{"schema_version":1,"access":"public","rights":"Public-domain or compatibly licensed source editions; provenance is retained per record.","work":{"slug":"common-sense","title":"Common Sense","author":"Thomas Paine","tradition":"american","language":"en-18c","genre":"political pamphlet","period":"1776","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/147","original":{"text":"### Introduction\n\nPerhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.  But the tumult soon subsides.  Time makes more converts than reason.\n\nAs a long and violent abuse of power, is generally the Means of calling the right of it in question (and in Matters too which might never have been thought of, had not the Sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry) and as the King of England hath undertaken in his own Right, to support the Parliament in what he calls Theirs, and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpation of either.\n\nIn the following sheets, the author hath studiously avoided every thing which is personal among ourselves.  Compliments as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof.  The wise, and the worthy, need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious, or unfriendly, will cease of themselves unless too much pains are bestowed upon their conversion.\n\nThe cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested.  The laying a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censure, is the\n\nAUTHOR\n\nP.S.  The Publication of this new Edition hath been delayed, with a View of taking notice (had it been necessary) of any Attempt to refute the Doctrine of Independance: As no Answer hath yet appeared, it is now presumed that none will, the Time needful for getting such a Performance ready for the Public being considerably past.\n\nWho the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the Doctrine itself, not the Man.  Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any Party, and under no sort of Influence public or private, but the influence of reason and principle.\n\nPhiladelphia, February 14, 1776\n\n### Of the Origin and Design of Government in General, with Concise Remarks on the English Constitution\n\nSome writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices.  The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions.  The first a patron, the last a punisher.\n\nSociety in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.  Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.  For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least.  Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expence and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.\n\nIn order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end of government, let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest, they will then represent the first peopling of any country, or of the world.  In this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought.  A thousand motives will excite them thereto, the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and his mind so unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek assistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires the same.  Four or five united would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness, but one man might labour out of the common period of life without accomplishing any thing; when he had felled his timber he could not remove it, nor erect it after it was removed; hunger in the mean time would urge him from his work, and every different want call him a different way.  Disease, nay even misfortune would be death, for though neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from living, and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said to perish than to die.\n\nThus necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our newly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessings of which, would supersede, and render the obligations of law and government unnecessary while they remained perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but heaven is impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably happen, that in proportion as they surmount the first difficulties of emigration, which bound them together in a common cause, they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other; and this remissness, will point out the necessity, of establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue.\n\nSome convenient tree will afford them a State-House, under the branches of which, the whole colony may assemble to deliberate on public matters.  It is more than probable that their first laws will have the title only of Regulations, and be enforced by no other penalty than public disesteem.  In this first parliament every man, by natural right, will have a seat.\n\nBut as the colony increases, the public concerns will increase likewise, and the distance at which the members may be separated, will render it too inconvenient for all of them to meet on every occasion as at first, when their number was small, their habitations near, and the public concerns few and trifling.  This will point out the convenience of their consenting to leave the legislative part to be managed by a select number chosen from the whole body, who are supposed to have the same concerns at stake which those who appointed them, and who will act in the same manner as the whole body would act were they present.  If the colony continue increasing, it will become necessary to augment the number of the representatives, and that the interest of every part of the colony may be attended to, it will be found best to divide the whole into convenient parts, each part sending its proper number; and that the elected might never form to themselves an interest separate from the electors, prudence will point out the propriety of having elections often; because as the elected might by that means return and mix again with the general body of the electors in a few months, their fidelity to the public will be secured by the prudent reflexion of not making a rod for themselves. And as this frequent interchange will establish a common interest with every part of the community, they will mutually and naturally support each other, and on this (not on the unmeaning name of king) depends the strength of government, and the happiness of the governed.\n\nHere then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. freedom and security. And however our eyes may be dazzled with show, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and of reason will say, it is right.\n\nI draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered; and the easier repaired when disordered; and with this maxim in view, I offer a few remarks on the so much boasted constitution of England.  That it was noble for the dark and slavish times in which it was erected, is granted.  When the world was over run with tyranny the least remove therefrom was a glorious rescue.  But that it is imperfect, subject to convulsions, and incapable of producing what it seems to promise, is easily demonstrated.\n\nAbsolute governments (tho’ the disgrace of human nature) have this advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springs, know likewise the remedy, and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures.  But the constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together without being able to discover in which part the fault lies, some will say in one and some in another, and every political physician will advise a different medicine.\n\nI know it is difficult to get over local or long standing prejudices, yet if we will suffer ourselves to examine the component parts of the English constitution, we shall find them to be the base remains of two ancient tyrannies, compounded with some new republican materials.\n\nFirst.—The remains of monarchical tyranny in the person of the king.\n\nSecondly.—The remains of aristocratical tyranny in the persons of the peers.\n\nThirdly.—The new republican materials, in the persons of the commons, on whose virtue depends the freedom of England.\n\nThe two first, by being hereditary, are independent of the people; wherefore in a constitutional sense they contribute nothing towards the freedom of the state.\n\nTo say that the constitution of England is a union of three powers reciprocally checking each other, is farcical, either the words have no meaning, or they are flat contradictions.\n\nTo say that the commons is a check upon the king, presupposes two things:\n\nFirst.—That the king is not to be trusted without being looked after, or in other words, that a thirst for absolute power is the natural disease of monarchy.\n\nSecondly.—That the commons, by being appointed for that purpose, are either wiser or more worthy of confidence than the crown.\n\nBut as the same constitution which gives the commons a power to check the king by withholding the supplies, gives afterwards the king a power to check the commons, by empowering him to reject their other bills; it again supposes that the king is wiser than those whom it has already supposed to be wiser than him.  A mere absurdity!\n\nThere is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required. The state of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly; wherefore the different parts, by unnaturally opposing and destroying each other, prove the whole character to be absurd and useless.\n\nSome writers have explained the English constitution thus; the king, say they, is one, the people another; the peers are an house in behalf of the king; the commons in behalf of the people; but this hath all the distinctions of a house divided against itself; and though the expressions be pleasantly arranged, yet when examined they appear idle and ambiguous; and it will always happen, that the nicest construction that words are capable of, when applied to the description of some thing which either cannot exist, or is too incomprehensible to be within the compass of description, will be words of sound only, and though they may amuse the ear, they cannot inform the mind, for this explanation includes a previous question, viz.  How came the king by a power which the people are afraid to trust, and always obliged to check? Such a power could not be the gift of a wise people, neither can any power, which needs checking, be from God; yet the provision, which the constitution makes, supposes such a power to exist.\n\nBut the provision is unequal to the task; the means either cannot or will not accomplish the end, and the whole affair is a felo de se; for as the greater weight will always carry up the less, and as all the wheels of a machine are put in motion by one, it only remains to know which power in the constitution has the most weight, for that will govern; and though the others, or a part of them, may clog, or, as the phrase is, check the rapidity of its motion, yet so long as they cannot stop it, their endeavors will be ineffectual; the first moving power will at last have its way, and what it wants in speed is supplied by time.\n\nThat the crown is this overbearing part in the English constitution needs not be mentioned, and that it derives its whole consequence merely from being the giver of places and pensions is self-evident, wherefore, though we have been wise enough to shut and lock a door against absolute monarchy, we at the same time have been foolish enough to put the crown in possession of the key.\n\nThe prejudice of Englishmen, in favour of their own government by king, lords and commons, arises as much or more from national pride than reason.  Individuals are undoubtedly safer in England than in some other countries, but the will of the king is as much the law of the land in Britain as in France, with this difference, that instead of proceeding directly from his mouth, it is handed to the people under the more formidable shape of an act of parliament.  For the fate of Charles the first, hath only made kings more subtle—not more just.\n\nWherefore, laying aside all national pride and prejudice in favour of modes and forms, the plain truth is, that it is wholly owing to the constitution of the people, and not to the constitution of the government that the crown is not as oppressive in England as in Turkey.\n\nAn inquiry into the constitutional errors in the English form of government is at this time highly necessary, for as we are never in a proper condition of doing justice to others, while we continue under the influence of some leading partiality, so neither are we capable of doing it to ourselves while we remain fettered by any obstinate prejudice.  And as a man, who is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge of a wife, so any prepossession in favour of a rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning a good one.\n\n### Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession, 1\n\nMankind being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could only be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance; the distinctions of rich, and poor, may in a great measure be accounted for, and that without having recourse to the harsh ill sounding names of oppression and avarice.  Oppression is often the consequence, but seldom or never the means of riches; and though avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes  him too timorous to be wealthy.\n\nBut there is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is, the distinction of men into kings and subjects.  Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth enquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.\n\nIn the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology, there were no kings; the consequence of which was there were no wars; it is the pride of kings which throw mankind into confusion.  Holland without a king hath enjoyed more peace for this last century than any of the  monarchial governments in Europe.  Antiquity favors the same remark; for the quiet and rural lives of the first patriarchs hath a happy something in them, which vanishes away when we come to the history of Jewish royalty.\n\nGovernment by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom.  It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry.  The Heathens paid divine honors to their deceased kings, and the christian world hath improved on the plan by doing the same to their living ones.  How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!\n\nAs the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the equal rights of nature, so neither can it be defended on the authority of scripture; for the will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproves of government by kings.  All anti-monarchical parts of scripture have been very smoothly glossed over in monarchical governments, but they undoubtedly merit the attention of countries which have their governments yet to form. “Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s” is the scripture doctrine of courts, yet it is no support of monarchical government, for the Jews at that time were without a king, and in a state of vassalage to the Romans.\n\nNear three thousand years passed away from the Mosaic account of the creation, till the Jews under a national delusion requested a king. Till then their form of government (except in extraordinary cases, where the Almighty interposed) was a kind of republic administred by a judge and the elders of the tribes.  Kings they had none, and it was held sinful to acknowledge any being under that title but the Lord of Hosts.  And when a man seriously reflects on the idolatrous homage which is paid to the persons of Kings, he need not wonder, that the Almighty ever jealous of his honor, should disapprove of a form of government which so impiously invades the prerogative of heaven.\n\nMonarchy is ranked in scripture as one of the sins of the Jews, for which a curse in reserve is denounced against them.  The history of that transaction is worth attending to.\n\nThe children of Israel being oppressed by the Midianites, Gideon marched against them with a small army, and victory, thro’ the divine interposition, decided in his favour.  The Jews elate with success, and attributing it to the generalship of Gideon, proposed making him a king, saying, Rule thou over us, thou and thy son and thy son’s son. Here was temptation in its fullest extent; not a kingdom only, but an hereditary one, but Gideon in the piety of his soul replied, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you. The Lord shall rule over you. Words need not be more explicit; Gideon doth not decline the honor, but denieth their right to give it; neither doth he compliment them with invented declarations of his thanks, but in the positive stile of a prophet charges them with disaffection to their proper Sovereign, the King of heaven.\n\nAbout one hundred and thirty years after this, they fell again into the same error.  The hankering which the Jews had for the idolatrous customs of the Heathens, is something exceedingly unaccountable; but so it was, that laying hold of the misconduct of Samuel’s two sons, who were entrusted with some secular concerns, they came in an abrupt and clamorous manner to Samuel, saying, Behold thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways, now make us a king to judge us like all other nations. And here we cannot but observe that their motives were bad, viz. that they might be like unto other nations, i.e. the Heathens, whereas their true glory laid in being as much unlike them as possible. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, Give us a king to judge us; and Samuel prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee, for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, THAT I SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even unto this day; wherewith they have forsaken me and served other Gods; so do they also unto thee.  Now therefore hearken unto their voice, howbeit, protest solemnly unto them and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them, i.e. not of any particular king, but the general manner of the kings of the earth, whom Israel was so eagerly copying after.  And notwithstanding the great distance of time and difference of manners, the character is still in fashion.  And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people, that asked of him a king.  And he said, This shall be the manner of the king that shall reign over you; he will take your sons and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariots (this description agrees with the present mode of impressing men) and he will appoint him captains over thousands and captains over fifties, and will set them to ear his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots; and he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks and to be bakers (this describes the expence and luxury as well as the oppression of kings) and he will take your fields and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants; and he will take the tenth of your feed, and of your vineyards, and give them to his officers and to his servants (by which we see that bribery, corruption and favoritism are the standing vices of kings) and he will take the tenth of your men servants, and your maid servants, and your goodliest young men and your asses, and put them to his work; and he will take the tenth of your sheep, and ye shall be his servants, and ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen, and the Lord will not hear you in that day.  This accounts for the continuation of monarchy; neither do the characters of the few good kings which have lived since, either sanctify the title, or blot out the sinfulness of the origin; the high encomium given of David takes no notice of him officially as a king, but only as a man after God’s own heart. Nevertheless the People refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay, but we will have a king over us, that we may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles. Samuel continued to reason with them, but to no purpose; he set before them their ingratitude, but all would not avail; and seeing them fully bent on their folly, he cried out, I will call unto the Lord, and he shall send thunder and rain (which then was a punishment, being in the time of wheat harvest) that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking you a king.  So Samuel called unto the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel.  And all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God that we die not, for we have added unto our sins this evil, to ask a king. These portions of scripture are direct and positive.  They admit of no equivocal construction.  That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchical government is true, or the scripture is false.  And a man hath good reason to believe that there is as much of king-craft, as priest-craft, in withholding the scripture from the public in Popish countries.  For monarchy in every instance is the Popery of government.\n\nTo the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on posterity.  For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and though himself might deserve some decent degree of honors of his cotemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them.  One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.\n\n### Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession, 2\n\nSecondly, as no man at first could possess any other public honors than were bestowed upon him, so the givers of those honors could have no power to give away the right of posterity, and though they might say “We choose you for our head,” they could not, without manifest injustice to their children, say “that your children and your children’s children shall reign over ours for ever.”  Because such an unwise, unjust, unnatural compact might (perhaps) in the next succession put them under the government of a rogue or a fool.  Most wise men, in their private sentiments, have ever treated hereditary right with contempt; yet it is one of those evils, which when once established is not easily removed; many submit from fear, others from superstition, and the more powerful part shares with the king the plunder of the rest.\n\nThis is supposing the present race of kings in the world to have had an honorable origin; whereas it is more than probable, that could we take off the dark covering of antiquity, and trace them to their first rise, that we should find the first of them nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose savage manners or pre-eminence in subtility obtained him the title of chief among plunderers; and who by increasing in power, and extending his depredations, over-awed the quiet and defenceless to purchase their safety by frequent contributions.  Yet his electors could have no idea of giving hereditary right to his descendants, because such a perpetual exclusion of themselves was incompatible with the free and unrestrained principles they professed to live by.  Wherefore, hereditary succession in the early ages of monarchy could not take place as a matter of claim, but as something casual or complimental; but as few or no records were extant in those days, and traditional history stuffed with fables, it was very easy, after the lapse of a few generations, to trump up some superstitious tale, conveniently timed, Mahomet like, to cram hereditary right down the throats of the vulgar.  Perhaps the disorders which threatened, or seemed to threaten, on the decease of a leader and the choice of a new one (for elections among ruffians could not be very orderly) induced many at first to favor hereditary pretensions; by which means it happened, as it hath happened since, that what at first was submitted to as a convenience, was afterwards claimed as a right.\n\nEngland, since the conquest, hath known some few good monarchs, but groaned beneath a much larger number of bad ones; yet no man in his senses can say that their claim under William the Conqueror is a very honorable one.  A French bastard landing with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original.—It certainly hath no divinity in it.  However, it is needless to spend much time in exposing the folly of hereditary right; if there are any so weak as to believe it, let them promiscuously worship the ass and lion, and welcome.  I shall neither copy their humility, nor disturb their devotion.\n\nYet I should be glad to ask how they suppose kings came at first?  The question admits but of three answers, viz. either by lot, by election, or by usurpation.  If the first king was taken by lot, it establishes a precedent for the next, which excludes hereditary succession.  Saul was by lot, yet the succession was not hereditary, neither does it appear from that transaction there was any intention it ever should.  If the first king of any country was by election, that likewise establishes a precedent for the next; for to say, that the right of all future generations is taken away, by the act of the first electors, in their choice not only of a king, but of a family of kings for ever, hath no parrallel in or out of scripture but the doctrine of original sin, which supposes the free will of all men lost in Adam; and from such comparison, and it will admit of no other, hereditary succession can derive no glory.  For as in Adam all sinned, and as in the first electors all men obeyed; as in the one all mankind were subjected to Satan, and in the other to Sovereignty; as our innocence was lost in the first, and our authority in the last; and as both disable us from reassuming some former state and privilege, it unanswerably follows that original sin and hereditary succession are parellels. Dishonorable rank! Inglorious connexion!  Yet the most subtile sophist cannot produce a juster simile.\n\nAs to usurpation, no man will be so hardy as to defend it; and that William the Conqueror was an usurper is a fact not to be contradicted. The plain truth is, that the antiquity of English monarchy will not bear looking into.\n\nBut it is not so much the absurdity as the evil of hereditary succession which concerns mankind.  Did it ensure a race of good and wise men it would have the seal of divine authority, but as it opens a door to the foolish, the wicked, and the improper, it hath in it the nature of oppression.  Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.\n\nAnother evil which attends hereditary succession is, that the throne is subject to be possessed by a minor at any age; all which time the regency, acting under the cover of a king, have every opportunity and inducement to betray their trust.  The same national misfortune happens, when a king worn out with age and infirmity, enters the last stage of human weakness.  In both these cases the public becomes a prey to every miscreant, who can tamper successfully with the follies either of age or infancy.\n\nThe most plausible plea, which hath ever been offered in favour of hereditary succession, is, that it preserves a nation from civil wars; and were this true, it would be weighty; whereas, it is the most barefaced falsity ever imposed upon mankind.  The whole history of England disowns the fact.  Thirty kings and two minors have reigned in that distracted kingdom since the conquest, in which time there have been (including the Revolution) no less than eight civil wars and nineteen rebellions.  Wherefore instead of making for peace, it makes against it, and destroys the very foundation it seems to stand on.\n\nThe contest for monarchy and succession, between the houses of York and Lancaster, laid England in a scene of blood for many years.  Twelve pitched battles, besides skirmishes and sieges, were fought between Henry and Edward.  Twice was Henry prisoner to Edward, who in his turn was prisoner to Henry.  And so uncertain is the fate of war and the temper of a nation, when nothing but personal matters are the ground of a quarrel, that Henry was taken in triumph from a prison to a palace, and Edward obliged to fly from a palace to a foreign land; yet, as sudden transitions of temper are seldom lasting, Henry in his turn was driven from the throne, and Edward recalled to succeed him.  The parliament always following the strongest side.\n\nThis contest began in the reign of Henry the Sixth, and was not entirely extinguished till Henry the Seventh, in whom the families were united.  Including a period of 67 years, viz. from 1422 to 1489.\n\nIn short, monarchy and succession have laid (not this or that kingdom only) but the world in blood and ashes.  ’Tis a form of government which the word of God bears testimony against, and blood will attend it.\n\nIf we inquire into the business of a king, we shall find that in some countries they have none; and after sauntering away their lives without pleasure to themselves or advantage to the nation, withdraw from the scene, and leave their successors to tread the same idle round.  In absolute monarchies the whole weight of business, civil and military, lies on the king; the children of Israel in their request for a king, urged this plea “that he may judge us, and go out before us and fight our battles.”  But in countries where he is neither a judge nor a general, as in England, a man would be puzzled to know what is his business.\n\nThe nearer any government approaches to a republic the less business there is for a king.  It is somewhat difficult to find a proper name for the government of England.  Sir William Meredith calls it a republic; but in its present state it is unworthy of the name, because the corrupt influence of the crown, by having all the places in its disposal, hath so effectually swallowed up the power, and eaten out the virtue of the house of commons (the republican part in the constitution) that the government of England is nearly as monarchical as that of France or Spain.  Men fall out with names without understanding them.  For it is the republican and not the monarchical part of the constitution of England which Englishmen glory in, viz. the liberty of choosing a house of commons from out of their own body—and it is easy to see that when republican virtue fails, slavery ensues. Why is the constitution of England sickly, but because monarchy hath poisoned the republic, the crown hath engrossed the commons?\n\nIn England a king hath little more to do than to make war and give away places; which in plain terms, is to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears.  A pretty business indeed for a man to be allowed eight hundred thousand sterling a year for, and worshipped into the bargain!  Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.\n\n### Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs, 1\n\nIn the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves; that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day.\n\nVolumes have been written on the subject of the struggle between England and America.  Men of all ranks have embarked in the controversy, from different motives, and with various designs; but all have been ineffectual, and the period of debate is closed.  Arms, as the last resource, decide the contest; the appeal was the choice of the king, and the continent hath accepted the challenge.\n\nIt hath been reported of the late Mr. Pelham (who tho’ an able minister was not without his faults) that on his being attacked in the house of commons, on the score, that his measures were only of a temporary kind, replied “they will last my time.” Should a thought so fatal and unmanly possess the colonies in the present contest, the name of ancestors will be remembered by future generations with detestation.\n\nThe sun never shined on a cause of greater worth.  ’Tis not the affair of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent—of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe.  ’Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now.  Now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honor.  The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters.\n\nBy referring the matter from argument to arms, a new æra for politics is struck; a new method of thinking hath arisen.  All plans, proposals, &c. prior to the nineteenth of April, i.e. to the commencement of hostilities, are like the almanacks of the last year; which, though proper then, are superseded and useless now.  Whatever was advanced by the advocates on either side of the question then, terminated in one and the same point, viz. a union with Great-Britain; the only difference between the parties was the method of effecting it; the one proposing force, the other friendship; but it hath so far happened that the first hath failed, and the second hath withdrawn her influence.\n\nAs much hath been said of the advantages of reconciliation, which, like an agreeable dream, hath passed away and left us as we were, it is but right, that we should examine the contrary side of the argument, and inquire into some of the many material injuries which these colonies sustain, and always will sustain, by being connected with, and dependant on Great-Britain. To examine that connexion and dependance, on the principles of nature and common sense, to see what we have to trust to, if separated, and what we are to expect, if dependant.\n\nI have heard it asserted by some, that as America hath flourished under her former connexion with Great-Britain, that the same connexion is necessary towards her future happiness, and will always have the same effect.  Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of argument.  We may as well assert that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat, or that the first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty.  But even this is admitting more than is true, for I answer roundly, that America would have flourished as much, and probably much more, had no European power had any thing to do with her.  The commerce, by which she hath enriched herself are the necessaries of life, and will always have a market while eating is the custom of Europe.\n\nBut she has protected us, say some.  That she has engrossed us is true, and defended the continent at our expence as well as her own is admitted, and she would have defended Turkey from the same motive, viz. the sake of trade and dominion.\n\nAlas, we have been long led away by ancient prejudices, and made large sacrifices to superstition.  We have boasted the protection of Great-Britain, without considering, that her motive was interest not attachment; that she did not protect us from our enemies on our account, but from her enemies on her own account, from those who had no quarrel with us on any other account, and who will always be our enemies on the same account.  Let Britain wave her pretensions to the continent, or the continent throw off the dependance, and we should be at peace with France and Spain were they at war with Britain.  The miseries of Hanover last war ought to warn us against connexions.\n\nIt has lately been asserted in parliament, that the colonies have no relation to each other but through the parent country, i.e. that Pennsylvania and the Jerseys, and so on for the rest, are sister colonies by the way of England; this is certainly a very round-about way of proving relationship, but it is the nearest and only true way of proving enemyship, if I may so call it.  France and Spain never were, nor perhaps ever will be our enemies as Americans, but as our being the subjects of Great-Britain.\n\nBut Britain is the parent country, say some.  Then the more shame upon her conduct.  Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families; wherefore the assertion, if true, turns to her reproach; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so, and the phrase parent or mother country hath been jesuitically adopted by the king and his parasites, with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds.  Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America.  This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe.  Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.\n\nIn this extensive quarter of the globe, we forget the narrow limits of three hundred and sixty miles (the extent of England) and carry our friendship on a larger scale; we claim brotherhood with every European christian, and triumph in the generosity of the sentiment.\n\nIt is pleasant to observe by what regular gradations we surmount the force of local prejudice, as we enlarge our acquaintance with the world.  