The American Republic

Common Sense, Thomas Paine, 1776, p. 179

Common Sense 179 Common Sense thomas paine January 10, 1776 Thomas Paine (1737–1809) was born in England but frequently referred to himself as a “citizen of the world.” He moved to America in 1774, where he was soon involved in the struggle with Great Britain. Paine’s powerful rhetoric had a significant effect on the course of events in America. Common Sense was by far the most widely read pamphlet of its day and was credited by George Washington, among others, with swaying public opinion in favor of separation from Great Britain. Paine’s advocacy of American independence and republicanism represents the most radical edge of thought during this time. In addition to his writings urging revolution in America, he took an active part in the early days of the French Revolution, before being imprisoned by France’s revolutionary government. He was saved from execution only by the fall from power (and execution) of the French revolutionary leader Robespierre. His revolutionary activities and frequent attacks against Christian ministers and churches made him many enemies, including in America, and he spent his last years in relative isolation and poverty. Common Sense On the Origin and Design of Government in General, with Concise Remarks on the English Constitution Some 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 latternegatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society 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 upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other law-giver; 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 bene- fit, is preferable to all others. In 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 labor out 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 to quit his work, and every different want would 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. Thus necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our newly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessings of which would supercede, and render the obligations of law and government unnecessary while they remained perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but 180 war for independence Heaven is impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably...