* And yet—such was the power of theological intimidation—
even heretical Barlow could find no place for Paine in his
Columbiad(1807).
Edmund Randolph, our first Attorney-General, who had been on Washington's staff in the beginning of the war, and conducted much of his correspondence, ascribed independence primarily to George III., but next to "Thomas Paine, an Englishman by birth, and possessing an imagination which happily combined political topics, poured forth in a style hitherto unknown on this side of the Atlantic, from the ease with which it insinuated itself into the hearts of the people who were unlearned, or of the learned."* This is from a devout churchman, writing after Paine's death. Paine's malignant biographer, Cheetham (1809), is constrained to say of "Common Sense": "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."**
* Randolph's "History" (MS.), a possession of the Virginia
Historical Society, has been confided to my editorial care
for publication.
** See also the historians, Ramsay (Rev., i., p. 336,
London, 1793), Gordon (Rev., ii., p. 78, New York, 1794),
Bryant and Gay (U. S., iii., p. 471, New York, 1879).
Let it not be supposed that Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Randolph, and the rest, were carried away by a meteor. Deep answers only unto deep. Paine's ideas went far because they came far. He was the authentic commoner, representing English freedom in the new world. There was no dreg in the poverty of his people that he had not tasted, no humiliation in their dependence, no outlook of their hopelessness, he had not known, and with the addition of intellectual hungers which made his old-world despair conscious. The squalor and abjectness of Thetford, its corporation held in the hollow of Grafton's hand, its members of Parliament also, the innumerable villages equally helpless, the unspeakable corruptions of the government, the repeated and always baffled efforts of the outraged people for some redress,—these had been brought home to Paine in many ways, had finally driven him to America, where he arrived on the hour for which none had been so exactly and thoroughly trained. He had thrown off the old world, and that America had virtually done the same, constituted its attraction for him. In the opening essay in his magazine, written within a month of his arrival in the country (Nov. 30, 1774), Paine speaks of America as a "nation," and his pregnant sentences prove how mature the principles of independence had become in his mind long before the outbreak of hostilities.
"America has now outgrown the state of infancy. Her strength and commerce make large advances to manhood; and science in all its branches has not only blossomed, but even ripened upon the soil. The cottages as it were of yesterday have grown to villages, and the villages to cities; and while proud antiquity, like a skeleton in rags, parades the streets of other nations, their genius, as if sickened and disgusted with the phantom, comes hither for recovery.... America yet inherits a large portion of her first-imported virtue. Degeneracy is here almost a useless word. Those who are conversant with Europe would be tempted to believe that even the air of the Atlantic disagrees with the constitution of foreign vices; if they survive the voyage they either expire on their arrival, or linger away in an incurable consumption. There is a happy something in the climate of America which disarms them of all their power both of infection and attraction."
In presently raising the standard of republican independence, Paine speaks of separation from England as a foregone conclusion. "I have always considered the independency of this continent as an event which sooner or later must arrive." Great Britain having forced a collision, the very least that America can demand is separation.
"The object contended for ought always to bear some just proportion to the expence. The removal of North, or the whole detestable junto, is a matter unworthy the millions we have expended. A temporary stoppage of trade was an inconvenience which would have sufficiently balanced the repeal of all the acts complained of, had such repeals been obtained; but if the whole Continent must take up arms, if every man must be a soldier, 't 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, 't is as great a folly to pay a Bunker-hill price for law as for land.... 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."
Starting with the lowest demand, separation, Paine shows the justice and necessity of it lying fundamentally in the nature of monarchy as represented by Great Britain, and the potential republicanism of colonies composed of people from all countries. The keynote of this is struck in the introduction. The author withholds his name "because the object of attention is the Doctrine itself, not the Man "; and he affirms, "the cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind."
No other pamphlet published during the Revolution is comparable with "Common Sense" for interest to the reader of to-day, or for value as an historical document. Therein as in a mirror is beheld the almost incredible England, against which the colonies contended. And therein is reflected the moral, even religious, enthusiasm which raised the struggle above the paltriness of a rebellion against taxation to a great human movement,—a war for an idea. The art with which every sentence is feathered for its aim is consummate.
The work was for a time generally attributed to Franklin. It is said the Doctor was reproached by a loyal lady for using in it such an epithet as "the royal brute of Britain." He assured her that he had not written the pamphlet, and would never so dishonor the brute creation.