A man born in any town in England divided into parishes, will naturally associate most with his fellow parishioners (because their interests in many cases will be common) and distinguish him by the name of neighbour; if he meet him but a few miles from home, he drops the narrow idea of a street, and salutes him by the name of townsman; if he travel out of the county, and meet him in any other, he forgets the minor divisions of street and town, and calls him countryman, i.e. county-man; but if in their foreign excursions they should associate in France or any other part of Europe, their local remembrance would be enlarged into that of Englishmen.  And by a just parity of reasoning, all Europeans meeting in America, or any other quarter of the globe, are countrymen; for England, Holland, Germany, or Sweden, when compared with the whole, stand in the same places on the larger scale, which the divisions of street, town, and county do on the smaller ones; distinctions too limited for continental minds.  Not one third of the inhabitants, even of this province, are of English descent.  Wherefore I reprobate the phrase of parent or mother country applied to England only, as being false, selfish, narrow and ungenerous.\n\nBut admitting, that we were all of English descent, what does it amount to?  Nothing.  Britain, being now an open enemy, extinguishes every other name and title:  And to say that reconciliation is our duty, is truly farcical.  The first king of England, of the present line (William the Conqueror) was a Frenchman, and half the Peers of England are descendants from the same country; therefore, by the same method of reasoning, England ought to be governed by France.\n\nMuch hath been said of the united strength of Britain and the colonies, that in conjunction they might bid defiance to the world.  But this is mere presumption; the fate of war is uncertain, neither do the expressions mean any thing; for this continent would never suffer itself to be drained of inhabitants, to support the British arms in either Asia, Africa, or Europe.\n\nBesides what have we to do with setting the world at defiance?  Our plan is commerce, and that, well attended to, will secure us the peace and friendship of all Europe; because, it is the interest of all Europe to have America a free port.  Her trade will always be a protection, and her barrenness of gold and silver secure her from invaders.\n\nI challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation, to shew, a single advantage that this continent can reap, by being connected with Great Britain.  I repeat the challenge, not a single advantage is derived. Our corn will fetch its price in any market in Europe, and our imported goods must be paid for buy them where we will.\n\nBut the injuries and disadvantages we sustain by that connection, are without number; and our duty to mankind at large, as well as to ourselves, instruct us to renounce the alliance: Because, any submission to, or dependance on Great-Britain, tends directly to involve this continent in European wars and quarrels; and sets us at variance with nations, who would otherwise seek our friendship, and against whom, we have neither anger nor complaint.  As Europe is our market for trade, we ought to form no partial connection with any part of it.  It is the true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions, which she never can do, while by her dependence on Britain, she is made the make-weight in the scale of British politics.\n\nEurope is too thickly planted with kingdoms to be long at peace, and whenever a war breaks out between England and any foreign power, the trade of America goes to ruin, because of her connection with Britain. The next war may not turn out like the last, and should it not, the advocates for reconciliation now will be wishing for separation then, because, neutrality in that case, would be a safer convoy than a man of war.  Every thing that is right or natural pleads for separation.  The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, ’Tis time to part. 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.  The time likewise at which the continent was discovered, adds weight to the argument, and the manner in which it was peopled encreases the force of it.  The reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety.\n\nThe authority of Great-Britain over this continent, is a form of government, which sooner or later must have an end: And a serious mind can draw no true pleasure by looking forward, under the painful and positive conviction, that what he calls “the present constitution” is merely temporary.  As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully.  In order to discover the line of our duty rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and fix our station a few years farther into life; that eminence will present a prospect, which a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our sight.\n\n### Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs, 2\n\nThough I would carefully avoid giving unnecessary offence, yet I am inclined to believe, that all those who espouse the doctrine of reconciliation, may be included within the following descriptions. Interested men, who are not to be trusted; weak men, who cannot see; prejudiced men, who will not see; and a certain set of moderate men, who think better of the European world than it deserves; and this last class, by an ill-judged deliberation, will be the cause of more calamities to this continent, than all the other three.\n\nIt is the good fortune of many to live distant from the scene of sorrow; the evil is not sufficient brought to their doors to make them feel the precariousness with which all American property is possessed. But let our imaginations transport us for a few moments to Boston, that seat of wretchedness will teach us wisdom, and instruct us for ever to renounce a power in whom we can have no trust. The inhabitants of that unfortunate city, who but a few months ago were in ease and affluence, have now, no other alternative than to stay and starve, or turn out to beg.  Endangered by the fire of their friends if they continue within the city, and plundered by the soldiery if they leave it.  In their present condition they are prisoners without the hope of redemption, and in a general attack for their relief, they would be exposed to the fury of both armies.\n\nMen of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over the offences of Britain, and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out, “Come, come, we shall be friends again, for all this.” But examine the passions and feelings of mankind, Bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature, and then tell me, whether you can hereafter love, honour, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land?  If you cannot do all these, then are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon posterity.  Your future connection with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honour, will be forced and unnatural, and being formed only on the plan of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a relapse more wretched than the first.  But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, Hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor?  If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have.  But if you have, and still can shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy of the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.\n\nThis is not inflaming or exaggerating matters, but trying them by those feelings and affections which nature justifies, and without which, we should be incapable of discharging the social duties of life, or enjoying the felicities of it.  I mean not to exhibit horror for the purpose of provoking revenge, but to awaken us from fatal and unmanly slumbers, that we may pursue determinately some fixed object.  It is not in the power of Britain or of Europe to conquer America, if she do not conquer herself by delay and timidity.  The present winter is worth an age if rightly employed, but if lost or neglected, the whole continent will partake of the misfortune; and there is no punishment which that man will not deserve, be he who, or what, or where he will, that may be the means of sacrificing a season so precious and useful.\n\nIt is repugnant to reason, to the universal order of things to all examples from former ages, to suppose, that this continent can longer remain subject to any external power.  The most sanguine in Britain does not think so.  The utmost stretch of human wisdom cannot, at this time, compass a plan short of separation, which can promise the continent even a year’s security.  Reconciliation is now a fallacious dream.  Nature hath deserted the connexion, and Art cannot supply her place.  For, as Milton wisely expresses, “never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep.”\n\nEvery quiet method for peace hath been ineffectual.  Our prayers have been rejected with disdain; and only tended to convince us, that nothing flatters vanity, or confirms obstinacy in Kings more than repeated petitioning—and nothing hath contributed more than that very measure to make the Kings of Europe absolute: Witness Denmark and Sweden.  Wherefore, since nothing but blows will do, for God’s sake, let us come to a final separation, and not leave the next generation to be cutting throats, under the violated unmeaning names of parent and child.\n\nTo say, they will never attempt it again is idle and visionary, we thought so at the repeal of the stamp-act, yet a year or two undeceived us; as well may we suppose that nations, which have been once defeated, will never renew the quarrel.\n\nAs to government matters, it is not in the power of Britain to do this continent justice:  The business of it will soon be too weighty, and intricate, to be managed with any tolerable degree of convenience, by a power, so distant from us, and so very ignorant of us; for if they cannot conquer us, they cannot govern us.  To be always running three or four thousand miles with a tale or a petition, waiting four or five months for an answer, which when obtained requires five or six more to explain it in, will in a few years be looked upon as folly and childishness—There was a time when it was proper, and there is a proper time for it to cease.\n\nSmall islands not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.  In no instance hath nature made the satellite larger than its primary planet, and as England and America, with respect to each other, reverses the common order of nature, it is evident they belong to different systems: England to Europe, America to itself.\n\nI am not induced by motives of pride, party, or resentment to espouse the doctrine of separation and independance; I am clearly, positively, and conscientiously persuaded that it is the true interest of this continent to be so; that every thing short of that is mere patchwork, that it can afford no lasting felicity,—that it is leaving the sword to our children, and shrinking back at a time, when, a little more, a little farther, would have rendered this continent the glory of the earth.\n\nAs Britain hath not manifested the least inclination towards a compromise, we may be assured that no terms can be obtained worthy the acceptance of the continent, or any ways equal to the expence of blood and treasure we have been already put to.\n\nThe 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 ballanced 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, it 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, it is as great a folly to pay a Bunker-hill price for law, as for land.  As I have always considered the independancy of this continent, as an event, which sooner or later must arrive, so from the late rapid progress of the continent to maturity, the event could not be far off.  Wherefore, on the breaking out of hostilities, it was not worth the while to have disputed a matter, which time would have finally redressed, unless we meant to be in earnest; otherwise, it is like wasting an estate on a suit at law, to regulate the trespasses of a tenant, whose lease is just expiring.  No man was a warmer wisher for reconciliation than myself, before the fatal nineteenth of April 1775, but the moment the event of that day was made known, I rejected the hardened, sullen tempered Pharaoh of England for ever; and disdain the wretch, that with the pretended title of father of his people can unfeelingly hear of their slaughter, and composedly sleep with their blood upon his soul.\n\nBut admitting that matters were now made up, what would be the event? I answer, the ruin of the continent.  And that for several reasons.\n\nFirst.  The powers of governing still remaining in the hands of the king, he will have a negative over the whole legislation of this continent.  And as he hath shewn himself such an inveterate enemy to liberty, and discovered such a thirst for arbitrary power; is he, or is he not, a proper man to say to these colonies, “You shall make no laws but what I please.” And is there any inhabitant in America so ignorant, as not to know, that according to what is called the present constitution, that this continent can make no laws but what the king gives leave to; and is there any man so unwise, as not to see, that (considering what has happened) he will suffer no law to be made here, but such as suit his purpose.  We may be as effectually enslaved by the want of laws in America, as by submitting to laws made for us in England.  After matters are made up (as it is called) can there be any doubt, but the whole power of the crown will be exerted, to keep this continent as low and humble as possible?  Instead of going forward we shall go backward, or be perpetually quarrelling or ridiculously petitioning.—We are already greater than the king wishes us to be, and will he not hereafter endeavour to make us less?  To bring the matter to one point.  Is the power who is jealous of our prosperity, a proper power to govern us?  Whoever says No to this question is an independant, for independancy means no more, than, whether we shall make our own laws, or whether the king, the greatest enemy this continent hath, or can have, shall tell us “there shall be no laws but such as I like.”\n\nBut the king you will say has a negative in England; the people there can make no laws without his consent.  In point of right and good order, there is something very ridiculous, that a youth of twenty-one (which hath often happened) shall say to several millions of people, older and wiser than himself, I forbid this or that act of yours to be law.  But in this place I decline this sort of reply, though I will never cease to expose the absurdity of it, and only answer, that England being the King’s residence, and America not so, makes quite another case.  The king’s negative here is ten times more dangerous and fatal than it can be in England, for there he will scarcely refuse his consent to a bill for putting England into as strong a state of defence as possible, and in America he would never suffer such a bill to be passed.\n\nAmerica is only a secondary object in the system of British politics, England consults the good of this country, no farther than it answers her own purpose.  Wherefore, her own interest leads her to suppress the growth 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 shew 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 subtilty, in the long run, what he cannot do by force and violence in the short one. Reconciliation and ruin are nearly related.\n\n### Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs, 3\n\nSecondly.  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 dispense of their effects, and quit the continent.\n\nBut the most powerful of all arguments, is, that nothing but independance, 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 somewhere or other, the consequences of which may be far more fatal than all the malice of Britain.\n\nThousands 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 independance, 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 are ten times more to dread from a patched up connexion than from independance.  I make the sufferers case my own, and I protest, that were I driven from house and home, my property destroyed, and my circumstances ruined, that as man, sensible of injuries, I could never relish the doctrine of reconciliation, or consider myself bound thereby.\n\n\"Cover\"\n\nOF THE PRESENT ABILITY OF AMERICA, WITH SOME MISCELLANEOUS REFLEXIONS.\n\nThe 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 pretence 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.\n\nWhere 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 Swisserland are without wars, foreign or domestic:  Monarchical governments, it is true, are never long at rest; the crown itself is a temptation to enterprizing 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 negociate the mistake.\n\nIf there is any true cause of fear respecting independance, 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.\n\nLet 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.\n\nLet 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 whole 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.\n\nBut 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.\n\nA 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 counsellors, and the whole, being impowered by the people, will have a truly legal authority.\n\nThe 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 is necessary for a charter to contain.  Immediately after which, the said Conference to dissolve, and the bodies which shall be chosen comformable 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.\n\nShould 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.\n\nDragonetti on virtue and rewards.”\n\nBut where says 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 Britain.  Yet 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 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.\n\nA 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 ¹ 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, may 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 independance 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 Negroes to destroy us, the cruelty hath a double guilt, it is dealing brutally by us, and treacherously by them.\n\n¹ Thomas Anello, otherwise Massanello, a fisherman of Naples, who after spiriting up his countrymen in the public market place, against the oppressions of the Spaniards, to whom the place was then subject, prompted them to revolt, and in the space of a day became king.\n\nTo 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?\n\nYe 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 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.\n\nO 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.\n\n### Of the Present Ability of America, with Some Miscellaneous Reflections, 1\n\nI have never met with a man, either in England or America, who hath not confessed his opinion, that a separation between the countries, would take place one time or other:  And there is no instance, in which we have shewn less judgment, than in endeavouring to describe, what we call, the ripeness or fitness of the Continent for independance.\n\nAs all men allow the measure, and vary only in their opinion of the time, let us, in order to remove mistakes, take a general survey of things, and endeavour, if possible, to find out the very time. But we need not go far, the inquiry ceases at once, for, the time hath found us.  The general concurrence, the glorious union of all things prove the fact.\n\nIt is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies; yet our present numbers are sufficient to repel the force of all the world. The Continent hath, at this time, the largest body of armed and disciplined men of any power under Heaven; and is just arrived at that pitch of strength, in which no single colony is able to support itself, and the whole, when united, can accomplish the matter, and either more, or, less than this, might be fatal in its effects.  Our land force is already sufficient, and as to naval affairs, we cannot be insensible, that Britain would never suffer an American man of war to be built, while the continent remained in her hands.  Wherefore, we should be no forwarder an hundred years hence in that branch, than we are now; but the truth is, we should be less so, because the timber of the country is every day diminishing, and that, which will remain at last, will be far off and difficult to procure.\n\nWere the continent crowded with inhabitants, her sufferings under the present circumstances would be intolerable.  The more sea port towns we had, the more should we have both to defend and to lose.  Our present numbers are so happily proportioned to our wants, that no man need be idle.  The diminution of trade affords an army, and the necessities of an army create a new trade.\n\nDebts we have none; and whatever we may contract on this account will serve as a glorious memento of our virtue.  Can we but leave posterity with a settled form of government, an independant constitution of its own, the purchase at any price will be cheap.  But to expend millions for the sake of getting a few vile acts repealed, and routing the present ministry only, is unworthy the charge, and is using posterity with the utmost cruelty; because it is leaving them the great work to do, and a debt upon their backs, from which they derive no advantage. Such a thought is unworthy a man of honor, and is the true characteristic of a narrow heart and a pedling politician.\n\nThe debt we may contract doth not deserve our regard if the work be but accomplished.  No nation ought to be without a debt.  A national debt is a national bond; and when it bears no interest, is in no case a grievance.  Britain is oppressed with a debt of upwards of one hundred and forty millions sterling, for which she pays upwards of four millions interest.  And as a compensation for her debt, she has a large navy; America is without a debt, and without a navy; yet for the twentieth part of the English national debt, could have a navy as large again.  The navy of England is not worth, at this time, more than three millions and an half sterling.\n\nThe first and second editions of this pamphlet were published without the following calculations, which are now given as a proof that the above estimation of the navy is just.  See Entic’s naval history, intro. page 56.\n\nThe charge of building a ship of each rate, and furnishing her with masts, yards, sails and rigging, together with a proportion of eight months boatswain’s and carpenter’s sea-stores, as calculated by Mr. Burchett, Secretary to the navy.\n\n£\n\n[pounds\n\nsterling]\n\nFor a ship of 100 guns = 35,553\n\n90\n\n= 29,886\n\n80\n\n= 23,638\n\n70\n\n= 17,785\n\n60\n\n= 14,197\n\n50\n\n= 10,606\n\n40\n\n= 7,558\n\n30\n\n= 5,846\n\n20\n\n= 3,710\n\nAnd from hence it is easy to sum up the value, or cost rather, of the whole British navy, which in the year 1757, when it was at its greatest glory consisted of the following ships and guns:\n\nShips. Guns.\n\nCost of one. Cost of all.\n\nCost in £ [pounds sterling]\n\n6 100\n\n35,553 213,318\n\n12 90\n\n29,886 358,632\n\n12 80\n\n23,638 283,656\n\n43 70\n\n17,785 764,755\n\n35 60\n\n14,197 496,895\n\n40 50\n\n10,606 424,240\n\n45 40\n\n7,558 340,110\n\n58 20\n\n3,710 215,180\n\n85 Sloops, bombs\n\nand fireships, one\n\nwith another, at } 2,000 170,000\n\n------------\n\nCost\n\n3,266,786\n\nRemains for Guns\n\n233,214\n\n------------\n\n3,500,000\n\nNo country on the globe is so happily situated, or so internally capable of raising a fleet as America.  Tar, timber, iron, and cordage are her natural produce.  We need go abroad for nothing.  Whereas the Dutch, who make large profits by hiring out their ships of war to the Spaniards and Portuguese, are obliged to import most of the materials they use.  We ought to view the building a fleet as an article of commerce, it being the natural manufactory of this country.  It is the best money we can lay out.  A navy when finished is worth more than it cost.  And is that nice point in national policy, in which commerce and protection are united.  Let us build; if we want them not, we can sell; and by that means replace our paper currency with ready gold and silver.\n\nIn point of manning a fleet, people in general run into great errors; it is not necessary that one fourth part should be sailors.  The Terrible privateer, Captain Death, stood the hottest engagement of any ship last war, yet had not twenty sailors on board, though her complement of men was upwards of two hundred.  A few able and social sailors will soon instruct a sufficient number of active landmen in the common work of a ship.  Wherefore, we never can be more capable to begin on maritime matters than now, while our timber is standing, our fisheries blocked up, and our sailors and shipwrights out of employ. Men of war, of seventy and eighty guns were built forty years ago in New-England, and why not the same now?  Ship-building is America’s greatest pride, and in which, she will in time excel the whole world. The great empires of the east are mostly inland, and consequently excluded from the possibility of rivalling her.  Africa is in a state of barbarism; and no power in Europe, hath either such an extent of coast, or such an internal supply of materials.  Where nature hath given the one, she has withheld the other; to America only hath she been liberal of both.  The vast empire of Russia is almost shut out from the sea; wherefore, her boundless forests, her tar, iron, and cordage are only articles of commerce.\n\nIn point of safety, ought we to be without a fleet?  We are not the little people now, which we were sixty years ago; at that time we might have trusted our property in the streets, or fields rather; and slept securely without locks or bolts to our doors or windows.  The case now is altered, and our methods of defence, ought to improve with our increase of property.  A common pirate, twelve months ago, might have come up the Delaware, and laid the city of Philadelphia under instant contribution, for what sum he pleased; and the same might have happened to other places.  Nay, any daring fellow, in a brig of fourteen or sixteen guns, might have robbed the whole Continent, and carried off half a million of money.  These are circumstances which demand our attention, and point out the necessity of naval protection.\n\nSome, perhaps, will say, that after we have made it up with Britain, she will protect us.  Can we be so unwise as to mean, that she shall keep a navy in our harbours for that purpose?  Common sense will tell us, that the power which hath endeavoured to subdue us, is of all others, the most improper to defend us.  Conquest may be effected under the pretence of friendship; and ourselves, after a long and brave resistance, be at last cheated into slavery.  And if her ships are not to be admitted into our harbours, I would ask, how is she to protect us?  A navy three or four thousand miles off can be of little use, and on sudden emergencies, none at all.  Wherefore, if we must hereafter protect ourselves, why not do it for ourselves?   Why do it for another?\n\nThe English list of ships of war, is long and formidable, but not a tenth part of them are at any one time fit for service, numbers of them not in being; yet their names are pompously continued in the list, if only a plank be left of the ship: and not a fifth part, of such as are fit for service, can be spared on any one station at one time.  The East and West Indies, Mediterranean, Africa, and other parts over which Britain extends her claim, make large demands upon her navy.  From a mixture of prejudice and inattention, we have contracted a false notion respecting the navy of England, and have talked as if we should have the whole of it to encounter at once, and for that reason, supposed, that we must have one as large; which not being instantly practicable, have been made use of by a set of disguised Tories to discourage our beginning thereon.  Nothing can be farther from truth than this; for if America had only a twentieth part of the naval force of Britain, she would be by far an over match for her; because, as we neither have, nor claim any foreign dominion, our whole force would be employed on our own coast, where we should, in the long run, have two to one the advantage of those who had three or four thousand miles to sail over, before they could attack us, and the same distance to return in order to refit and recruit.  And although Britain by her fleet, hath a check over our trade to Europe, we have as large a one over her trade to the West-Indies, which, by laying in the neighbourhood of the Continent, is entirely at its mercy.\n\nSome method might be fallen on to keep up a naval force in time of peace, if we should not judge it necessary to support a constant navy. If premiums were to be given to merchants, to build and employ in their service ships mounted with twenty, thirty, forty or fifty guns, (the premiums to be in proportion to the loss of bulk to the merchants) fifty or sixty of those ships, with a few guardships on constant duty, would keep up a sufficient navy, and that without burdening ourselves with the evil so loudly complained of in England, of suffering their fleet, in time of peace to lie rotting in the docks.  To unite the sinews of commerce and defense is sound policy; for when our strength and our riches play into each other’s hand, we need fear no external enemy.\n\n### Of the Present Ability of America, with Some Miscellaneous Reflections, 2\n\nIn almost every article of defense we abound.  Hemp flourishes even to rankness, so that we need not want cordage.  Our iron is superior to that of other countries.  Our small arms equal to any in the world. Cannon we can cast at pleasure.  Saltpetre and gunpowder we are every day producing.  Our knowledge is hourly improving.  Resolution is our inherent character, and courage hath never yet forsaken us.  Wherefore, what is it that we want?  Why is it that we hesitate?  From Britain we can expect nothing but ruin.  If she is once admitted to the government of America again, this Continent will not be worth living in. Jealousies will be always arising; insurrections will be constantly happening; and who will go forth to quell them?  Who will venture his life to reduce his own countrymen to a foreign obedience?  The difference between Pennsylvania and Connecticut, respecting some unlocated lands, shews the insignificance of a British government, and fully proves, that nothing but Continental authority can regulate Continental matters.\n\nAnother reason why the present time is preferable to all others, is, that the fewer our numbers are, the more land there is yet unoccupied, which instead of being lavished by the king on his worthless dependants, may be hereafter applied, not only to the discharge of the present debt, but to the constant support of government.  No nation under heaven hath such an advantage as this.\n\nThe infant state of the Colonies, as it is called, so far from being against, is an argument in favour of independance.  We are sufficiently numerous, and were we more so, we might be less united.  It is a matter worthy of observation, that the more a country is peopled, the smaller their armies are.  In military numbers, the ancients far exceeded the moderns: and the reason is evident.  For trade being the consequence of population, men become too much absorbed thereby to attend to anything else.  Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defence.  And history sufficiently informs us, that the bravest achievements were always accomplished in the non-age of a nation.  With the increase of commerce, England hath lost its spirit.  The city of London, notwithstanding its numbers, submits to continued insults with the patience of a coward.  The more men have to lose, the less willing are they to venture.  The rich are in general slaves to fear, and submit to courtly power with the trembling duplicity of a Spaniel.\n\nYouth is the seed time of good habits, as well in nations as in individuals.  It might be difficult, if not impossible, to form the Continent into one government half a century hence.  The vast variety of interests, occasioned by an increase of trade and population, would create confusion.  Colony would be against colony.  Each being able might scorn each other’s assistance: and while the proud and foolish gloried in their little distinctions, the wise would lament, that the union had not been formed before.  Wherefore, the present time is the true time for establishing it.  The intimacy which is contracted in infancy, and the friendship which is formed in misfortune, are, of all others, the most lasting and unalterable.  Our present union is marked with both these characters: we are young and we have been distressed; but our concord hath withstood our troubles, and fixes a memorable area for posterity to glory in.\n\nThe present time, likewise, is that peculiar time, which never happens to a nation but once, viz. the time of forming itself into a government.  Most nations have let slip the opportunity, and by that means have been compelled to receive laws from their conquerors, instead of making laws for themselves.  First, they had a king, and then a form of government; whereas, the articles or charter of government, should be formed first, and men delegated to execute them afterward: but from the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom, and lay hold of the present opportunity—To begin government at the right end.\n\nWhen William the Conqueror subdued England, he gave them law at the point of the sword; and until we consent, that the seat of government, in America, be legally and authoritatively occupied, we shall be in danger of having it filled by some fortunate ruffian, who may treat us in the same manner, and then, where will be our freedom? where our property?\n\nAs to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of all government, to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith. Let a man throw aside that narrowness of soul, that selfishness of principle, which the niggards of all professions are so unwilling to part with, and he will be at once delivered of his fears on that head.  Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.  For myself, I fully and conscientiously believe, that it is the will of the Almighty, that there should be diversity of religious opinions among us: It affords a larger field for our Christian kindness.  Were we all of one way of thinking, our religious dispositions would want matter for probation; and on this liberal principle, I look on the various denominations among us, to be like children of the same family, differing only, in what is called, their Christian names.\n\nIn\n\npage forty, I threw out a few thoughts on the propriety of a Continental Charter, (for I only presume to offer hints, not plans) and in this place, I take the liberty of re-mentioning the subject, by observing, that a charter is to be understood as a bond of solemn obligation, which the whole enters into, to support the right of every separate part, whether of religion, personal freedom, or property.  A firm bargain and a right reckoning make long friends.\n\nIn a\n\nformer page I likewise mentioned the necessity of a large and equal representation; and there is no political matter which more deserves our attention.  A small number of electors, or a small number of representatives, are equally dangerous.  But if the number of the representatives be not only small, but unequal, the danger is increased.  As an instance of this, I mention the following; when the Associators petition was before the House of Assembly of Pennsylvania; twenty-eight members only were present, all the Bucks county members, being eight, voted against it, and had seven of the Chester members done the same, this whole province had been governed by two counties only, and this danger it is always exposed to.  The unwarrantable stretch likewise, which that house made in their last sitting, to gain an undue authority over the delegates of that province, ought to warn the people at large, how they trust power out of their own hands.  A set of instructions for the Delegates were put together, which in point of sense and business would have dishonoured a schoolboy, and after being approved by a few, a very few without doors, were carried into the House, and there passed in behalf of the whole colony; whereas, did the whole colony know, with what ill-will that House hath entered on some necessary public measures, they would not hesitate a moment to think them unworthy of such a trust.