dearest rights may be sacrificed by what may be a small minority; and a very small minority may continue forever unchangeably this government although horridly defective: where are your checks in this government? Your strongholds will be in the hands of your enemies; it is on a supposition that your American governors shall be honest, that all the good qualities of this government are founded: but its defective, and imperfect construction, puts it in their power to perpetrate the worst of mischiefs, should they be bad men: and, sir, would not all the world, from the eastern to the western hemisphere, blame our distracted folly in resting our rights upon the contingency of our rulers being good or bad? Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty? I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has ever followed with absolute certainty, every such mad attempt.

If your American chief, be a man of ambition, and abilities, how easy it is for him to render himself absolute! The army is in his hands, and, if he be a man of address, it will be attached to him; and it will be the subject of meditation with him to seize the first auspicious moment to accomplish his design; and, sir, will the American spirit solely relieve you when this happens? I would rather infinitely, and I am sure most of this convention are of the same opinion, have a king, lords, and commons, than a government, so replete with such insupportable evils. If we make a king, we may prescribe the rules by which he shall rule his people, and interpose such checks as shall prevent him from infringing them: but the president in the field at the head of his army can prescribe the terms on which he shall reign master, so far that it will puzzle any American ever to get his neck from under the galling yoke. I cannot with patience think of this idea. If ever he violates the laws, one of two things will happen: he will come at the head of his army to carry everything before him; or, he will give bail, or do what Mr. Chief Justice will order him. If he be guilty, will not the recollection of his crimes teach him to make one bold push for the American throne? Will not the immense difference between being master of everything, and being ignominiously tried and punished, powerfully excite him to make

this bold push? But, sir, where is the existing force to punish him? Can he not at the head of his army beat down every opposition? Away with your president, we shall have a king: the army will salute him monarch; your militia will leave you and assist in making him king, and fight against you, and what have you to oppose this force? What will then become of you and your rights? Will not absolute despotism ensue?

THOMAS PAINE

[Thomas Paine, one of the most effective of Revolutionary pamphleteers, was a native of England, where he had a not very successful career as staymaker and officer in the excise. In 1774, at the age of thirty-seven, he came to Philadelphia, bearing letters from Franklin, whom he had met in England. Though without special literary training or experience, he became editor of a magazine, and soon developed a manner of expression that, while far from correct or elegant, was wonderfully effective. He took an active part in the discussion of public affairs, and in January, 1776, published his pamphlet of "Common Sense," which historians have generally credited as a powerful influence in bringing about the Declaration of Independence. Paine served in the army and in various official positions throughout the war, and at intervals from 1776 to 1783 he wrote the "Crisis," a series of papers which comment on current events and exhort the people to patriotic exertions. At the close of the war his services to the country were enthusiastically recognized by Congress, and by various state legislatures. He then went to Europe, where his "Rights of Man," a reply to Burke's "Reflections on the French Revolution," caused him to be outlawed from England. In France he was made a "citizen" and was chosen a member of the convention. Here he made himself unpopular by his opposition to the execution of the king, and was for a time imprisoned. On his release he attacked Washington for failure to intervene in his behalf, and this, together with his free discussion of religion in "The Age of Reason," made him one of the most unpopular men in America. He died in poverty in New York in 1809, and his sad end was many times "improved" as showing the fate of an infidel.

Paine wrote many other works in America and Europe, but the four mentioned are of chief interest. On the whole "Common Sense" and the "Crisis" are more representative and more creditable than his later writings. No other author of his time is better for the study of the qualities that give a pamphleteer immediate success, and such a study is well worth while because Paine, if not the founder, was the most conspicuous early representative of a school of writing that was long popular in America. He employed a somewhat heightened rhetorical manner, as in the opening lines of the first "Crisis," and he discussed in simple and apparently frank manner matter-of-fact details, as in the references to Washington's retreat in the same paper. He showed what appeared to his partisans as righteous indignation, and to others as prejudice and outbreaks of temper, as in his references to the king and the Tories. It was this lack of respectful dignity that made Paine so violently disliked by his political opponents, and that gave

him his undeserved notoriety as a teacher of irreligion. It is not really the radicalism of the views expressed in "The Age of Reason" but an irreverent way of dealing with what most persons feel to be sacred things, that gave the book its bad name.

The selections are from the standard edition of Paine's writings, edited by Moncure D. Conway.]

REASONS FOR INDEPENDENCE

[From "Common Sense"]

I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation to show 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.

But the injuries and disadvantages which 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 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 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.

Europe 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 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. 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.

The 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.

Though 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.

It is the good fortune of many to live distant from the scene of present sorrow; the evil is not sufficiently brought to their doors to make them feel the precariousness with which all American property is possessed. But let our imaginations transport us a few moments to Boston; that seat of wretchedness will teach us wisdom, and instruct us forever 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.