WEBVTT NOTE 28. The Sudden Emergence of Tom Paine 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.000 Volume 4, Chapter 28, The Sudden Emergence of Tom Paine 2 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:11.000 At the beginning of 1776, New England was ready for independence. 3 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:17.000 So were such leading radicals as Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry of Virginia, 4 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:24.000 Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina, and army leaders such as George Washington and Charles Lee. 5 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:31.400 But the bulk of the colonies and the Continental Congress were not. 6 00:00:31.400 --> 00:00:37.360 One of the main stumbling blocks to a commitment to independence was personal loyalty to the 7 00:00:37.360 --> 00:00:39.120 British Crown. 8 00:00:39.120 --> 00:00:44.400 There has always been a political taboo of almost mystical force against attacking the 9 00:00:44.400 --> 00:00:51.480 head of state, and always the convenient though emasculating custom of attributing his sins 10 00:00:51.480 --> 00:01:00.160 to His Evil or Incompetent Advisors. Such long-standing habits impeded a rational analysis 11 00:01:00.160 --> 00:01:07.320 of the deeds of King George III. Furthermore, the old and obsolete Whig ideal of virtual 12 00:01:07.320 --> 00:01:14.120 independence under a figurehead king of both Britain and America could only be shattered 13 00:01:14.120 --> 00:01:21.320 if the king were to be attacked personally. To rupture this taboo, to smash the icon, 14 00:01:21.320 --> 00:01:28.480 And so to liberate America from its thrall required a special type of man, a man fearless, 15 00:01:28.480 --> 00:01:35.080 courageous and radical, an intellectual with a gift for dramatic and exciting rhetoric and 16 00:01:35.080 --> 00:01:40.760 unfettered by the many ties that bind a man to the existing system. 17 00:01:40.760 --> 00:01:47.720 At this strategic hour, America found just such a man, Thomas Paine. 18 00:01:47.720 --> 00:01:53.960 Unlike most of the other eminent leaders of his day, there was nothing in the least aristocratic 19 00:01:53.960 --> 00:02:00.240 in the background of Tom Paine, the son of a poor English corset-maker. 20 00:02:00.240 --> 00:02:04.440 He was forced to educate himself for lack of schooling. 21 00:02:04.440 --> 00:02:11.200 After serving a checkered career as corset-maker, sailor and petty bureaucrat, he finally rose 22 00:02:11.200 --> 00:02:15.480 to the status of a minor English tax collector. 23 00:02:15.480 --> 00:02:21.440 He was soon characteristically in trouble with the authorities. Chosen by his fellow 24 00:02:21.440 --> 00:02:28.440 excise collectors in 1772 to petition Parliament for higher wages, he was curtly dismissed 25 00:02:29.320 --> 00:02:36.240 from the service by the authorities. Unemployed, bankrupt, the unhappy pain began his life 26 00:02:36.240 --> 00:02:43.240 again at the age of 37 by emigrating to America, armed only with a letter of introduction he 27 00:02:43.240 --> 00:03:13.240 He Quickly Proved Himself an Outstanding Writer and Publicist and Quickly Made His Reputation as a Libertarian by Publishing a Blistering Attack on the Institute of Human Rights and Human Rights 28 00:03:13.240 --> 00:03:43.240 In African Slavery in America, written shortly after his arrival and published in early March 1775, Payne pointed out that the African natives were often peaceful and industrious farmers, brought into slavery either by European man theft or by outsiders inducing the African chieftains to war on each other and to sell their prisoners into slavery. He also pointed out that 29 00:03:43.240 --> 00:03:48.120 So riddled the common excuse that purchase and ownership of existing slaves was somehow 30 00:03:48.120 --> 00:03:55.520 moral in contrast to the wickedness of the original enslavement. Such men may as well 31 00:03:55.520 --> 00:04:02.440 join with a known band of robbers, buy their ill-got goods and help on the trade. Ignorance 32 00:04:02.440 --> 00:04:08.560 is no more pleadable in one case than the other, and as the true owner has the right 33 00:04:08.560 --> 00:04:15.880 to Reclaim His Goods that Were Stolen and Sold, so the slave, who is proper owner of 34 00:04:15.880 --> 00:04:21.640 his freedom, has a right to reclaim it, however often sold. 35 00:04:21.640 --> 00:04:26.540 The slaves, being human, have not lost their natural right to their freedom and therefore 36 00:04:26.540 --> 00:04:32.280 concluded pain, the governments should in justice set them free and punish those who 37 00:04:32.280 --> 00:04:34.920 hold them in slavery. 