With regard to Paine's earliest publication there has been needless
confusion. In his third _Crisis_ he says to Lord Howe: "I have likewise
an aversion to monarchy, as being too debasing to the dignity of man;
but I never troubled others with my notions till very lately, nor ever
published a syllable in England in my life." It has been alleged that
this is inconsistent with his having written in 1772 "The Case of the
Officers of Excise." But this, though printed (by William Lee of Lewes)
was not published until 1793. It was a document submitted to Parliament,
but never sold. The song on Wolfe, and other poetical pieces,
though known to the Headstrong Club in Lewes, were first printed in
Philadelphia.*
* Mr. W. H. Burr maintains that Paine wrote in the English
Crisis (1775) under the name of "Casca." As Casca's articles
bear intrinsic evidence of being written in London--such as
his treating as facts General Gage's fictions about
Lexington--the theory supposes Paine to have visited England
in that year. But besides the facts that Rush had an
interview with Paine near the middle of March, and Franklin
in October, the accounts of Aitkin, preserved in
Philadelphia, show payments to Paine in May, July, and
August, 1775. As Mr. Burr's further theory, that Paine wrote
the letters of Junius, rests largely on the identification
with "Casca," it might be left to fall with disproof of the
latter. It is but fair, however, to the labors of a
courageous writer, and to the many worthy people who have
adopted his views, to point out the impossibilities of their
case. An able summary of the facts discoverable concerning
the personality of Junius, in Macaulay's "Warren Hastings,"
says: "As to the position, pursuits, and connexions of
Junius, the following are the most important facts which can
be considered as clearly proved: first, that he was
acquainted with the technical forms of the Secretary of
State's office; secondly, that he was intimately acquainted
with the business of the War Office; thirdly, that he,
during the year 1770, attended debates in the House of
Lords, and took notes of speeches, particularly of the
speeches of Lord Chatham; fourthly, that he bitterly
resented the appointment of Mr. Chamier to the place of
Deputy Secretary of War; fifthly, that he was bound by some
strong tie to the first Lord Holland."
Now during the period of Junius' letters (Jan. 21, 1769, to Jan. 21,
1772) Paine was occupied with his laborious duties as exciseman at
Lewes, and with the tobacco mill from which he vainly tried to extort
a living for himself and wife, and her mother. Before that period
there was no time at which Paine could have commanded the leisure or
opportunities necessary to master the political and official details
known to Junius, even had he been interested in them. He declares
that he had no interest in politics, which he regarded as a species
of "jockeyship." How any one can read a page of Junius and then one of
Paine, and suppose them from the same pen appears to me inconceivable.
Junius is wrapped up in the affairs of Lord This and Duke That, and
a hundred details. I can as easily imagine Paine agitated with the
movements of a battle of chessmen. But apart from this, the reader need
only refer to the facts of his life before coming to America to acquit
him of untruth in saying that he had published nothing in England, and
that the cause of America made him an author.
In America Wolfe again rises before Paine's imagination. In the
_Pennsylvania Journal_, January 4th, appears a brief "Dialogue between
General Wolfe and General Gage in a Wood near Boston." Wolfe, from the
Elysian Fields, approaches Gage with rebuke for the errand on which he
has come to America, and reminds him that he is a citizen as well as a
soldier. "If you have any regard for the glory of the British name, and
if you prefer the society of Grecian, Roman, and British heroes in
the world of spirits to the company of Jeffries, Kirk, and other royal
executioners, I conjure you immediately to resign your commission."
Although this "Dialogue" was the first writing of Paine published, it
was not the first written for publication. The cause that first moved
his heart and pen was that of the negro slave. Dr. Rush's date of his
meeting with Paine, 1773,--a year before his arrival,--is one of a
number of errors in his letter, among these being his report that
Paine told him the antislavery essay was the first thing he had ever
published. Paine no doubt told him it was the first thing he ever wrote
and offered for publication; but it was not published until March
8th. Misled by Rush's words, Paine's editors and our historians of the
antislavery movement have failed to discover this early manifesto
of abolitionism. It is a most remarkable article. Every argument and
appeal, moral, religious, military, economic, familiar in our subsequent
anti-slavery struggle, is here found stated with eloquence and
clearness. Having pointed out the horrors of the slave trade and of
slavery, he combats the argument that the practice was permitted to the
Jews. Were such a plea allowed it would justify adoption of other Jewish
practices utterly unlawful "under clearer light." The Jews indeed had
no permission to enslave those who never injured them, but all such
arguments are unsuitable "since the time of reformation came under
Gospel light. All distinctions of nations, and privileges of one above
others, are ceased. Christians are taught to account all men their
neighbours; and love their neighbours as themselves; and do to all men
as they would be done by; to do good to all men; and man-stealing is
ranked with enormous crimes." Bradford might naturally hesitate some
weeks before printing these pointed reproofs. "How just, how suitable to
our crime is the punishment with which Providence threatens us? We
have enslaved multitudes, and shed much innocent blood, and now are
threatened with the same." In the conclusion, a practical scheme is
proposed for liberating all except the infirm who need protection, and
settling them on frontier lands, where they would be friendly protectors
instead of internal foes ready to help any invader who may offer them
freedom.
