Conceived in Liberty (228 page)

The town of Hanover and other far western towns soon determined to make their protests effective by refusing to send delegates to the legislature and by refusing to vote for candidates for seats in such an abhorrent institution as the Council. Several of the towns pressed on and refused to pay taxes to New Hampshire altogether, preferring to conduct their affairs on their own.

In a sense, the situation of Connecticut and Rhode Island was the most clear-cut in the colonies, for these two colonies had been uniquely free of any royal governor or royal arm of government at home. Virtually independent while colonies, they needed no political or constitutional change to equip them for the struggle with Great Britain or for possible independence. Hence, with the exception of the ouster of the Tory Governor Wanton by the Rhode Island Assembly, there was no need for confrontations or political upheaval. Since Wanton was closely associated with the Hopkins faction, however, his overthrow meant the eclipse of the Hop-kinsites and the taking of complete power by the more radical Ward faction. The new governor, Nicholas Cooke, was a leading Wardite, as was brilliant young Continental Army General Nathanael Greene, scion of one of the first families of Rhode Island.

Rhode Island was galvanized in early November by the burning of Falmouth to denounce the British and to declare it high treason to correspond with, supply, or aid the British forces, a virtual commitment by Rhode Island to American independence. Indeed, in that same month Samuel Ward, leader of the Ward party and one of the colony’s delegates to the Continental Congress, openly opted for American independence, working tirelessly for that cause from then on.

Thus by the end of 1775 Rhode Island and Connecticut were essentially ready for independence. But the key to New England, of course, was Massachusetts, and if that great spearhead of radicalism would not take the lead for independence, the cause would be lost. While Massachusetts had lost none of its fervor for measures against Britain, its delegation to the
Continental Congress was grievously hobbled throughout 1775. Voting in Congress was by province, and hence an elementary requisite for Massachusetts’ leading a move toward independence was the ability to command the vote of its own delegation. And yet, this the Massachusetts radicals could not do. The Adamses were of course two of the brightest stars of the radical firmament, but the conservatives Thomas Cushing and Robert Treat Paine opposed any drive toward independence. The fifth, or “swing,” member of the delegation was the vain and flighty John Hancock, who clung to his largely honorific post of president of the Continental Congress. He never forgave the Adamses for nominating Washington for army commander-in-chief instead of himself, and bearing that grudge, he broke with the radicals and veered sharply rightward. Allowing himself to be feted by the Dickinsons and Duanes, the luxury-loving Hancock acquired the derisive sobriquet of “King Hancock” among the radicals. This meant an effective vote of three to two against independence, and thus Massachusetts radicalism was stymied. Sam Adams and the frustrated radicals began to threaten openly a separate independent New England unshackled by the dilatoriness of the other colonies.

The critical turning point in this unhappy situation came on December 20, when the Massachusetts Provincial Congress turned Thomas Cushing out as delegate and replaced him with the brilliant young radical and follower of Sam Adams, Elbridge Gerry, of Marblehead. This gave the radicals a majority in the Massachusetts delegation, effective the following February when Gerry was to take his seat. Soon afterward, in mid-January, the Massachusetts Congress authorized the delegates to do whatever they thought necessary “to establish the right and liberty of the American colonies on a base permanent and secure.” Here was a virtual endorsement of American independence.

At the beginning of 1776, New England was ready for independence. So were such leading radicals as Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry of Virginia, Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina, and army leaders such as George Washington and Charles Lee. But the bulk of the colonies and the Continental Congress were not. One of the main stumbling blocks to a commitment to independence was personal loyalty to the British crown. There has always been a political taboo of almost mystical force against attacking the head of state, and always the convenient though emasculating custom of attributing his sins to his evil or incompetent advisers. Such long-standing habits impeded a rational analysis of the deeds of King George III. Furthermore, the old and obsolete Whig ideal of virtual independence under a figurehead king of both Britain and America could only be shattered if the king were to be attacked personally.

To rupture this taboo, to smash the icon, and so to liberate America from its thrall required a special type of man, a man fearless, courageous, and radical, an intellectual with a gift for dramatic and exciting rhetoric and unfettered by the many ties that bind a man to the existing system. At this strategic hour America found just such a man: Thomas Paine.

Unlike most of the other eminent leaders of his day, there was nothing in the least aristocratic in the background of Tom Paine. The son of a poor English corset maker, he was forced to educate himself for lack of schooling. After serving a checkered career as corset maker, sailor, and petty bureaucrat, he finally rose to the status of a minor English tax collector. He was soon characteristically in trouble with the authorities. Chosen by
his fellow excise collectors in 1772 to petition Parliament for higher wages, he was curtly dismissed from the service by the authorities. Unemployed, bankrupt, the unhappy Paine began his life again at the age of thirty-seven by emigrating to America, armed only with a letter of introduction he had managed to obtain from Benjamin Franklin in London.