38 00:04:34.920 --> 00:04:40.800 Shortly after this article was published, the First Abolitionist Society, the Society for 39 00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:46.240 the Promotion of the Abolition of Slavery, was established at Philadelphia. 40 00:04:46.240 --> 00:04:51.280 Largely Quaker, it included the deist Paine as one of its members. 41 00:04:51.280 --> 00:04:58.800 Lexington and Concord moved Paine to turn his talents to the radical revolutionary cause. 42 00:04:58.800 --> 00:05:04.880 In July, he urged upon the Quakers the justice of taking up arms in defense of liberty, so 43 00:05:04.880 --> 00:05:09.080 so long as disarmament is not universal. 44 00:05:09.080 --> 00:05:15.040 He denounced the British government as highwaymen, setting forth to plunder American property. 45 00:05:15.040 --> 00:05:22.360 Therefore, in self-defense, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and plunderer 46 00:05:22.360 --> 00:05:23.360 in awe. 47 00:05:23.360 --> 00:05:31.240 For the British, nothing but arms or miracles can reduce them to reason and moderation. 48 00:05:31.240 --> 00:05:37.880 And in October he combined his anti-slavery and pro-independence views to castigate Great 49 00:05:37.880 --> 00:05:43.040 Britain for trafficking in human flesh, and he looked forward to an independence that 50 00:05:43.040 --> 00:05:49.020 would end the slave trade and ultimately all of slavery. 51 00:05:49.020 --> 00:05:54.400 All this culminated in Paine's tremendous blow for American independence. 52 00:05:54.400 --> 00:06:01.680 This fiery and brilliant pamphlet Common Sense, off the press in early January 1776, spread 53 00:06:01.680 --> 00:06:09.760 like wildfire throughout the colonies. A phenomenal 120,000 copies were sold in the space of three 54 00:06:09.760 --> 00:06:17.640 months. Passages were reprinted in newspapers all over America. All this meant that nearly 55 00:06:17.640 --> 00:06:25.060 Every literate home was familiar with the pamphlet. Tom Paine had, at a single blow, 56 00:06:25.060 --> 00:06:30.400 become the voice of the American Revolution and the greatest single force in propelling 57 00:06:30.400 --> 00:06:37.160 it to completion and independence. Charles Lee wrote jubilantly and prophetically to 58 00:06:37.160 --> 00:06:44.580 Washington that, I never saw such a masterly, irresistible performance, it willing concurrence 59 00:06:44.580 --> 00:06:50.460 with the transcendent folly and wickedness of the ministry give the coup de grace to Great 60 00:06:50.460 --> 00:06:57.460 Britain. And Washington himself endorsed the sound doctrine and unanswerable reasoning 61 00:06:57.780 --> 00:07:04.780 of common sense. Common sense called squarely and openly for American independence and pointed 62 00:07:06.100 --> 00:07:12.780 to the choice for Americans as essentially between independence and slavery. But what 63 00:07:12.780 --> 00:07:25.780 For the first time, the king, the royal brute of Great Britain, was pinpointed as the major enemy, the king himself, not just his wicked advisers, the king's advisers were attacked as being enthralled to him. 64 00:07:25.780 --> 00:07:32.780 Pain had quashed the taboo, and Americans flocked to imbibe his liberation. 65 00:07:32.780 --> 00:07:36.780 The King's advisors were attacked as being enthralled to him. 66 00:07:36.780 --> 00:07:43.780 Paine had quashed the taboo, and Americans flocked to imbibe his liberating message. 67 00:07:43.780 --> 00:07:52.780 Not stopping at indicting George III, Paine pressed on to a comprehensive attack on the very principle of monarchy. 68 00:07:52.780 --> 00:07:57.780 The ancient Jews had prospered without kings and had suffered under them, he wrote, 69 00:07:57.780 --> 00:08:03.380 wrote, following the great English tradition of Milton and Sidney, and Holland flourished 70 00:08:03.380 --> 00:08:11.380 as a republic. But more important, the division between kings and subjects is unnatural, and 71 00:08:11.380 --> 00:08:17.900 bears no relation to the natural distinction between rich and poor on the market. How indeed 72 00:08:17.900 --> 00:08:24.620 had the natural equality of men before the law become transposed into subjection to a 73 00:08:24.620 --> 00:08:49.620 We should find the first of them, kings, nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose savage manners or preeminence in subtlety obtained him the title of chief among plunderers, and who by increasing in power and extending his depredations overawed the quiet and defenseless. 