Common Sense, Part VI: Realpolitik

Paragraphs thirty-one through fifty-four of the third section of Common Sense focus less on general complaints against the relationship between the Crown and the colonies, as had those preceding them, and more on a frank assessment of the costs the nascent Revolution had exacted and the unique opportunities it offered. These sections represent Paine at perhaps his most vitriolic. While in previous paragraphs he spared no bile in attacking the roots of monarchy on general principle and decrying its perpetuation as absurd, the second half of section three is rife with specific denunciations of George III, his ministers, and the actions British army. Finished, it would seem, with drawing the attention of his audience to logical absurdities and requesting they exercise their sense of objective reason, Paine instead appeared determined to rouse their anger, resentment, and even fear in order to compel them to action. To that end the aforementioned paragraphs contain, in addition to powerful, if un-nuanced, rhetoric, tentative plans for both a permanent continental government as well as a constitutional convention. Apparently unsatisfied with mere criticism – surprising given the clearly evident relish with which he proceeded – Paine tried his hand at construction as well, phrased in such a way as to invite popular scrutiny, discussion and (shudder) participation. Before putting forward his admittedly rudimentary plan of government, however, he first needed to make it clear why said government was absolutely necessary, and how the events of the Revolution presented the ideal opportunity.

By Paine’s estimate, judging from the arguments he put forward in paragraphs thirty-one and thirty-two of section three, there were essentially two potential outcomes to the Revolution. The first, which he strongly advocated for, was the separation of the Thirteen Colonies from any form of British administration and their complete and total political independence. This would have carried with it a raft of obstacles, not the least of which was the formation of a national government. That being said, Paine seemed well-assured that whatever difficulties Americans encountered following liberation from British rule would be preferable to the alternative. That being, or course, the second outcome; a negotiated settlement of the original political dispute between Britain and the colonies, no doubt requiring the repeal of offending legislation, and a resumption of the status quo. This, Paine sought to communicate in no uncertain terms, would have been completely unacceptable, “or in any way equal to the expense of blood and treasure we have already been put to.”

As mentioned at the outset of this little adventure, Common Sense was first published in Pennsylvania in January, 1776; the Battles of Lexington and Concord took place in April, 1775. Between those opening clashes, the campaign that followed in and around Boston and the invasion of British Canada in June, 1775, eight months had elapsed, approximately 1,000 Continental Army servicemen had lost their lives, and a further 1,500 had been captured. While many Americans remained outside the zone of conflict and would continue to do so until the British invasions of New York (July, 1776) and the South (December, 1778), enough states contributed forces to these early offensives to consider them truly national endeavours. Aside from the Massachusetts militiamen and later Continental regiments that featured prominently in the Boston campaign, the expeditions of Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold to Quebec were comprised of soldiers from New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the disputed territory later known as Vermont. Of these men not an insignificant number had perished; fathers, sons and brothers. Families from across the United States had been affected, and millions of dollars had been spent. It was Paine’s fervent hope, as he expressed in often incendiary terms in Common Sense, that the end result of these sacrifices would be more than the resumption of the status quo.

“The object, contended for,” he wrote to that effect in paragraph thirty-two, “ought always to bear some just proportion to the expense.” The repeal of the Tea Act, the restoration of the Massachusetts governing charter (revoked in punishment for the 1773 protest commonly known as the Boston Tea Party), and the re-opening of the port of Boston (closed in punishment for the same) were the initial aims of the First Continental Congress (September-October, 1774) and its delegates. By January, 1776, however, Paine no longer considered such an outcome acceptable. Too much had happened, he asserted, too many had died and were continuing to die for so paltry a reward. No doubt seeking to appeal to his readers’ sense of justice and moral outrage Paine invoked in the same paragraph recent events like the Battle of Bunker Hill (June, 1775), and asked his fellow colonists to consider whether the almost 500 Americans lives lost there were worth the revocation of policies widely known to have been illegitimate from the outset. He did not believe it so, though he was willing to grant that those long in favor of reconciliation where neither foolish nor naïve. “No man was a warmer wisher for reconciliation than myself,” he admitted, but the moment American blood was spilled during the “fatal nineteenth of April 1775” he found himself unable to stomach the thought of a political settlement.

