poor man paid
nearly ten times as much as the rich man, according to his means.
Since that day the poor man’s taxes have been lightened—chiefly
by Mr. Gladstone and the Liberals—but there is still plenty of
room for change, for even now the poor man pays a good deal
more than the rich man, considering how little he has to pay
with. Liberals hope to reform this, and make the laws so that
rich and poor pay each according to their means.
THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
You will remember that last autumn, when meetings were
being held all over the country to get the Franchise Bill passed
so that you can have the vote, a great deal was said against the
House of Lords. They had refused to pass the Bill. Everybody
expected they would not pass it, because they have always de
layed or refused to pass every Bill of importance that the
Liberals in the House of Commons have brought in for the
good of the people. Before 1-832 the Lords usedto govern the
country how they liked, without taking much notice of what -+-he
people who paid the taxes wanted. Nobody but wealthy
�9
*u-rdt, could sit in Parliament, and the House of Lords really chosethe greater part of the House of Commons. But in 1832 the
Liberals passed the great Reform Bill, after nearly two years’'
struggling with the Lords and the King. The Peers agreed to it
at last, because there had been riots all over the country, and
they could see, if they did not, we should have civil war inEngland. They did not know whether the soldiers would fight
against the people, or side with them; so, in their fear, they
passed the Bill. By this Bill large towns like Manchester, Leeds
and Birmingham were allowed to send members to Parliament,
and little villages of a few hundred people, and, perhaps, with
only a dozen electors who were in the pay of some lord, stopped*
sending members. This was the beginning of that great reform
which has brought it about that now every man in the country
who has a house has a vote.
TKH4T THE LORDS HAVE DONE.
It is easy to see that the more power the people got, the less
was left to the lords, but they have struggled hard to keep their
wrongful power. They have always opposed bills to make elec
tions cheap and stop bribery, because they were rich and could
afford to bribe. They opposed the Ballot because it prevents
them knowing how a man votes, and so they cannot threaten to
turn him out of his farm or cottage if he does not vote as they
want. They refused to do away with cruel laws which punishedpeople severely because they were Roman Catholics or Jews, or
because they went to chapel instead of to church. They, of
course, opposed the first efforts that were made to give the poor
man’s child a cheap education, partly because they were afraid
of the poor knowing how the lords have treated them for hun
dreds of years, and partly because there would be many other
people to teach the children besides the church parson. Then
they opposed the Liberals taking the taxes off paper, because
they knew when paper was cheaper the poor would be able tobuy newspapers for a penny or a halfpenny, and these would
educate the workman and tell him of his rights and his power.
They did all they could to prevent people in the towns from,
having town councils to manage their affairs for them.
HOW THE LORDS HAVE RULED IRELAND.
In Ireland they have been far more powerful than they have
here, and the result is seen in the dreadful condition of that un
happy country. For years the Lords refused to pass every Bill
which the Liberals proposed for the good of the Irish people;
and, as the English did not care quite so much as when theLords refused English Bills, the reforms were much longer
delayed. The greater nrnnber of the farmers there only have small
plots of land. They build their own houses of mud, and make
all the fences and hovels on the land at their own expense, but
when they cannot pay the high rents to their landlords they are
turned out on to the roadside to beg or die. I could tell you of
�10
cases where as many as seven hundred men, women and
children—some of them sick and ill—have been turned out of
their homes in one day because the landlord wanted to knock
down their houses and turn the land into sheep-farms. This sort
of treatment has been going on for hundreds of years, and the
Lords refused to alter the laws which allowed it, although some
Irish landlords themselves said they were most unjust. It is no
wonder that landlords get shot, and Fenians come over here and
make disturbances. It is almost certain that if we had had no
House of Lords, we should have had no Fenians. The high rents
and bad laws in Ireland will also explain why Irishmen come over
for harvest time and do work which Englishmen might do.
Always remember that our House of Lords, by refusing to pass
better laws for Ireland, has made that country so that millions of
the people have left it and come here to live or gone to America.
Mr. Gladstone and the Liberals overcame the Lords in 1881, and
passed a Land Act in spite of them. Ireland is much quieter
now, and when we have given the Irish full justice it is to be
hoped that they will live at peace with us. We must let them
know it is not the English people but the English lords who
have refused them j'ustice. Our lords own immense estates over
there, but most of them spend the money in London and abroad
which their Irish tenants pay. This helps to make Irish trade
bad and the people more discontented.
HARSH AND CRUEL TO THE POOR.
