154 Chapter8 America Secedesfrom the Empire, 1775-1783 .

of arms, totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill, which (being fol-
lowed by want of confidence in themselves when opposed to troops regul
trained, disciplined, and appointed, superior in knowledge and superior in arms
makes them timid and ready to fly from their own shadows.
Besides, the sudden change in their manner of living (particularly in the lodg-
ing) brings on sickness in many, impatience in all, and such an unconquerable de-
sire of returning to their respective homes that it not only produces shameful anc
scandalous desertions among themselves, but infuses the like spirit in others.
Again, men accustomed to unbounded freedom and no control cannot br
the restraint which is indispensably necessary to the good order and government
an army, without which licentiousness and every kind of disorder triumphant ..
reign ....
The jealousies [suspicions) of a standing army, and the evils to be apprehende;
from one, are remote, and, in my judgment, situated and circumstanced as we are
not at all to be dreaded. But the consequence of wanting [lacking) one, according -
my ideas formed from the present view of things, is certain and inevitable ruin. F.
if I was called upon to declare upon oath whether the militia have been most
viceable or hurtful upon the whole, I should subscribe to the latter.

B. The Formal Break with Britain _

I. Thomas Paine Talks Common Sense (1776)

Despite the shooting at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, despite the Bri.
burning of Falmouth (Maine) and Norfolk (Virginia); despite the king's hiring
German (Hessian) mercenaries, the American colonists professed to be figbt:
merely for reconciliation. But killing redcoats with one hand and waving the
branch with the other seemed ridiculous to Thomas Paine, a thirty-nine-year-old _~
itator from England who had arrived in Philadelphia about a year earlier. Of b
ble birth, impoverished, largely self-educated, and early apprenticed to a
maker, he was a born rebel who bad failed at various undertakings. But he roc.
to fame with a forty-seven-page pamphlet published in January 1776 under t,
tie Common Sense. Selling the incredible total of 120,000 copies in three mo.
it sharply accelerated the drift toward independence. Paine urged an immea
break, not only to secure foreign assistance but also tofulfill America's moral
date from the world. Were his views on mercantilism, isolationism, and recon
tion reasonable? Did his arguments appeal more to passion or to logic?

In the following pages I offer nothing more than ple facts. plain ~
and common sense: ...
I have heard it asserted by some
mer connection with Great Britain, the
B. The Formal Break with Britain 155

ture happiness, and will always have the same effect. othing can be more falla-
cious than this kind of argument. We may as well assert that, because a child has
thrived upon milk, 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 taken any notice of her. The com-
merce by which she hath enriched herself are the necessaries of life, and will always
have a market while eating is the custom of Europe.
But she [England] has protected us, say some. That she hath engrossed [monop-
olized] us is true, and defended the continent at our expense, as well as her own, is
admitted; and she would have defended Turkey from the same motive, viz, for the
sake of trade and dominion ....
But 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 .... 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 ten-
der embraces of the moth£. 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 pur-
sues their descendant;>£rill. . . .
. . . Any submission to, or dependence on, Great Britain tends directly to involve
this continent in European wars and quarrels, and set 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 [pref-
erential] 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 makeweight in the scale of British politics ....
Everything that is right or reasonable 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 ....
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 parentor 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 can still shake
hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy 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. ...
Every quiet method for peace hath been ineffectual. Our prayers have been re-
jected with disdain .... Wherefore, since nothing but blows will do, for God's sake
let us come to a final separation ....
Small islands, not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for
government to take under their care. But there is something 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
156 Chapter 8 America Secedesfrom the Empire, 1775-1783

to each other, reverse the common order of nature, it is evident that they belong to
different systems. England to Europe: America to itself ....
o man was a warmer wisher for a reconciliation than myself before the fatal
nineteenth of April, 1775 [Lexington]. But the moment the event of that: day wa
made known, I rejected the hardened, sullen-tempered Pharaoh of England [George
III] for ever; and disdain the wretch that, with the pretended title of Father of hi
People, can unfeelingly hear of their slaughter, and composedly sleep with their
blood upon his soul. ...
And in order to show that reconciliation now is a dangerous doctrine, I affirm
that it would be policy in the King at this time to repeal the acts, for the sake of re-
instating himself in the government of the provinces; in order that he may accom-
plish by craft and subtlety in the long run what he cannot do by force and violence
in the short one. Reconciliation and ruin are nearly related ....
You that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, can you restore to us the time
that is past? Can you give to prostitution its former innocence? Neither can you rec-
oncile Britain and America .... 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 im-
planted in us these unextinguishable feelings for good and wise purposes ... They
distinguish us from dle herd of common animals ....
O! you that love mankind! You that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the
tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom
. hath been hunted round the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe
regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive
the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.

2. Richard Henry Lee's Resolution

of Independence (I 776)
Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, one of the earliest advocates of a complete break, pro-
posed thefollowing three resolutions in the Continental Congress at Philadelphia on
june 7, 1 776. After a spirited debate, thefirst one was approved on july 2 by the rep-
resentatives of twelve states. This was in fact the original "declaration" of indepen-
dence; and john Adams wrote his wife that the day would thereafter be observed by
future generations as the great anniversary festival, with fireworks and other mani-
festations ofjoy. But he miscalculated by two days. Why was this resolutionfor inde-
pendence less memorable than jefferson's historic document, which follows?

Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and in-
dependent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown;
and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and
ought to be, totally dissolved.
That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming
foreign alliances.

~V/. C. Ford, ed.,Journals of the Continental Congress (906), vol. 5, p. 425.