In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments and common sense.  I have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader than that he will divest himself of prejudice and allow his reason and his feelings to decide for themselves.
   Volumes have been written on the subject of the struggle between England and America.  Men of all ranks have participated in the controversy with various designs; but all have been ineffectual.  Now the period of debate is closed.
   The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth.  'Tis not the affair of a city, a county, a province or a kingdom; but of a continent -- of at least one-eighth of the inhabited globe.  "Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or and age.  Posterity is vitally involved in the contest, and will be affected even, to the end of time, by these proceedings.  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 be enlarged with the tree, and posterity will read it in full grown characters.
   Let us inquire into some of the many material injuries which these colonies have sustained, and always will sustain, by being connected with and dependent on Great Britain.
   I have heard it asserted by some that, as America has flourished under her former connection with Great Britain, the same connection is necessary toward her future happiness.  Nothing can be more fallacious than this argument.  We may as well assert that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it should never have meat, or that the first twenty years of our lives is thto become a precedent for the next twenty.  I answer roundly that America would have flourished as much and probably much more, had no European power taken any notice of her.  The commerce by which she has enriched herself are the necessaries of life, and will always have a market while eating is the custom in Europe.
   But she has protected us, say some.  Alas!  We have been long led away by ancient prejudices.  We have boasted the protection of Great Britain, without considering that her motive was self-interest, not attachment.  She did not protect us from our enemies on our account, but from her own enemies on her own account, and they will always be our enemies on the same account.
   But Britain is the parent country, say some.  The more shame upon her conduct.  Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families.  This assertion, if true, is a disgrace upon her; but it happens to be only partly true, for the phrase 'parent' or 'mother country' has been adopted by the King and his parasites with a low popish motive of gaining an unfair bias on our minds.  Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America.  This new world has been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe.  Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster!  And it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home pursues their descendants still.
   But even if we admitted that we were all of English descent, what does it amount to?  Nothing.  The first king of England, of the present line, William the Conqueror, was a Frenchman, and half of the peers of England are descendants from the same country.  Therefore, by the same method of reasoning, England ought to be governed by France.
   I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation to show a single advantage that this continent can reap by being connected with Great Britain.  I repeat the challenge:  not a single advantage is derived!  Our corn will fetch its price in any market in Europe, and our imported goods must be paid for, buy them where we will.
   But the injuries and disadvantages which we sustain by that connection, are without number.  And our duty to mankind at large, as well as to ourselves, instructs us to renounce the alliance, because any submission to, or dependence upon, Great Britain, tends directly to involve this continent in European wars and quarrels, and set us at a variance with nations who would otherwise seek our friendship, and against whom we have neither anger nor complaint.
   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 that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If you cannot do all these, then are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon posterity. Your future connection with Britain, whom you can neither love nor 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 a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and still can shake hands with the murderers, then you are unworthy of the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.
   As to government matters, it is not in the power of Britain to do this continent justice: Our business will soon be too weighty, and intricate, to be managed with any tolerable degree of convenience, by a power so distant from us and so very ignorant of us.  For if they cannot conquer us, they cannot govern us. To be always running three or four thousand miles with a tale or a petition, waiting four or five months for an answer, which when obtained requires five or six more to explain it in, will in a few years be looked upon as folly and childishness�There was a time when it was proper, and there is a proper time for it to cease.
  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.
   No man was a warmer wisher for a reconciliation than myself, before that fatal nineteenth of April, 1775.  But the moment the event of that day was made known to me, I rejected the hardened, sullen-tempered Pharaoh of England forever.  And I disdain the wretch, that with the pretended title of Father of His People can unfeelingly hear of their slaughter, and composedly sleep with their blood upon his soul.
   I have heard some men say, many of whom I believe spoke without thinking, that they dreaded an independence, fearing that it would produce civil wars.  It is but seldom that our first thoughts are truly correct, and that is the case here, for there is ten times more to dread from a patched up connection 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 a man, sensible of injuries, I could never relish the doctrine of reconciliation, or consider myself bound thereby.
  Ye that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, can ye restore to us the time that is past? Can ye give to prostitution its former innocence? Neither can ye reconcile Britain and America. The last cord now is broken, the people of England are presenting addresses against us. There are injuries which nature cannot forgive; she would cease to be nature if she did. As well can the lover forgive the ravisher of his mistress, as the continent forgive the murders of Britain. The Almighty hath implanted in us these unextinguishable feelings for good and wise purposes. They are the guardians of his image in our hearts. They distinguish us from the herd of common animals. The social compact would dissolve, and justice be extirpated from the earth if the robber and the murderer were allowed to escape unpunished. 52
  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.
 

*From The Life and Writings of Thomas Paine, vol. 2, Daniel Edwin Wheeler, ed.  Vincent Parke & Co., (New York:  1908).  "Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs", pp. ix-xviii; pp. 29 - 58.

20. Why does Paine believe that the following arguments for maintaining ties with Great Britain are fallacious?
   a.  America has flourished under her connection with Great Britain.
   b.  Britain is the parent country.
21. What does Paine believe will be the result of any submission to or dependence upon Great Britain?
 
 

 

Return to Study Guide #4