Then, again, the Lords have always been in favor of punishing
the poor severely. How the squires send men to prison for
making a rabbit run away you already know. But that is mercy
itself to what the Lords allowed by the laws. In 1810 it was
lawful to hang a man for stealing half-a-crown’s worth of goods,
and the Lords refused to alter the law although the House of
Commons wanted to. Between 1810 and 1845 it was reckoned
that 1,400 people were hanged for doing what, if they did it now,
they would only be sent to prison for. But the Lords refused
for years to alter the law, although often asked to do so. These
noblemen were rich and well fed, and did not know, or care,
what a temptation it is to a poor and hungry man to steal a loaf.
I wonder how many poor people have been sent to prison for
months for stealing a turnip not worth a farthing ? Of course it
is wrong to steal a turnip, but often a man’s character has been
taken away for life because he took some such trifling thing.
When rich men do worse things (for only very poor people steal
turnips) they generally have a chance to get off by paying. For
instance, in January last (1885) a married clergyman in Lincoln
shire committed shocking assaults on two little girls. He was
only fined £20 and lost his situation. If a poor man had done
such a thing, he would certainly have had a long time in prison,
and most likely would have been sent to penal servitude for ten
or fifteen years, and his family would have gone to the work
�11
house. So, when a noble lord, not long since, assaulted a servant,
instead of being sent to prison and hard labour like any other
man, they arranged it so that he hardly suffered at all.
THE LORDS, THE LAND, AND THE LABOURERS.
But you will feel most interest in regard to what the Lords have
done about the land and the labourers. Every effort that has
been made to get justice for the farmer has always been opposed
by the Lords, although they pretend to be his friends. You
know that when tenants leave their farms, however mutch they
may have improved them, their landlords were not bound to give
them any money to pay them back what they had spent in making
the sheds better, or in manuring the land, or doing other things
that improve the farm for all time. The House of Lords have
always opposed any attempt to protect the property of the tenants
from greedy landlords. In just the same way they tried to defeat
the Bill giving the farmers the right to kill hares and rabbits.
How they have passed Bills enclosing immense quantities of
common land, and how they spoiled the Bill giving you the right
to have charity lands cut up into allotments, I have already told
you. In Ireland they refused to cottage allotments the same fair
treatment which the law gave to large farms. Then the workmen
in towns have suffered from the action of these noblemen just as
badly. They refused to women and children working in coal
mines the protection from hard masters and long hours, which
Liberals tried to get for them in 1842. Many of the lords are
owners of coal-pits, from which they get immense incomes, and
they did all they could to keep women and children at work in
them for long hours because their labour is cheaper than men’s.
They also tried to spoil the Employer’s Liability Act, which gives
a workman or his widow a claim against his employer if he is
hurt or killed through his master’s or the foreman’s carelessness.
In fact, the House of Lords has always opposed every Bill
intended to do good to the working classes or make them more
free. These noblemen sit in the House of Lords because they
are the eldest sons of their fathers, and not because the people
elected them. That may have been a very good reason many
years ago,
BUT IT WONT DO NOW.
No matter whether the Liberals or the Conservatives are in
power in the House of Commons, the House of Lords is always
Tory, and no one will say it is fair that the Liberals who have
been elected by the peeple to govern them should have all their
work delayed or spoiled by a lot of rich landlords who are elected
by nobody. Even if a peer goes to prison, as some do sometimes,
he can go back and make laws for us or spoil other men’s good
work. The People’s League, whose offices are at 14, Bucking
ham Street, Strand, London, has been formed to spread the truth
about the Lords amongst the voters, and you may be sure that
when their evil deeds are more generally known by the voters,
�12
the House of Lords will be either changed or done away with.
The People’s League, before it had been started three months,
had over 100,000 members, and it is still growing rapidly; so
you see very great numbers of your fellow workmen have made
11 p their minds that we can do better without the House of Lords
than with it, and I hope you will think so too.
WANTING TO TAX THE LOAF.
There is one change which a good many Tory landlords and
others want to make. They would like to put a tax on all corn
that comes into the country—that is, they want to tax the loaf.
But you will find that nearly all the people who want to do this
are landlords or their friends. They will tell you that if a small
tax is put on the corn you will have more work and more money.
