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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 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 who is every day tottering on the brink of commotion and disturbance; 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 some where or other, the consequences of which may be far more 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 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 that 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 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 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 pretense for his fears, on any other grounds, 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) in peace. Holland and Switzerland are without wars, foreign or 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 negotiate 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 into 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 president 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 Delegates to Congress, so that each Colony send at least thirty. The whole number in Congress will be at least 390. 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 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, and 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 satisfactorily just, not less than three-fifths of the Congress to be called a majority. He that will promote discord, under a government so equally formed as this, would have joined Lucifer in his revolt.

But as there is a peculiar delicacy from whom, or 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 following manner, and for the following purpose:

A Committee of twenty-six members of congress, viz., Two for each Colony. 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 Province for that purpose; or, if more convenient, 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 power. The Members of Congress, Assemblies, or Conventions, by having had experience in national concerns,

will be able and useful counselors, and the whole, being 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 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. Immediately 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 this 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 extracts 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 greatest sum of individual happiness, with the least national expense." (Dragonetti on Virtues and Reward.)

Yet

But where, say some, is the King of America? I'll tell you, friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Great Britain. 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

1 Common Sense was published anonymously because, as Paine said in a prefatory note to the third edition, "the Object for Attention is the Doctrine itself, not the Man." At first it was commonly thought that Franklin was the author, and a lady reproached him for this reference to the British sovereign, to which Franklin replied that had he been indeed the author he would not so have insulted the brute creation.

as 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 Massanello may hereafter arise, who, laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, finally sweep away the liberties of the Continent like a deluge. Should the government of America return again into 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 oppression 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 thousands, who would think it glorious to expel from the Continent that barbarous and hellish power, which hath stirred up the Indians and the Negroes to destroy us; the cruelty hath a double guilt, it is dealing brutally by us, and treacherously by them.

I Thomas Anello, otherwise Massanello, 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. (Paine's note.)

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 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, 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 tempers sustain 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! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.2

2 There is a fourth section, entitled Of the Present Ability of America, with some Miscellaneous Reflections, which is here omitted. Paine also added an Appendix to later editions.

THOMAS JEFFERSON (1743-1826)

Jefferson was born on 13 April, 1743, at his father's farm-house on the north bank of the Rivanna a few miles from Charlottesville, Virginia. His father died when he was fourteen years old, and left him, with a fair fortune, virtually free to determine his own course in life. He proceeded with the sound education which his father had designed him to have, and, after a few more years of work with a good classical scholar, entered William and Mary College (1760). Williamsburg was then the capital city, or rather village, of Virginia, and offered many opportunities for distraction and dissipation, but Jefferson was fortunately thrown with a few cultured and talented men, who did much to make him a close and capable student, devoted to the reading and collecting of books. In later life he owned what was probably the largest and most valuable private library then in America;-about 2,000 volumes of which (rather less than one-fifth) may now be seen in the Library of Congress. After two years at the College, Jefferson proceeded to study the law under George Wythe, and was admitted to the bar in 1767. He found himself almost at once with a good practice, which kept him busy until, as he says, "the Revolution shut up the Courts of Justice." From the beginning of active trouble with England he assumed a position of prominence in Virginia as an advocate of the rights of the colonists, and he was made a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, where his ability was at once recognized and his influence strongly felt. He was again sent to the following session, in the course of which it fell to him to draft the Declaration of Independence. In the fall of 1776 he withdrew from the Congress to become a member of the Virginia House of Representatives, where he succeeded in reforming the legal procedure and laws of the state, and in abolishing primogeniture. He was unsuccessful in his attempt to provide a system of public education and a public library, and in his effort to emancipate the slaves, but he succeeded in modifying the state-support of the Episcopal Church, and so paved the way for disestablishment in 1779, and for the adoption of his bill for complete religious freedom in 1786. This bill-the first of its kind ever enacted by a popular legislature would of itself suffice to give Jefferson immortality in the annals of human liberty.

