Common Sense, Part X: Strategy, and Forms Thereof

The last major argument for independence that Paine made use of in the fourth and final section of Common Sense was of a mainly strategic nature. Whereas he had previously advocated the separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Britain as a means of fostering trade and economic growth, avoiding future conflicts, and establishing a more stable and more rational basis of government in America, Paine now sought to portray it as a tactical necessity. It was, he wrote in paragraph twenty-seven, customary in instances of war between two European powers for a third to attempt to interpose themselves between the conflicting parties in the name of mediation. If it was the aim of the rebellious colonies to achieve a desirable settlement of their own conflict with Britain, resulting in either autonomy, the repeal of certain acts of Parliament or a return to the status quo, such aid would indeed seem necessary. Such an eventuality, however, was unlikely to occur so long as the colonies continued to represent themselves as British subjects. By Paine’s estimation it would not do for, say, Portugal, to intervene in what was in a diplomatic sense an internal revolt originating from within the British Empire. There were, he declared, several reasons for this. The first was a matter of what might be called competitive advantage.

As discussed in weeks past, 18^th-century Great Power economics were based around the concept of mercantilism. Resources were finite, and strength came from concentrating them in the right hands while denying them to others. This sense of intense and intractable competition dominated high-level political and strategic military thinking as well. Every empire, every France, Spain, Britain and Russia, were pressing for advantage in every conceivable aspect of their existence. Colonies were one of the most coveted forms of advantage. In addition to natural resources – timber, produce, iron, and textiles – they provided manpower capable of being funnelled into the armed forces, valuable markets for manufactured goods, and hosted military bases that expanded the ability of the kings of France, Portugal or Great Britain to project their power across the globe. Indeed, wars were often fought over the possession of said colonies, and they not infrequently changed hands as a result of negotiated settlements. The Seven Years War (1754-1763), for instance, played out in North America as a contest between Britain and France over control of the Great Lakes and the Ohio Valley. That it culminated in the transfer of New France (modern Quebec) to British control – making the defence of the Thirteen Colonies much simpler – in exchange for France retaining the Caribbean sugar island of Guadeloupe and Martinique – considered at the time much more valuable commodities than fur-producing New France – is a prime example of the kind of strategic thinking that Great Power competition encouraged. Every empire sought to enrich itself and impoverish its rivals.

While it might thus appear on first blush that a revolt among Britain’s North American possessions would elicit immediate and enthusiastic support from the likes of France or Spain, every jockeying for advantage, Paine cautioned his readers in paragraph twenty-eight that matters were not quite that simple. If the aim of the American revolutionaries remained confined to a favourable re-establishment of the status quo ante bellum, a return to the accustomed relationship between the colonies and the Crown, then it was unlikely France, Spain, the Netherlands, or any of Britain’s European rivals would deign to offer assistance. This was, Paine quite simply argued, because they would have had nothing to gain. Though in the immediate offering aid to a rebellion against British authority in North America, perhaps helping prolong hostilities and giving their adversary a bloody nose, might have been to the advantage of the Spanish or the French, the long term results would have provided negligible benefit. Sooner or later the conflict would come to an end, negotiations would occur, and order would once more be restored to British North America. “It is unreasonable to suppose,” Paine wrote, “that France or Spain will give us any kind of assistance, if we mean only, to make use of that assistance for the purpose of repairing the breach.” Such assistance was certainly desirable as a means of establishing a strong position from which to negotiate, unless the colonists were content to surrender themselves to Britain’s tender mercies. Yet this much-needed military or financial assistance from Britain’s imperial foes could never be expected to materialize unless the parties in question could be assured of some kind of advantage. Independence, Paine believed, was exactly that assurance.

As aforementioned, 18^th-century Great Power competition was about denying advantage as much as it was gaining it. Assisting a newly-declared nation to secure its independence from British control might not have resulted in territorial gains for whichever European empire offered their support. It would, however, ensure that Britain would be cut off from abundant sources of manpower and natural resources, consumer markets, and valuable military posts. Thus weakening their rival, France or Spain could boast of gaining a distinct advantage over a hobbled British Empire. At the same time, the opening of American markets and American resources to foreign trade would have represented yet another, perhaps more immediate, reward to Britain’s continental rivals. Independence was the key, Paine asserted; it would turn onlookers into allies and former enemies into friends. Idealistic an argument as this sounds, it had the benefit of putting forward a very realistic assessment of the priorities of the American revolutionaries’ potential foreign supporters. It was entirely possible, Paine admitted, that help might be expected from abroad, but not without offering something in return. For a people who had a great deal of first-hand experience with the kind of calculating, merciless, acquisitive decision-making that moved great empires, and Americans in early 1776 arguably were that, this was doubtless a convincing argument.