\n\nImmediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions.  Expedience and right are different things.  When the calamities of America required a consultation, there was no method so ready, or at that time so proper, as to appoint persons from the several Houses of Assembly for that purpose; and the wisdom with which they have proceeded hath preserved this continent from ruin.  But as it is more than probable that we shall never be without a Congress, every well wisher to good order, must own, that the mode for choosing members of that body, deserves consideration.  And I put it as a question to those, who make a study of mankind, whether representation and election is not too great a power for one and the same body of men to possess? When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember, that virtue is not hereditary.\n\nIt is from our enemies that we often gain excellent maxims, and are frequently surprised into reason by their mistakes. Mr. Cornwall (one of the Lords of the Treasury) treated the petition of the New-York Assembly with contempt, because that House, he said, consisted but of twenty-six members, which trifling number, he argued, could not with decency be put for the whole.  We thank him for his involuntary honesty. ¹\n\n¹ Those who would fully understand of what great consequence a large and equal representation is to a state, should read Burgh’s political disquisitions.\n\nTo Conclude, however strange it may appear to some, or however unwilling they may be to think so, matters not, but many strong and striking reasons may be given, to shew, that nothing can settle our affairs so expeditiously as an open and determined declaration for independance. Some of which are,\n\nFirst.—It is the custom of nations, when any two are at war, for some other powers, not engaged in the quarrel, to step in as mediators, and bring about the preliminaries of a peace: but while America calls herself the Subject of Great-Britain, no power, however well disposed she may be, can offer her mediation.  Wherefore, in our present state we may quarrel on for ever.\n\nSecondly.—It is unreasonable to suppose, that France or Spain will give us any kind of assistance, if we mean only, to make use of that assistance for the purpose of repairing the breach, and strengthening the connection between Britain and America; because, those powers would be sufferers by the consequences.\n\nThirdly.—While we profess ourselves the subjects of Britain, we must, in the eye of foreign nations, be considered as rebels. The precedent is somewhat dangerous to their peace, for men to be in arms under the name of subjects; we, on the spot, can solve the paradox: but to unite resistance and subjection, requires an idea much too refined for common understanding.\n\nFourthly.—Were a manifesto to be published, and despatched to foreign courts, setting forth the miseries we have endured, and the peaceable methods we have ineffectually used for redress; declaring, at the same time, that not being able, any longer, to live happily or safely under the cruel disposition of the British court, we had been driven to the necessity of breaking off all connections with her; at the same time, assuring all such courts of our peaceable disposition towards them, and of our desire of entering into trade with them: Such a memorial would produce more good effects to this Continent, than if a ship were freighted with petitions to Britain.\n\nUnder our present denomination of British subjects, we can neither be received nor heard abroad: The custom of all courts is against us, and will be so, until, by an independance, we take rank with other nations.\n\nThese proceedings may at first appear strange and difficult; but, like all other steps which we have already passed over, will in a little time become familiar and agreeable; and, until an independance is declared, the Continent will feel itself like a man who continues putting off some unpleasant business from day to day, yet knows it must be done, hates to set about it, wishes it over, and is continually haunted with the thoughts of its necessity.\n\n### Appendix, 1\n\nSince the publication of the first edition of this pamphlet, or rather, on the same day on which it came out, the King’s Speech made its appearance in this city.  Had the spirit of prophecy directed the birth of this production, it could not have brought it forth, at a more seasonable juncture, or a more necessary time.  The bloody mindedness of the one, shew the necessity of pursuing the doctrine of the other. Men read by way of revenge.  And the Speech, instead of terrifying, prepared a way for the manly principles of Independance.\n\nCeremony, and even, silence, from whatever motive they may arise, have a hurtful tendency, when they give the least degree of countenance to base and wicked performances; wherefore, if this maxim be admitted, it naturally follows, that the King’s Speech, as being a piece of finished villainy, deserved, and still deserves, a general execration both by the Congress and the people.  Yet, as the domestic tranquillity of a nation, depends greatly, on the chastity of what may properly be called national manners, it is often better, to pass some things over in silent disdain, than to make use of such new methods of dislike, as might introduce the least innovation, on that guardian of our peace and safety.  And, perhaps, it is chiefly owing to this prudent delicacy, that the King’s Speech, hath not, before now, suffered a public execution.  The Speech if it may be called one, is nothing better than a wilful audacious libel against the truth, the common good, and the existence of mankind; and is a formal and pompous method of offering up human sacrifices to the pride of tyrants.  But this general massacre of mankind, is one of the privileges, and the certain consequence of Kings; for as nature knows them not, they know not her, and although they are beings of our own creating, they know not us, and are become the gods of their creators.  The Speech hath one good quality, which is, that it is not calculated to deceive, neither can we, even if we would, be deceived by it.  Brutality and tyranny appear on the face of it.  It leaves us at no loss: And every line convinces, even in the moment of reading, that He, who hunts the woods for prey, the naked and untutored Indian, is less a Savage than the King of Britain.\n\nSir John Dalrymple, the putative father of a whining jesuitical piece, fallaciously called, “The Address of the people of England to the inhabitants of America,” hath, perhaps, from a vain supposition, that the people here were to be frightened at the pomp and description of a king, given, (though very unwisely on his part) the real character of the present one:  “But” says this writer, “if you are inclined to pay compliments to an administration, which we do not complain of,” (meaning the Marquis of Rockingham’s at the repeal of the Stamp Act) “it is very unfair in you to withhold them from that prince, by whose nod alone they were permitted to do any thing.” This is toryism with a witness!  Here is idolatry even without a mask: And he who can calmly hear, and digest such doctrine, hath forfeited his claim to rationality—an apostate from the order of manhood; and ought to be considered—as one, who hath not only given up the proper dignity of man, but sunk himself beneath the rank of animals, and contemptibly crawls through the world like a worm.\n\nHowever, it matters very little now, what the king of England either says or does; he hath wickedly broken through every moral and human obligation, trampled nature and conscience beneath his feet; and by a steady and constitutional spirit of insolence and cruelty, procured for himself an universal hatred.  It is now the interest of America to provide for herself.  She hath already a large and young family, whom it is more her duty to take care of, than to be granting away her property, to support a power who is become a reproach to the names of men and christians—Ye, whose office it is to watch over the morals of a nation, of whatsoever sect or denomination ye are of, as well as ye, who are more immediately the guardians of the public liberty, if ye wish to preserve your native country uncontaminated by European corruption, ye must in secret wish a separation—But leaving the moral part to private reflection, I shall chiefly confine my farther remarks to the following heads.\n\nFirst.  That it is the interest of America to be separated from Britain.\n\nSecondly.  Which is the easiest and most practicable plan, reconciliation or independance? with some occasional remarks.\n\nIn 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 doth not yet know what opulence is; and although the progress which she hath 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 independant of each other as France and Spain; because in many articles, neither can go to a better market.  But it is the independance of this country of 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.\n\nFirst.  Because it will come to that one time or other.\n\nSecondly.  Because, the longer it is delayed the harder it will be to accomplish.\n\nI have frequently amused myself both in public and private companies, with silently remarking, the specious errors of those who speak without reflecting.  And among the many which I have heard, the following seems the most general, viz. that had this rupture happened forty or fifty years hence, instead of now, the Continent would have been more able to have shaken off the dependance.  To which I reply, that our military ability, at this time, arises from the experience gained in the last war, and which in forty or fifty years time, would have been totally extinct.  The Continent, would not, by that time, have had a General, or even a military officer left; and we, or those who may succeed us, would have been as ignorant of martial matters as the ancient Indians: And this single position, closely attended to, will unanswerably prove, that the present time is preferable to all others.  The argument turns thus—at the conclusion of the last war, we had experience, but wanted numbers; and forty or fifty years hence, we should have numbers, without experience; wherefore, the proper point of time, must be some particular point between the two extremes, in which a sufficiency of the former remains, and a proper increase of the latter is obtained: And that point of time is the present time.\n\nThe reader will pardon this digression, as it does not properly come under the head I first set out with, and to which I again return by the following position, viz.\n\nShould affairs be patched up with Britain, and she to remain the governing and sovereign power of America, (which, as matters are now circumstanced, is giving up the point intirely) we shall deprive ourselves of the very means of sinking the debt we have, or may contract.  The value of the back lands which some of the provinces are clandestinely deprived of, by the unjust extention of the limits of Canada, valued only at five pounds sterling per hundred acres, amount to upwards of twenty-five millions, Pennsylvania currency; and the quit-rents at one penny sterling per acre, to two millions yearly.\n\nIt is by the sale of those lands that the debt may be sunk, without burthen to any, and the quit-rent reserved thereon, will always lessen, and in time, will wholly support the yearly expence of government.  It matters not how long the debt is in paying, so that the lands when sold be applied to the discharge of it, and for the execution of which, the Congress for the time being, will be the continental trustees.\n\nI proceed now to the second head, viz. Which is the easiest and most practicable plan, reconciliation or independance; with some occasional remarks.\n\nHe who takes nature for his guide is not easily beaten out of his argument, and on that ground, I answer generally—That independance 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.\n\n### Appendix, 2\n\nThe present state of America is truly alarming to every man who is capable of reflexion.  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 endeavouring to dissolve.  Our present condition, is, Legislation without law; wisdom without a plan; constitution without a name; and, what is strangely astonishing, perfect Independance contending for dependance.  The instance is without a precedent; the case never existed before; and who can tell what may be the event?  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, every one thinks himself at liberty to act as he pleases.  The Tories dared not have assembled 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.\n\nNotwithstanding our wisdom, there is a visible feebleness in some of our proceedings which gives encouragement to dissensions.  The Continental Belt is too loosely buckled.  And if something is not done in time, it will be too late to do any thing, and we shall fall into a state, in which, neither Reconciliation nor Independance will be practicable.  The king and his worthless adherents are got at their old game of dividing the Continent, and there are not wanting among us, Printers, who will be busy in spreading specious falsehoods. The artful and hypocritical letter which appeared a few months ago in two of the New-York papers, and likewise in two others, is an evidence that there are men who want either judgment or honesty.\n\nIt is easy getting into holes and corners and talking of reconciliation: But do such men seriously consider, how difficult the task is, and how dangerous it may prove, should the Continent divide thereon.  Do they take within their view, all the various orders of men whose situation and circumstances, as well as their own, are to be considered therein.  Do they put themselves in the place of the sufferer whose all is already gone, and of the soldier, who hath quitted all for the defence of his country. If their ill judged moderation be suited to their own private situations only, regardless of others, the event will convince them, that “they are reckoning without their Host.”\n\nPut us, say some, on the footing we were on in sixty-three: To which I answer, the request is not now in the power of Britain to comply with, neither will she propose it; but if it were, and even should be granted, I ask, as a reasonable question, By what means is such a corrupt and faithless court to be kept to its engagements?  Another parliament, nay, even the present, may hereafter repeal the obligation, on the pretence, of its being violently obtained, or unwisely granted; and in that case, Where is our redress?—No going to law with nations; cannon are the barristers of Crowns; and the sword, not of justice, but of war, decides the suit.  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 defence) 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.”\n\nBesides, 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 obedience thereto.  The object, on either side, doth 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 defence became necessary, all subjection to Britain ought to have ceased; and the independancy of America, should have been considered, as dating its æra 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.\n\nI shall conclude these remarks, with the following timely and well intended hints.  We ought to reflect, that there are three different ways, by which an independancy 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 independancy 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, hath 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 Reflexion is awful—and in this point of view, How trifling, how ridiculous, do the little, paltry cavellings, of a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed against the business of a world.\n\nShould we neglect the present favorable and inviting period, and an Independance be hereafter effected by any other means, we must charge the consequence to ourselves, or to those rather, whose narrow and prejudiced souls, are habitually opposing the measure, without either inquiring or reflecting.  There are reasons to be given in support of Independance, which men should rather privately think of, than be publicly told of.  We ought not now to be debating whether we shall be independant or not, but, anxious to accomplish it on a firm, secure, and honorable basis, and uneasy rather that it is not yet began upon. Every day convinces us of its necessity.  Even the Tories (if such beings yet remain among us) should, of all men, be the most solicitous to promote it; for, as the appointment of committees at first, protected them from popular rage, so, a wise and well established form of government, will be the only certain means of continuing it securely to them.  Wherefore, if they have not virtue enough to be Whigs, they ought to have prudence enough to wish for Independance.\n\nIn short, Independance is the only Bond that can tye 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, whom 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 independantly 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 be not accepted, other courts may be applied to.\n\nOn these grounds I rest the matter.  And as no offer hath 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 favour 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 neighbour the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line, which, like an act of oblivion shall bury in forgetfulness every former dissension. 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 INDEPENDANT STATES OF AMERICA.","download_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/common-sense/original.txt"},"translations":[{"id":"trn_common_sense_mouseia","translator":"Mouseia","kind":"curated","note":"Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the complete 1776 Bradford-edition English text (introduction, four sections and the appendix) for fidelity, the author’s force and cadence, and modern clarity.","text":"### Introduction\n\nPerhaps the sentiments in the following pages are not yet fashionable enough to win general favor. A long habit of not thinking something wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and at first raises a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.\n\nA long and violent abuse of power generally leads people to question the right to exercise it—even in matters they might never have considered had their suffering not driven them to inquire. The King of England has undertaken, by his own authority, to support Parliament in what he calls its rights; and the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by their alliance. They therefore have an unquestionable right to examine the claims of both, and equally to reject the usurpation of either.\n\nIn the following pages, the author has deliberately avoided everything personal among ourselves. Neither praise nor censure of individuals has a place here. The wise and worthy have no need of a pamphlet's triumph; and those whose views are unsound or unfriendly will fade away on their own, unless too much effort is spent trying to convert them.\n\nThe cause of America is, in great measure, the cause of all humanity. Many circumstances have arisen, and will arise, that are not local but universal. They touch the principles of all who love humanity, and their outcome engages those people's sympathies. To lay a country waste with fire and sword, to declare war on the natural rights of all humanity, and to wipe their defenders from the face of the earth—these are the concern of everyone to whom nature has given the power to feel. Among them, regardless of partisan censure, is the\n\nAUTHOR\n\nP.S. The publication of this new edition has been delayed so that it might address any attempt to refute the doctrine of Independence, had that proved necessary. Since no answer has yet appeared, it is now presumed that none will: the time needed to prepare such a work for the public has long since passed.\n\nThe identity of the author of this work is wholly irrelevant to the public, for the subject deserving attention is the doctrine itself, not the man. Yet it may be worth saying that he belongs to no party and is under no public or private influence except that of reason and principle.\n\nPhiladelphia, February 14, 1776\n\n### Of the Origin and Design of Government in General, with Concise Remarks on the English Constitution\n\nSome writers have so confused society with government that they leave little or no distinction between them. Yet they are not only different; they have different origins. Society arises from our needs, government from our wickedness. The first promotes our happiness directly by joining our affections; the second does so indirectly by restraining our vices. One encourages human connection, the other creates divisions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.\n\nSociety in every condition is a blessing, but government even at its best is only a necessary evil; at its worst, an intolerable one. When a government makes us suffer, or exposes us to the same miseries we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is made worse by the thought that we ourselves supply the means of our suffering. Government, like clothing, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings stand on the ruins of the shelters of paradise. If conscience spoke clearly and consistently, and its commands were obeyed without fail, humanity would need no other lawgiver. But because that is not so, a person must surrender part of his property to provide for the protection of the rest. The same prudence that tells him in every other case to choose the lesser of two evils leads him to do it. Since security is the true purpose and end of government, it follows beyond dispute that the form most likely to provide it, at the least expense and with the greatest benefit, is preferable to every other.\n\nTo understand clearly and fairly the purpose and end of government, let us imagine a few people settling in an isolated part of the earth, cut off from everyone else. They will represent the first settlement of any country—or of the world. In this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought. A thousand motives will draw them together: one person's strength falls so far short of his needs, and his mind is so ill suited to perpetual solitude, that he soon must seek another's help and comfort; that other person needs the same in turn. Four or five working together could build a tolerable dwelling in the wilderness, while one person might toil beyond an ordinary lifetime and accomplish nothing. Once he felled his timber, he could neither move it nor raise it after moving it. Hunger would pull him from his work, and each different need would draw him in a different direction. Illness, or even misfortune, would mean death: though neither need be fatal in itself, either would make him unable to sustain his life, leaving him to perish rather than simply die.\n\nNecessity, like a force of gravity, would soon draw our newly arrived emigrants into a society. Its mutual benefits would make the obligations of law and government unnecessary so long as they remained perfectly fair to one another. But nothing except heaven is beyond the reach of vice. Inevitably, as they overcome the first difficulties of emigration that united them in a common cause, they will begin to neglect their duties and loosen their bonds with one another. This neglect will show the need to establish some form of government to make up for the shortfall in moral virtue.\n\nSome convenient tree will serve as their statehouse, beneath whose branches the entire colony can gather to deliberate on public affairs. Their first laws will probably be called no more than regulations and be enforced by no penalty but public disapproval. In this first parliament, every person will have a seat by natural right.\n\nAs the colony grows, its public concerns will grow too; and the distances separating its members will make it too inconvenient for them all to meet on every occasion as they did when they were few, lived close together, and faced only a few trivial public concerns. They will see the advantage of entrusting legislation to a select number chosen from the whole community—people assumed to have the same interests at stake as those who choose them, and to act as the whole community would act if present. If the colony keeps growing, the number of representatives must increase. To ensure that the interests of every part of the colony receive attention, the best course will be to divide it into suitable districts, each sending its proper number. And to prevent those elected from forming interests apart from their electors, prudence will call for frequent elections. Representatives will then return within a few months to live among the general body of voters, and the prudent thought of not making a rod for their own backs will secure their fidelity to the public. This frequent interchange will establish a shared interest throughout the community; its parts will naturally support one another. On this—not on the empty title of king—depend the strength of government and the happiness of the governed.\n\nHere, then, is the origin and rise of government: a means made necessary because moral virtue cannot govern the world. Here too is its purpose and end: freedom and security. However show may dazzle our eyes or sound deceive our ears, however prejudice may twist our wills or self-interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and reason will tell us what is right.\n\nMy view of the proper form of government comes from a principle of nature that no artifice can overturn: the simpler a thing is, the less likely it is to fall into disorder, and the easier it is to repair when it does. With this maxim in mind, I offer a few remarks on the much-praised constitution of England. I grant that it was noble in the dark and servile age in which it was established. When tyranny overran the world, the smallest step away from it was a glorious deliverance. But it is easy to show that this constitution is imperfect, subject to upheavals, and incapable of providing what it appears to promise.\n\nAbsolute governments, though a disgrace to human nature, have one advantage: they are simple. If the people suffer, they know the source of their suffering and the remedy, and are not bewildered by a multitude of causes and cures. But England's constitution is so exceedingly complex that the nation may suffer for years without discovering where the fault lies. Some will point to one part, some to another, and every political physician will prescribe a different medicine.\n\nI know it is difficult to overcome local or long-standing prejudices. Yet if we allow ourselves to examine the parts of the English constitution, we will find the base remnants of two ancient tyrannies mingled with some new republican elements.\n\nFirst.—The remnants of monarchical tyranny in the person of the king.\n\nSecondly.—The remnants of aristocratic tyranny in the persons of the peers.\n\nThirdly.—The new republican elements in the persons of the commons, on whose virtue England's freedom depends.\n\nThe first two, being hereditary, are independent of the people; thus, in a constitutional sense, they contribute nothing to the freedom of the state.\n\nTo call the English constitution a union of three powers that check one another is a farce: either the words have no meaning or they contradict one another outright.\n\nTo say that the commons check the king presupposes two things:\n\nFirst.—That the king cannot be trusted without supervision; in other words, that a thirst for absolute power is monarchy's natural disease.\n\nSecondly.—That the commons, appointed to supervise him, are either wiser or more worthy of trust than the crown.\n\nYet the very constitution that gives the commons power to check the king by withholding funds also gives the king power to check the commons by rejecting their other bills. It thus supposes, in turn, that the king is wiser than those it has already supposed wiser than he is. Sheer absurdity!\n\nThere is something exceedingly ridiculous in the makeup of monarchy. It first cuts a man off from the means of learning about the world, then empowers him to act where the soundest judgment is needed. A king's station shuts him away from the world, while a king's duties require him to know it thoroughly. These parts unnaturally oppose and defeat each other, proving the entire role absurd and useless.\n\nSome writers have explained the English constitution this way: the king, they say, stands on one side and the people on the other; the peers form a house for the king, the commons a house for the people. But this has all the divisions of a house set against itself. However pleasingly the terms are arranged, on examination they prove empty and ambiguous. Even the most precise wording, applied to something that cannot exist or is too incomprehensible to describe, will amount to sound alone: it may entertain the ear but cannot inform the mind. For this explanation leaves a prior question unanswered: how did the king acquire a power that the people are afraid to trust and always obliged to check? Such a power could not be the gift of a wise people, nor could any power that requires checking come from God. Yet the constitution's provisions assume that this power exists.\n\nBut those provisions are unequal to the task: the means either cannot or will not achieve the end, and the whole arrangement defeats itself. The greater weight will always lift the lesser, and one driving force sets all the wheels of a machine in motion. We need only determine which power in the constitution carries the greatest weight, for that power will govern. Though the others, or some of them, may impede—or, as people say, check—the speed of its movement, their efforts are futile so long as they cannot stop it. The driving power will have its way at last; time will make up for any loss of speed.\n\nIt hardly needs saying that the crown is this overpowering part of the English constitution. It is equally clear that its whole influence comes simply from its power to hand out offices and pensions. Thus, though we were wise enough to shut and lock the door against absolute monarchy, we were foolish enough to give the crown the key.\n\nEnglish prejudice in favor of government by king, lords, and commons springs at least as much from national pride as from reason. Individuals are undoubtedly safer in England than in some other countries. But the king's will is as much the law of the land in Britain as in France, with this difference: instead of coming directly from his mouth, it reaches the people in the more formidable form of an act of Parliament. The fate of Charles the first has only made kings more subtle—not more just.\n\nSet aside national pride and prejudice in favor of particular forms, and the plain truth is this: the crown is less oppressive in England than in Turkey entirely because of the character of the people, not the structure of the government.\n\nAn inquiry into the constitutional flaws of English government is urgently needed now. We cannot judge others fairly while we remain under the sway of a powerful bias; nor can we judge ourselves fairly while bound by a stubborn prejudice. As a man attached to a prostitute is unfit to choose or judge a wife, so a prior attachment to a rotten form of government will leave us unable to recognize a good one.\n\n### Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession, 1\n\nHuman beings were originally equals in the order of creation; that equality could only have been undone by some later circumstance. The distinctions between rich and poor can largely be explained without resorting to the harsh, discordant words oppression and greed. Oppression is often a consequence of wealth, but seldom, if ever, the means of acquiring it; and although greed may keep a person from desperate poverty, it generally makes him too timid to become wealthy.\n\nBut there is another, greater distinction for which no genuinely natural or religious reason can be given: the division of people into kings and subjects. Male and female are nature's distinctions; good and bad are heaven's. How one line of people came to be raised so high above the rest, set apart as though they were a new species, deserves investigation—as does the question whether they bring humanity happiness or misery.\n\nIn the world's early ages, according to the chronology of scripture, there were no kings; consequently there were no wars. It is the pride of kings that throws humanity into turmoil. Holland, without a king, has enjoyed more peace over this last century than any of Europe's monarchies. Antiquity bears out the same observation: there is something happily peaceful about the quiet, rural lives of the first patriarchs, and it vanishes when we reach the history of Jewish royalty.\n\nKingship was first introduced into the world by the pagans, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most successful invention the Devil ever devised to promote idolatry. The pagans paid divine honors to their dead kings, and the Christian world has improved upon the plan by paying the same honors to living ones. How impious to call a worm “sacred majesty” when, even amid his splendor, he is crumbling into dust!\n\nExalting one man so far above the rest cannot be justified by the equal rights of nature, nor can it be defended by scripture. The will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet Samuel, expressly condemns government by kings. In monarchies, every passage of scripture opposed to monarchy has been smoothly explained away; but such passages certainly deserve the attention of countries still shaping their governments. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” is the scriptural teaching favored by courts, yet it offers no support for monarchy: at that time the Jews had no king and lived as vassals of Rome.\n\nNearly three thousand years passed from the Mosaic account of creation before the Jews, under a national delusion, asked for a king. Until then their government—except on extraordinary occasions when the Almighty intervened—was a kind of republic administered by a judge and the elders of the tribes. They had no kings, and it was considered sinful to acknowledge anyone but the Lord of Hosts by that title. Anyone who seriously reflects on the idolatrous homage paid to the persons of kings need not wonder that the Almighty, ever jealous of his honor, should disapprove of a form of government that so impiously usurps heaven's prerogative.\n\nScripture ranks monarchy among the sins of the Jews and pronounces a curse held in reserve for them because of it. The story of that event deserves attention.\n\nWhen the children of Israel were oppressed by the Midianites, Gideon marched against them with a small army, and divine intervention gave him victory. Elated by success and attributing it to Gideon's leadership, the Jews proposed to make him king, saying, “Rule over us, you and your son and your son's son.” Here was temptation in its fullest form: not just a kingdom, but a hereditary one. Yet Gideon answered in the piety of his soul, “I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you. The Lord shall rule over you.” Words could hardly be more explicit. Gideon does not decline the honor but denies their right to bestow it. Nor does he flatter them with manufactured thanks: in the firm voice of a prophet he charges them with disloyalty to their rightful sovereign, the King of heaven.