Thomas Paine
on April 19, 1775. He considers this battle, “the commencement of hostilities,” as a turning point, which rendered all previous “plans [and] proposals” as “useless now” (25). Paine deems it “right” to examine “on the principles of nature and common sense” what America stands to gain through independence and to lose through continued dependence on Britain (26). To address America’s losses as a colony of Britain, Paine examines the metaphor of “Mother England,” stating that even if America is the child who has “thrived upon milk,” it is just as preposterous to suggest that a child, even at the age of 20, should maintain the same diet as it is to suggest that America, who has been a colony for too long a time, should persist in its infantile and dependent state. As a child does, America has grown, and as a child who has grown up should, America should demand its independence. Following this metaphor further, Paine states that if “Britain is the parent country . . . then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their own families” (27). His reference to cannibalism stems from the various ways in which Britain figuratively feeds upon the American colonies as a source of raw materials, soldiers for its battles, and tax revenues for its coffers. To disentangle the parent/child relationship between Britain and America further, Paine returns to his favorite whipping boy, William the Conqueror, noting that as the “fi rst king of England of the present line” of monarchs, he was a Frenchman, “and half the peers of England are descendants from the same country.” Further, Americans themselves are not wholly British: “Not one third of the inhabitants, even of [Pennsylvania] are of English descent.” In addition to the fiction of common English blood uniting Britain and America, Paine notes the geographical distance between the two continents: “Even the distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and America is a strong and natural proof that the authority of the one over the other, was never the design of Heaven.” Where these arguments regarding the fiction of unity between Britain and America are
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not enough to convince his readers of the need for American independence, Paine lists the ways in which America is victimized by England. Great Britain’s foreign policy dictates America’s so that if England engages in a war, America is compelled to send troops and fight against “nations who otherwise seek our friendship and against whom we have neither anger nor complaint.” America’s foreign trade, Paine notes, is also determined by Britain’s foreign policies. Paine’s fi nal section calls for immediate action in the form of a military campaign against Great Britain in order to obtain independence. “The present time, likewise, is that peculiar time, which never happens to a nation but once, viz. the time of forming itself into a government” (55). Against anticipated arguments that Britain and its forces, particularly its naval power, significantly outnumber American forces, Paine argues that the geographical distance is to America’s advantage since Britain must travel overseas in order to refit and resupply its forces, that the absence of many seaports means America has less territory to protect, and that the military powers are based upon experiences of American colonists from the last war.
For Discussion or Writing 1. Paine takes a logical approach to the subject of America’s independence from Great Britain, except in section 2, where he repeatedly cites the Bible as a source opposed to monarchies and the practice of hereditary succession. Consider the shift in his argument, and write your own version of section 2, in which you take a logical approach to these two political practices. 2. Compare Paine’s argument for natural rights with P HILIP MORIN FRENEAU’s depiction of them in his poem “On Mr. Paine’s Rights of Man.” Does Freneau’s characterization do justice to Paine’s prose? How do you reconcile the different genres (pamphlet and poem) to the manner in which the message of natural rights is presented? 3. Paine’s Common Sense and The Age of Reason influenced both the American Revolution and