As in North Carolina had occurred the first armed resistance to British oppressions (1771), and its Mecklenburg County been the first to organize a government independent of the Crown, so was that colony the first to instruct its delegates in Congress to vote for national independence. She was followed in succession by South Carolina,* Virginia,** Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Georgia, New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. Maryland passed patriotic resolutions, but not sufficiently decisive for its delegates to act. New York alone forbade its delegates to vote for independence.
* Colonel Gadsden, having left the Continental Congress to
take command in South Carolina, appeared in the provincial
Congress at Charleston February 10,1776. "Col. Gadsden
(having brought the first copy of Paine's pamphlet 'Common
Sense, etc.,') boldly declared himself... for the
absolute Independence of America. This last sentiment came
like an explosion of thunder on the members" (Rev. John
Drayton's Memoirs; etc., p. 172). The sentiment was
abhorred, and a member "called the author of 'Common Sense'
————"; but on March 21st the pamphlet was reinforced by
tidings of an Act of Parliament (Dec. 21, 1775) for seizure
of American ships, and on March 23d South Carolina
instructed its delegates at Philadelphia to agree to
whatever that Congress should "judge necessary, etc."
** A thousand copies of "Common Sense" were at once ordered
from Virginia, and many more followed. On April 1st
Washington writes to Joseph Reed: "By private letters which
I have lately received from Virginia, I find 'Common Sense'
is working a wonderful change there in the minds of many
men." On June 29th union with England was "totally dissolved"
by Virginia.
Meanwhile, on June 7th, Richard Henry Lee, in behalf of the Virginians, had submitted resolutions of independence; but as six States hesitated, Congress adjourned the decision until July 1st, appointing, however, (June 11th) a committee to consider the proper form of the probable Declaration—Jefferson, John Adams, Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. But this interval, from June 7th to July 1st, was perilous for independence. News came of the approach of Lord Howe bearing from England the "olive branch." The powerful colonies New York and Pennsylvania were especially anxious to await the proposals for peace. At this juncture Paine issued one of his most effective pamphlets, "A Dialogue between the Ghost of General Montgomery, Just Arrived from the Ely-sian Fields, and an American Delegate, in a Wood near Philadelphia." Montgomery, the first heroic figure fallen in the war, reproaches the hesitating delegate for willingness to accept pardon from a royal criminal for defending "the rights of humanity." He points out that France only awaits their declaration of independence to come to their aid, and that America "teems with patriots, heroes, and legislators who are impatient to burst forth into light and importance." The most effective part of the pamphlet, however, was a reply to the commercial apprehensions of New York and Pennsylvania. "Your dependance upon the Crown is no advantage, but rather an injury, to the people of Great Britain, as it increases the power and influence of the King. The people are benefited only by your trade, and this they may have after you are independent of the Crown." There is a shrewd prescience of what actually happened shown in this opportune work. Of course the gallant ghost remarks that "monarchy and aristocracy have in all ages been the vehicles of slavery." The allusion to the arming of negroes and Indians against America, and other passages, resemble clauses in one of the paragraphs eliminated from the original Declaration of Independence.
At this time Paine saw much of Jefferson, and there can be little doubt that the anti-slavery clause struck out of the Declaration was written by Paine, or by some one who had Paine's anti-slavery essay before him. In the following passages it will be observed that the antitheses are nearly the same—"infidel and Christian," "heathen and Christian."
PARAGRAPH STRUCK OUT OF THE DECLARATION.
"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them, thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another."
THOMAS PAINE.