This profession by Paine of his formerly conciliatory stance no doubt was aimed at those who continued to hold to the same principle. Rather than denounce them as cowards or appeasers, as some advocates for separation did and would do, Paine reached out and expressed him sympathy. “The independency of this continent,” he declared, must come sooner or later; better it be peaceful and gradual than swift and violent. Thus he portrayed himself, and those who supported the Revolution, as being justly critical of unthinking, unjustified violence. Doubtless this appealed to many who considered war against Britain to be a shocking breach of familial bonds. Blood had been shed, however, by Americans at the hands of their “brothers” from across the Atlantic. This being an indisputable fact, Paine questioned how those who had lost family and friends in the ensuing struggle could be expected to forgive their killers. Worse yet, he asked, how could the King, “with the pretended title of FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE […] unfeelingly hear of their slaughter, and composedly sleep with their blood upon his soul [?]” Characterized thusly, the Revolution was not a violent break with tradition and history, as certain of its critics declared, but rather a reaction to the brutality of faraway regime against a people who had only desired to defend their rights. No doubt Paine intended this image of a defensive revolution, and the moral quandary presented by reconciliation, to assure those who still held on to the possibility of a return to “business as usual” that no such outcome was anymore possible. He had come to that conclusion himself, and being of a similar temper he hoped they would as well.

To those who found themselves little swayed by his moral condemnation of a negotiated return to the status quo Paine offered a series of practical criticisms in paragraphs thirty-four through thirty-six of section three of Common Sense. Suppose, he began, that the reconciliationists had their way, and the colonies and the Crown arrived at a settlement that placed the former once again under the authority of the latter. Within such a scheme, as had been the case in times past, the Crown would possess a veto on all legislation proposed and accepted by the colonial legislatures. Prior to the Revolution, as aforementioned, it had become common practice for the King to make use of this veto in order to stymie laws he and his ministers found undesirable. In essence, Paine argued, “according to what is called the present constitution […] this continent can make no laws but what the king gives it leave to.” One hostilities were concluded and peace restored, he then asked, what seemed the more likely outcome; the cessation of this practice or its even greater abuse? By Paine’s estimation the breach between Britain and the colonies occurred because the latter had become more powerful than the Crown was willing to permit. “We are already greater than the king wishes us to be,” he wrote, “and will he not hereafter endeavour to make us less?” This would seem to have been another canny move on his part; at a stroke Paine set forth his opinion of the strength of the colonies, no doubt partially in an attempt to appeal to the pride of his readership, at the same time he offered a conception of King George III as a somewhat less than magnanimous ruler. Far from the benevolent, disinterested figure that monarchist political theory envisioned, he characterized the reigning British sovereign as petty, arbitrary, and incapable of forgiving slights against his authority. In addition to being rooted in an Enlightenment-derived distrust of unchecked authority, this portrayal was also a highly grounded one (the King as a man, and thus pray to all the weaknesses common to that species). No doubt Paine hoped it would resonate with the equally-grounded audience at which Common Sense was aimed.

