82 A Call for Independence (1776)

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?

In support of the first, I could if I judged it proper produce the opinion of some of the ablest and most experienced men on this continent and whose sentiments on that head are not yet publicly known. It is in reality a self-evident position. For no nation in a state of foreign dependance, limited in its commerce, and cramped and fettered in its legislative powers can ever arrive at any material eminence. America does not yet know what opulence is and although the progress which she has made stands unparalleled in the history of other nations, it is but childhood compared with what she would be capable of arriving at, had she as she ought to have the legislative powers in her own hands. England is at this time proudly coveting what would do her no good were she to accomplish it, and the continent hesitating on a matter which will be her final ruin if neglected. It is the commerce and not the conquest of America by which England is to be benefited and that would in a great measure continue, were the countries as 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 on 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 proceed now to the second head: viz. Which is the easiest and most practicable 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 single simple line contained within ourselves and reconciliation a matter exceedingly perplexed and complicated and in which a treacherous, capricious court is to interfere, gives the answer without a doubt.

The present state of America is truly alarming to every man who is capable of reflection. Without law, without government, without any other mode of power than what is founded on and granted by courtesy. Held together by an unexampled concurrence of sentiment which is nevertheless subject to change and which every secret enemy is 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 [outcome]? 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 everyone thinks himself at liberty to act as he pleases. The Tories would not have dared to assemble 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.

Put us, say some, upon the footing we were on in sixty-three. To be on the footing of sixty-three it is not sufficient that the laws only be put on the same state, but that our circumstances likewise be put on the same state. Our burnt and destroyed towns repaired or built up, our private losses made good, our public debts (contracted for defense) discharged. Otherwise we shall be millions worse than we were at that enviable period. Such a request, had it been complied with a year ago, would have won the heart and soul of the Continent. But now it is too late. “The Rubicon is passed.”

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 the 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 conscientiously qualifies the use of arms. And the instant in which such a mode of defense became necessary, all subjection to Britain ought to have ceased and the independency of America should have been considered as dating its era from and published by the first musket that was fired against her. This line is a line of consistency, neither drawn by caprice nor extended by ambition but produced by a chain of events of which the colonies were not the authors.

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

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 she denominates “rebellious subjects” for terms of accommodation. It is our delaying it that encourages her to hope for conquest and our backwardness tends only to prolong the war. As we have without any good effect therefrom, withheld our trade to obtain a redress of our grievances, let us now try the alternative by 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 is not accepted, other courts may be applied to. On these grounds I rest the matter. And as no offer has 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 dissention. Let the names of Whig and Tory be extinct and let none other be heard among us than those of a good citizen, an open and resolute friend, and a virtuous supporter of the rights of mankind and of the free and independent states of America.

Source: Thomas Paine, Appendix to Common Sense, appended to Common Sense: addressed to the Inhabitants of America . . . Written by an Englishman (Philadelphia, 1776), 66-71. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.45494/page/n553/mode/2up