\n\nAbout one hundred and thirty years later, they fell into the same error again. The Jews' longing for the idolatrous customs of the pagans is exceedingly hard to account for. Yet, seizing on the misconduct of Samuel's two sons, to whom some worldly affairs had been entrusted, they came abruptly and noisily to Samuel and said, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways. Now appoint us a king to judge us like all the other nations.” We cannot fail to see how bad their motive was: they wanted to be like the other nations—that is, the pagans—when their true glory lay in being as unlike them as possible. But Samuel was displeased when they said, “Give us a king to judge us”; and Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to everything the people say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me, SO THAT I SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM. As they have done ever since the day I brought them out of Egypt, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who will reign over them.” This meant not the ways of any particular king but those of kings in general, whom Israel was so eager to imitate. Despite the great passage of time and the change in customs, that portrait remains true to this day. Samuel told the people who had asked him for a king everything the Lord had said. And he said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and assign them to his chariots and as his horsemen, and some will run before his chariots” (this description accords with the present practice of pressing men into service), “and he will appoint commanders over thousands and commanders over fifties, and set men to plow his land and reap his harvest, and to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots; and he will take your daughters to make confections, and to cook and bake” (this describes the expense and luxury of kings as well as their oppression), “and he will take your fields and your olive groves, even the best of them, and give them to his servants; and he will take a tenth of your seed and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his servants” (from which we see that bribery, corruption, and favoritism are the abiding vices of kings), “and he will take a tenth of your male servants and female servants, your finest young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work; and he will take a tenth of your sheep, and you will be his servants. On that day you will cry out because of the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not hear you on that day.” This explains why monarchy continues; nor do the few good kings who have lived since make the title sacred or erase the sin of its origin. The high praise given to David refers not to his office as king but only to him as a man after God's own heart. Nevertheless, the people refused to heed Samuel's voice and said, “No, we will have a king over us, so that we may be like all the nations, and our king may judge us, go out before us, and fight our battles.” Samuel went on reasoning with them, but in vain. He laid their ingratitude before them, but nothing prevailed. Seeing them fully committed to their folly, he cried out, “I will call upon the Lord, and he will send thunder and rain” (a punishment at that time, because it was the wheat harvest), “so that you may perceive and see how great a wickedness you have committed in the Lord's sight by asking for a king.” Samuel called upon the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said to Samuel, “Pray to the Lord your God for your servants, so that we do not die; for we have added this evil to our sins by asking for a king.” These passages of scripture are direct and definite. They admit of no ambiguous interpretation. Either the Almighty has here protested against monarchical government or scripture is false. There is good reason to believe that keeping scripture from the public in Catholic countries serves kings as much as it serves priests. For monarchy in every form is the papacy of government.\n\nTo the evil of monarchy we have added the evil of hereditary succession. The first degrades and diminishes us; the second, claimed as a right, insults and imposes upon posterity. Since all human beings were originally equals, no one could acquire by birth the right to place his family forever above all others. Though he himself might deserve a fitting measure of honor from his contemporaries, his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit it. One of nature's strongest proofs of the folly of hereditary kingship is her own disapproval of it: otherwise she would not so often make a mockery of it by giving humanity an ass in place of a lion.\n\n### Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession, 2\n\nSecond, since no man at first could possess any public honors except those conferred upon him, those who conferred them could have had no power to give away the rights of posterity. Though they might say, “We choose you as our head,” they could not, without a manifest injustice to their children, say, “Your children and your children’s children shall rule over ours forever.” Such an unwise, unjust, unnatural bargain might, at the next succession, place them under the rule of a scoundrel or a fool. Most wise people have always privately regarded hereditary right with contempt; yet it is one of those evils that, once established, cannot easily be removed. Many submit out of fear, others out of superstition, while the more powerful share with the king the spoils taken from everyone else.\n\nThis assumes that the present line of kings throughout the world had honorable beginnings. Yet it is more than likely that, if we could strip away the dark veil of antiquity and trace them to their origins, we would find that the first king was no better than the chief ruffian of some unruly gang. His savage ways or superior cunning won him the title of leader among plunderers; as his power and raids expanded, he intimidated peaceful and defenseless people into buying their safety with regular payments. Yet those who chose him could not have intended to grant hereditary rights to his descendants, since permanently excluding themselves from power would have contradicted the free and unrestrained principles by which they professed to live. Hereditary succession, then, could not have arisen in the early days of monarchy as an entitlement, but only as a matter of chance or courtesy. Since few records, if any, survived from those days, and oral history was crowded with fables, it was easy, after a few generations, to invent some conveniently timed, superstitious tale, in the manner of Mahomet, and force hereditary right down the throats of ordinary people. Perhaps the disorder that threatened, or seemed to threaten, at the death of a leader and the choosing of another—for elections among ruffians could hardly have been orderly—first led many to favor hereditary claims. Thus, as has happened since, what people first accepted for convenience was afterward demanded as a right.\n\nEngland, since the conquest, has known a few good monarchs but has groaned under far more bad ones. Yet no sensible person can call their claim through William the Conqueror an honorable one. A French bastard landing with an armed band of brigands and making himself king of England against its people’s will is, plainly put, a contemptible, criminal beginning. There is certainly nothing divine about it. But there is no need to spend much time exposing the folly of hereditary right. If some are weak enough to believe in it, let them worship the ass and the lion alike; they are welcome to it. I will neither imitate their submissiveness nor disturb their devotions.\n\nYet I would like to ask how they imagine kings first arose. There are only three possible answers: by lot, by election, or by usurpation. If the first king was chosen by lot, that sets a precedent for the next choice, and rules out hereditary succession. Saul was chosen by lot, yet his succession was not hereditary; nor does anything in that event suggest that it was ever meant to be. If a country’s first king was elected, that likewise sets a precedent for the next. To say that the first electors, by choosing not only a king but a family of kings forever, could strip all future generations of their rights has no parallel in or out of scripture except the doctrine of original sin, which holds that everyone lost free will in Adam. Hereditary succession can gain no glory from that comparison, and no other comparison will do. For just as all sinned in Adam, all obeyed in the first electors; just as all humanity was subjected to Satan in one case, it was subjected to sovereign power in the other; just as innocence was lost in the first, authority was lost in the second. And since both prevent us from recovering an earlier condition and privilege, original sin and hereditary succession are inescapably parallel. What a dishonorable rank! What an inglorious connection! Yet even the most cunning sophist cannot find a fairer likeness.\n\nAs for usurpation, no one will dare defend it; and no one can deny that William the Conqueror was a usurper. The plain truth is that the origins of English monarchy cannot bear examination.\n\nBut what matters to humanity is not so much the absurdity of hereditary succession as the harm it does. If it guaranteed a line of good and wise people, it would bear the seal of divine authority. But since it opens the door to fools, villains, and the unfit, it has the character of oppression. People who consider themselves born to rule, and others born to obey, soon grow arrogant. Set apart from the rest of humanity, they are poisoned early by a sense of their own importance; and the world in which they live differs so greatly from the world at large that they have little chance to understand its real interests. When they inherit power, they are often the most ignorant and least fit of anyone in their dominions.\n\nAnother evil of hereditary succession is that the throne can fall to a child of any age. Throughout such a reign, a regency acting behind the cover of a king has every opportunity and incentive to betray its trust. The nation suffers the same misfortune when a king, worn down by age and infirmity, enters the last stage of human weakness. In either case the public falls prey to any scoundrel who can exploit the frailties of childhood or old age.\n\nThe most plausible argument ever offered for hereditary succession is that it saves a nation from civil war. If that were true, it would carry weight; instead, it is the most brazen falsehood ever imposed on humanity. All of English history refutes it. Thirty kings and two minors have reigned in that troubled kingdom since the conquest; during that time, including the Revolution, it has endured no fewer than eight civil wars and nineteen rebellions. Far from making for peace, hereditary succession works against it and destroys the very ground on which it claims to stand.\n\nThe struggle for monarchy and succession between the houses of York and Lancaster plunged England into bloodshed for many years. Henry and Edward fought twelve pitched battles, besides skirmishes and sieges. Twice Henry was Edward’s prisoner, and Edward in turn was Henry’s prisoner. So uncertain are the fortunes of war and the temper of a nation when a quarrel turns on personal claims alone that Henry was carried in triumph from prison to palace, while Edward was forced to flee from a palace to a foreign land. Yet sudden changes of feeling seldom last: Henry was driven from the throne in his turn, and Edward was recalled to take his place. Parliament always followed the stronger side.\n\nThe struggle began in the reign of Henry the Sixth and was not fully ended until Henry the Seventh, in whom the two families were united. It spanned 67 years, from 1422 to 1489.\n\nIn short, monarchy and succession have laid not merely this kingdom or that, but the world, in blood and ashes. The word of God bears witness against this form of government, and bloodshed will follow it.\n\nIf we ask what a king’s business is, we shall find that in some countries kings have none. They idle away their lives, giving neither themselves pleasure nor their nations any benefit; then they leave the stage and their successors follow the same empty course. In absolute monarchies, the whole burden of civil and military affairs falls on the king. When the children of Israel asked for a king, they gave this reason: “that he may judge us, and go out before us and fight our battles.” But in countries such as England, where he is neither judge nor general, one is hard pressed to say what his business is.\n\nThe closer any government comes to a republic, the less work there is for a king. It is somewhat difficult to find a fitting name for England’s government. Sir William Meredith calls it a republic; but in its present condition it does not deserve the name. Through its corrupting power to appoint people to every office, the crown has so thoroughly swallowed up the power and consumed the virtue of the House of Commons—the republican part of the constitution—that England’s government is nearly as monarchical as those of France or Spain. People quarrel over names they do not understand. What English people take pride in is the republican, not the monarchical, part of their constitution: their freedom to choose a House of Commons from among themselves. And it is plain that when republican virtue fails, servitude follows. Why is England’s constitution so sickly, if not because monarchy has poisoned the republic and the crown has swallowed up the Commons?\n\nIn England a king has little to do beyond making war and giving away offices—which, plainly put, means impoverishing the nation and setting its people against one another. A fine occupation indeed for a man to receive eight hundred thousand sterling a year for, and to be worshipped into the bargain! One honest person is worth more to society and in the sight of God than every crowned ruffian who ever lived.\n\n### Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs, 1\n\nIn the pages that follow, I offer nothing but simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense. I ask only this of the reader beforehand: that he set aside prejudice and preconception, and allow his reason and feelings to judge for themselves; that he assume—or rather, not cast off—the true character of a human being, and generously extend his view beyond the present day.\n\nVolumes have been written about the struggle between England and America. People of every rank have entered the dispute, moved by different motives and pursuing different ends; but all their efforts have failed, and the time for debate is over. Arms, the last resort, now decide the contest. The king chose this appeal, and the continent has accepted his challenge.\n\nIt has been said of the late Mr. Pelham—an able minister, though not without faults—that when he was attacked in the House of Commons because his measures were only temporary, he replied, “They will last my time.” If a thought so ruinous and unworthy should take hold of the colonies in the present struggle, future generations will remember their ancestors with disgust.\n\nThe sun has never shone on a worthier cause. This is no affair of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent—at least one eighth of the habitable globe. It concerns not a day, a year, or an age; posterity is already involved in the struggle, and what we do now will affect generations, more or less, even to the end of time. Now is the seedtime of continental union, trust, and honor. The slightest break now will resemble a name etched with a pin into the tender bark of a young oak: the wound will grow with the tree, and posterity will read the name in letters grown large.\n\nIn carrying the matter from argument to arms, we have entered a new political era; a new way of thinking has arisen. Every plan and proposal made before the nineteenth of April—that is, before hostilities began—is like last year’s almanac: useful then, but obsolete and useless now. Whatever either side argued at that time came down to the same goal: union with Great Britain. The parties differed only over how to achieve it, one proposing force and the other friendship. But so far, force has failed, and friendship has withdrawn its influence.\n\nMuch has been said of the benefits of reconciliation; that pleasing dream has passed, leaving us where we stood. It is only right, then, to examine the other side of the question and consider some of the many grave injuries these colonies suffer, and will always suffer, through their connection with and dependence on Great Britain. We should test that connection and dependence against nature and common sense, and see what we may rely on if we separate and what we must expect if we remain dependent.\n\nSome say that because America has prospered under her former connection with Great Britain, that connection is necessary to her future happiness and will always have the same effect. No argument could be more deceptive. We might as well claim that because a child has thrived on milk, it must never eat meat, or that the first twenty years of our lives must set the pattern for the next twenty. Even that grants too much. I say plainly that America would have prospered as much, and probably much more, if no European power had had anything to do with her. The goods from whose trade she has grown rich are necessities of life, and will always find a market as long as people in Europe continue to eat.\n\nBut Britain has protected us, some say. It is true that she has claimed us for herself, and I grant that she has defended the continent at our expense as well as her own. Yet she would have defended Turkey for the very same reason: trade and dominion.\n\nAlas, old prejudices have long led us astray, and we have made great sacrifices to superstition. We have boasted of Great Britain’s protection without considering that she was moved by self-interest, not affection. She protected us against her enemies for her own sake, not against ours for our sake: those enemies had no other quarrel with us, and will remain our enemies only so long as that connection lasts. Let Britain give up her claims to the continent, or let the continent throw off its dependence, and we would be at peace with France and Spain even if they were at war with Britain. Hanover’s sufferings in the last war should warn us against such ties.\n\nIt has lately been claimed in Parliament that the colonies have no relation to one another except through the mother country—that Pennsylvania and the Jerseys, and all the rest, are sister colonies by way of England. This is certainly a roundabout way to establish kinship, but it is the closest, and indeed the only true, way to establish enmity, if I may use the word. France and Spain have never been, and perhaps never will be, our enemies because we are Americans, but only because we are subjects of Great Britain.\n\nBut Britain is our mother country, some say. Then her conduct is all the more shameful. Even beasts do not devour their young, nor do savages wage war against their own families. If the claim were true, it would only disgrace her. In fact it is untrue, or true only in part; the king and his hangers-on have cunningly adopted the phrase “parent” or “mother country,” with a base, manipulative design to exploit our credulity and sway our minds unfairly. Europe, not England, is America’s mother country. This new world has offered refuge to lovers of civil and religious liberty persecuted in every part of Europe. They fled here not from the tender embrace of a mother but from the cruelty of a monster; and England’s part in the story is this: the same tyranny that drove the first emigrants from home still pursues their descendants.\n\nIn this vast part of the globe, we forget England’s narrow span of three hundred and sixty miles and extend our friendship on a larger scale. We claim kinship with every European Christian, and rejoice in the generosity of that feeling.\n\nIt is a pleasure to observe the steps by which we overcome the force of local prejudice as our acquaintance with the world grows. A man born in an English town divided into parishes will naturally associate most with the people of his own parish, since their interests will often coincide, and call one of them his neighbor. If he meets that person a few miles from home, he drops the narrower idea of a street and greets him as a townsman. If he travels beyond the county and meets him in another, he forgets the lesser divisions of street and town and calls him a countryman—that is, a man of the same county. If they meet abroad, in France or elsewhere in Europe, their local identity widens to that of Englishmen. By the same sound reasoning, all Europeans meeting in America, or in any other part of the globe, are countrymen. On the larger scale, England, Holland, Germany, and Sweden occupy the same positions as street, town, and county on the smaller; their distinctions are too narrow for continental minds. Not even one third of the inhabitants of this province are of English descent. I therefore reject the phrase “parent” or “mother country” when applied to England alone: it is false, selfish, narrow, and ungenerous.\n\nBut suppose we were all of English descent. What would that prove? Nothing. Britain is now an open enemy, and that fact overrides every other name and claim. To say that we have a duty to reconcile with her is absurd. The first king of England’s present line, William the Conqueror, was a Frenchman, and half the peers of England descend from that same country. By the same reasoning, then, England ought to be ruled by France.\n\nMuch has been said of the combined strength of Britain and the colonies, and how together they could defy the world. This is mere presumption. The fortunes of war are uncertain, and such talk is meaningless: this continent would never consent to have its people drained away to support British arms in Asia, Africa, or Europe.\n\nBesides, why should we defy the world at all? Our aim is commerce, and if we attend to it well, it will secure us the peace and friendship of all Europe, for every European nation has an interest in America’s being a free port. Her trade will always protect her, while her lack of gold and silver will keep invaders away.\n\nI challenge the most ardent advocate of reconciliation to show a single benefit this continent gains from its connection with Great Britain. I repeat: not a single benefit comes of it. Our grain will command its price in any European market, and wherever we buy our imported goods, we must pay for them.\n\nBut the injuries and disadvantages we suffer from that connection are countless. Our duty to all humanity, as well as to ourselves, tells us to renounce the alliance. Any submission to or dependence on Great Britain tends directly to draw this continent into Europe’s wars and quarrels, and sets us against nations that would otherwise seek our friendship, and against which we have neither grievance nor cause for anger. Since Europe is our market, we should form no exclusive connection with any one part of it. America’s true interest is to remain clear of European conflicts; she can never do so while dependence on Britain makes her a counterweight in the balance of British politics.\n\nEurope is too crowded with kingdoms to remain at peace for long. Whenever England goes to war with another power, America’s trade is ruined because of its connection with Britain. The next war may not end like the last; if it does not, those who now advocate reconciliation will then long for separation, since neutrality would offer a safer escort than a warship. Everything right and natural argues for separation. The blood of the slain and the weeping voice of nature cry, “It is time to part.” Even the distance at which the Almighty placed England and America is strong, natural evidence that heaven never intended one to rule the other. The time when the continent was discovered adds weight to this argument, and the manner of its settlement strengthens it further. The discovery of America came before the Reformation, as if the Almighty had graciously intended to open a sanctuary for those who would be persecuted in years to come, when their homes could offer neither friendship nor safety.\n\nGreat Britain’s authority over this continent is a form of government that must end sooner or later. No thoughtful person can look ahead with genuine pleasure while painfully certain that what he calls “the present constitution” is merely temporary. As parents, we cannot take comfort in knowing that this government will not last long enough to secure anything we might leave to our descendants. And the argument is simple: since we are putting the next generation in debt, we ought to do its work ourselves; otherwise we treat that generation shamefully and meanly. To discern our duty clearly, we should take our children by the hand and imagine ourselves a few years further on in life. From that height we will see a prospect now hidden by our passing fears and prejudices.\n\n### Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs, 2\n\nThough I would carefully avoid giving needless offense, I am inclined to believe that everyone who embraces reconciliation falls into one of these groups: self-interested men who cannot be trusted; weak men who cannot see; prejudiced men who refuse to see; and certain moderate men who think more highly of Europe than it deserves. Through ill-judged hesitation, this last group will bring more calamity upon this continent than the other three combined.\n\nMany have the good fortune to live far from the scene of suffering; the evil has not come close enough to make them feel how precariously every American holds his property. But let us imagine ourselves for a moment in Boston. That seat of misery will teach us wisdom, and teach us to renounce forever a power we cannot trust. The inhabitants of that unhappy city, prosperous and at ease only a few months ago, now face a choice between staying to starve and going out to beg. If they remain in the city, they risk the fire of their friends; if they leave, the soldiers will plunder them. They are prisoners with no hope of release, and a general assault to rescue them would expose them to the fury of both armies.\n\nMen of placid temperament tend to make light of Britain's offenses and, still hoping for the best, cry, “Come, come, we shall be friends again, despite it all.” But examine human passions and feelings. Test the doctrine of reconciliation against human nature, and then tell me whether you can ever again love, honor, and faithfully serve the power that has brought fire and sword into your land. If you cannot do all three, you are only deceiving yourselves, and your delay will bring ruin upon your descendants. Your future bond with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honor, will be forced and unnatural; founded merely on present convenience, it will soon collapse into a conflict more wretched than the first. But if you say you can still overlook these outrages, I ask: Has your house been burned? Has your property been destroyed before your eyes? Are your wife and children without a bed to sleep in or bread to eat? Have you lost a parent or a child at their hands, and survived ruined and miserable yourself? If not, you cannot judge those who have. But if you have suffered these things and can still shake hands with the murderers, you are unworthy of the name of husband, father, friend, or lover. Whatever your station or title, yours is the heart of a coward and the spirit of a sycophant.\n\nThis is not to inflame or exaggerate events, but to measure them by the feelings and affections that nature sanctions, without which we could neither fulfill our duties to one another nor enjoy the happiness of society. I do not present these horrors to incite revenge, but to wake us from a fatal and unmanly sleep, so that we may pursue a definite aim with resolve. Britain and Europe cannot conquer America unless she conquers herself through delay and timidity. This winter is worth an age if put to good use. But if it is wasted or neglected, the whole continent will share in the disaster; and whoever, whatever his position or location, causes so precious and useful a season to be sacrificed will deserve every punishment.\n\nReason, the universal order of things, and every example from earlier ages all forbid the notion that this continent can remain subject to an outside power much longer. Even the most optimistic man in Britain does not believe it. Human wisdom at its utmost cannot now devise a plan short of separation that would promise this continent even a year's security. Reconciliation is a deceptive dream. Nature has abandoned the bond, and artifice cannot take her place. As Milton wisely puts it, “never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep.”\n\nEvery peaceful means of securing peace has failed. Our petitions have been rejected with contempt, serving only to teach us that nothing flatters a king's vanity or strengthens his obstinacy more than repeated petitions—and nothing has done more than that practice to make Europe's kings absolute. Witness Denmark and Sweden. Since nothing but blows will serve, then, for God's sake, let us separate once and for all. Let us not leave the next generation cutting one another's throats under the hollow, violated names of parent and child.\n\nTo say that Britain will never try again is idle fantasy. We thought so when the Stamp Act was repealed, but a year or two disabused us. We might just as well suppose that a nation once defeated will never renew the fight.\n\nAs for government, Britain cannot do justice to this continent. Its affairs will soon be too weighty and complex for a power so distant from us and so ignorant of us to manage with tolerable competence; if they cannot conquer us, they cannot govern us. In a few years we will see how foolish and childish it is to travel three or four thousand miles with an account or a petition, wait four or five months for an answer, and then need five or six more months to explain that answer. There was a time when this was fitting; there is also a time when it must end.\n\nSmall islands unable to protect themselves are fitting charges for kingdoms. But the notion that an island should govern a continent forever is absurd. Nature has never made a satellite larger than the planet it circles. Since England and America reverse the ordinary order of nature in their relation to one another, plainly they belong to different systems: England to Europe, America to itself.\n\nI do not embrace separation and independence from pride, partisanship, or resentment. I am plainly, firmly, and conscientiously convinced that it is this continent's true interest; that anything less is mere patchwork and cannot bring lasting happiness; that it would leave the sword to our children and have us shrink back when a little more effort, a little farther advance, would have made this continent the glory of the earth.\n\nBritain has shown not the slightest willingness to compromise. We may therefore be certain that no terms worth this continent's acceptance can be obtained, nor any that would match the blood and treasure we have already spent.\n\nWhat we fight for should always bear a just proportion to what it costs us. Removing North, or even his whole detestable clique, is not worth the millions we have spent. If all the offending acts had been repealed, a temporary interruption of trade would have been an adequate price for it. But if the entire continent must take up arms, if every man must be a soldier, it is hardly worth fighting merely against a contemptible ministry. Dearly, dearly we pay for repeal if that is all we fight for: properly considered, it is as foolish to pay a Bunker-hill price for a law as for land. I have always regarded this continent's independence as inevitable sooner or later, and its swift recent progress toward maturity showed that the moment could not be far away. Once fighting began, then, it was not worth disputing an issue that time would eventually settle unless we meant to settle it in earnest. Otherwise we are like someone spending an estate on a lawsuit to restrain a tenant whose lease is about to expire. No one wished more warmly for reconciliation than I did before the fatal nineteenth of April 1775. But the instant I learned what happened that day, I rejected forever England's hard-hearted, sullen Pharaoh. I despise the wretch who, while styling himself the father of his people, can hear of their slaughter without feeling and sleep soundly with their blood upon his soul.\n\nBut suppose an agreement were reached now. What would follow? The ruin of the continent. There are several reasons.\n\nFirst. If the king still holds the powers of government, he will have a veto over all legislation on this continent. He has shown himself a relentless enemy of liberty, with a thirst for arbitrary power. Is such a man fit to tell these colonies, “You shall make no laws but those I please”? Is anyone in America so ignorant that he does not know that, under the so-called present constitution, this continent can make no laws without the king's permission? And is anyone so foolish as to imagine, after what has happened, that he will permit a law here unless it serves his purposes? The absence of laws in America can enslave us as surely as submission to laws made for us in England. Once an agreement is reached, as they call it, can anyone doubt that the crown will use all its power to keep this continent as weak and submissive as possible? Instead of advancing, we will retreat, or go on quarreling endlessly and petitioning absurdly. We are already greater than the king wishes us to be; will he not try to make us smaller? The question comes down to this: is a power jealous of our prosperity fit to govern us? Anyone who answers no is an advocate of independence. Independence means nothing more than deciding whether we make our own laws or the king, the greatest enemy this continent has or can have, tells us, “There shall be no laws but those I like.”\n\nBut, you will say, the king also has a veto in England; its people cannot make laws without his consent. As a matter of right and good government, it is absurd for a young man of twenty-one, as has often happened, to tell several million people older and wiser than he is, “I forbid you to make this or that act a law.” But I will set that argument aside here, though I will never stop exposing its absurdity. I answer only that England is the king's home and America is not, and that makes an entirely different case. His veto here is ten times more dangerous and deadly than in England. There he would scarcely refuse a bill to put England in the strongest possible state of defense; in America he would never allow such a bill to pass.\n\nAmerica occupies only a secondary place in British politics. England considers this country's welfare only insofar as it serves her own ends. Her interests therefore lead her to suppress our growth whenever it fails to benefit her or even slightly conflicts with her advantage. What a fine condition we would soon find ourselves in under such a government at second hand, after all that has happened! A change of name does not turn enemies into friends. To show how dangerous reconciliation has become, I say it would be shrewd policy for the king to repeal the acts now in order to restore his rule over the provinces, so that over time he might accomplish by cunning and subtlety what he cannot accomplish quickly by force and violence. Reconciliation and ruin are close kin.\n\n### Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs, 3\n\nSecond. Even the best terms we could hope to obtain would amount to no more than a temporary expedient: a kind of guardianship that could last only until the colonies come of age. Meanwhile, the whole state of affairs would remain unsettled and unpromising. People with property to bring would not choose to settle in a country whose government hangs by a thread and teeters each day on the verge of disorder and upheaval. And many who live here now would seize the interval to dispose of their possessions and leave the continent.\n\nBut the strongest argument of all is that nothing but independence—that is, a continental government—can preserve peace on this continent and keep it free of civil war. I dread what would follow reconciliation with Britain now, for a revolt would very probably break out somewhere, with consequences perhaps far more deadly than anything Britain's malice could bring upon us.