It is not true, and I will tell you why. The landlord would get
a lot more rent, but will you be willing to pay more for your
bread that rich men may still be richer ? There used to be a tax
on bread. Between the years 1815 and 1846 bread was always
taxed, and what was the state of the people at that time ? Far
worse than it is now. Landlords were better off, but the working
men were starving. Farmers were ruined by thousands. The
workhouses were full; thousands of families had no food, no
clothing, nothing; there were riots in many places, women sold
their we'dding rings for bread, people boiled nettles for food and
ate bad flesh. At this time there were only half as many people
in G-reat Britain as there are now. Do you want these dreadful
sufferings over again ? They were the result of a tax on bread,
which benefits nobody but the landlords. Your wages are very
much higher even now than they were then. Joseph Arch has
written a book which shows up the shocking state of the country
at that time but folks who want to tax your bread don’t tell you
of these things. They say to you, “ What is the use of cheap
bread if you have no money to buy it with ?” They mean you
to understand that if bread was dearer you would have more
money. It is false. Bad as trade is now, it was far worse when
bread was taxed, and would be still worse if we were so foolish
as to allow it to be taxed again. The real change that wants to
be made i-s to alter the land laws so that the soil may be freely
tilled. There would be plenty of work then, and very much
more corn grown at home than there is now.
HOW TO MEET A TORY DODGE.
In the month of April (1885) Sir Stafford Northcote, the
Conservative leader in the House of Commons, wrote—“As
regards the future, I am distinctly of opinion that a return to a
protective duty on corn would be impossible, and that the idea
that a Conservative Government would attempt to impose one is
groundless.” Lord Salisbury a few days afterwards expressed the
same opinion. When a Tory comes to you trying to make you
believe that a tax on corn would raise your wages, show him this
sentence of Sir Stafford Northcote’s, and ask him why he is so
�13
dishonest as to recommend a plan that his own leaders will not
carry out and declare to be impossible.
THE CHURCH.
Now there is the question of the State Church. You know
that the Church of England, which does not include nearly half
the nation, uses for itself alone money which was meant just as
much for the poor as for the parsons. The Church is thus very
wealthy and powerful, and though the parsons are often good
and kind men, in many cases they use their power against the
poor who go to chapel, or who don’t send their children to the
church school, and they forget these poor people when the time
comes round for giving out blankets and coal. Sometimes
these parsons are magistrates and I have known some who have
been very severe in sending men to prison for poaching. When
they are on the Boards of Guardians, they often forget what
their Great Master told them about being kind and merciful.
Well, the Radicals are working to put an end to the special
power which the State gives to the Church of England, and they
wish to have the enormous wealth of the Church spent for the
good of all the people. For instance, it might be used in paying
for the schooling of the children. It was meant for all the
people years ago, and it ought to belong to all the people now,
instead of to only a part. These parsons are usually great friends
of the squires and the landlords. They taught you at school and
at Sunday school to be contented in that state of life into which
it shall please God to call you. You have learnt since that it is
a good thing for a man to better himself when he can. It is easy
to see why the parsons have taught you to be contented, for, as a
rule, they want the laws to stop as they are, instead of being
made better. The parsons and the bishops have always done
their best to prevent changes being made for the good of the
people. They often say the State church is the poor man’s
church, but if that is so, it is a strange thing the bishops and
most of the parsons always oppose laws meant to give poor men
their rights. The laws ought not to favour one church more
than another, and we must do away with the State church, so
that church and chapel will be on the same footing.
VOTE FOR PEACE AND AGAINST WAR.
Lastly, always vote for peace. No lasting good comes to
working men or anyone else from war, which wastes our taxes
and sheds the blood of our fellow men, and all for no real good.
Often wars are made by our rulers without the people being
asked, but the people have to find the money and the men,
although often they don’t agree with the objects for which war
is being made. War makes trade bad and wages low. Nothing
but misery and sorrow comes from it. It may be to the advan
tage of lords and gentlemen who are officers to fight and get
higher rank, but it can never be to the good of working men to
make war except to defend ourselves whaa attacked, and that
�14
we shall be always sure to do. It will help you to understand
what a curse war is when I tell you that out of every pound we
now pay in taxes 16s. 3^cL goes for war, war debt, or war prepa
rations and 3s. 8jd. for all other purposes of government.
WEIGH THESE CLOSING WORDS WELL.
. I have tried to show you some of the objects which you may
like to strive for. If you set your mind upon getting them, you
Can do it, for there are thousands and thousands of your brothers
and relations in the towns who are bent on getting the laws and
changes I have set before you. But how are you to do it ? By
acting together; and, if possible, through your Union. Taken
one at a time, your votes are worth very little : taken altogether,
there are no just and right things you cannot accomplish in timeby means of your votes. But you must not think these objects
can be gained without long and hard work. You must show the
men who want to be your Members of Parliament that you mean
to have these things, and tell them that if they won’t vote for
what you want, you won’t vote for them. We send men to Par
liament to do as we want, not to do as they like, and we must
make them understand it. The Liberals in town and country
everywhere will help you to improve your condition; they will
aid you in gaining whatever is rightly yours. Stand shoulder to
shoulder ; work steadily with your mates for the same just ends,
and there is no class in this country which is strong enough to
deny you your rights when right is on your side.
ERNEST PARKE.
103, Camberwell Grove, London, S.E.
�15
Bow the Lords and Bishops have Voted.
Some Samples oe Hereditary Legislation.
1807—Rejected Bill appointing a Committee of Council for Education.
1810—Rejected Bill abolishing Punishment of Death for stealing
goods value 5s. Seven bishops voted against the Bill. None for it.
More than 200 crimes then Capital.
1825—Rejected Catholic Relief Bill.
1829—Disfranchised 40s. Freeholders in Ireland.
1831— Rejected Reform Bill. 21 bishops assisted. Great riots.
1832— Mutilated Reform Bill in Committee. Renewed riots. Runon the Bank of England. Country on the brink of Revolution.
Refused to open Universities to Dissenters.
1833— Compelled withdrawal of Irish Education Bill.
1833- 57—Denied civil and political rights to Jews. 20 bishops
assisted. Rejected the Commons’ Bill seven times.
1834—Refused to allow more than 20 persons to meet for worship
in private house. Three times rejected Tithe Abatement Bill; also
Bill for legalising marriages in Dissenting chapels.
1836—Ordered banns of Dissenters’ marriages to be read before
Boards of Guardians. Mangled Municipal Reform Act.
1838—Refused to mothers the custody of infants during separation
caused by fault of father.
1839— Continued death penalty for sheep-stealing. RejectedNational Education Bill.
1842—Refused to give women and children working in mines the
full relief of the Commons’ Mines Regulation Bill. Prevented protec
tion of miners for 30 years.
1845—Refused compensation to the Irish tenants, and so for 25 years.
1858—Refused church rates abolition, and for next 11 years; 24
bishops in the majority.
1860—Rejected Bill taking tax off paper, which meant cheap press..
1868— Threw out Irish Church Disestablishment resolutions. Emas
culated Artisans’ Dwellings Bill.
1867-70—Thrice refused University Tests Abolition.
1869— Mutilated Irish Church Bill. Refused to allow Life Peerages.
1870—Mangled Irish Land Act.
1871—Rejected Army Purchase Bill. Threw out Ballot Bill and
next year made secrecy optional.
1873-6-7-9—Refused to amend Burial Laws.
1879 and since—Refused to legalise marriage with a deceased wife’s
sister.
1880—Rejected Compensation for Disturbance Bill. Ireland became
in a state of anarchy. Threw out Irish Registration of Voters Bill.
1882—Made Allotments Extension Act unworkable.
1883—Maintained Trap Pigeon Shooting. (No Bishops attended tovote.) Spoiled English Agricultural Holdings Bill, but retreated.
1884— « Hung up ” the County Franchise Bill.
After reading the above, do you net think that the House of
Commons was right when, in 1649, it resolved that the House of
Lords “ was useless, dangerous, and ought to be abolished ?”
�ALL THE NEW VOTERS
Should Read
The English Labourers’
CHRONICLE.
THE
1
Organ of the National Agricultural
Labourers’ Union.
ORDER OF ANY NEWSAGENT.
SOLD IN EVERY COUNTY.
Full of Interest for Workers and Voters.
The CHRONICLE contains—
News and Political Articles,
by Well-known Writers,
AFFECTING THE
WELFARE AND WAGES
OF THE LABOURERS.
ONE PENNY WEEKLY
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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What shall I do with my vote? : a few plain words to the new voters
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Parke, Ernest
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 15, [1] p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Date of publication from internal evidence (list of House of Lords votes ends with date of 1884, and text refers twice to 1885). Advertisement for the English Labourers' Chronicle on unnumbered page at the end.
Publisher
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W. Reeves
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1885?]
Identifier
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T469
Subject
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Socialism
Politics
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (What shall I do with my vote? : a few plain words to the new voters), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Great Britain-Parliament
Great Britain-Parliament-House of Lords
Great Britain-Politics and Government-1837-1901
Land tax
Politics-Britain
Socialism
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The political situation: an address delivered to a meeting of working men. August 24, 1868
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Guedalla, Joseph
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 32 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Adhesive tape marks on first two pages. Joseph Guedalla was Vice-President of the Reform League. Printed by Judd and Glass, Phoenix Printing Works. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
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Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1868
Identifier
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G5204
Subject
The topic of the resource
Politics
Socialism
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The political situation: an address delivered to a meeting of working men. August 24, 1868), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Great Britain-Politics and Government-19th Century
politics
Working Class-Great Britain