There was, Paine admitted in paragraph thirty-five, a point to be made against his critique of the King’s veto, however. In addition to possessing the ability to refuse assent to laws originating in the Thirteen Colonies, the Crown reserved the same right with respect to those bills proposed and accepted by the British Parliament in London. Yet, Paine supposed his critics would say, Common Sense seemed to take no issue with the veto being exercised in Britain, though it had the same effect and functioned via the same logic as when it was exercised in the colonies. The root question this apparent contradiction would seem to give rise to is, why was the veto acceptable in one instance and unacceptable in the other? Paine’s reply was predictably forthright. England, he reminded his readers, was the home of the British monarchy, and America a distant satellite. While from time to time the King may have exercised his veto against legislation but forth by Parliament, he would scarcely do so as a means of disrupting the commerce, weakening the institutions, or disturbing the defences of the state over which he presided, and from which he derived his strength and authority. The Thirteen Colonies, Paine asserted, would never be so lucky precisely because of their distance, and because of the threat their potential strength posed to the sovereignty of the Crown. “He will scarcely refuse his consent,” he wrote of George III, “to a bill for putting England into as strong a state of defence as possible, and in America he would never suffer such a bill to be passed.” Again Paine seemed to appeal to the vanity of his audience – the King acted against the colonies because he considered them a threat – while couching his argument in very plain, adversarial, and concise language.

In his final argument against the dubious prospect of submitting once more to the authority of a king and his ministers who had proved themselves both deceitful and vicious, Paine argued in paragraph thirty-six of section three that a return to the status quo would in reality constitute little more than a fleeting illusion. Just as a peaceful resumption of the customary relationship between the colonies and the Crown would not erase the memory on either side of the bloodier aspects of the dispute, neither would the King forget the object he had hoped to attain in the first instance by attempting to abrogate the traditional rights of the colonists. One of the immediate causes of the Revolution, by Paine’s estimation, was the suppression by the Crown of the growth and prosperity of the Thirteen Colonies. This had been attempted via the imposition of onerous taxes, trade restrictions, and harsh punishments for perceived slights, all theoretically playing to the advantage of Britain because they helped maintain the colonies in a subordinate position. While it was possible, Paine allowed, that King might agree to repeal the reviled taxes and restrictions in an effort to foster reconciliation, there would still have been little to stop him or his successors from accomplishing, “BY CRAFT AND SUBTILITY, IN THE LONG RUN, WHAT HE CANNOT DO BY FORCE AND VIOLENCE IN THE SHORT ONE.” Having proved himself, in Paine’s eyes, willing to destroy those of his own subjects who stood firm and rejected what they knew to be illegitimate actions taken by the Crown, what reason would George III have for not continuing along the path he had set out upon? Force having proven futile, why would he not simply work in secret towards the same end? Again borrowing from the intellectual playbook of the Enlightenment, in this case its fascination with/tendency to connect power with notions of conspiracy, Paine endeavoured to speak to existing distrust among his readers of the King, his advisers, and authority in general. Rather than ask his fellow colonists to wrap their minds around a new and unusual philosophical concept he instead confirmed what many of them doubtless were already convinced of, that power is fundamentally untrustworthy.

I hope that I don’t come across as hopelessly tedious when I repeat myself like this (or perhaps you hadn't thought so until I just now mentioned it), but the great strength of Paine’s arguments in Common Sense stem from their simplicity, their rhetorical force, and how little they asked of the reader. The section just detailed, encompassing three paragraphs near the middle of section three, is no different. As was Paine’s modus operandi throughout his 1776 pamphlet, the arguments therein put forward were devoid of the philosophical complexities common to the works of fellow revolutionaries like Jefferson, Adams, James Madison or John Dickinson. The questions he asked his readers were simple, based in plain reasoning, and backed by recent rather than ancient history. Is a king who has long abused his veto on our laws fit to continue as our sovereign lord? Is it reasonable to expect him to forget that we raised our hand against him and help us to grow and prosper in the coming years? Can he be trusted not to attempt to undermine us in the future, after having proved himself willing to oversee the slaughter of our friends and neighbours? These were not complex questions but they possessed a powerful moral weight, and spoke to an understanding of the British monarch that was not difficult for the average American to grasp. They had at that point suffered under close to a decade of burdensome tax policies, centuries of obstructive trade regulations designed to enrich the empire of which they were presumably a part, and eight months of bloody slaughter at the hands of an army and navy once mobilised for their defence. Doubtless they were in a receptive temper towards arguments against the legitimacy of the Crown and the prospect of reconciliation.