\n\nThousands have already been ruined by British brutality, and thousands more will probably meet the same fate. Those men feel differently from those of us who have suffered nothing. Liberty is all they have left: everything they once enjoyed has been sacrificed in its service, and, with nothing more to lose, they scorn submission. Besides, the colonies' general attitude toward British government will resemble that of a young apprentice almost free of his term of service: they will care very little for it. A government unable to preserve the peace is no government at all; we would be paying our money for nothing. And if civil unrest broke out the very day after reconciliation, what could Britain do, with authority that existed only on paper? I have heard men say, many of them without thinking, that they dread independence for fear it will bring civil war. First thoughts are seldom altogether sound, and this one is not. A patched-up bond gives us ten times more reason to fear civil war than independence does. I put myself in the place of those who have suffered, and I declare that if I had been driven from my home, my property destroyed, and my livelihood ruined, I could never, as a man conscious of the wrongs done to him, welcome reconciliation or consider myself bound by it.\n\nOn America's Present Capacity, with Some Miscellaneous Reflections.\n\nThe colonies have shown such a spirit of good order and obedience to continental government that any reasonable person can feel confident and content on that score. No one can give even a plausible reason for fearing otherwise, except one that is childish and absurd: the notion that one colony will seek supremacy over another.\n\nWhere there are no distinctions, there can be no supremacy; complete equality offers no temptation. The republics of Europe are all at peace, and, we might say, always have been. Holland and Switzerland are free of wars, foreign and domestic. Monarchies, it is true, seldom remain at peace for long. The crown itself tempts ambitious ruffians at home; the pride and arrogance that always attend royal power provoke conflict with foreign states where a republic, founded on more natural principles, would resolve the misunderstanding through negotiation.\n\nIf there is any genuine reason to fear independence, it is that no plan for it has yet been set out. People cannot see the way forward. So, to open the discussion, I offer these suggestions, while modestly affirming that I value them only insofar as they may help bring forth something better. If the scattered thoughts of individuals could be gathered together, they would often provide material for wise and capable people to shape into something useful.\n\nLet the assemblies meet annually and have only a president. Let representation be more equal. Let their business be entirely domestic and subject to the authority of a Continental Congress.\n\nLet each colony be divided into six, eight, or ten convenient districts, each sending a suitable number of delegates to Congress, so that every colony sends at least thirty. Congress as a whole would have at least 390 members. Let every new Congress convene and choose a president as follows. Once the delegates have assembled, select one of the thirteen colonies by lot. Then let the full Congress choose, by ballot, a president from among that colony's delegates. At the next Congress, draw a lot from only twelve colonies, leaving out the one that furnished the previous president; continue until all thirteen have taken their proper turn. And to ensure that no measure becomes law unless it is satisfactorily just, let no fewer than three fifths of Congress constitute a majority. Anyone who stirs up discord under a government so equally constituted would have joined Lucifer in his rebellion.\n\nBut there is a particular difficulty in deciding from whom, and in what manner, this project should first arise. It seems most fitting and consistent that it should come from a body standing between those who govern and those who are governed—that is, between Congress and the people. Let us therefore hold a Continental Conference, organized as follows and for the following purpose.\n\nLet there be a committee of twenty-six members of Congress, two from each colony; two members from each House of Assembly or Provincial Convention; and five representatives of the people at large from each province. These five should be chosen in the province's capital city or town, on behalf of the whole province, by as many eligible voters from all parts of the province as wish to attend for that purpose. If more convenient, the representatives may instead be chosen in two or three of its most populous districts. In a conference assembled this way, the two great necessities for action—knowledge and power—will be joined. Members of Congress, Assemblies, or Conventions will offer valuable counsel drawn from their experience in national affairs; and because the people authorize the whole body, it will have genuinely lawful authority.\n\nOnce the members of the conference have assembled, let them draw up a Continental Charter, or Charter of the United Colonies, corresponding to what England calls the Magna Charta. Let it fix the number of members of Congress and of the Assemblies, the methods of choosing them, and the dates when they sit; let it define the division of business and jurisdiction between them, always remembering that our strength is continental, not provincial. Let it secure liberty and property for all, and above all the free exercise of religion according to conscience, together with whatever else a charter must contain. Then let the Conference dissolve at once, and let the bodies elected in accordance with the charter be the legislators and governors of this continent for the time being. May God preserve its peace and happiness. Amen.\n\nIf any body of men is later appointed for this or a similar purpose, I offer them these words from Dragonetti, that wise observer of governments. “The politician's science,” he says, “consists in determining the true point of happiness and freedom. Those who discovered a form of government offering the greatest sum of individual happiness at the least expense to the nation would deserve the gratitude of generations.”\n\nDragonetti on Virtue and Rewards.\n\nBut where, some will ask, is the king of America? I will tell you, friend: he reigns above and does not ravage humanity like Britain's royal brute. Yet so that we may not appear deficient even in earthly honors, let us set aside a solemn day to proclaim the charter. Let it be brought forth and laid upon the divine law, the word of God; and let a crown be placed upon it, so the world may know that insofar as we approve of monarchy, in America the law is king. For just as the king is law under absolute governments, so under free governments the law must be king, and there must be no other. But to prevent any later abuse, let the crown be destroyed at the close of the ceremony and its pieces scattered among the people, to whom it rightfully belongs.\n\nA government of our own is our natural right. Anyone who seriously considers how uncertain human affairs are will see that it is immeasurably wiser and safer to frame our own constitution calmly and deliberately, while we can, than to entrust so momentous a matter to time and chance. If we let this moment pass, another Massanello may arise: seizing upon popular unrest, he could gather the desperate and discontented and, by claiming the powers of government for himself and his followers, sweep away the continent's liberties like a flood. If government in America passes back into Britain's hands, the instability of affairs will tempt some desperate adventurer to try his luck. What help could Britain offer then? Before she could even receive the news, the disaster might be complete, and we might suffer like the wretched Britons under the oppression of the Conqueror. You who oppose independence now do not know what you are doing. By leaving the seat of government vacant, you are opening the door to endless tyranny. There are thousands, and tens of thousands, who would consider it glorious to expel from this continent that barbarous and hellish power which has incited Indians and Negroes to destroy us. Its cruelty bears a double guilt: it treats us brutally and them treacherously.\n\nThomas Anello, also called Massanello, was a fisherman of Naples. After rousing his countrymen in the public marketplace against the oppression of the Spaniards, who then ruled the place, he urged them to revolt and became king in the space of a day.\n\nTo speak of friendship with those whom reason forbids us to trust, and whom affections wounded in a thousand places teach us to detest, is madness and folly. Each day wears away what little kinship remains between us and them. Can there be any reason to hope that affection will increase as the relationship disappears, or that we shall agree more readily when we have ten times as many disputes, and graver ones than ever before?\n\nYou who promise harmony and reconciliation, can you restore the past to us? Can you restore innocence to prostitution? No more can you reconcile Britain and America. The last cord has broken; the people of England are sending addresses against us. Some injuries nature cannot forgive; if she did, she would cease to be nature. The continent could as readily forgive Britain's murders as a lover could forgive the man who raped his beloved. The Almighty planted these indelible feelings in us for wise and good reasons. They guard his image in our hearts. They distinguish us from ordinary animals. If we were numb to the stirrings of affection, the bond of society would dissolve, and justice would vanish from the earth or survive only by chance. Robbers and murderers would often go unpunished if the wounds we feel did not move us to seek justice.\n\nO you who love humanity! You who dare resist not only tyranny but the tyrant, come forward! Every corner of the old world is overrun by oppression. Freedom has been hunted around the globe. Asia and Africa expelled her long ago; Europe regards her as a stranger, and England has ordered her to leave. Receive the fugitive, and prepare in time a refuge for humankind.\n\n### Of the Present Ability of America, with Some Miscellaneous Reflections, 1\n\nI have never met a man, in England or America, who has not admitted that the countries will separate sooner or later. And in nothing have we shown less judgment than in trying to describe what we call the Continent’s ripeness or fitness for independence.\n\nSince everyone accepts the measure and differs only over its timing, let us survey our circumstances and, if possible, discover the very moment for it. But we need look no further: the moment has found us. The general agreement, the glorious convergence of all things, proves it.\n\nOur great strength lies not in numbers but in unity; yet our numbers now suffice to repel the force of the whole world. At present the Continent has a larger body of armed and disciplined men than any power under heaven. It has reached precisely that degree of strength at which no single colony can sustain itself, while all the colonies united can accomplish the task; either more or less than this might prove fatal. Our land forces are already sufficient. As for naval affairs, we cannot fail to see that Britain would never allow an American warship to be built while the Continent remained in her hands. A hundred years from now, therefore, we would be no further ahead in that branch than we are today. Indeed, we would be further behind, for the country’s timber diminishes daily, and what remains in the end will be distant and hard to obtain.\n\nIf the Continent were crowded with inhabitants, its suffering in our present circumstances would be unbearable. The more seaport towns we had, the more we would have to defend and the more we would stand to lose. Our present population is so well proportioned to our needs that no one need be idle. The decline of trade supplies an army, and an army’s needs create a new trade.\n\nWe have no debts; whatever we incur for this cause will stand as a glorious memorial of our virtue. If only we can leave posterity a settled form of government, an independent constitution of its own, any price will be cheap. But to spend millions merely to have a few contemptible acts repealed and the present ministry driven out is not worth the cost. It is the utmost cruelty to posterity, leaving them the great work still undone and a debt on their backs from which they gain nothing. Such a thought is unworthy of a person of honor; it is the mark of a narrow heart and a petty politician.\n\nThe debt we may incur deserves no concern if the work is accomplished. No nation ought to be without a debt. A national debt is a national bond, and when it bears no interest it can never be a grievance. Britain is burdened with a debt of more than one hundred and forty millions sterling, on which she pays more than four millions in interest. In compensation for her debt she has a large navy. America has neither debt nor navy, yet for one twentieth of the English national debt she could have a navy twice as large. England’s navy is now worth no more than three and a half millions sterling.\n\nThe first and second editions of this pamphlet appeared without the following calculations, now offered as proof that the preceding estimate of the navy is sound. See Entic’s naval history, introduction, page 56.\n\nThe cost of building a ship of each rate and furnishing it with masts, yards, sails, and rigging, together with a proportionate supply of boatswain’s and carpenter’s stores for eight months at sea, as calculated by Mr. Burchett, Secretary to the navy:\n\n£ [pounds sterling]\n\nFor a ship of 100 guns = 35,553\n\n90 = 29,886\n\n80 = 23,638\n\n70 = 17,785\n\n60 = 14,197\n\n50 = 10,606\n\n40 = 7,558\n\n30 = 5,846\n\n20 = 3,710\n\nFrom these figures it is easy to total the value—or rather the cost—of the entire British navy, which in the year 1757, at the height of its glory, consisted of the following ships and guns:\n\nShips. Guns.\n\nCost of one. Cost of all.\n\nCost in £ [pounds sterling]\n\n6 100\n\n35,553 213,318\n\n12 90\n\n29,886 358,632\n\n12 80\n\n23,638 283,656\n\n43 70\n\n17,785 764,755\n\n35 60\n\n14,197 496,895\n\n40 50\n\n10,606 424,240\n\n45 40\n\n7,558 340,110\n\n58 20\n\n3,710 215,180\n\n85 Sloops, bombs\n\nand fireships, one\n\nwith another, at 2,000 each, 170,000\n\n------------\n\nCost\n\n3,266,786\n\nRemaining for guns\n\n233,214\n\n------------\n\n3,500,000\n\nNo country on earth is so favorably situated, or has so many resources within itself for raising a fleet, as America. Tar, timber, iron, and cordage are her natural products. We need import nothing. The Dutch, by contrast, make large profits hiring their warships to the Spaniards and Portuguese, yet must import most of their materials. We ought to regard the building of a fleet as a branch of commerce, for shipbuilding is this country’s natural industry. It is the best use we can make of our money. A finished navy is worth more than it costs. It is that rare point in national policy at which commerce and protection meet. Let us build: if we do not need the ships, we can sell them and thereby replace our paper currency with ready gold and silver.\n\nPeople generally make a great mistake about manning a fleet: not even a fourth of its men need be sailors. The Terrible privateer, commanded by Captain Death, fought the fiercest engagement of any ship in the last war, yet had fewer than twenty sailors aboard, though her complement numbered more than two hundred. A few capable, companionable sailors will soon train enough active landsmen in the ordinary work of a ship. We can therefore never be better placed to begin building a naval force than now, while our timber still stands, our fisheries are blockaded, and our sailors and shipwrights are unemployed. Warships of seventy and eighty guns were built in New England forty years ago; why not now? Shipbuilding is America’s greatest pride, and in time she will surpass the whole world at it. The great empires of the East are mostly inland and thus cannot rival her. Africa is in a state of barbarism; and no European power has both so extensive a coastline and such ample domestic supplies of materials. Where nature has bestowed one, she has withheld the other; to America alone she has been generous with both. The vast Russian empire is almost shut out from the sea, so its boundless forests, tar, iron, and cordage remain merely articles of trade.\n\nCan we afford to be without a fleet for our own safety? We are no longer the small people we were sixty years ago. Then we might have left our property in the streets—or rather, in the fields—and slept securely without locks or bolts on doors or windows. Things have changed; our means of defense should advance with our growing property. Twelve months ago, an ordinary pirate could have sailed up the Delaware and forced the city of Philadelphia to pay whatever sum he demanded on the spot; the same could have happened elsewhere. Indeed, any daring fellow in a brig carrying fourteen or sixteen guns might have robbed the entire Continent and carried off half a million in money. These circumstances demand our attention and reveal the need for naval protection.\n\nSome may say that once we have reconciled with Britain, she will protect us. Are we so foolish as to propose that she keep a navy in our harbors for that purpose? Common sense tells us that the power which has tried to subdue us is the least fit of all to defend us. Conquest can be accomplished under the pretense of friendship, and we ourselves, after a long and brave resistance, can at last be tricked into slavery. If her ships are not to enter our harbors, I ask how she is to protect us. A navy three or four thousand miles away can do little good, and none at all in a sudden emergency. If we must protect ourselves from now on, why not do so for ourselves? Why do it for another?\n\nThe English list of warships is long and formidable, but not a tenth of them are fit for service at any one time. Many no longer exist, yet their names are grandly retained on the list if so much as a plank survives. And not a fifth of those fit for service can be spared for any one station at any one time. The East and West Indies, the Mediterranean, Africa, and the other regions over which Britain asserts her claims make heavy demands on her navy. Prejudice and inattention have given us a false idea of England’s navy. We have spoken as though we would have to face all of it at once and therefore need a fleet as large as hers. Because that cannot be built instantly, a band of Tories in disguise has used the argument to discourage us from even beginning. Nothing could be further from the truth. If America had only a twentieth of Britain’s naval force, she would still be more than a match for her. For we have and claim no foreign dominions, and could employ our whole force along our own coast. In the long run we would have a two-to-one advantage over those who must sail three or four thousand miles before attacking us and travel the same distance to refit and recruit. And though Britain’s fleet can restrain our trade with Europe, we can restrain her trade with the West Indies just as effectively: lying close to the Continent, those islands are entirely at its mercy.\n\nIf we judge a permanent navy unnecessary, we might devise a way to maintain a naval force in peacetime. Offer merchants premiums to build and use ships mounted with twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty guns, the premiums proportionate to the cargo space they lose. Fifty or sixty such ships, with a few guardships continually on duty, would sustain a sufficient navy. We would avoid the evil so loudly lamented in England: letting a fleet rot in its docks in peacetime. To unite the sinews of commerce and defense is sound policy; when our strength and our wealth sustain each other, we need fear no foreign enemy.\n\n### Of the Present Ability of America, with Some Miscellaneous Reflections, 2\n\nIn almost everything needed for defense, we have abundance. Hemp grows so luxuriantly that we need never lack cordage. Our iron is superior to that of other countries; our small arms equal any in the world. We can cast cannon whenever we please. Every day we produce saltpeter and gunpowder. Our knowledge improves by the hour. Resolution is in our nature, and courage has never yet deserted us. What, then, do we lack? Why do we hesitate? From Britain we can expect nothing but ruin. If she is ever admitted again to the government of America, this Continent will not be worth living in. Suspicions will constantly arise; insurrections will continually break out; and who will go to suppress them? Who will risk his life to force his own countrymen into obedience to a foreign power? The dispute between Pennsylvania and Connecticut over certain unallocated lands shows the impotence of British government, and proves beyond doubt that only Continental authority can govern Continental affairs.\n\nAnother reason the present is preferable to every other time is that, while our population is smaller, more land remains unoccupied. Instead of the king squandering it on his worthless dependents, it can be used in future not only to pay off our present debt but to provide continuing support for government. No nation under heaven enjoys an advantage like this.\n\nThe Colonies’ supposed infancy, far from being an argument against independence, is an argument for it. We are numerous enough, and if we were more so we might be less united. It is worth observing that the more populous a country becomes, the smaller its armies grow. The ancients far exceeded the moderns in the numbers they took to war, and the reason is plain: as trade follows population, people become too absorbed in it to attend to anything else. Commerce weakens the spirit of both patriotism and military defense. History also tells us clearly that a nation’s bravest achievements have always come in its youth. As commerce has grown, England has lost its spirit. Despite its numbers, the city of London submits to repeated insults with the patience of a coward. The more people have to lose, the less willing they are to risk it. The rich are generally slaves to fear and submit to the power of the court with the trembling duplicity of a spaniel.\n\nYouth is the seedtime of good habits for nations as for individuals. Half a century from now it might be difficult, if not impossible, to bring the Continent under one government. Growth in trade and population would create a great diversity of interests and, with it, confusion. Colony would turn against colony. Each, feeling strong enough, might scorn the others’ help; and while the proud and foolish celebrated their small distinctions, the wise would lament that the union had not been formed earlier. The present, therefore, is the true time to establish it. Of all bonds, the intimacy formed in childhood and the friendship formed in adversity last longest and change least. Our present union bears both marks: we are young, and we have suffered; yet our concord has endured those troubles and establishes a memorable era for posterity to celebrate.\n\nThe present is also that singular time which comes to a nation only once: the time to form its own government. Most nations have let the opportunity pass and have therefore been forced to receive laws from conquerors instead of making laws for themselves. They had a king first, then a form of government. Instead, the articles or charter of government should first be drawn up, and people afterward delegated to carry them out. Let us learn from other nations’ mistakes and seize the present opportunity—to begin government at the right end.\n\nWhen William the Conqueror subdued England, he gave its people laws at swordpoint. Until we agree to fill the seat of government in America with lawful authority, we risk having it filled by some fortunate ruffian who may treat us in the same way. And then where will our freedom be? Where our property?\n\nAs for religion, I hold that every government has an indispensable duty to protect all who conscientiously profess a faith; I know of no other business government has with it. Let a person cast off that smallness of spirit, that selfishness of principle which the misers of every denomination so resist giving up, and his fears on this subject will vanish. Suspicion accompanies mean souls and poisons every good society. For my part, I fully and conscientiously believe it is the Almighty’s will that there be a diversity of religious opinions among us. It gives us a wider field in which to practice Christian kindness. If we all thought alike, our religious dispositions would have nothing to test them; on this generous principle, I regard our different denominations as children of one family, differing only in what are called their Christian names.\n\nOn page forty, I offered a few thoughts about the desirability of a Continental Charter (for I presume to offer hints only, not plans). Here I take the liberty of raising the subject again. A charter should be understood as a solemn, binding pledge undertaken by all to uphold the rights of each separate part, whether in religion, personal freedom, or property. A firm bargain and a fair reckoning make lasting friends.\n\nOn an earlier page I also mentioned the need for broad and equal representation; no political question deserves more attention. Too few electors and too few representatives are equally dangerous. If representatives are not only few but unequally apportioned, the danger grows. Consider this instance: when the Associators’ petition came before the Pennsylvania House of Assembly, only twenty-eight members were present. All eight members from Bucks county voted against it. If seven members from Chester had done the same, two counties alone would have governed the whole province—a danger to which it is always exposed. The unwarranted effort that House made at its last sitting to claim undue authority over the province’s delegates should likewise warn the people against trusting power outside their own hands. Instructions for the Delegates were assembled that, for sense and practical judgment, would have disgraced a schoolboy. Approved by a few—very few—people outside the House, they were then brought in and passed on behalf of the entire colony. If the whole colony knew how reluctantly that House has undertaken certain necessary public measures, its people would not hesitate for a moment to consider its members unworthy of such trust.\n\nUrgent necessity makes many arrangements convenient that would become oppressive if continued. What is expedient and what is right are different things. When America’s misfortunes called for consultation, no method was readier or, at the time, more fitting than to appoint people from the several Houses of Assembly for that purpose. Their wise conduct has saved this Continent from ruin. But since we will very likely never be without a Congress, everyone who values good order must admit that the method of choosing its members deserves consideration. And I put this question to those who study human nature: are representation and election not too much power for the same body of people to hold? As we plan for posterity, we should remember that virtue is not hereditary.\n\nOur enemies often supply us with excellent principles; their mistakes frequently surprise us into reason. Mr. Cornwall, one of the Lords of the Treasury, dismissed the petition of the New-York Assembly with contempt. That House, he said, had only twenty-six members, and so trifling a number could not decently stand for the whole. We thank him for his unwitting honesty. ¹\n\n¹ Those wishing to understand fully how vital broad and equal representation is to a state should read Burgh’s political disquisitions.\n\nTo conclude: however strange some may find it, or however reluctant they are to believe it, many powerful and compelling reasons show that nothing could settle our affairs more quickly than an open and resolute declaration of independence. Here are some of them:\n\nFirst.—When two nations are at war, the custom is for other powers not involved in the quarrel to offer mediation and arrange the first steps toward peace. But while America calls herself a subject of Great-Britain, no power, however favorably disposed, can offer to mediate. In our present condition, then, we may go on quarreling forever.\n\nSecondly.—It is unreasonable to expect France or Spain to give us any assistance if we intend to use it only to heal the breach and strengthen the connection between Britain and America, for those powers would suffer from the outcome.\n\nThirdly.—While we declare ourselves British subjects, foreign nations must regard us as rebels. It sets a somewhat dangerous precedent for their own peace when people take up arms under the name of subjects. We, being here, can resolve the paradox; but to combine resistance with subjection demands an idea far too subtle for ordinary understanding.\n\nFourthly.—Suppose we published a manifesto and sent it to foreign courts. It would set out the suffering we have endured and the peaceful measures we have tried in vain to obtain relief. It would declare that, unable any longer to live happily or safely under the cruel disposition of the British court, we have been driven to break off all connections with her. At the same time it would assure those courts of our peaceful intentions toward them and our wish to trade with them. Such a declaration would do more good for this Continent than a ship loaded with petitions to Britain.\n\nUnder our present name of British subjects, we can neither be received nor heard abroad. The practice of every court stands against us and will continue to do so until independence gives us a place among the nations.\n\nAt first these steps may seem strange and difficult. But like all the steps we have already taken, they will soon become familiar and welcome. Until independence is declared, the Continent will feel like a man who keeps putting off an unpleasant task from day to day, though he knows it must be done, dreads beginning it, wishes it finished, and is continually haunted by the need to do it.\n\n### Appendix, 1\n\nSince the first edition of this pamphlet appeared—or rather, on the very day it appeared—the King’s Speech has arrived in this city. Had a prophetic spirit directed the birth of this work, it could not have brought it forth at a more timely or more necessary moment. The bloodthirstiness of the one shows the need to pursue the doctrine of the other. People read in a spirit of revenge. And the Speech, instead of frightening them, has prepared the way for the courageous principles of independence.\n\nCeremony, and even silence, whatever their motives, do harm when they lend the slightest encouragement to base and wicked deeds. If this principle holds, it follows that the King’s Speech, a masterpiece of villainy, deserved—and still deserves—the general condemnation of both Congress and the people. Yet a nation’s domestic peace depends greatly on the integrity of what may rightly be called its national manners. It is often better to pass over some things in silent contempt than to adopt new ways of expressing disapproval that might bring even the smallest change to that guardian of our peace and safety. Perhaps it is chiefly due to such prudent restraint that the King’s Speech has not already been publicly put to death. The Speech, if it can be called one, is nothing less than a deliberate, brazen libel against truth, the common good, and the existence of mankind; it is a formal, pompous way of offering human sacrifices to the pride of tyrants. But this general slaughter of mankind is one of the privileges of kings, and its inevitable consequence. Nature does not recognize them, and they do not recognize her. Though we ourselves created them, they do not recognize us: they have become the gods of their creators. The Speech has one good quality: it is not designed to deceive, and even if we wished to be deceived by it, we could not be. Its brutality and tyranny are plain on its face. It leaves us in no doubt. Every line convinces us as we read that the naked and untaught Indian who hunts the woods for prey is less a savage than the king of Britain.\n\nSir John Dalrymple, the reputed father of a whining, Jesuitical piece falsely called “The Address of the people of England to the inhabitants of America,” has perhaps given the present king’s true character, though most unwisely, out of the vain belief that people here could be frightened by royal pomp and titles. “But,” says this writer, “if you are inclined to pay compliments to an administration, which we do not complain of” (meaning the Marquis of Rockingham’s administration at the repeal of the Stamp Act), “it is very unfair in you to withhold them from that prince, by whose nod alone they were permitted to do any thing.” Here is Toryism indeed! Here is idolatry without even a mask. Anyone who can calmly hear and swallow such a doctrine has forfeited all claim to reason—an apostate from humanity itself. He should be regarded as one who has not only surrendered the rightful dignity of a human being but fallen beneath the rank of animals, crawling contemptibly through the world like a worm.\n\nBut it now matters very little what the king of England says or does. He has wickedly violated every moral and human obligation and trampled nature and conscience underfoot. By a steady, constitutionally sanctioned spirit of insolence and cruelty, he has earned universal hatred. America must now provide for herself. She already has a large, young family, and her duty to care for them is greater than any duty to give away her property in support of a power that has become a disgrace to the names of men and Christians. You whose office is to watch over a nation’s morals, whatever your sect or denomination, and you who are more directly the guardians of public liberty: if you wish to keep your native country undefiled by European corruption, in your hearts you must wish for separation. But I leave the moral side to private reflection and will confine most of my further remarks to the following subjects.\n\nFirst. That it is in America’s interest to separate from Britain.\n\nSecondly. Which plan is easier and more practicable, reconciliation or independence? With some remarks along the way.\n\nIn support of the first, I could, if I thought it proper, cite the opinions of some of the ablest and most experienced men on this Continent, whose views on the question are not yet public. In truth, the proposition is self-evident. No nation dependent on a foreign power, restricted in trade, and cramped and fettered in its power to make laws can ever achieve any great eminence. America does not yet know what prosperity is. Though her progress has no parallel in the history of other nations, it is mere childhood beside what she could attain if, as she should, she held the power to legislate in her own hands. England proudly covets something that would do her no good even if she gained it; meanwhile the Continent hesitates over a matter whose neglect will finally ruin her. It is by trading with America, not conquering her, that England will benefit. Much of that trade would continue if the countries were as independent of each other as France and Spain, since for many goods neither could find a better market. But this country’s independence from Britain, or from any other power, is now the principal and only object worth struggling for. Like every other truth discovered under the pressure of necessity, it will appear clearer and stronger with each passing day.\n\nFirst. Because sooner or later it will happen.\n\nSecondly. Because the longer it is delayed, the harder it will be to achieve.\n\nIn public and private gatherings I have often entertained myself by silently observing the plausible errors of people who speak without thinking. Of the many I have heard, the most common seems to be this: if the break had occurred forty or fifty years from now rather than now, the Continent would have been better able to cast off its dependence. My reply is that our present military ability comes from experience gained in the last war, experience that would be entirely lost in forty or fifty years. By then the Continent would have no general, not even a military officer, left; we, or those who succeed us, would know as little of war as the ancient Indians. This fact alone, carefully considered, proves beyond answer that the present is preferable to every other time. The argument is this: at the end of the last war, we had experience but lacked numbers; forty or fifty years from now, we would have numbers but no experience. The right moment must therefore fall between those extremes, when enough of the former remains and sufficient growth in the latter has been achieved. That moment is now.\n\nThe reader will forgive this digression, which does not properly belong under my first subject. I return to it with the following proposition:\n\nIf we patch things up with Britain and leave her the sovereign power governing America—which, as matters stand, would be to surrender the whole point—we will deprive ourselves of the very means of paying off the debt we have incurred or may yet incur. The value of the western lands of which some provinces have secretly been deprived by the unjust extension of Canada’s boundaries, reckoned at only five pounds sterling per hundred acres, comes to more than twenty-five millions in Pennsylvania currency; and their quit-rents, reckoned at one penny sterling per acre, come to two millions yearly.\n\nSelling those lands would pay off the debt without burdening anyone; the quit-rents reserved on them would continually lessen the annual cost of government and, in time, cover it entirely. It does not matter how long paying the debt takes, provided the proceeds when the lands are sold go toward discharging it. The Congress then in office will serve as the Continent’s trustees in carrying this out.\n\nI turn now to the second subject: which plan is easier and more practicable, reconciliation or independence? With some remarks along the way.\n\nAnyone who takes nature as a guide is not easily driven from an argument. On that ground I give this general answer: independence is a single, straightforward course within our own power; reconciliation is an exceedingly tangled and complicated affair, dependent on the intervention of a treacherous and capricious court. The answer admits no doubt.\n\n### Appendix, 2\n\nThe present state of America is truly alarming to anyone capable of reflection. We have no law, no government, no form of authority except what rests on courtesy and is granted by it. We are held together by an unprecedented agreement of feeling, which can nevertheless change, and which every secret enemy is trying to break apart. Our present condition is legislation without law; wisdom without a plan; a constitution without a name; and, most astonishing of all, complete independence struggling for dependence. There is no precedent for it; such a situation has never existed before; and who can say how it will end? No one's property is secure under the present loose system of affairs. The minds of the people are left to wander, and, seeing no fixed goal ahead, they pursue whatever fancy or opinion presents to them. Nothing is a crime; there is no such thing as treason; so everyone thinks himself free to act as he pleases. The Tories would not have dared to assemble in arms against us if they had known that doing so would forfeit their lives under the laws of the state. A distinction must be drawn between English soldiers taken in battle and inhabitants of America captured bearing arms. The former are prisoners; the latter, traitors. One forfeits his liberty, the other his head.\n\nFor all our wisdom, there is a visible weakness in some of our actions that encourages division. The Continental Belt is buckled too loosely. Unless something is done in time, it will be too late to act, and we shall fall into a condition in which neither reconciliation nor independence is possible. The king and his worthless adherents are back at their old game of dividing the Continent, and there is no shortage of printers among us ready to spread plausible falsehoods. The cunning and hypocritical letter that appeared a few months ago in two New-York papers, and in two others as well, shows that some men lack either judgment or honesty.\n\nIt is easy to retreat into corners and talk of reconciliation. But do such men seriously consider how difficult the task is, and how dangerous it could become if the Continent divides over it? Do they take account of all the different groups of people whose situations and circumstances must be considered, as well as their own? Do they put themselves in the place of the sufferer who has already lost everything, or of the soldier who has left everything behind to defend his country? If their misguided moderation suits only their own private circumstances, with no regard for others, events will teach them that “they are reckoning without their Host.”\n\n“Put us,” some say, “on the footing we were on in sixty-three.” My answer is that Britain no longer has the power to grant this request, nor will she propose it. But even if she could, and even if she granted it, I ask a reasonable question: how could a court so corrupt and faithless be held to its promises? Another parliament—or even the present one—might later repeal the agreement, claiming it was obtained by force or granted unwisely. Where then would we seek redress? Nations cannot take each other to court: cannon are the advocates of crowns, and the suit is decided by the sword of war, not the sword of justice. To return to the footing of sixty-three, it would not be enough merely to restore the laws to their former state; our circumstances must be restored as well: our burned and destroyed towns repaired or rebuilt, our private losses repaid, and our public debts, incurred for defense, discharged. Otherwise we shall be millions worse off than we were in that enviable time. Had such a request been granted a year ago, it would have won the heart and soul of the Continent. But now it is too late: “The Rubicon is passed.”\n\nBesides, taking up arms merely to compel the repeal of a tax law seems as unjustifiable under divine law, and as offensive to human feeling, as taking up arms to compel obedience to it. On neither side does the object justify the means: human lives are too precious to throw away over such trifles. It is the violence done and threatened to our persons, the destruction of our property by armed force, and the invasion of our country with fire and sword that justify the use of arms in good conscience. And the moment this form of defense became necessary, all submission to Britain should have ended. America's independence should have been reckoned as beginning with, and announced by, the first musket fired against her. This is a consistent dividing line, drawn neither by caprice nor by ambition, but by a chain of events the colonies did not set in motion.\n\nI shall conclude these remarks with the following timely and well-meant suggestions. We should remember that independence may eventually be achieved in three different ways, and that one of the three will sooner or later be America's fate: by the lawful voice of the people in Congress, by military power, or by a mob. Our soldiers may not always be citizens, nor the multitude a body of reasonable people; virtue, as I have already observed, is neither hereditary nor everlasting. If independence comes by the first of these means, we have every opportunity and every encouragement to establish the noblest, purest constitution on earth. We have the power to begin the world anew. Nothing like our present situation has arisen since the days of Noah. The birth of a new world is near, and a people perhaps as numerous as all of Europe are to receive their share of freedom through the events of a few months. The thought inspires awe—and from this perspective, how petty, how ridiculous, the paltry objections of a few weak or self-interested men appear when set against the affairs of a world.\n\nIf we neglect this favorable and inviting moment, and independence is later achieved by some other means, we must blame ourselves for the consequences—or rather those narrow, prejudiced souls who habitually oppose it without inquiry or reflection. There are arguments for independence that men should consider privately rather than hear proclaimed in public. We should not now be debating whether to become independent, but striving to achieve independence on a firm, secure, and honorable foundation—and troubled instead that the work has not yet begun. Every day convinces us that it is necessary. Even the Tories, if any such people remain among us, should be more eager than anyone to advance it. Just as the first appointment of committees protected them from popular fury, a wise and firmly established form of government will be the only sure means of keeping them safe. Thus, if they lack the virtue to be Whigs, they ought at least to have the prudence to wish for independence.\n\nIn short, independence is the only bond that can bind us and hold us together. Then our aim will be clear, and the law will close our ears to the schemes of an enemy as cunning as he is cruel. Then, too, we shall be properly placed to negotiate with Britain: there is reason to think that court's pride will suffer less from discussing terms of peace with the American states than from discussing terms of accommodation with those it calls “rebellious subjects.” Our delay encourages Britain to hope for conquest, and our reluctance only prolongs the war. Since we have withheld our trade without thereby winning redress for our grievances, let us now try the alternative: redress them ourselves as an independent people, and then offer to reopen trade. The merchants and reasonable people of England will still support us, because peace with trade is better than war without it. And if the offer is refused, we can approach other courts.\n\nOn these grounds I rest the case. Since no attempt has yet been made to refute the argument in earlier editions of this pamphlet, that silence is evidence, if only by absence, either that the argument cannot be refuted or that its supporters are too numerous to oppose. So instead of regarding one another with suspicion and uncertainty, let each of us extend a warm hand of friendship to his neighbor and join in drawing a line that, like an act of oblivion, will consign every former division to forgetfulness. Let the names Whig and Tory disappear; let us hear no other names among us than those of a good citizen, an open and resolute friend, and a virtuous defender of the rights of humanity and of the FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES OF AMERICA.","download_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/common-sense/translations/trn_common_sense_mouseia.txt"},{"id":"trn_common_sense_plain","translator":"Mouseia","kind":"plain","note":"Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from the complete 1776 Bradford-edition English text (introduction, four sections and the appendix).","text":"### Introduction\n\nThe views in these pages may not yet be popular enough to win broad support. When people have long been used to thinking something is not wrong, it starts to look right to them. At first they make a great noise defending the custom. But that noise soon dies down. Time changes more minds than arguments do.\n\nWhen power has been abused for a long time and in a harsh way, people usually start asking whether those in power had any right to it in the first place. They may even ask questions that would never have come up if their suffering had not driven them to do so. The King of England has taken it upon himself to back Parliament's claims, using what he says is his own authority. The people of this country are badly oppressed by the two acting together. They have every right to examine the claims of both and to reject either one's seizure of power.\n\nIn the pages that follow, I have deliberately avoided personal disputes among us. I neither praise nor criticize particular people. Wise and decent people do not need a pamphlet to celebrate them. People with poor judgment or hostile views will lose their influence on their own, unless too much effort is spent trying to change their minds.\n\nAmerica's cause is largely the cause of everyone in the world. Many things have happened, and more will happen, that matter not just here but everywhere. They affect the principles of everyone who cares about humanity, and those people care about the outcome. When a country is devastated by fire and weapons, when war is declared against the natural rights of all people, and when those who defend those rights are wiped from the earth, everyone capable of feeling should be concerned. Whatever any political faction may say about me, I am one of those people.\n\nAUTHOR\n\nP.S. Publication of this new edition was delayed so that I could address any attempt to refute the case for independence, if that became necessary. No answer has appeared. It now seems none will, since more than enough time has passed for someone to prepare one for the public.\n\nThe public does not need to know who wrote this work. What matters is its argument, not its author. Still, it may be worth saying that I belong to no party and am under no public or private influence except reason and principle.\n\nPhiladelphia, February 14, 1776\n\n### Of the Origin and Design of Government in General, with Concise Remarks on the English Constitution\n\nSome writers have mixed up society and government so much that they barely distinguish them. But they are different things, and they come from different sources. We form societies because we need one another. We set up governments because we do wrong. Society brings us happiness by drawing us together. Government helps us by holding back our bad behavior. One encourages people to deal with each other; the other separates them into ranks. Society helps us; government punishes us.\n\nSociety is a blessing in any condition. Even the best government is only a necessary evil, and the worst is unbearable. If a government makes us suffer, or leaves us open to the same suffering we would face in a country with no government, the situation is worse because we ourselves supply the means by which it harms us. Government is like clothing: it shows that we have lost our innocence. Kings' palaces stand where the shelters of paradise once stood. If everyone always knew clearly what was right and obeyed that knowledge without fail, no one would need another person to make laws. But that is not how people behave. So each person gives up some of what they own to pay for the protection of the rest. They do this for the same practical reason that leads them to choose the lesser of two evils in any other situation. Protection is the real purpose of government. It follows that the best form of government is the one most likely to provide it at the lowest cost and with the greatest benefit.\n\nTo understand what government is for, imagine a small group settling in a remote place with no contact with anyone else. They would be like the first people to settle any country, or even the world. In this state of natural freedom, their first concern would be to form a society. They would have countless reasons to do so. One person's strength cannot meet all that person's needs, and no one is suited to being alone forever. Each would soon need help from another, who would need help in return. Four or five people together could build a decent shelter in the wilderness. One person working alone might spend a normal lifetime at it and get nowhere. After cutting down trees, that person could not move the wood, or raise it after moving it. Hunger would interrupt the work, while other needs would pull the worker in different directions. Sickness, or even a setback, could mean death. Neither might be deadly on its own, but either could make a person unable to survive. Such a person would waste away rather than simply die.\n\nNeed would pull these new settlers together into a society, much as gravity pulls things together. Its shared benefits would make laws and government unnecessary as long as they treated one another with perfect fairness. But only heaven is safe from wrongdoing. Once the settlers have overcome the first hardships that united them, they will begin to care less about their duties to one another. Their neglect will show why they need some form of government to make up for their lack of virtue.\n\nThey might meet under the branches of a convenient tree, using it as their public meeting place. The whole colony could gather there to discuss common concerns. Their first laws would probably be called only rules, and the only punishment for breaking them would be the disapproval of others. Every man would have a seat in this first assembly by natural right.\n\nAs the colony grows, its shared concerns will grow too. People will live farther apart, making it too difficult for everyone to meet each time a decision is needed. At first there were few people, their homes were close, and their shared concerns were few and small. They will now find it useful to let a chosen group from among them make laws. These representatives are expected to have the same interests as the people who chose them, and to act as everyone would act if they could be there. If the colony keeps growing, it will need more representatives. To make sure every part of the colony has a voice, the people will divide it into manageable areas, each sending an appropriate number. Elections should be frequent so that elected members do not develop interests separate from those of the voters. After a few months, members may return to live among the voters. They will remain faithful to the public because they will know better than to make a rod that will be used on them. This regular exchange will give every part of the community a shared interest. People will naturally support one another. That, not the empty title of king, is what makes government strong and its people happy.\n\nThis is how government begins: it becomes necessary because people's goodness alone cannot govern the world. Its purpose is freedom and protection. Impressive displays may dazzle us, fine words may mislead us, prejudice may twist our wishes, and self-interest may cloud our understanding. But nature and reason tell us plainly that this is right.\n\nI base my view of government on a principle of nature that no clever design can change: the simpler a thing is, the less likely it is to go wrong, and the easier it is to fix if it does. With that in mind, I have a few things to say about England's much-praised constitution. I agree that it was an important achievement in the dark times of servitude when it was created. When tyranny was everywhere, any move away from it was a great rescue. But it is easy to show that the constitution is flawed, prone to upheaval, and unable to deliver what it seems to promise.\n\nAbsolute governments are a disgrace to humanity, but they do have one advantage: they are simple. If people suffer, they know who is responsible and what they must do about it. They do not have to sort through many possible causes and cures. England's constitution is so complicated that the country can suffer for years without knowing which part is at fault. People blame different parts, and every supposed political doctor offers a different treatment.\n\nI know it is hard to overcome local prejudices or ones held for a long time. But if we examine the parts of England's constitution, we will find the ugly remains of two old forms of tyranny mixed with some newer republican elements.\n\nFirst—the remains of rule by a tyrant king, in the person of the king.\n\nSecond—the remains of rule by tyrannical nobles, in the persons of the peers.\n\nThird—the new republican elements, in the persons of the commons. England's freedom depends on their integrity.\n\nThe first two hold their positions by inheritance and do not answer to the people. So they do nothing for the freedom of the country under its constitution.\n\nIt is ridiculous to say that England's constitution joins three powers that keep one another in check. Either those words mean nothing, or they contradict each other outright.\n\nSaying that the commons can check the king assumes two things:\n\nFirst—the king cannot be trusted without supervision. In other words, kings naturally want unchecked power.\n\nSecond—the commons were appointed to supervise him because they are wiser or more trustworthy than the king.\n\nYet the same constitution that lets the commons check the king by refusing to provide money also lets the king check the commons by rejecting their other bills. Now it assumes the king is wiser than the people it already assumed were wiser than he is. That is simply absurd!\n\nThere is something deeply ridiculous about the way monarchy works. It cuts a man off from the information he needs, then lets him make decisions requiring the best judgment. A king's position separates him from the world, while his job requires him to know that world thoroughly. These parts work against each other so unnaturally that the whole role is absurd and useless.\n\nSome writers describe England's constitution this way: the king is on one side and the people on the other. The peers form a house for the king, while the commons form a house for the people. But that describes a house divided against itself. The words may sound neatly arranged, but they are vague and empty when examined. Even the most precise words available cannot describe something that either cannot exist or is too confusing to describe. They may sound pleasant but teach us nothing. And this account avoids a basic question: how did the king get a power the people cannot trust and must always check? A wise people could not have given him such power. Nor could a power that needs checking come from God. Yet the constitution's safeguards assume that he has it.\n\nThose safeguards are not up to the task. They cannot, or will not, achieve their purpose, so the system defeats itself. A heavier weight will always lift a lighter one. In a machine, one driving force sets all the wheels moving. We need only find which power in the constitution has the most weight, because that power will rule. The others may slow it down, or, as people say, check it. But unless they can stop it, their efforts will fail. The driving force will eventually get its way; time will make up for any loss of speed.\n\nClearly the crown is the strongest power in England's constitution. It gets its strength entirely from its power to give out offices and pensions. We were wise enough to shut and lock the door against absolute monarchy, yet foolish enough to hand the key to the crown.\n\nEnglish people's preference for their own system of king, lords, and commons comes at least as much from national pride as from reason. People in England are certainly safer than people in some other countries. But the king's will is just as much the law in Britain as it is in France. The difference is that in Britain his will comes to the people in the more threatening form of an act of Parliament, rather than straight from his mouth. What happened to Charles the first has only made kings more cunning, not more just.\n\nSo let us set aside national pride and prejudice about particular systems and forms. The plain truth is that the crown is less oppressive in England than in Turkey because of the character of the people, not the structure of the government.\n\nIt is especially important now to examine the flaws in England's system of government. We cannot judge others fairly when strong favoritism influences us. Likewise, stubborn prejudice keeps us from judging what is best for ourselves. A man attached to a prostitute is not well placed to choose or judge a wife. In the same way, attachment to a rotten constitution will keep us from recognizing a good one.\n\n### Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession, 1\n\nAll people were created equal. Only something that happened later could have changed that equality. We can explain much of the difference between rich and poor without bringing in such harsh words as oppression and greed. Oppression often follows wealth, but it rarely, if ever, creates it. Greed may keep a person from becoming desperately poor, but it usually makes that person too afraid to become wealthy.\n\nThere is another, greater division that cannot be explained by nature or religion: the division between kings and subjects. Nature makes people male and female; heaven distinguishes good from bad. But we should ask how one group of people came to be placed so far above everyone else, as though they were a different species. We should also ask whether kings bring people happiness or misery.\n\nAccording to the Bible's timeline, there were no kings in the world's earliest days, and therefore no wars. The pride of kings throws humanity into turmoil. Over the last century, Holland has enjoyed more peace without a king than any European country ruled by a monarch. Ancient history supports the same point. The peaceful country lives of the earliest patriarchs have an appealing quality that disappears when the history of Jewish kings begins.\n\nThe pagans first brought monarchy into the world, and the people of Israel copied them. It was the most successful idea the Devil ever had for spreading the worship of false gods. Pagans gave divine honors to dead kings. The Christian world went further and gives such honors to living kings. How offensive to God to call a mere mortal “sacred majesty”! Even at the height of his splendor, his body is turning to dust.\n\nThe equal rights people have by nature cannot justify placing one man so far above everyone else. Neither can the Bible justify it. As Gideon and the prophet Samuel declared, the Almighty clearly disapproves of rule by kings. Governments ruled by monarchs have glossed over all the passages in the Bible that oppose monarchy. But countries still deciding how to govern themselves should pay close attention to them. Courts cite the biblical command, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.” Yet that does not support monarchy. At the time, the Jews had no king and were under Roman rule.\n\nAccording to Moses' account of creation, nearly three thousand years passed before the Jews, under a mistaken national belief, asked for a king. Until then, apart from unusual cases when the Almighty intervened, their government was a kind of republic led by a judge and the elders of the tribes. They had no kings. They believed it was a sin to give that title to anyone but the Lord of Hosts. Think seriously about the worshipful respect shown to kings as people. It is no wonder that the Almighty, who protects his honor, would reject a system that so offensively claims what belongs to heaven.\n\nThe Bible counts monarchy among the sins of the Jews and declares that a curse awaits them for it. The story of what happened is worth examining.\n\nWhen the Midianites oppressed the people of Israel, Gideon marched against them with a small army. With God's help, he won. The Jews were excited by their success and credited Gideon's leadership. They proposed making him king, saying, “Rule over us, you and your son and your son's son.” This offered him every possible temptation: not just a kingdom but one his family would inherit. Yet Gideon answered with sincere devotion: “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you. The Lord will rule over you.” He could not have spoken more clearly. Gideon did not simply turn down the honor; he denied that the people had the right to offer it. He did not flatter them with a made-up speech of thanks. Speaking firmly like a prophet, he accused them of disloyalty to their rightful ruler, the King of heaven.\n\nAbout one hundred and thirty years later, they made the same mistake again. It is hard to explain why the Jews wanted so badly to copy the pagan customs of people who worshiped false gods. Yet they used the bad conduct of Samuel's two sons, who had been given responsibility for some worldly affairs, as a reason to come to Samuel with loud, sudden demands. They said, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways. Now appoint a king to govern us, like all the other nations.” Their reason was bad: they wanted to be like the other nations, meaning the pagans. In fact, their greatest honor lay in being as different from them as possible. But Samuel was displeased when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” He prayed to the Lord, and the Lord told him, “Listen to everything the people are saying to you. They have not rejected you; they have rejected me as their ruler. They are doing to you what they have done to me since the day I brought them out of Egypt. They have abandoned me and served other gods. So listen to them now. But warn them solemnly, and tell them how the king who rules over them will behave.” This was not a warning about one particular king. It described how kings in general behave, the very kings Israel was so eager to copy. Though times and customs have changed greatly, that behavior is still common. Samuel told the people who asked for a king everything the Lord had said. He told them, “This is how the king who rules over you will behave. He will take your sons to serve with his chariots and as his horsemen. Some will run ahead of his chariots.” This describes the modern practice of forcing men into service. “He will appoint commanders over thousands and commanders over fifties. He will make men plow his land and harvest his crops, and make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to prepare sweets, cook, and bake.” This shows the expense and luxury of kings, as well as their oppression. “He will take your fields and olive groves, even the best ones, and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your seed and of your vineyards, and give it to his officers and servants.” We can see that bribery, corruption, and favoritism are lasting habits of kings. “He will take a tenth of your male servants, female servants, finest young men, and donkeys, and put them to work for him. He will take a tenth of your sheep, and you will become his servants. One day you will cry out because of the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you that day.” This explains why monarchy has continued. The few good kings who have lived since then do not make the title sacred or erase the sin at its beginning. The great praise given to David concerns him as a man close to God's heart, not his position as king. Even so, the people refused to listen to Samuel. They said, “No, we will have a king over us. Then we can be like all the other nations. Our king can govern us, lead us into battle, and fight our battles.” Samuel kept trying to reason with them, but it did no good. He showed them how ungrateful they were, but nothing changed their minds. Seeing that they were determined to act foolishly, he called out, “I will call on the Lord, and he will send thunder and rain. Then you will understand how greatly you have sinned before the Lord by asking for a king.” At wheat harvest, when this happened, rain was a punishment. Samuel called on the Lord, who sent thunder and rain that day. All the people became very afraid of the Lord and of Samuel. They told Samuel, “Pray to the Lord your God for us, his servants, so that we do not die. By asking for a king, we have added this evil to all our sins.” These parts of the Bible are clear and direct. They cannot reasonably mean something else. Either God has spoken against monarchy here, or the Bible is false. It is reasonable to suspect that kings, as well as priests, have had a hand in keeping the Bible from the public in Catholic countries. In every case, monarchy is the equivalent of Catholic Church rule in government.\n\nAs if monarchy were not bad enough, we have added hereditary succession. Monarchy reduces our standing as people. Claiming a right to pass the crown down through a family also insults and cheats future generations. Since all people were equal to begin with, no one can have a birthright to put their family ahead of every other family forever. A person might deserve some respect from those living at the same time, but that person's descendants might not deserve it at all. One of the strongest natural arguments against a king's hereditary right is that nature herself rejects it. Otherwise she would not so often make a joke of it by giving us a donkey where we expected a lion.\n\n### Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession, 2\n\nSecond, no man could originally hold a public honor unless others gave it to him. Those who gave him that honor had no power to give away their descendants' rights. They might say, “We choose you as our leader.” But they could not justly say, “Your children and grandchildren will rule ours forever.” That would be plainly unfair to their own children. Such a foolish, unjust, and unnatural agreement might leave the next generation under a scoundrel or a fool. In private, most wise people have always looked down on hereditary rule. Yet once this evil is established, it is hard to remove. Some accept it out of fear, others out of superstition, and the most powerful share in the king's plunder of everyone else.\n\nThis assumes that the kings now ruling the world came from honorable beginnings. More likely, if we could uncover the distant past and trace their beginnings, we would find that the first king was merely the leading thug in a restless gang. His brutality or unusual cleverness made him chief among the thieves. As he gained power and widened his raids, he frightened peaceful, defenseless people into paying him regularly for their safety. Yet the people who chose him could not have intended to give his descendants a hereditary right to rule. Permanently shutting themselves out would have conflicted with the freedom they claimed for themselves. So in the early days of monarchy, succession within a family could not have been a recognized right. It happened by chance or as a gesture of respect. But few records, if any, existed then, and oral histories were full of fables. After a few generations, it was easy to invent a conveniently timed, superstitious story, as Mahomet did, and force ordinary people to accept hereditary rule. Perhaps the disorder that threatened, or seemed to threaten, when a leader died and another had to be chosen led many people to favor hereditary claims at first. Elections among thugs could hardly be orderly. Thus, as has happened since, people first accepted a practice for convenience, and later someone claimed it as a right.\n\nEngland has had a few good monarchs since the conquest, but far more bad ones. No reasonable person can say that their claim through William the Conqueror has honorable origins. A Frenchman born out of wedlock landed with an armed gang and made himself king of England against its people's wishes. Put plainly, that is a shabby, disgraceful beginning. There is certainly nothing divine about it. But there is no need to spend much time exposing the foolishness of hereditary rule. If anyone is weak enough to believe in it, they are welcome to worship both the donkey and the lion without distinction. I will neither imitate their submissiveness nor interfere with their worship.\n\nStill, I would like to ask how they think kings first came to power. There are only three possible answers: by chance selection, by election, or by taking power unlawfully. If the first king was chosen by chance, that sets an example for choosing the next one and rules out hereditary succession. Saul was chosen by chance, yet the throne did not pass down through his family. Nor does that event show any intention that it ever should. If a country's first king was elected, that too sets an example for choosing the next one. To say that the first voters could choose not just one king but a family of kings forever, and thereby take away the rights of every later generation, has no parallel in scripture or elsewhere except the doctrine of original sin. That doctrine says that all people lost their free will through Adam. This is the only possible comparison, and it does nothing to glorify hereditary succession. Through Adam, everyone sinned; through the first voters, everyone was made to obey. In one case all humanity was put under Satan, and in the other, under royal rule. In the first we lost our innocence; in the second, our authority. Both prevent us from regaining a former condition and right. So original sin and hereditary succession are unmistakably alike. What a disgraceful standing! What a shameful connection! Even the cleverest defender of a false argument could not find a fairer comparison.\n\nAs for seizing the throne unlawfully, no one will dare defend that. And no one can deny that William the Conqueror seized it unlawfully. The plain truth is that the early history of the English monarchy cannot stand close examination.\n\nBut what matters to humanity is not so much how absurd hereditary succession is as how much harm it does. If it guaranteed a line of good, wise rulers, it would bear the mark of divine approval. Instead, it lets foolish, wicked, and unfit people take power, so it is a form of oppression. Men who think they were born to rule and others were born to obey soon become arrogant. Set apart from everyone else, they grow up with an inflated sense of their own importance. Their world differs so greatly from the wider world that they have little chance to learn what truly serves its interests. When they take power, they are often the least informed and least fit people anywhere in their domains.