Landing in Philadelphia toward the end of 1774, he got a job with a Philadelphia printer and soon rose to the editorship of the printer’s insignificant
Pennsylvania Magazine.
He quickly proved himself an outstanding writer and publicist and quickly made his reputation as a libertarian by publishing a blistering attack on the institution of slavery. In “African Slavery in America,” written shortly after his arrival and published in early March 1775, Paine 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 riddled the common excuse that purchase and ownership of existing slaves was somehow moral, in contrast to the wickedness of the original enslavement: “Such men may as well join with a known band of robbers, buy their ill-got goods, and help on the trade; ignorance is no more pleadable in one case than the other... and as the true owner has the right to reclaim his goods that were stolen, and sold; so the slave, who is proper owner of his freedom, has a right to reclaim it, however often sold.” The slaves, being human, have not lost their natural right to their freedom, and therefore, concluded Paine, “the governments... should in justice set them free, and punish those who hold them in slavery.”

Shortly after this article was published, the first abolitionist society—The Society for the Promotion of the Abolition of Slavery—was established at Philadelphia. Largely Quaker, it included the deist Paine as one of its members.

Lexington and Concord moved Paine to turn his talents to the radical revolutionary cause. In July he urged upon the Quakers the justice of taking up arms in defense of liberty so long as disarmament is not universal. He denounced the British government as highwaymen setting forth to plunder American property; therefore, in self defense, “arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe.” For the British, “nothing but arms or miracles can reduce them to reason and moderation.” And in October he combined his antislavery and proindependence views to castigate Great Britain for trafficking in human flesh, and he looked forward to an independence that would end the slave trade and, ultimately, all of slavery.

All this culminated in Paine’s tremendous blow for American independence. His fiery and brilliant pamphlet
Common Sense,
off the press in early
January 1776, spread like wildfire throughout the colonies. A phenomenal 120,000 copies were sold in the space of three months. Passages were reprinted in newspapers all over America. All this meant that nearly every literate home was familiar with the pamphlet. Tom Paine had, at a single blow, become the voice of the American Revolution and the greatest single force in propelling it to completion and independence. Charles Lee wrote jubilantly and prophetically to Washington that “I never saw such a masterly, irresistible performance. It will... in concurrence with the transcendent folly and wickedness of the ministry, give the
coup de grace
to Great Britain.” And Washington himself endorsed “the sound doctrine and unanswerable reasoning” of
Common Sense.

Common Sense
called squarely and openly for American independence, and pointed to the choice for Americans as essentially between independence and slavery. But what was more, Paine boldly smashed the icon, directing his most devastating fire at King George himself. 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 in thrall to him). Paine had quashed the taboo, and Americans flocked to imbibe his liberating message.

Not stopping at indicting George III, Paine pressed on to a comprehensive attack on the very principle of monarchy. The ancient Jews had prospered without kings and had suffered under them, he wrote, following the great English tradition of Milton and Sidney; and Holland flourished as a republic. But more important, the division between kings and subjects is unnatural, and bears no relation to the natural distinction between rich and poor on the market. How, indeed, had the natural equality of men before the law become transposed into subjection to a monarch? “We should find the first of them [kings] nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang; whose savage manners or pre-eminence in subtilty obtained him the title of chief among plunderers; and who by increasing in power and extending his depredations, overawed the quiet and defenseless....” 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. He had made a crucial advance in libertarian theory upon the social-contract doctrine of the origin of the State. While he followed Locke in holding that the State
should
be confined to the protection of man’s natural rights, he saw clearly that actual states had not originated in this way or for this purpose. Instead, they had been born in naked conquest and plunder.

Another vital contribution of
Common Sense
to libertarian thought was Paine’s sharp quasi-anarchistic distinction between “society” and “government.” Indeed, Paine opened his pamphlet with these words:

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 governed by our wickedness.... 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... 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.

In addition to limning brilliantly the nature and origins of monarchy and the State, calling boldly for independence, and attacking George III, Paine set forth the proper foreign policy for an independent America. Here he argued that the connection with Great Britain entailed upon Americans burdens rather than rewards. The Americans should not be tempted by the prospect of Anglo-American domination of the world; on the contrary, America would vastly benefit from throwing open its trade and ports freely to all nations. Further, the alliance with Britain “tends directly to involve this continent in European wars and quarrels, and set us at variance with nations... 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 can never do while “she is made the make-weight in the scale of British politics.” Thus, Paine adumbrated for America what was later to be called a foreign policy of “isolationism,” but which might also be called neutrality or neutralism. Whatever it is called, it is essentially the libertarian policy of free trade and peaceful coexistence with all nations; it is an America that acts as a moral beacon for mankind rather than as judge or policeman.

In addition to all these achievements, Paine managed to outline in this brief pamphlet the internal political program of the libertarian wing of the American Revolution: the new democratic system naturally created by the Revolution. This consisted of rule by democratically elected legislatures established by proportionate representation and responsible to checks upon them by the people. The aim of such government was simply to protect every man’s natural rights of liberty and property: “Securing freedom and property to all men, and above all things, the free exercise of religion....” He saw that the superficially plausible lucubrations 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. Human reason, he implied, must be brought to bear on the myths and accretions of government itself. The much-vaunted British constitution was a tangle of complexities, and hence vague and devoid of a focus of responsibility. In effect, he charged, the so-called checks and balances have led to the aggrandizement of monarchical tyranny over the other branches of government. Indeed, at any given time, for government to act at all, one of the branches must predominate and outweigh the checks and balances. 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.