From June, 1779, until June, 1781, Jefferson was the war-time Governor of Virginia. During the remainder of that year and in the following year he wrote his only book, Notes on Virginia (first printed in Paris, 1784). In September, 1782, he was saddened by the death of his wife (he had married Martha Skelton in 1772). During the months of her illness he had been unwilling to leave her, and had refused several urgent demands upon him for public service. But now he was, perhaps, anxious to be busy, and he soon became a member of the Congress. In 1784 he was appointed a Minister Plenipotentiary to help Franklin and John Adams effect commercial agreements with European nations. The mission was on the whole unsuccessful, but Jefferson remained in Paris (in 1785 succeeding Franklin as Minister) until the fall of 1789, and so witnessed the beginnings of the French Revolution. Immediately upon his arrival in America, Washington appointed him Secretary of State-a post which he held with an increasing sense of difficulty as party conflicts began to develop, and which he resigned at the end of four years. From 1797 until 1801 he was Vice President of the United States, and from 1801 until 1809 President. Then from his retirement at Monticello he observed the administrations of two close friends and fellow-Republicans who followed him in the presidency, Madison (1809-1817) and Monroe (1817-1825). During these years his vast correspondence, the entertainment of an unceasing stream of visitors, and the management of his estates occupied the greater part of his time, but he also found it possible to revive his long-cherished plan of founding a university for Virginia, and succeeded in establishing the institution while there was yet time for him to impress his ideas and standards upon it during its earliest years. This cost him much effort, much diplomatic negotiation, and some money, the last of which he could ill afford, as he was embarrassed by heavy debts in the last years of his life. He died on 4 July, 1826.

John Adams, who, by a strange coincidence, died a few hours later on the same day, had once remarked upon "the curious felicity of expression" which distinguished Jefferson's writings. His praise was just, though its justice has not always been recognized. For this there are reasons both good and bad-too many to be summarized here. But this may be said: The literary excellence of such pieces as the Declaration and the Character of Washington cannot be disputed. They need no bolstering praise, and they make one feel that there must be fit companion-pieces concealed in the

voluminous mass of their author's writings. But if a search be undertaken it is likely to bring disappointment. It will meet with its reward, but one purchased not without difficulty. In this Jefferson's writings are curiously like the man himself, as is aptly shown by the impression of him which Senator Maclay recorded after his appearance in 1790 before a committee of the Senate: "Jefferson is a slender man; has rather the air of stiffness in his manner. His clothes seem too small for him. He sits in a lounging manner, on one hip commonly, and with one of his shoulders elevated much above the other. His face has a sunny aspect. His whole figure has a loose, shackling air. He had a rambling, vacant look, and nothing of that firm collected deportment which I expected would dignify the presence of a secretary or minister. I looked for gravity, but a laxity of manner seemed shed about him. He spoke almost without ceasing; but even his discourse partook of his personal demeanor. It was loose and rambling; and yet he scattered information wherever he went, and some even brilliant sentiments sparkled from him."

The truth is that Jefferson rose to greatness as a man of letters in only a very few of his compositions, and yet that hints of his powers are scattered widely in them. Moreover, the man himself and his ideas are of the utmost significance in our intellectual and literary history, and the labor spent in coming to know both is well spent. In his political opinions Jefferson was a follower of English thinkers of the seventeenth century. Probably he learned something from James Harrington's Oceana; certainly he learned much from Algernon Sydney and John Locke. He deeply hated tyranny and all the outward symbols of power; he was confident of the fundamental integrity of average human nature, and felt that at least the great majority of men would always think and act reasonably if only they were sufficiently trusted. Like Franklin and other contemporaries, he was a believer in the progress of the race, and confessed that he "liked the dreams of the future better than the history of the past." Yet he was no doctrinaire, but showed himself a practical statesman in his readiness to compromise with abstract principle whenever the concrete situations before him made that demand. THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION | that all men are created equal; that they OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED

STATES OF AMERICA"

WHEN, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

On 11 June, 1776, the Continental Congress appointed Jefferson, John Adams, Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston a committee to draft a declaration of the colonies' independence. The other members asked Jefferson to undertake the task, and he consented. The resulting Declaration is here printed in the form in which the committee submitted it to the Congress-i.e., substantially as Jefferson wrote it, but embodying two small verbal changes made by Adams and five made by Franklin. In addition, it embodies nineteen changes (including three new paragraphs) made by Jefferson in revising his first rough draft. It is probable, though not certain, that Adams and Franklin suggested some of these changes. The portions of Jefferson's Declaration which the Congress struck out are printed in italic letters, and substituted words inserted by the Congress are given in footnotes. Thus the Declaration as finally adopted can be read by omitting all italicized words and including those in the footnotes.

are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, begun at a distinguished period and pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies, 2 certain unalienable.

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