\n\nHereditary succession brings another evil: a child of any age can take the throne. Throughout that child's reign, the people ruling in the king's name have every chance and incentive to betray the trust placed in them. The nation suffers the same misfortune when an old and infirm king reaches the final stage of human weakness. In either case the public falls prey to any scoundrel who can exploit the foolishness of childhood or old age.\n\nThe strongest argument ever offered for hereditary succession is that it keeps a nation from civil war. If that were true, it would matter a great deal. But it is the most blatant lie ever forced on humanity. All of English history contradicts it. Since the conquest, thirty kings and two children have ruled that troubled kingdom. During that time there have been no fewer than eight civil wars, including the Revolution, and nineteen rebellions. So hereditary succession does not bring peace. It works against peace and destroys the very basis on which its defenders claim it rests.\n\nThe dispute over the crown and its succession between the houses of York and Lancaster left England soaked in blood for many years. Henry and Edward fought twelve full battles, as well as skirmishes and sieges. Edward twice held Henry prisoner; Henry in turn held Edward prisoner. When a dispute concerns only the claims of particular people, the course of war and the people's loyalties are so uncertain that Henry could be carried in triumph from prison to a palace while Edward had to flee his palace for another country. But sudden shifts in public feeling rarely last. Henry was driven from the throne in turn, and Edward was called back to replace him. Parliament always sided with whoever was strongest.\n\nThis struggle began under Henry the Sixth and did not end completely until Henry the Seventh, who united the two families. It lasted 67 years, from 1422 to 1489.\n\nIn short, monarchy and hereditary succession have brought bloodshed and ruin not just to one kingdom or another, but to the whole world. God's word speaks against this form of government, and bloodshed will follow it.\n\nIf we ask what a king does, we find that in some countries he does nothing. He wastes his life, giving neither himself pleasure nor the nation any benefit. Then he leaves the scene, and his successor repeats the same idle routine. Under an absolute monarchy, all civil and military responsibilities fall on the king. When the children of Israel asked for a king, they gave this reason: “He may judge us, and go out before us and fight our battles.” But in countries like England, where the king is neither a judge nor a general, it is hard to say what his job is.\n\nThe closer a government comes to being a republic, the less work there is for a king. It is somewhat hard to give England's government the right name. Sir William Meredith calls it a republic. But as it stands, it does not deserve that name. The crown controls all the government posts, and its corrupt influence has so thoroughly consumed the power and integrity of the House of Commons—the republican part of the constitution—that England's government is nearly as monarchical as those of France or Spain. People argue over names without understanding them. English people take pride in the republican part of their constitution, not the monarchical part: their freedom to choose members of the House of Commons from among themselves. It is easy to see that when republican integrity fails, slavery follows. Why is England's constitution so unhealthy? Because monarchy has poisoned the republic, and the crown has taken over the Commons.\n\nIn England a king does little besides start wars and hand out government jobs. Put plainly, he makes the nation poorer and sets its people against each other. What a fine job to pay a man eight hundred thousand sterling a year for, while worshipping him as well! One honest man is worth more to society and in God's eyes than all the crowned thugs who ever lived.\n\n### Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs, 1\n\nIn the pages that follow, I offer only simple facts, clear arguments, and common sense. I ask just one thing of the reader before we begin: set aside prejudice and fixed opinions. Let your own reason and feelings decide. Act as a human being should—or rather, do not stop acting that way—and look generously beyond the concerns of today.\n\nMany books have been written about the struggle between England and America. People from every rank of society have joined the debate, for different reasons and with different aims. But none of it has worked, and the time for debate is over. As a last resort, weapons will decide the conflict. The king chose to settle it this way, and the continent has accepted his challenge.\n\nIt is said that the late Mr. Pelham, who was a capable minister despite his faults, was once criticized in the House of Commons because his policies would last only a short time. He replied, “They will last my time.” If the colonies take such a harmful and cowardly attitude in this struggle, future generations will hate the memory of their ancestors.\n\nThere has never been a cause more important than this one. It concerns not just a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, but a whole continent—at least one eighth of the habitable world. It concerns not just a day, a year, or an age. Future generations are involved in this struggle too, and our actions now will affect them to some degree until the end of time. Now is the time to plant the seeds of unity, trust, and honor across the continent. Even the smallest break in that unity now will be like a name scratched with a pin into the soft bark of a young oak. As the tree grows, the wound will grow too, until future generations can read the name in large letters.\n\nMoving the dispute from arguments to weapons has begun a new political era and a new way of thinking. All plans and proposals made before the nineteenth of April, when fighting began, are like last year's calendars. They made sense then but are now outdated and useless. At that time, the arguments on both sides had the same goal: union with Great-Britain. The only disagreement was about how to achieve it. One side proposed force and the other friendship. But force has failed so far, and friendship has lost its influence.\n\nPeople have said much about the advantages of reconciliation. That pleasant dream has passed, leaving us where we were. So we should look at the other side of the argument. We should examine some of the many serious harms the colonies suffer, and will always suffer, from their connection to and dependence on Great-Britain. We should judge that connection and dependence by nature and common sense. Then we can see what we can count on if we separate, and what to expect if we remain dependent.\n\nSome people have told me that America prospered under its old connection with Great-Britain, so it needs that connection to prosper in the future. They say it will always have the same effect. This reasoning could hardly be more misleading. We might as well say that because a child grew well on milk, the child must never eat solid food, or that the first twenty years of our lives must set the pattern for the next twenty. But even that concedes too much. I say plainly that America would have prospered just as much, and probably much more, if no European power had involved itself here. America has grown rich through trade in life's necessities. Those goods will always find buyers as long as Europeans keep eating.\n\nBut some say Britain has protected us. It is true that Britain has kept us under its control. It has also defended the continent, at our expense as well as its own. But it would have defended Turkey for the same reason: to protect its trade and power.\n\nSadly, old prejudices have misled us for a long time, and we have made great sacrifices to misguided beliefs. We have praised Great-Britain for protecting us without asking why it did so. Its motive was self-interest, not affection. It defended us not against people who were our enemies for our own sake, but against Britain's enemies for Britain's sake. Those people had no other quarrel with us, and they will remain our enemies for that same reason. If Britain gave up its claims over the continent, or if the continent ended its dependence on Britain, we could be at peace with France and Spain even while they were at war with Britain. What Hanover suffered in the last war should warn us about such connections.\n\nParliament has recently claimed that the colonies are related to each other only through their parent country. In other words, Pennsylvania and the Jerseys, and all the other colonies, are supposedly sister colonies only because of England. That is certainly a roundabout way to show that they are related. But it is the closest and only valid way to explain why they become enemies of other nations, if I may put it that way. France and Spain have never been our enemies as Americans, and perhaps never will be. They are our enemies only because we are subjects of Great-Britain.\n\nBut some say Britain is our parent country. If so, its conduct is all the more shameful. Even animals do not eat their own young, and even people called savages do not make war on their families. If the claim were true, it would only make Britain look worse. But it is not true, or is only partly true. The king and his hangers-on have cunningly adopted the phrase “parent country” or “mother country” to exploit our readiness to believe it, as religious manipulators exploit faith. Europe, not England alone, is America's parent country. This new world has sheltered people persecuted for their love of civil and religious freedom throughout Europe. They came here not to escape a mother's loving embrace, but to escape a monster's cruelty. As for England, the same tyranny that drove the first emigrants from home still pursues their descendants.\n\nIn this vast part of the world, we leave behind the narrow span of three hundred and sixty miles that makes up England. We extend our friendship more widely. We call every European Christian our brother and take pride in the generosity of that view.\n\nIt is pleasing to see how, as we get to know more of the world, we gradually overcome our local prejudices. Someone born in an English town divided into parishes will naturally spend the most time with people from his own parish, since they often share the same interests. He will call one of them a neighbor. If he meets that person a few miles from home, he will stop thinking in terms of streets and call him a fellow townsman. If he travels out of the county and meets him in another county, he will forget streets and towns and call him a countryman—that is, someone from the same county. If they meet while traveling in France or elsewhere in Europe, they will think of themselves more broadly as English people. By the same reasoning, all Europeans who meet in America or anywhere else in the world are countrymen. Compared with the world as a whole, England, Holland, Germany, and Sweden are like streets, towns, and counties on a smaller scale. Those divisions are too narrow for people who think on a continental scale. Not even one third of the people in this province have English ancestry. So I reject the claim that England alone is our parent or mother country. It is false, selfish, narrow-minded, and ungenerous.\n\nBut suppose we all had English ancestry. What would that prove? Nothing. Britain is now openly our enemy, and that fact outweighs every other name or relationship. To say that we therefore have a duty to reconcile is ridiculous. The first English king of the present royal line, William the Conqueror, was French, and half the peers of England are descended from the French. By the same reasoning, France ought to govern England.\n\nPeople have said much about the combined strength of Britain and the colonies. They say that together we could stand against the whole world. But this is an empty assumption. No one can predict the outcome of war, and the claim means nothing in practice. The continent would never let its people be taken away to support British armies in Asia, Africa, or Europe.\n\nBesides, why should we want to stand against the world? Our aim is trade. If we manage it well, it will bring us peace and friendship with all of Europe, because every European nation has an interest in America being a port open to all. America's trade will always protect it, and its lack of gold and silver will keep invaders away.\n\nI challenge the strongest supporter of reconciliation to name one benefit the continent gets from its connection with Great Britain. I repeat: not one benefit comes from it. Our grain will earn a fair price in any European market, and wherever we buy imported goods, we will have to pay for them.\n\nBut the harms and disadvantages of that connection are countless. Our duty to ourselves and to humanity tells us to end the alliance. Any submission to or dependence on Great-Britain directly risks dragging the continent into Europe's wars and disputes. It puts us at odds with nations that would otherwise want our friendship, nations against which we have neither anger nor grievance. Since all of Europe is a market for our trade, we should not form an exclusive connection with any part of it. America's real interest lies in staying out of Europe's conflicts. It cannot do that while its dependence on Britain makes it a counterweight in British politics.\n\nEurope has too many kingdoms to remain at peace for long. Whenever England goes to war with another power, America's trade suffers ruin because America is tied to Britain. The next war may not end like the last one. If it does not, those who now favor reconciliation will wish for separation then. In that situation, staying neutral would protect our trade better than a warship would. Everything right and natural argues for separation. The blood of those killed and the grieving voice of nature cry out, “It is time to part.” Even the great distance at which Almighty God placed England and America strongly suggests that God never meant one to rule the other. The time when the continent was discovered strengthens this argument, and the way it was settled makes it stronger still. The discovery of America came before the Reformation, as though Almighty God kindly meant to open a refuge for people who would be persecuted in later years, when they could find neither friendship nor safety at home.\n\nGreat-Britain's rule over this continent is a form of government that must end sooner or later. Anyone who thinks seriously about it can take no real pleasure in the future while knowing for certain that what he calls “the present constitution” is only temporary. As parents, we cannot be happy when we know this government will not last long enough to secure anything we leave to future generations. The reasoning is simple: if we leave the next generation in debt, we ought to do the work the debt pays for. Otherwise we treat them shamefully. To see our duty clearly, we should imagine holding our children's hands and standing a few years farther along in life. From that vantage point, we will see a future that our present fears and prejudices hide from us.\n\n### Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs, 2\n\nI don't want to cause needless offense, but I think everyone who favors reconciliation fits one of these descriptions. Some have a personal interest and can't be trusted. Some are too weak to see what is happening. Some are too prejudiced to see it. And some are moderate people who think more highly of Europe than it deserves. Through their poor judgment and hesitation, this last group will bring more disaster on this continent than the other three groups combined.\n\nMany people are lucky enough to live far from the suffering. The harm has not reached their doors, so they do not feel how insecure all American property is. But imagine for a moment that we are in Boston. That miserable city will teach us to give up forever any allegiance to a power we cannot trust. Just a few months ago its people lived in comfort and plenty. Now they must either stay and starve or leave and beg. If they remain, their friends' gunfire puts them in danger. If they leave, soldiers rob them. They are prisoners with no hope of rescue. If an attack were launched to free them, both armies would put them in danger.\n\nPeople with mild temperaments tend to overlook Britain's offenses. Still hoping for the best, they say, “Come on, we'll be friends again despite all this.” But think about human feelings. Test the idea of reconciliation against human nature. Then tell me: can you ever again love, honor, and faithfully serve a power that has brought fire and the sword into your country? If you cannot do all three, you are fooling yourselves. Your delay will bring ruin on future generations. Any future tie to Britain, which you can neither love nor honor, will be forced and unnatural. It will be based only on what seems convenient now, and before long it will break down into a conflict worse than the first. But if you say you can overlook these wrongs, I ask: Has your house burned down? Has your property been destroyed before your eyes? Do your wife and children lack a bed to sleep in or bread to eat? Have you lost a parent or child at their hands, leaving you ruined and miserable? If not, you cannot judge those who have. But if you have suffered these things and can still shake hands with the killers, you do not deserve to be called a husband, father, friend, or lover. Whatever your position or title, you have a coward's heart and the spirit of a flatterer.\n\nI am not stirring people up or exaggerating. I am judging events by the feelings and attachments that nature approves. Without them, we could neither meet our responsibilities to others nor enjoy the happiness of living together. I am not describing horrors to incite revenge. I want to wake us from a dangerous, shameful sleep so we can firmly pursue a clear goal. Britain and Europe cannot conquer America unless America defeats herself through delay and fear. If we use this winter well, it will be worth an age. If we waste it, the whole continent will suffer. Anyone who causes us to lose such a precious and useful season deserves every punishment, no matter who they are, what position they hold, or where they live.\n\nIt goes against reason, the natural order, and every example from the past to think this continent can remain under an outside power any longer. Even the most hopeful people in Britain do not think it can. At this point, no amount of human wisdom can devise a plan short of separation that promises the continent even a year of security. Reconciliation is now a false dream. Nature has broken the connection, and human effort cannot restore it. As Milton wisely put it, “True reconciliation can never grow where the wounds of deadly hatred run so deep.”\n\nEvery peaceful way of seeking peace has failed. Our petitions have been rejected with contempt. They have only shown us that repeated petitions flatter kings' vanity and strengthen their stubbornness more than anything else. This practice has done more than anything to give the kings of Europe absolute power. Denmark and Sweden are examples. Since only force will work, for God's sake, let us separate once and for all. Do not leave the next generation to kill each other while pretending Britain and America are still parent and child.\n\nIt is foolish wishful thinking to say they will never try again. We thought that when the Stamp Act was repealed, but a year or two later we learned otherwise. We might just as well assume that a nation defeated once will never fight again.\n\nWhen it comes to government, Britain cannot treat this continent fairly. Its affairs will soon be too extensive and complicated to be managed reasonably by a power so far away and so ignorant of us. If they cannot conquer us, they cannot govern us. Imagine always having to travel three or four thousand miles to tell your story or submit a petition, wait four or five months for a reply, and then spend five or six more months explaining that reply. Within a few years, people will see that as foolish and childish. There was a time when it made sense, and there is a time when it should end.\n\nKingdoms may rightly look after small islands that cannot defend themselves. But it is absurd to suppose that a continent should always be governed by an island. Nature has never made a satellite bigger than its primary planet. England and America reverse that natural order, so they clearly belong to different systems: England belongs to Europe, and America belongs to itself.\n\nI do not support separation and independence out of pride, loyalty to a party, or resentment. I am firmly and sincerely convinced it is in this continent's true interest. Anything less is just a patch, offering no lasting happiness. It would leave the sword to our children. We would be backing away when just a little more effort and progress could make this continent the glory of the earth.\n\nBritain has shown no willingness at all to compromise. We can be sure it will offer no terms that the continent should accept, or that come anywhere close to justifying the blood and money we have already spent.\n\nWhat we fight for should be worth what it costs. Removing North or his entire hateful circle is not worth the millions we have spent. If Britain had repealed every act we objected to, a temporary halt in trade would have been enough to balance the inconvenience. But if the whole continent must take up arms and every man become a soldier, fighting only against a contemptible ministry is hardly worthwhile. If repeal is all we seek, we are paying far too much for it. It is as foolish to pay the price of Bunker Hill for a change in law as it would be to pay it for land. I have always thought this continent would sooner or later become independent. Given how quickly it has recently grown toward maturity, that day cannot be far away. Once fighting began, there was no point in battling over an issue that time would eventually settle, unless we intended to pursue it seriously. Otherwise we would be like someone spending an estate on a lawsuit over a tenant's trespasses when the tenant's lease is almost up. Before the deadly nineteenth of April 1775, no one wanted reconciliation more than I did. But as soon as I heard what happened that day, I rejected England's hard-hearted, ill-tempered Pharaoh forever. I despise this wretch who claims to be the father of his people, yet can hear of their slaughter without feeling and sleep peacefully with their blood on his conscience.\n\nBut suppose we did settle our differences now. What would happen? The continent would be ruined, for several reasons.\n\nFirst, the king would still have the powers of government. He could veto every law on this continent. He has shown himself to be a stubborn enemy of freedom, hungry for unchecked power. Is such a man fit to tell these colonies, “You may pass only the laws I approve”? Surely every American knows that, under the present constitution, this continent can make no laws without the king's permission. And surely everyone can see, given what has happened, that he will permit only laws that serve his aims. We can be enslaved just as effectively by having no laws of our own as by obeying laws made for us in England. Once things are supposedly settled, who can doubt that the crown will use all its power to keep this continent as weak and submissive as possible? Instead of moving forward, we will move backward, or else keep quarreling and submitting pointless petitions. We are already greater than the king wants us to be. Won't he try to make us smaller? The question comes down to this: should a power that resents our prosperity govern us? Anyone who answers no is for independence. Independence simply means that we make our own laws instead of letting the king, the greatest enemy this continent has or could have, tell us, “You may have only the laws I like.”\n\nYou may say that the king also has a veto in England: people there cannot make laws without his consent. It is ridiculous as a matter of right and sound government that a young man of twenty-one, as has often happened, can tell several million people older and wiser than himself, “I forbid you to make that a law.” I will never stop pointing out how absurd this is, but I won't make that my answer here. My answer is that the king lives in England, not America, and that makes the situation entirely different. His veto here is ten times more dangerous and destructive than in England. There he would hardly refuse a bill that gave England the strongest possible defenses. Here he would never let such a bill pass.\n\nAmerica is only a secondary concern in British politics. England looks after this country's welfare only when doing so serves England's purposes. Its interests therefore lead it to hold back our growth whenever our growth does not help it, or interferes with it even slightly. Given what has happened, what a fine situation we would soon be in under a government that treats us as an afterthought! Changing a name does not turn enemies into friends. To show why reconciliation is dangerous now, I say that it would serve the king's interests to repeal the acts at this moment so that he could take back control of the provinces. Then, over time, he could achieve through trickery and subtlety what he cannot achieve quickly through force and violence. Reconciliation and ruin are close relatives.\n\n### Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs, 3\n\nSecond, even the best terms we could hope to obtain would be only a temporary fix. They would amount to government under a guardian, lasting only until the colonies come of age. In the meantime, affairs would remain unstable, with little hope for improvement. People with property would not want to move to a country whose government hangs by a thread and could fall into disorder any day. Many current inhabitants would use the interval to sell their possessions and leave the continent.\n\nBut the strongest argument is that only independence, meaning a continental government, can keep peace across the continent and protect it from civil wars. I fear what will happen if we reconcile with Britain now. A revolt somewhere is more than likely to follow, and its consequences could be more deadly than anything Britain might do to us.\n\nBritish brutality has already ruined thousands of people, and thousands more will probably suffer the same fate. Those people feel differently from those of us who have suffered nothing. All they still possess is freedom. Everything else they once enjoyed has been sacrificed in its cause, and with nothing more to lose they refuse to submit. Besides, the colonies will feel about British rule much as an apprentice nearing the end of his term feels about his master. They will care little about Britain. A government that cannot keep the peace is no government at all. We would be paying it for nothing. And what could Britain do if civil unrest broke out the very day after reconciliation, when its authority would exist only on paper? I have heard some people say they feared independence because it would lead to civil wars. Many of them, I think, spoke without thinking. Our first thoughts are rarely right, and here they are wrong. A patched-up connection gives us ten times more reason to fear civil war than independence does. I put myself in the place of those who have suffered. If I were driven from my home, my property destroyed, and my livelihood ruined, I would feel those injuries as any person would. I could never welcome reconciliation or believe it obliged me to submit.\n\nOn America's Present Ability, with Some Other Reflections\n\nThe colonies have shown enough order and willingness to follow the continental government to reassure any reasonable person. No one has even a plausible reason to worry, except for a childish and absurd fear that one colony will try to dominate another.\n\nWhen there are no distinctions, no one can claim superiority. Complete equality gives no one a reason to seek it. The republics of Europe are all at peace, and, we might say, always are. Holland and Switzerland have neither foreign nor domestic wars. Monarchies, by contrast, never remain peaceful for long. A crown tempts ambitious thugs at home. The pride and arrogance that come with royal power also turn disagreements with other countries into wars. A republic, built on more natural principles, would settle those disagreements by negotiation.\n\nIf there is a real reason to fear independence, it is that we have no plan for it yet. People cannot see a way forward. So I offer these suggestions as a way to begin. I say modestly that I value them mainly because they may lead someone to better ideas. If we could collect the scattered thoughts of individuals, wise and capable people could often turn them into something useful.\n\nThe assemblies should meet every year and have only a president. Representation should be more equal. They should deal solely with local affairs and be subject to the authority of a Continental Congress.\n\nDivide each colony into six, eight, or ten manageable districts. Each district should send an appropriate number of delegates to Congress, so each colony sends at least thirty. Congress would then have at least 390 members. At each session, Congress should choose a president in this way. Once the delegates have met, choose one of the thirteen colonies by lot. The entire Congress should then elect a president by ballot from that colony's delegates. At the next session, draw from the remaining twelve colonies, leaving out the one that provided the previous president. Continue until all thirteen have taken their turn. And to make sure no law passes unless it is clearly fair, require at least three fifths of Congress for a majority. Anyone who would stir up conflict under a government organized so fairly would have joined Lucifer's rebellion.\n\nThe question of who should first raise this matter, and how, calls for special care. It seems most fitting for the proposal to come from a body between those who govern and those who are governed—that is, between Congress and the people. A Continental Conference should therefore meet, organized and charged as follows.\n\nIt should include a committee of twenty-six members of Congress, two from each colony; two members from each House of Assembly or Provincial Convention; and five representatives of the public from each province. Those five should be chosen in the province's capital city or town on behalf of the whole province. Any eligible voters from anywhere in the province who wish to attend should be able to vote. Or, if more convenient, the representatives could be chosen in two or three of the province's most populous places. This conference would bring together the two essentials for action: knowledge and power. Members of Congress, the assemblies, or the conventions would offer useful advice based on their experience with national affairs. As a whole, the conference would have genuine legal authority from the people who empowered it.\n\nWhen the conference members meet, they should draw up a Continental Charter, or Charter of the United Colonies, like England's Magna Carta. It should specify the number of members of Congress and the assemblies, how they are chosen, and when they meet. It should also define the powers and responsibilities of each body. We must always remember that our strength lies in the continent, not in any one province. The charter should protect everyone's freedom and property and, above all, freedom to practice religion according to conscience. It should also contain whatever else such a charter requires. The conference should then dissolve immediately. The bodies chosen under the charter should become the continent's lawmakers and governors for the time being. May God preserve their peace and happiness. Amen.\n\nIf people are later chosen to carry out this task, or a similar one, I offer them these words from Dragonetti, a wise observer of government: “The politician's skill lies in finding the right balance of happiness and freedom. Those who found a way of governing that gave individuals the greatest possible happiness at the lowest cost to the nation would earn the gratitude of future ages.”\n\nDragonetti, On Virtue and Rewards.\n\nBut some ask, where is the King of America? I'll tell you, friend: he rules in heaven and does not slaughter people like Britain's royal brute. Yet we should not seem to lack even earthly honors. Set aside a day to proclaim the charter formally. Bring it out and place it on God's law, the word of God. Put a crown on it so the world knows that, insofar as we approve of monarchy, the law is king in America. In an absolute government the king is law. In a free country the law should be king, and there should be no other. To prevent anyone from later misusing the crown, destroy it at the end of the ceremony and scatter its pieces among the people, to whom it belongs.\n\nHaving our own government is our natural right. Anyone who seriously considers how uncertain human affairs are will see that it is far wiser and safer to establish our own constitution calmly and carefully while we can than to leave such an important event to time and chance. If we fail to do it now, a future Massanello might exploit public discontent. He could gather desperate and dissatisfied people, seize the powers of government, and sweep away the continent's freedoms like a flood. If America returns to British rule, its unstable situation will tempt some reckless adventurer to try his luck. What help could Britain give us then? The disaster might be over before Britain even heard about it, leaving us to suffer like the unfortunate Britons under the Conqueror's oppression. Those of you who oppose independence now do not know what you are doing. By leaving the seat of government empty, you open the door to endless tyranny. Thousands and tens of thousands would consider it an honor to drive from this continent the brutal, hellish power that has stirred up Indians and Negroes to destroy us. Its cruelty has two sides: it treats us brutally and betrays them.\n\nThomas Anello, also known as Massanello, was a fisherman from Naples. He rallied his countrymen in the public marketplace against their Spanish rulers' oppression, urged them to revolt, and became king within a day.\n\nIt is madness and folly to talk about friendship with people whom reason tells us not to trust and whom our many wounded feelings tell us to hate. Each day wears away what little family connection remains between us. Why would we expect affection to grow as that connection dies? Why would we get along better when we have ten times as many disputes, and more serious ones, than ever before?\n\nYou who speak of harmony and reconciliation: can you bring back the past? Can you restore the innocence a person lost through prostitution? You cannot reconcile Britain and America either. The last tie has broken. The people of England are now sending formal statements against us. Some injuries cannot be forgiven by human nature. If it forgave them, it would cease to be human nature. A lover could no sooner forgive the man who raped his beloved than the continent could forgive Britain's murders. God has put these lasting feelings in us for good and wise reasons. They protect his image in our hearts and distinguish us from other animals. If we felt nothing when those we care about were hurt, the bonds of society would break. Justice would vanish from the earth, or happen only by chance. Robbers and murderers would often go unpunished if the harm they do did not move us to seek justice.\n\nYou who love humanity! You who dare to oppose not only tyranny but the tyrant: stand up! Oppression has spread through every part of the old world. Freedom has been hunted around the globe. Asia and Africa drove her out long ago. Europe treats her as a stranger, and England has told her to leave. Take in this refugee, and prepare a refuge for humanity while there is still time.