This wonderful article is signed "Justice and Humanity." Thomas Paine's
venture in this direction was naturally welcomed by Dr. Rush, who some
years before had written a little pamphlet against the slave trade, and
deploring slavery, though he had not proposed or devised any plan for
immediate emancipation. Paine's paper is as thorough as Garrison himself
could have made it. And, indeed, it is remarkable that Garrison, at a
time when he shared the common prejudices against Paine, printed at the
head of his _Liberator_ a motto closely resembling Paine's. The motto of
Paine was: "The world is my country, my religion is to do good"; that
of the _Liberator_: "Our country is the world, our countrymen are all
mankind." Garrison did characteristic justice to Paine when he had
outgrown early prejudices against him.* On April 12th, thirty-five days
after Paine's plea for emancipation, the first American Antislavery
Society was formed, in Philadelphia.
* It will be seen by the "Life of William Lloyd Garrison,"
i., p. 219, and iii., p. 145, that Mr. Garrison did not know
of Paine's motto ("Rights of Man," i., chap. v.). His review
of Paine's works appeared November, 1845. The
Liberator first appeared January 1, 1831.
Although the dialogue between Wolfe and Gage (January 4th) shows
that Paine shared the feeling of America, the earlier numbers of his
_Pennsylvania Magazine_ prove his strong hope for reconciliation. That
hope died in the first collision; after Lexington he knew well that
separation was inevitable. A single sentence in the magazine intimates
the change. The April number, which appeared soon after the "Lexington
massacre," contains a summary of Chatham's speech, in which he said
the crown would lose its lustre if "robbed of so principal a jewel as
America." Paine adds this footnote: "The principal jewel of the crown
actually dropt out at the coronation." There was probably no earlier
printed suggestion of independence by any American.*
* The London Chronicle, of October 25, 1774, printed Major
Cartwright's "American Independence the Interest and Glory
of Great Britain," and it was reprinted in the Pennsylvania
Journal. Although it has little relation to the form in
which the question presently suggested itself, the article
is interesting as an indication that separation was then
more talked of in England than in America. Twelve years
before the Revolution a pamphlet in favor of separation was
written by Josiah Tucker of Bristol, England. Then as now
colonists were more loyal than the English at home.
There are three stages in the evolution of the Declaration of
Independence. The colonies reached first the resolution of resistance,
secondly of separation, and thirdly of republicanism.
In the matter of resistance the distribution of honors has been
rather literary than historical. In considering the beginnings of the
Revolution our minds fly at once to the Tea-party in Boston harbor, then
to Lexington, where seven Massachusetts men fell dead, and seven years
of war followed. But two years before the tea was thrown overboard,
and four years before the Lexington massacre, North Carolinians had
encountered British troops, had left two hundred patriots fallen, and
seen their leaders hanged for treason. Those earliest martyrs are
almost forgotten because, in the first place, North Carolina produced no
historians, poets, magazines, to rehearse their story from generation
to generation. In the second place, the rebellion which Governor Tryon
crushed at Alamance, though against the same oppressions, occurred
in 1771, before the colonies had made common cause. Governmental
anachronisms have a tendency to take refuge in colonies. Had Great
Britain conceded to Americans the constitutional rights of Englishmen
there could have been no revolution. Before the time of George III.