Considerations of strategic advantage aside, Paine argued further in paragraph twenty-nine of section four of Common Sense that there was an additional concern that might have prevented Britain’s rival empires from jumping at the chance to offer assistance to an American revolt. As aforementioned, unless and until the Thirteen Colonies formally declared their independence from Britain the conflict between the two would retain the character of an internal revolt. Without making a clear and unambiguous statement of their desire to see themselves separated from the authority of the Crown, so went the logic, the colonies tacitly accepted their place within the larger empire. Other European powers would have thus been disinclined to side with the rebellious colonists for fear of the precedent it would have set. However eager France might have been to weaken their perennial rival Britain by propping up an American revolt, taking such a stance would have opened them up to similar violations of their own sovereignty; i.e. Britain offering military and economic support to a rebellion in Saint-Domingue (modern Haiti). “While we profess ourselves the subjects of Britain,” Paine wrote, “We must, in the eyes of foreign nations, be considered as rebels. The precedent is somewhat dangerous to their peace, for men to be in arms under the name of subjects.” It would have been a different matter, however, for France or Spain to offer assistance to an independent American state, or more likely a collection of states, who possessed their own sovereignty and who had requested assistance in keeping with the legal and diplomatic norms of the era. No longer open to accusations of interference in internal British affairs, potential allies of the Thirteen Colonies could have asserted their right to conduct diplomacy and render aid to whichever other sovereign nation they wished.

Though this might seem at a glance to be a somewhat arbitrary, legalistic distinction, the difference between a colonial rebellion and a sovereign political entity was a very important one in the 18^th century. For the most part European civil wars that followed the era of the Reformation were fairly insular affairs. External interference was rare, and if a given conflict did eventually spill out onto a larger international stage it was usually after the rebellious faction in question had declared itself an independent, sovereign entity. Early precedents for this can be found in the history of the English Civil War (1642-1651), and the Eighty Years War (1568-1648). Though the former conflict represented a fundamental shift in the balance of power in Northern Europe, neither of England’s centuries-old rivals, France or Spain, offered financial or military support to either the Parliamentarian or Royalist factions. Similarly, during their lengthy struggle against the Spanish for an independent Netherlands, Dutch revolutionaries did not gain foreign assistance until after their formal independence had been declared and accepted by the Great Powers of Europe in 1609. The trend toward non-interference in internal revolts that these conflicts indicated was solidified by the termination of the extremely bloody international religious conflict known as the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) and the resulting Peace of Westphalia. So named for the region of Germany in which negotiations took place, it established for the first time a mutually agreed upon definition of state sovereignty and discouraged interference by sovereign states in each other’s domestic affairs. Combined, these concepts comprise what is commonly known as Westphalian Sovereignty. Intended to bring an end to an era of extraordinarily destructive conflicts between Europe’s Catholic and Protestant powers, the accord helped set the tone for later developments in 17^th, 18^th, and 19^th-century diplomacy, and forms the basis of modern international law.

Though I doubt very much that the average American colonist in 1776 was well-versed in European diplomacy, history, or law, and thus would have possessed a limited knowledge of the concepts inherent in Westphalian Sovereignty, Paine’s assessment in paragraph twenty-nine of section four of Common Sense was nevertheless apt. Legal and diplomatic norms in place for over a century would indeed have prevented any of Britain’s European rivals from attempting to interfere in the burgeoning American Revolution on behalf of the rebellious colonists. He was also correct in his assertion that a declaration of independence on the part of the colonists would render the issue null and void. This we can say conclusively because France and Spain did indeed seal alliances with the newly-minted United States of America in 1778 and 1779, respectively, following the formal declaration of American independence in July, 1776. Neither of these points in Paine’s favour, however, offers much of an explanation as to why he believed this particular argument would do much to sway his intended audience. Lacking in the main either a sophisticated education or the ability to peer into the mists of time, American colonists would have had little basis by which to evaluate the veracity of Paine’s claims in their finer points.

I don’t doubt that the average America was able to grasp Paine’s assertion that France, say, would not have deigned to spend money and manpower strengthening the colonies only to have them agree to reconciliation and once more add their newfound strength to Britain’s. Americans – merchants, traders, shipbuilders, soldiers – lived on the frontier of one of the world’s great empires; they doubtless understood, or at least had experience with, the kind of self-interested thinking that formed the core of European imperialism. That Paine also attempted to explain that independence was necessary in order to bypass contemporary legal and diplomatic customs, however, does strike me as rather odd. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I don’t know what he was trying to accomplish via its inclusion. I can’t imagine his fellow colonists grasping this argument very readily, lacking the necessary historical context, and thus it seems a strange choice for what is otherwise a popular appeal to commonly-held experiences, prejudices and sentiments. Perhaps I overestimate the ignorance of the 18^th-century American colonist, or underestimate the pervasiveness of some of the concepts inherent in Westphalian Sovereignty. Maybe Pennsylvanians and Virginians in 1776 had come to understand the principle of domestic non-interference as a given in international diplomacy. Either way, I don’t feel comfortable hazarding a guess. I am, I must confess, at a loss. Forgive me if this admission on my part shatters whatever image you've built up of your erstwhile host. I’ll give you a moment to recover.