74 00:08:49.620 --> 00:09:04.620 And now the kings were but crowned ruffians. In this way, Paine not only laid bare the roots of monarchy, but provided a brilliant insight into the nature and origins of the state itself. 75 00:09:04.620 --> 00:09:11.900 He had made a crucial advance in libertarian theory upon the social contract doctrine of 76 00:09:11.900 --> 00:09:13.780 the origin of the state. 77 00:09:13.780 --> 00:09:19.460 While he followed Locke in holding that the state should be confined to the protection 78 00:09:19.460 --> 00:09:27.260 of man's natural rights, he saw clearly that actual states had not originated in this way 79 00:09:27.260 --> 00:09:29.300 or for this purpose. 80 00:09:29.300 --> 00:09:35.900 Instead, they had been born in naked conquest and plunder. 81 00:09:35.900 --> 00:09:41.620 Another vital contribution of common sense to libertarian thought was Paine's sharp, 82 00:09:41.620 --> 00:09:47.780 quasi-anarchistic distinction between society and government. 83 00:09:47.780 --> 00:09:52.660 Indeed, Paine opened his pamphlet with these words. 84 00:09:52.660 --> 00:09:59.280 Some writers have so confounded society with government as to leave little or no distinction 85 00:09:59.280 --> 00:10:06.280 Society is produced by our wants, and governed by our wickedness. The one encourages intercourse, 86 00:10:14.080 --> 00:10:20.720 the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society 87 00:10:20.720 --> 00:10:27.440 in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary 88 00:10:27.440 --> 00:10:34.560 and Evil. In its worst state, an intolerable one, for when we suffer the same miseries 89 00:10:34.560 --> 00:10:41.340 by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity 90 00:10:41.340 --> 00:10:47.720 is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like 91 00:10:47.720 --> 00:10:54.400 dress, is the badge of lost innocence. The palaces of kings are built upon the ruins 92 00:10:54.400 --> 00:10:57.560 of the Bowers of Paradise. 93 00:10:57.560 --> 00:11:04.280 In addition to limiting brilliantly the nature and origins of monarchy and the state, calling 94 00:11:04.280 --> 00:11:11.280 boldly for independence and attacking George III, Payne set forth the proper foreign policy 95 00:11:11.280 --> 00:11:18.000 for an independent America. Here he argued that the connection with Great Britain entailed 96 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:24.760 Put upon Americans burdens rather than rewards. The Americans should not be tempted by the 97 00:11:24.760 --> 00:11:32.080 prospect of Anglo-American domination of the world. On the contrary, America would vastly 98 00:11:32.080 --> 00:11:38.840 benefit from throwing open its trade and ports freely to all nations. Further, the alliance 99 00:11:38.840 --> 00:11:44.840 with Britain tends directly to involve this continent in European wars and quarrels and 100 00:11:44.840 --> 00:11:51.840 and set us at variance with nations against whom we have neither anger nor complaint. 101 00:11:52.600 --> 00:11:58.320 As Europe is our market for trade, we ought to form no partial connection with any part 102 00:11:58.320 --> 00:12:04.820 of it. It is the true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions, which 103 00:12:04.820 --> 00:12:11.820 she can never do while she is made the make-weight in the scale of British politics. Thus, pain 104 00:12:11.820 --> 00:12:19.820 Pain adumbrated for America what was later to be called a foreign policy of isolationism, 105 00:12:19.820 --> 00:12:24.820 but which might also be called neutrality or neutralism. 106 00:12:24.820 --> 00:12:29.820 Whatever it is called, it is essentially the libertarian policy of free trade 107 00:12:29.820 --> 00:12:33.820 and peaceful coexistence with all nations. 108 00:12:33.820 --> 00:12:41.820 It is an America that acts as a moral beacon for mankind rather than as judge or policeman. 109 00:12:41.820 --> 00:12:47.820 In addition to all these achievements, Payne managed to outline in this brief pamphlet 110 00:12:47.820 --> 00:12:53.820 the internal political program of the libertarian wing of the American Revolution, 111 00:12:53.820 --> 00:12:58.820 the new democratic system naturally created by the Revolution. 112 00:12:58.820 --> 00:13:10.820 This consisted of rule by democratically elected legislatures established by proportionate representation and responsible to checks upon them by the people. 