British governors had repeatedly revived in America prerogatives extinct
in England, but the colonists had generally been successful in their
appeals to the home government. Even in 1774 the old statesmen in
America had not realized that a king had come who meant to begin in
America his mad scheme of governing as well as reigning. When, in
September, 1774, the first Continental Congress assembled, its members
generally expected to settle the troubles with the "mother country"
by petitions to Parliament. There is poetic irony in the fact that the
first armed resistance to royal authority in America was by the North
Carolina "Regulators." On the frontiers, before official courts were
established, some kind of law and order had to be maintained, and they
were protected by a volunteer police called "Regulators." In the forests
of Virginia, two hundred years ago, Peter Lynch was appointed judge by
his neighbors because of his wisdom and justice, and his decisions were
enforced by "Regulators." Judge Lynch's honorable name is now degraded
into a precedent for the cowardly ruffians who hunt down unarmed
negroes, Italians, and Chinamen, and murder them without trial, or after
their acquittal. But such was not the case with our frontier courts and
"Regulators," which were civilized organizations, though unauthorized.
For several years before the Revolution lawful and civilized government
in some of the colonies depended on unauthorized administrations. The
authorized powers were the "lynchers," as they would now be called,
with traditional misrepresentation of Peter Lynch. The North Carolina
Regulators of 1771 were defending the English constitution against a
king and a governor acting as lawlessly as our vile lynchers and "White
Caps." It was remarked, by Paine among others that after the royal
authority was abolished, though for a long time new governments were not
established, "order and harmony were preserved as inviolate as in any
country in Europe."*
* "The Rights of Man," part ii., chapter i.
In the dialogue between Wolfe and Gage, Paine writes as an Englishman;
he lays no hand on the constitution, nor considers the sovereign
involved in ministerial iniquities. Apart from his Quaker sentiments he
felt dismay at a conflict which interrupted his lucrative school, and
the literary opportunities afforded by his magazine. "For my own part,"
he wrote to Franklin, "I thought it very hard to have the country set
on fire about my ears almost the moment I got into it." And indeed there
was a general disgust among the patriots during the year 1775, while
as yet no great aim or idea illumined the smoke of battle. They were
vehemently protesting that they had no wish for separation from England,
just as in the beginning of our civil war leading Unionists declared
that they would not interfere with slavery. In March, 1775, Franklin
maintained the assurance he had given Lord Chatham in the previous
year, that he had never heard in America an expression in favor of
independence, "from any person drunk or sober." Paine says that on his
arrival he found an obstinate attachment to Britain; "it was at that
time a kind of treason to speak against it." "Independence was a
doctrine scarce and rare even towards the conclusion of the year 1775."
In May, George Washington, on his way to Congress, met the Rev. Jonathan
Boucher, in the middle of the Potomac; while their boats paused, the
clergyman warned his friend that the path on which he was entering might
lead to separation from England. "If you ever hear of my joining in any
such measures," said Washington, "you have my leave to set me down for
everything wicked."* Although Paine, as we shall see, had no reverence
for the crown, and already foresaw American independence, he abhorred
the method of war. In the first number of his magazine he writes: "The
speeches of the different governors pathetically lament the present
distracted state of affairs. Yet they breathe a spirit of mildness
as well as tenderness, and give encouragement to hope that some happy
method of accommodation may yet arise."
* Notes and Queries (Eng.), series 3 and 5. See also in
Lippincotts Maga-rine, May, 1889, my paper embodying the
correspondence of Washington and Boucher.
But on April 19th came the "massacre at Lexington," as it was commonly
called. How great a matter is kindled by a small fire! A man whose name
remains unknown, forgetful of Captain Parker's order to his minute-men
not to fire until fired on, drew his trigger on the English force
advancing to Concord; the gun missed fire, but the little flash was
answered by a volley; seven men lay dead. In the blood of those patriots
at Lexington the Declaration of Independence was really written. From
town-meetings throughout the country burning resolutions were hurled on
General Gage in Boston, who had warned Major Pitcairn, commander of the
expedition, not to assume the offensive. From one county, Mecklenburg,
North Carolina, were sent to Congress twenty resolutions passed by its
committee, May 31st, declaring "all laws and commissions confirmed by
or derived from the authority of the King and Parliament are anulled
and vacated," and that, "whatever person shall hereafter receive a
commission from the crown, or attempt to exercise any such commission
heretofore received, shall be deemed an enemy to his country."*
* These resolutions further organized a provisional
government to be in force until "the legislative body of
Great Britain resign its unjust and arbitrary pretensions
with respect to America." In 1819 a number of witnesses
stated that so early as May 20th Mecklenburg passed an
absolute Declaration of Independence, and it is possible
that, on receipt of the tidings from Lexington, some popular
meeting at Charlottetown gave vent to its indignation in
expressions, or even resolutions, which were tempered by the
County Committee eleven days later. The resolutions
embodying the supposititious "Declaration," written out
(1800) from memory by the alleged secretary of the meeting
(Dr. Joseph McKnitt Alexander), are believed by Dr. Welling
to be "an honest effort to reproduce, according to the best
of his recollection, the facts and declarations contained in
the genuine manuscripts of May 31, after that manifesto had
been forgotten."--(North American Review, April, 1874.) But
the testimony is very strong in favor of two sets of
resolutions.