\n\n### Of the Present Ability of America, with Some Miscellaneous Reflections, 1\n\nI have never met anyone in England or America who did not agree that the two countries would separate sooner or later. Yet we have shown especially poor judgment in trying to decide when the Continent would be ready for independence.\n\nEveryone agrees that separation will happen. They disagree only about when. So let us look at the situation as a whole and try to identify the right time. We need not look far: the time has arrived. The broad agreement and remarkable unity of all the circumstances prove it.\n\nOur greatest strength lies in unity, not numbers. Even so, we already have enough people to resist the force of the whole world. The Continent now has a larger body of armed, trained men than any other power on earth. We have reached a point where no single colony can support itself, but all the colonies together can succeed. Having either more or less strength than this might have disastrous effects. Our land forces are already sufficient. As for a navy, we must recognize that Britain would never allow an American warship to be built while she controlled the continent. We would be no further along in that field a hundred years from now than we are today. In fact, we would be worse off, because our timber supply is shrinking every day. What remains in the end will be distant and hard to obtain.\n\nIf the continent were crowded with people, the suffering caused by our present situation would be unbearable. The more seaports we had, the more we would have to defend and the more we would stand to lose. Our present population suits our needs so well that no one has to be idle. The decline in trade provides people for an army, and the army's needs create new trade.\n\nWe have no debts. Any debt we take on for this purpose will stand as a proud reminder of our courage. If we can leave future generations a stable government and an independent constitution of their own, any price will be worth paying. But spending millions merely to repeal a few vile laws and drive out the present ministry is not worth the expense. It would also be extremely cruel to future generations. We would leave them the main task and a debt from which they gained nothing. That idea is beneath a person of honor. It is the mark of a small-minded, petty politician.\n\nIf we accomplish our goal, the debt we incur should not worry us. Every nation should have a debt. A national debt binds a nation together, and if no interest is charged on it, it is never a burden. Britain carries a debt of more than one hundred and forty million pounds sterling and pays more than four million in interest on it. In return for that debt, Britain has a large navy. America has neither debt nor navy. Yet for one twentieth of Britain's national debt, America could build a navy twice as large as Britain's. The English navy is currently worth no more than three and a half million pounds sterling.\n\nThe first and second editions of this pamphlet did not include the following calculations. They are now provided to show that the estimate of the navy above is accurate. See Entic's naval history, introduction, page 56.\n\nMr. Burchett, Secretary to the navy, calculated the cost of building a ship of each rate and equipping it with masts, yards, sails, and rigging, along with a share of eight months' supplies for the boatswain and carpenter at sea.\n\n£\n\n[pounds\n\nsterling]\n\nFor a ship of 100 guns = 35,553\n\n90\n\n= 29,886\n\n80\n\n= 23,638\n\n70\n\n= 17,785\n\n60\n\n= 14,197\n\n50\n\n= 10,606\n\n40\n\n= 7,558\n\n30\n\n= 5,846\n\n20\n\n= 3,710\n\nFrom this, we can easily add up the value—or rather, the cost—of the entire British navy. In 1757, at the height of its power, it consisted of the following ships and guns:\n\nShips. Guns.\n\nCost of one. Cost of all.\n\nCost in £ [pounds sterling]\n\n6 100\n\n35,553 213,318\n\n12 90\n\n29,886 358,632\n\n12 80\n\n23,638 283,656\n\n43 70\n\n17,785 764,755\n\n35 60\n\n14,197 496,895\n\n40 50\n\n10,606 424,240\n\n45 40\n\n7,558 340,110\n\n58 20\n\n3,710 215,180\n\n85 Sloops, bomb vessels,\n\nand fire ships, on average,\n\nat 2,000 each, 170,000\n\n------------\n\nCost\n\n3,266,786\n\nRemaining cost of guns\n\n233,214\n\n------------\n\n3,500,000\n\nNo country in the world is better placed to build a fleet or has more of what it needs within its own borders than America. Tar, timber, iron, and rope-making materials grow or are produced here naturally. We need import nothing. The Dutch, by contrast, earn large profits renting their warships to the Spaniards and Portuguese, but must import most of the materials they use. We should regard building a fleet as a commercial enterprise, since shipbuilding is a natural industry for this country. It is the best use of our money. Once built, a navy is worth more than it cost. This is a rare point of national policy where trade and protection come together. Let us build ships. If we do not need them, we can sell them and replace our paper money with actual gold and silver.\n\nPeople often make serious mistakes about how many sailors a fleet needs. Not even one fourth of its crews need to be sailors. The privateer Terrible, commanded by Captain Death, fought the fiercest naval engagement of the last war. Yet she had fewer than twenty sailors aboard, though her crew numbered more than two hundred. A few capable, friendly sailors can quickly teach enough active men from land to do the ordinary work aboard a ship. So we could not choose a better time to begin building a navy. Our timber is still standing, our fisheries are blocked, and our sailors and shipbuilders are unemployed. Warships with seventy and eighty guns were built forty years ago in New England. Why not build them now? Shipbuilding is America's greatest source of pride, and in time she will surpass the whole world at it. The great empires of the East are mostly inland, so they cannot compete. Africa remains in a state of barbarism. No European power has both such an extensive coastline and such a large supply of materials at home. Where nature has provided one, she has withheld the other. Only to America has she given both generously. The vast Russian empire is nearly cut off from the sea. Its immense forests, tar, iron, and rope-making materials are therefore merely goods to sell.\n\nFor our own safety, should we really be without a fleet? We are no longer the small population we were sixty years ago. Back then we might have left our property in the streets—or rather, in the fields—and slept safely without locks or bolts on our doors and windows. Things have changed. As our property grows, our defenses should improve too. Twelve months ago, an ordinary pirate could have sailed up the Delaware and forced Philadelphia to pay any sum he demanded on the spot. The same could have happened elsewhere. Indeed, any daring man in a brig carrying fourteen or sixteen guns could have robbed the entire Continent and carried off half a million in money. We must take these possibilities seriously. They show why we need a navy to protect us.\n\nSome might say that Britain will protect us once we make peace with her. Could we be foolish enough to expect her to keep a navy in our harbors for that purpose? Common sense tells us that the power that tried to conquer us is the last one we should trust to defend us. It could conquer us while pretending to be our friend. After resisting long and bravely, we could still be tricked into slavery. And if her ships cannot enter our harbors, how will she protect us? A navy three or four thousand miles away is of little use, and in a sudden crisis it is of no use at all. If we must protect ourselves in the future, why not protect ourselves on our own behalf? Why do it on behalf of someone else?\n\nThe English list of warships is long and impressive. But at any given moment fewer than one tenth of them are fit for service. Many no longer exist, though their names remain proudly on the list if even one plank survives. Of the ships fit for service, fewer than one fifth can be assigned to any one station at once. The East and West Indies, the Mediterranean, Africa, and other regions Britain claims all place heavy demands on her navy. Prejudice and inattention have given us a false idea of its strength. We have talked as though we would have to face the entire English navy at once, and therefore need one equally large. Since we cannot build that immediately, a group of Tories hiding their allegiance has used the claim to discourage us from even starting. Nothing could be further from the truth. If America had only one twentieth of Britain's naval power, it would still have a great advantage against her. We hold and claim no foreign territory, so we could use our entire force along our own coast. In the long run, we would have a two-to-one advantage over attackers who had to sail three or four thousand miles to reach us, then travel the same distance to repair their ships and replace their crews and supplies. Britain can use its fleet to restrict our trade with Europe. But we can restrict its trade with the West Indies just as much, because those islands lie near the Continent and are entirely at its mercy.\n\nWe might find a way to maintain naval strength in peacetime without keeping a permanent navy, if we decide one is unnecessary. Suppose we offered merchants payments to build and use ships fitted with twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty guns. The payments would match the cargo space the merchants lost. Fifty or sixty such ships, together with a few guard ships on permanent duty, would give us a sufficient navy. We would avoid the problem so often complained of in England: a fleet left to rot in the docks during peacetime. It is sound policy to bring the resources of trade and defense together. When our wealth and our strength support each other, we need fear no foreign enemy.\n\n### Of the Present Ability of America, with Some Miscellaneous Reflections, 2\n\nWe have plenty of nearly everything we need for defense. Hemp grows so well that we will have no shortage of rope. Our iron is better than other countries' iron. Our small arms are as good as any in the world. We can cast as many cannons as we want. We produce saltpeter and gunpowder every day. We are constantly learning more. Determination is part of our character, and courage has never deserted us. So what do we lack? Why do we hesitate? Britain can bring us nothing but ruin. If she is allowed to govern America again, this Continent will not be worth living in. Suspicions will constantly arise, and uprisings will keep happening. Who will go out to put them down? Who will risk his life to force his own countrymen to obey a foreign power? The dispute between Pennsylvania and Connecticut over certain unassigned lands shows how little use British government is here. It proves fully that only authority held by the Continent can govern the Continent's affairs.\n\nThere is another reason why now is the best time. The fewer of us there are, the more land remains unoccupied. Instead of allowing the king to give that land away to his worthless followers, we can later use it both to pay off the present debt and to fund the government on an ongoing basis. No other nation on earth has this advantage.\n\nPeople call the Colonies young as though that counted against independence. In fact, it is an argument for it. We have enough people already. If we had more, we might be less united. It is worth noting that as countries grow more populous, their armies grow smaller. Ancient peoples fielded far larger armies than modern ones. The reason is clear: a growing population creates more trade, and people become too caught up in it to pay attention to anything else. Trade weakens the spirit of patriotism and military defense alike. History also shows us that a nation's bravest achievements have generally come in its youth. As England's trade has increased, she has lost her spirit. London, despite its many people, puts up with repeated insults as patiently as a coward. The more people have to lose, the less willing they are to take risks. The rich are generally ruled by fear. They submit to royal power with the frightened, dishonest obedience of a spaniel.\n\nYouth is the time when nations, like individuals, develop good habits. Half a century from now, it could be difficult, perhaps impossible, to unite the Continent under one government. Growth in trade and population would create many different interests and cause confusion. Colony would oppose colony. Each, being strong enough on its own, might reject the help of the others. The proud and foolish would celebrate their small differences, while the wise would regret that a union had not been formed earlier. Now, then, is the right time to establish it. Close bonds made in childhood and friendships formed through hardship last longer and change less than any others. Our present union has both qualities: we are young and we have suffered. Yet our unity has survived our troubles. It marks a memorable era for future generations to celebrate.\n\nNow is also a special moment that comes to a nation only once: the chance to form its own government. Most nations have missed that chance and have had to accept laws from conquerors instead of making laws for themselves. They got a king first and a form of government afterward. But the rules or charter of government should come first. Only then should people be appointed to carry them out. Let us learn from other nations' mistakes and take our opportunity—to begin government in the right order.\n\nWhen William the Conqueror conquered England, he imposed laws at sword point. Until we agree on who will lawfully and legitimately hold the seat of government in America, we risk having some successful brute take it. He might treat us as William treated England. What would then become of our freedom? What would become of our property?\n\nOn religion, I believe every government has an essential duty to protect all those who sincerely practice their faith. I know of no other role government should play in religion. If a person gives up the narrow-mindedness and selfish principles that stingy people of every faith cling to, his fears about this issue will disappear. Suspicion goes with small-mindedness and destroys healthy communities. I sincerely believe that the Almighty wants us to have different religious beliefs. Those differences give us more chances to show Christian kindness. If we all thought alike, our religious character would have no opportunity to be tested. With that generous principle in mind, I see our different denominations as children of the same family, differing only in what we call their Christian names.\n\nOn page forty I offered a few thoughts about the value of a Continental Charter. I offer suggestions, not a detailed plan. I return to the subject here to say that a charter should be understood as a solemn pledge made by everyone to uphold the rights of each part of the community, whether those rights concern religion, personal freedom, or property. A firm agreement and a fair accounting make lasting friends.\n\nOn an earlier page I also mentioned the need for broad and equal representation. No political question deserves more attention. Having too few voters or too few representatives is equally dangerous. If representatives are both few and distributed unequally, the danger is even greater. Consider this example. When the Associators' petition came before the Pennsylvania House of Assembly, only twenty-eight members were present. All eight members from Bucks County voted against it. If seven Chester County members had done the same, just two counties would have decided the policy for the entire province. That danger is always present. The House also overstepped its authority in its last session, trying to seize improper control over the province's delegates. This should warn everyone against handing over their power. Instructions for the delegates were drafted that would have embarrassed a schoolboy for their poor sense and practical judgment. A few people outside the House—very few—approved them. They were then brought into the House and passed in the name of the entire colony. If the whole colony knew how unwilling that House has been to take some necessary public steps, people would immediately judge its members unworthy of such trust.\n\nUrgent need can make many arrangements useful for the moment, even when keeping them would make them oppressive. What works for now and what is right are different things. When America's troubles made it necessary to meet and discuss them, the quickest and most appropriate course at the time was to appoint people from the different colonial assemblies. The good judgment with which these delegates acted has saved this continent from disaster. But we will probably continue to have a Congress. Anyone who wants orderly government must therefore admit that we need to consider how its members should be chosen. I ask those who study human behavior whether the power to represent the people and the power to elect their representatives are too great to place in the same hands. When planning for future generations, we must remember that virtue is not inherited.\n\nOur enemies often teach us useful principles. Their mistakes can unexpectedly bring us to our senses. Mr. Cornwall, one of the Lords of the Treasury, dismissed a petition from the New York Assembly. He said the Assembly had only twenty-six members, too few to claim decently to speak for the whole population. We thank him for being honest without meaning to be.¹\n\n¹ Anyone who wants to understand fully why broad and equal representation matters so much to a state should read Burgh's political disquisitions.\n\nIn conclusion, whether or not some find it strange or refuse to believe it, there are many powerful, clear reasons to think that nothing will settle our affairs as quickly as an open, firm declaration of independence. Here are some of them:\n\nFirst.—When two nations are at war, other powers not involved in the conflict customarily offer to mediate and arrange the first steps toward peace. But as long as America calls herself a subject of Great Britain, no power can offer to mediate for her, however willing it may be. In our present position, then, we could go on fighting forever.\n\nSecondly.—We cannot reasonably expect France or Spain to give us any help if we intend to use it only to repair relations and strengthen the connection between Britain and America. Those countries would suffer as a result.\n\nThirdly.—As long as we say we are British subjects, other nations must see us as rebels. Armed people who still call themselves subjects set a precedent that could threaten those nations' peace. We here understand how this seeming contradiction can be resolved. But the idea of resisting a ruler while remaining subject to that ruler is too complicated for most people to grasp.\n\nFourthly.—Suppose we sent a public declaration to foreign courts. It would explain the hardships we have endured and the peaceful but unsuccessful efforts we have made to correct them. It would state that the British court's cruelty has made it impossible for us to live safely or happily under its rule, forcing us to break all ties with Britain. It would also assure those courts that we intend to remain at peace with them and want to trade with them. Such a document would do the Continent more good than a ship loaded with petitions sent to Britain.\n\nAs long as we call ourselves British subjects, foreign courts can neither receive us nor hear our case. Their established practice bars us and will continue to do so until independence gives us a place among other nations.\n\nAt first these steps might seem strange and difficult. Like the other steps we have already taken, they will soon feel familiar and welcome. Until we declare independence, the Continent will feel like someone who puts off an unpleasant job day after day. He knows he must do it, dreads starting, wishes it were over, and cannot stop thinking about how necessary it is.\n\n### Appendix, 1\n\nThe King's Speech appeared in this city on the very day the first edition of this pamphlet was published. Even if a prophetic spirit had timed the pamphlet's release, it could not have chosen a more useful or necessary moment. The Speech's appetite for blood shows why the pamphlet's argument must be followed. People read the pamphlet to get back at the king. Far from frightening them, the Speech prepared them to accept the bold principles of independence.\n\nFormal courtesies, and even silence, can do harm, whatever the reason for them, when they appear to give the slightest approval to shameful and wicked acts. If that is true, the King's Speech, being a thoroughly wicked piece of work, deserved then and still deserves public condemnation from both Congress and the people. Yet peace within a nation depends greatly on keeping its public conduct decent. Sometimes it is better to respond with silent contempt than to introduce a new way of showing disapproval that might weaken this protection for our peace and safety. Perhaps it is mainly because people have wisely taken such care that the King's Speech has not already been condemned publicly and ceremonially. If it can be called a speech, it is nothing but a deliberate, shameless attack on truth, the common good, and human life. It is an elaborate, pompous way of offering human beings as sacrifices to the pride of tyrants. This mass killing of people is both a privilege kings claim and a sure result of their rule. Nature did not create kings, and kings have no regard for nature. We created them, yet they have no regard for us. They have made themselves gods over the people who created them. The Speech has one good quality: it makes no effort to deceive us. We could not be fooled by it even if we wanted to be. Its brutality and tyranny are obvious. Its meaning is unmistakable. Every line makes us see, as we read it, that the Indian who hunts wild animals in the woods without clothing or schooling is less savage than the king of Britain.\n\nSir John Dalrymple is thought to have written a whining, deceitful piece called “The Address of the people of England to the inhabitants of America.” Perhaps he imagined that descriptions of royal splendor would frighten the people here. Instead, he unwisely revealed the present king's true character. “But,” this writer says, “if you are inclined to pay compliments to an administration, which we do not complain of,” meaning the Marquis of Rockingham's administration when it repealed the Stamp Act, “it is very unfair in you to withhold them from that prince, by whose nod alone they were permitted to do any thing.” That is Tory loyalty in its fullest form! Here is worship of the king without even an attempt to hide it. Anyone who can hear such an idea calmly and accept it has given up any claim to reason. He has abandoned his standing as a human being. He has not only surrendered human dignity but sunk below the animals, crawling contemptibly through the world like a worm.\n\nBy now, however, what the king of England says or does matters very little. He has wickedly broken every moral and human obligation and trampled nature and conscience underfoot. His consistent, systematic arrogance and cruelty have earned him universal hatred. America must now look after herself. She already has a large, young family to care for. That is a greater duty than handing over her property to support a ruler who disgraces the names of human beings and Christians. To those whose duty is to guard the nation's morals, whatever your religious group, and those more directly responsible for protecting public freedom: if you want to keep your native country free from European corruption, you must secretly want separation. But I will leave the moral question for each person to consider privately. My remaining remarks will mostly address these questions.\n\nFirst. Why is separation from Britain in America's interest?\n\nSecond. Which plan is easier and more practical, reconciliation or independence? I will add a few related remarks.\n\nOn the first question, I could cite some of the most capable and experienced people on this continent, if I thought it right to do so. Their views on the subject are not yet public. But the point is self-evident. No country that depends on a foreign power, with its trade restricted and its power to make laws hampered and bound, can ever achieve much. America does not yet know real wealth. Her progress has no parallel in the history of other nations, but it is only a child's progress compared with what she could achieve if she had control over her own laws, as she should. England now pursues with great arrogance something that would do her no good even if she got it. Meanwhile the Continent hesitates over a decision that will ultimately ruin it if ignored. England stands to gain from trade with America, not from conquering her. Much of that trade would continue even if the countries were as independent of each other as France and Spain, because in many goods neither could find a better market. But this country's independence from Britain or any other power is now the one main goal worth fighting for. Like any truth revealed by necessity, it will become clearer and more convincing each day.\n\nFirst. Because independence will come sooner or later.\n\nSecond. Because the longer it is delayed, the harder it will be to achieve.\n\nIn public and private gatherings, I have often quietly noticed how persuasive the mistaken arguments of people who speak without thinking can sound. The most common one I have heard is that the Continent would have been better able to end its dependence if the break had happened forty or fifty years from now instead of today. My answer is that our present military ability comes from experience gained in the last war. That experience would have disappeared completely in forty or fifty years. By then, the Continent would have no general, or even a military officer, left from that experience. We, or those who come after us, would know as little about war as the ancient Indians did. This one point, considered carefully, proves beyond dispute that now is the best time. Here is the argument: at the end of the last war, we had experience but lacked people. Forty or fifty years from now, we would have enough people but no experience. So the right time must lie somewhere between those two extremes, when enough experience remains and our population has grown enough. That time is now.\n\nI hope the reader will forgive this digression. It does not really fall under the first question I set out to discuss. I return to that question with this point:\n\nIf we patch things up with Britain and she remains America's ruling and sovereign power—which, under present circumstances, would mean giving up our entire aim—we will lose the very means to pay off the debt we already have or may incur. Some provinces have secretly been deprived of their lands in the interior by an unfair extension of Canada's borders. Even valuing those lands at only five pounds sterling per hundred acres gives a total of more than twenty-five million in Pennsylvania currency. The annual quit-rents on them, at one penny sterling per acre, come to two million.\n\nSelling those lands could pay off the debt without burdening anyone. The quit-rents retained on the land would always reduce the annual cost of government and eventually pay that cost in full. It does not matter how long repayment takes, provided the proceeds of the land sales go toward the debt. The Congress in office at the time will act as trustee for the Continent to make sure this happens.\n\nI now turn to the second question: which is easier and more practical, reconciliation or independence? I will add a few related remarks.\n\nAn argument based on nature is hard to defeat. So my general answer is this: independence is one simple course that is entirely within our control. Reconciliation is extremely tangled and complicated, and a deceitful, unpredictable royal court would have a part in it. The answer is beyond doubt.\n\n### Appendix, 2\n\nAmerica's present condition is deeply alarming to anyone who thinks about it. We have no law, no government, and no source of authority except powers people have agreed to grant as a courtesy. An extraordinary agreement in opinion holds us together. But opinions can change, and every hidden enemy is trying to break that agreement. Right now we have lawmakers without laws, wisdom without a plan, and a constitution without a name. Strangest of all, we have complete independence struggling to remain dependent. There has never been a case like this. Who can say what will happen? Nobody's property is safe under the weak system we now have. People have no clear goal in front of them, so they follow whatever idea or opinion comes to mind. Nothing counts as a crime. Treason does not exist under this system, so everyone thinks they can do as they please. The Tories would not have dared to gather for an attack if they had known that doing so would cost them their lives under the laws of the state. We should distinguish between English soldiers captured in battle and American residents captured while bearing arms. The first are prisoners; the second are traitors. One loses his freedom, the other his life.\n\nFor all our wisdom, some of our actions show a weakness that encourages division. The bond holding the Continent together is too loose. Unless we act in time, it will become too late to do anything. We will then reach a point where neither reconciliation nor independence is possible. The king and his worthless supporters are back to their old tactic of dividing the Continent. Some printers among us are ready to spread lies that sound convincing. A clever, dishonest letter appeared a few months ago in two New-York papers and two others. It shows that some people lack either good judgment or honesty.\n\nIt is easy to hide away and talk about reconciliation. But do the people who do this seriously consider how hard it would be, and how dangerous it could become if the Continent split over it? Do they think about all the different groups of people whose circumstances matter here, not just their own? Do they put themselves in the shoes of someone who has already lost everything, or a soldier who has left everything to defend his country? If their poorly judged moderation suits only their own private circumstances and ignores everyone else, the outcome will show them that they have made their plans without considering those who must live with them.\n\nSome say, \"Put us back where we were in sixty-three.\" My answer is that Britain cannot now grant that request, and she will not propose it. But even if she could grant it and did so, I have a reasonable question: How could we make such a corrupt and untrustworthy court keep its promises? Another parliament, or even the present one, could later cancel its obligation by claiming it was forced on them or foolishly granted. Where would we turn for a remedy then? Nations cannot take one another to court. Cannons serve as lawyers for kings, and war, not justice, decides the case. To return to the position we held in sixty-three, it would not be enough to restore the laws to what they were then. Our circumstances would also have to be restored. Our burned and destroyed towns would have to be repaired or rebuilt. Our private losses would have to be repaid, and our public debts incurred for defense would have to be paid off. Otherwise, we would be millions worse off than we were in that desirable period. Had Britain met such a request a year ago, it would have won the whole Continent's support. Now it is too late. We have crossed the Rubicon.\n\nBesides, taking up arms just to force the repeal of a tax law seems as unjustified under God's law and as offensive to human feeling as taking up arms to force obedience to that law. Neither side's goal justifies its means. Human lives are too valuable to waste over such small matters. What does justify taking up arms in good conscience is the violence done and threatened to us personally, the destruction of our property by armed forces, and the invasion of our country with fire and weapons. The moment such a defense became necessary, all submission to Britain should have ended. We should have dated and proclaimed American independence from the firing of the first musket against America. This is a consistent dividing line. It does not come from a whim or from a desire for more power. It comes from a series of events the colonies did not cause.\n\nI will end these remarks with some timely suggestions, offered with good intentions. We should remember that independence could come about in three different ways. One of them will someday determine America's fate: a lawful decision by the people through Congress, military power, or a mob. Our soldiers may not always be citizens, and the crowd may not always be made up of reasonable people. As I have already said, virtue is neither inherited nor permanent. If independence comes through the first of these methods, we will have every chance and every reason to create the noblest and purest constitution on earth. We have the power to start the world over. Nothing like our present situation has happened since the days of Noah. A new world is about to be born. Perhaps as many people as live in all of Europe will receive their share of freedom because of what happens in the next few months. This is an awesome thought. Seen in that light, how petty and absurd are the little objections of a few weak or self-interested people when set against a matter of worldwide importance.\n\nIf we let this favorable opportunity pass, and independence is later achieved by other means, we will have to blame ourselves for the consequences. More precisely, we will have to blame those narrow-minded, prejudiced people who keep opposing it without asking questions or thinking. There are arguments for independence that people would do better to consider in private than to have stated to them in public. The question now should not be whether to become independent. We should be working to achieve independence on a firm, secure, and honorable foundation, and we should be troubled that this work has not yet begun. Every day shows us more clearly that it is necessary. Even the Tories, if any still remain among us, should be more eager than anyone to support it. The creation of committees protected them from public anger at first. In the same way, a wise and firmly established government is the only sure way to keep them safe. So if they do not have enough principle to be Whigs, they should at least have enough sense to want independence.\n\nIn short, independence is the only bond that can hold us together. Then we will have a clear goal, and the law will keep us from listening to the schemes of an enemy who plots against us and treats us cruelly. We will also be in a proper position to negotiate with Britain. There is reason to think that the British court would find it less humiliating to negotiate peace terms with the American states than to negotiate an agreement with people it calls \"rebellious subjects.\" Our delay gives Britain hope of conquering us, and our reluctance only makes the war last longer. We stopped trading in an attempt to secure relief from our grievances, but that brought us no benefit. Let us now try another course: resolve those grievances ourselves as an independent people, then offer to reopen trade. The merchants and reasonable people in England will still support us, because peace with trade is better than war without trade. If our offer is refused, we can approach other governments.\n\nThat is the case I make. No one has yet offered to refute the argument in earlier editions of this pamphlet. That absence is evidence that either the argument cannot be refuted or its supporters are too numerous to oppose. Instead of looking at one another with suspicion and doubt, let each of us offer our neighbor a sincere hand of friendship. Let us join in drawing a line that will put every past dispute out of mind, like an act that wipes away past offenses. Let the names Whig and Tory disappear. Among us, let people be known only as good citizens, open and determined friends, and principled supporters of human rights and of the free and independent states of America.","download_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/common-sense/translations/trn_common_sense_plain.txt"}],"retex_markdown_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/common-sense/retex.md"}}