113 00:13:10.820 --> 00:13:18.820 The aim of such government was simply to protect every man's natural rights of liberty and property, 114 00:13:18.820 --> 00:13:25.820 securing freedom and property to all men and, above all things, the free exercise of religion. 115 00:13:25.820 --> 00:13:49.820 He saw that the superficially plausible lucabrations of such Tory writers as Montesquieu and Blackstone, with their talk of mixed constitutions and checks and balances, masked the repression and hobbling of the democratic element by unchecked aristocracy and oligarchy. 116 00:13:49.820 --> 00:13:57.320 Human reason, he implied, must be brought to bear on the myths and accretions of government itself. 117 00:13:57.320 --> 00:14:07.320 The much-vaunted British Constitution was a tangle of complexities, and hence vague and devoid of a focus of responsibility. 118 00:14:07.320 --> 00:14:19.320 In effect, he charged, the so-called checks and balances have led to the aggrandizement of monarchial tyranny over the other branches of government. 119 00:14:19.320 --> 00:14:29.320 Indeed, at any given time for government to act at all, one of the branches must predominate and outweigh the checks and balances. 120 00:14:30.320 --> 00:14:42.320 This argument is reminiscent of Edmund Burke's blast against the idea of mixed and balanced government in his anarchistic first work, The Vindication of Natural Society. 121 00:14:42.320 --> 00:14:48.320 Pain concluded the bulk of his magnificent pamphlet with these stirring lines, 122 00:14:48.320 --> 00:14:56.320 Oh, ye that love mankind, ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth. 123 00:14:56.320 --> 00:15:03.320 Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. 124 00:15:03.320 --> 00:15:09.320 Oh, receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind. 125 00:15:09.320 --> 00:15:17.440 Sounding the clarion call for the democratic libertarian cause as the party of hope, the 126 00:15:17.440 --> 00:15:25.560 party of progress, in short, the party of a secular, rational messianism, he eloquently 127 00:15:25.560 --> 00:15:27.840 hailed the impending future. 128 00:15:27.840 --> 00:15:31.640 We have it in our power to begin the world over again. 129 00:15:31.640 --> 00:15:36.280 The birthday of a new world is at hand. 130 00:15:36.280 --> 00:15:42.560 The explosive success of common sense emboldened the radicals to follow with pamphlets and 131 00:15:42.560 --> 00:15:49.440 articles extolling the goal of independence, excoriating King George as a full-blooded 132 00:15:49.440 --> 00:15:56.120 Nero, and anticipating the great benefits of free trade with all the world that would 133 00:15:56.120 --> 00:16:03.480 flow from an independent status. That the Tories, the quasi-Tories and conservatives 134 00:16:03.480 --> 00:16:11.040 who opposed independence should abominate common sense was, of course, to be expected, 135 00:16:11.040 --> 00:16:18.480 reviling it as that artful, insidious and pernicious work of sedition and frenzy. 136 00:16:18.480 --> 00:16:23.760 Several Tories hastened to publish pamphlets of rebuttal, warning of the ruin, horror and 137 00:16:23.760 --> 00:16:30.280 desolation that would stem from abandoning the happy and peaceful status of a colony 138 00:16:30.280 --> 00:16:37.760 to pursue the romantic chimera of independence. Independence was roundly denounced as absurdly 139 00:16:37.760 --> 00:16:45.020 impractical and utopian, a project of ambitious innovators who are attempting to hurry into 140 00:16:45.020 --> 00:16:51.160 a scene of anarchy. Their scheme of independence is visionary. 141 00:16:51.160 --> 00:16:57.220 It is true that Paine wanted the polity to approximate as closely as possible the libertarian 142 00:16:57.220 --> 00:17:03.400 State of Nature. In that sense, as Halavy pointed out, the principle of the natural 143 00:17:03.400 --> 00:17:10.740 identity of interest when applied to the solution of the problem of politics seems logically 144 00:17:10.740 --> 00:17:18.900 to lead to the anarchistic thesis. Conservative landed oligarchs such as Landon Carter and 145 00:17:18.900 --> 00:17:27.500 and Henry Lawrence considered the pain pamphlet as indecent, rascally and dangerous. But the 146 00:17:27.500 --> 00:17:33.060 Tories and conservatives soon found that their attacks on independence were in vain, that 147 00:17:33.060 --> 00:17:39.620 there is a fascination belonging to the word liberty that beguiles the minds of the vulgar.