Many years after the independence of America had been achieved, William
Cobbett, on his return to England after a long sojourn in the United
States, wrote as follows:
"As my Lord Grenville introduced the name of Burke, suffer me, my Lord,
to introduce that of a man who put this Burke to shame, who drove him
off the public stage to seek shelter in the pension list, and who is
now named fifty million times where the name of the pensioned Burke is
mentioned once. The cause of the American colonies was the cause of the
English Constitution, which says that no man shall be taxed without his
own consent.... A little thing sometimes produces a great effect; an
insult offered to a man of great talent and unconquerable perseverance
has in many instances produced, in the long run, most tremendous
effects; and it appears to me very clear that some beastly insults,
offered to Mr. Paine while he was in the Excise in England, was the real
cause of the Revolution in America; for, though the nature of the cause
of America was such as I have before described it; though the principles
were firm in the minds of the people of that country; still, it was Mr.
Paine, and Mr. Paine alone, who brought those principles into action."
In this passage Cobbett was more epigrammatic than exact. Paine, though
not fairly treated, as we have seen, in his final dismissal from the
excise, was not insulted. But there is more truth in what Cobbett
suggests as to Paine's part than he fully realized. Paine's unique
service in the work of independence may now be more clearly defined.
It was that he raised the Revolution into an evolution. After the
"Lexington massacre" separation was talked of by many, but had it
then occurred America might have been another kingdom. The members of
Congress were of the rich conservative "gentry," and royalists. Had he
not been a patriot, Peyton Randolph, our first president, would probably
have borne a title like his father, and Washington would certainly have
been knighted. Paine was in the position of the abolitionists when the
secession war began. They also held peace principles, and would have
scorned a war for the old slave-holding union, as Paine would have
scorned a separation from England preserving its political institutions.
The war having begun, and separation become probable, Paine hastened to
connect it with humanity and with republicanism. As the abolitionists
resolved that the secession war should sweep slavery out of the country,
Paine made a brave effort that the Revolution should clear away both
slavery and monarchy. It was to be in every respect a new departure for
humanity. So he anticipated the Declaration of Independence by more than
eight months with one of his own, which was discovered by Moreau in the
file of the _Pennsylvania Journal_, October 18th.*
* Mr. Moreau mentions it as Paine's in his MS. notes in a
copy of Cheetham's book, now owned by the Pennsylvania
Historical Society. No one familiar with Paine's style at
the time can doubt its authorship.
"A SERIOUS THOUGHT.
"When I reflect on the horrid cruelties exercised by Britain in the East
Indies--How thousands perished by artificial famine--How religion and
every manly principle of honor and honesty were sacrificed to luxury and
pride--When I read of the wretched natives being blown away, for no
other crime than because, sickened with the miserable scene, they
refused to fight--When I reflect on these and a thousand instances of
similar barbarity, I firmly believe that the Almighty, in compassion to
mankind, will curtail the power of Britain.
"And when I reflect on the use she hath made of the discovery of this
new world--that the little paltry dignity of earthly kings hath been set
up in preference to the great cause of the King of kings--That instead
of Christian examples to the Indians, she hath basely tampered with
their passions, imposed on their ignorance, and made them the tools
of treachery and murder--And when to these and many other melancholy
reflections I add this sad remark, that ever since the discovery of
America she hath employed herself in the most horrid of all traffics,
that of human flesh, unknown to the most savage nations, hath yearly
(without provocation and in cold blood) ravaged the hapless shores
of Africa, robbing it of its unoffending inhabitants to cultivate her
stolen dominions in the West--When I reflect on these, I hesitate not
for a moment to believe that the Almighty will finally separate America
from Britain. Call it Independancy or what you will, if it is the cause
of God and humanity it will go on.
"And when the Almighty shall have blest us, and made us a people
_dependent only upon him_, then may our first gratitude be shown by an
act of continental legislation, which shall put a stop to the
importation of Negroes for sale, soften the hard fate of those already
here, and in time procure their freedom.
"Humanus."
{1776}