Tum, tee, ta, tum.

Admissions of mortality aside, I will say that I chose to shine a light on this particular argument, baffling though it seems, for two reasons. The first is that it afforded me the opportunity to discuss, if only briefly, the significance of the Peace of Westphalia and its accompanying impact on European diplomatic and legal norms. I do so enjoy, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, drawing connections between the events of the American Founding and certain broader contemporary intellectual and cultural trends. That Paine made tacit reference to the post-Westphalian concept of domestic non-interference is important if for no other reason than it places the American Revolution in the appropriate global historical context.

So, there’s that. 

The other reason I wanted to discuss Paine’s rather highbrow diplomatic argument from the end of section four is because it’s not the only instance across the entirety of Common Sense wherein he appeared to depart from his calculated appeal to common prejudices and sentiments and reached for an idea or concept somewhat above the intellectual or educational level of his intended audience. Over the course of his best-selling pamphlet, in addition to drawing examples from the Old Testament or explicitly invoking God, Paine referred to English poet John Milton, British Whig politician and free speech advocate James Burgh, and Italian 18^th-century philosopher Giacinto Dragonetti. Even in our modern, hyper-connected, information-saturated world these men and their work are not common reference points for the average global citizen. Given how disconnected their lives tended to be from larger intellectual or artistic trends I subsequently have no doubt that their names would have meant very little when encountered in Paine’s Common Sense by the average 18^th-century American farmer or artisan. Thus it strikes me that either Paine found it difficult not to occasionally let slip how well-read he actually was, or that he was attempting to encourage his audience to discover Dragonetti’s Virtues and Rewards or Burgh’s Political Disquisitions for themselves. In either case, the impression of Paine to be gleaned from these odd and infrequent references to people or ideas likely outside the frame of reference of his readership would seem to be that of a man who tried, albeit not always successfully, to “dress down” his rhetorical style in order to reach as wide an audience as possible.     

On that note, I’d like to wrap this somewhat overlong post by making one last point about Paine’s use of rhetoric and language. Phrasing, concision and repetition were not the only ways he attempted to shape his readers’ perceptions of his arguments. Aside from affecting a plain-spoken rhetorical voice throughout Common Sense, and thus generally avoiding abstractions or obscure references, Paine was also not above the occasional crude allusion or turn of phrase as a means of appealing to his intended audience. Instances of this type are not frequent, it must be said, but the way they’re peppered throughout Paine’s various arguments seems indicative of the tone he was trying to adopt and the general character of the typical reader he envisioned. In the twenty-sixth paragraph of the pamphlet’s first section, for instance, he encouraged his readers to abandon any lingering sentimental or prideful attachment to Britain and its preferred form of government so that they might more clearly judge of the quality and utility of a plan for independence. Specifically, Paine stated that, “as a man, who is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge of a wife, so any prepossession in favour of a rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning a good one.” This is not, I think, a simile that would have ever found its way into the works of philosopher-statesman Jefferson, Puritan moralist Adams or even realpolitik strategist Hamilton.

I would say the same of Paine’s claim in the twelfth paragraph of the second section of Common Sense that monarchy arose in antiquity because it was very easy in ages past to make use of fables and trumped-up claims to, “cram hereditary right down the throats of the vulgar.” Similar turns of phrase can be found in paragraph fifty of section three, wherein he referred to George III as the “Royal Brute of Britain,” and paragraph fifty-three of the same, in which he questioned the ability of anyone to restore harmony to the relationship between the colonies and the Crown. “Can ye restore to us the time that is past?” he asked by means of rhetorical comparison, “Can ye give to prostitution its former innocence?” He responded, naturally, in the negative, stating, “As well can the lover forgive the ravisher of his mistress, as the continent forgive the murders of Britain.” Though to a degree dressed up by 18th-century syntax and vocabulary the imagery conjured by these expressions is really quite visceral. Prostitution, rape, murder, throat-cramming; these are not the allusions favored by the refined scholar, statesman or philosopher, but the crude, vulgar reference points of the 18th-century common man. Along with his frequent use of pious language and Scriptural allusions, references such as these would seem to fall within Paine’s attempt to adopt a “common tongue.” 18th-century Americans were, by and large, not a people possessing delicate sensibilities; that Paine recognized this fact and tried to make use of it in his written appeal once more sets him apart from the majority of contemporary revolutionary polemicists.