February 14, 1776.

COMMON SENSE.
ON THE ORIGIN AND DESIGN OF GOVERNMENT IN GEN- ERAL, 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 latter negatively 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 benefit, 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 labour 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 Heaven is impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably happen that in proportion as they
surmount the first difficulties of emigration, which bound them together in a common cause,
they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other: and this remissness will point
out the necessity of establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue.

Some convenient tree will afford them a State House, under the branches of which the whole
Colony may assemble to deliberate on public matters. It is more than probable that their first
laws will have the title only of Regulations and be enforced by no other penalty than public
disesteem. In this first parliament every man by natural right will have a seat.

But as the Colony encreases, the public concerns will encrease likewise, and the distance at
which the members may be separated, will render it too inconvenient for all of them to meet on
every occasion as at first, when their number was small, their habitations near, and the public
concerns few and trifling. This will point out the convenience of their consenting to leave the
legislative part to be managed by a select number chosen from the whole body, who are
supposed to have the same concerns at stake which those have who appointed them, and who
will act in the same manner as the whole body would act were they present. If the colony
continue encreasing, it will become necessary to augment the number of representatives, and
that the interest of every part of the colony may be attended to, it will be found best to divide
the whole into convenient parts, each part sending its proper number: and that the elected might
never form to themselves an interest separate from the electors, prudence will point out the
propriety of having elections often: because as the elected might by that means return and mix
again with the general body of the electors in a few months, their fidelity to the public will be
secured by the prudent reflection of not making a rod for themselves. And as this frequent
interchange will establish a common interest with every part of the community, they will
mutually and naturally support each other, and on this, (not on the unmeaning name of king,)
depends the strength of government, and the happiness of the governed.

Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the
inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz.
Freedom and security. And however our eyes may be dazzled with show, or our ears deceived
by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the
simple voice of nature and reason will say, ‘tis right.

I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature which no art can overturn,
viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered, and the easier repaired
when disordered; and with this maxim in view I offer a few remarks on the so much boasted
constitution of England That it was noble for the dark and slavish times in which it was erected,
is granted. When the world was overrun with tyranny the least remove therefrom was a glorious
rescue. But that it is imperfect, subject to convulsions, and incapable of producing what it seems
to promise, is easily demonstrated.

Absolute governments, (tho’ the disgrace of human nature) have this advantage with them, they
are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springs; know
likewise the remedy; and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures. But the
constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together
without being able to discover in which part the fault lies; some will say in one and some in
another, and every political physician will advise a different medicine.

I know it is difficult to get over local or long standing prejudices, yet if we will suffer ourselves
to examine the component parts of the English constitution, we shall find them to be the base
remains of two ancient tyrannies, compounded with some new Republican materials.

First.—The remains of Monarchical tyranny in the person of the King.

Secondly.—The remains of Aristocratical tyranny in the persons of the Peers.

Thirdly.—The new Republican materials, in the persons of the Commons, on whose virtue
depends the freedom of England.
The two first, by being hereditary, are independent of the People; wherefore in a constitutional
sense they contribute nothing towards the freedom of the State.

To say that the constitution of England is an union of three powers, reciprocally checking each
other, is farcical; either the words have no meaning, or they are flat contradictions.

To say that the Commons is a check upon the King, presupposes two things.

First.—That the King is not to be trusted without being looked after, or in other words, that a
thirst for absolute power is the natural disease of monarchy.

Secondly.—That the Commons, by being appointed for that purpose, are either wiser or more
worthy of confidence than the Crown.

But as the same constitution which gives the Commons a power to check the King by
withholding the supplies, gives afterwards the King a power to check the Commons, by
empowering him to reject their other bills; it again supposes that the King is wiser than those
whom it has already supposed to be wiser than him. A mere absurdity!

There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of Monarchy; it first excludes a

man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest
judgment is required. The state of a king shuts him from the World, yet the business of a king
requires him to know it thoroughly; wherefore the different parts, by unnaturally opposing and
destroying each other, prove the whole character to be absurd and useless.

Some writers have explained the English constitution thus: the King, say they, is one, the people
another; the Peers are a house in behalf of the King, the commons in behalf of the people; but
this hath all the distinctions of a house divided against itself; and though the expressions be
pleasantly arranged, yet when examined they appear idle and ambiguous; and it will always
happen, that the nicest construction that words are capable of, when applied to the description
of something which either cannot exist, or is too incomprehensible to be within the compass of
description, will be words of sound only, and though they may amuse the ear, they cannot
inform the mind: for this explanation includes a previous question, viz. how came the king by
a power which the people are afraid to trust, and always obliged to check? Such a power could
not be the gift of a wise people, neither can any power, which needs checking, be from God;
yet the provision which the constitution makes supposes such a power to exist.

But the provision is unequal to the task; the means either cannot or will not accomplish the end,
and the whole affair is a Felo de se: for as the greater weight will always carry up the less, and
as all the wheels of a machine are put in motion by one, it only remains to know which power
in the constitution has the most weight, for that will govern: and tho’ the others, or a part of
them, may clog, or, as the phrase is, check the rapidity of its motion, yet so long as they cannot
stop it, their endeavours will be ineffectual: The first moving power will at last have its way,
and what it wants in speed is supplied by time.

That the crown is this overbearing part in the English constitution needs not be mentioned, and
that it derives its whole consequence merely from being the giver of places and pensions is self-
evident; wherefore, though we have been wise enough to shut and lock a door against absolute
Monarchy, we at the same time have been foolish enough to put the Crown in possession of the
key.

The prejudice of Englishmen, in favour of their own government, by King, Lords and
Commons, arises as much or more from national pride than reason. Individuals are undoubtedly
safer in England than in some other countries: but the will of the king is as much the law of the
land in Britain as in France, with this difference, that instead of proceeding directly from his
mouth, it is handed to the people under the formidable shape of an act of parliament. For the
fate of Charles the First hath only made kings more subtle—not more just.

Wherefore, laying aside all national pride and prejudice in favour of modes and forms, the plain
truth is that it is wholly owing to the constitution of the people, and not to the constitution of
the government that the crown is not as oppressive in England as in Turkey.

An inquiry into the constitutional errors in the English form of government, is at this time highly
necessary; for as we are never in a proper condition of doing justice to others, while we continue
under the influence of some leading partiality, so neither are we capable of doing it to ourselves
while we remain fettered by any obstinate prejudice. And 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.

OF MONARCHY AND HEREDITARY SUCCESSION.

Mankind being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could only be destroyed
by some subsequent circumstance: the distinctions of rich and poor may in a great measure be
accounted for, and that without having recourse to the harsh ill-sounding names of oppression
and avarice. Oppression is often the consequence, but seldom or never the means of riches; and
tho’ avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too
timorous to be wealthy.

But there is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be
assigned, and that is the distinction of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS. Male and female are
the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of Heaven; but how a race of men came
into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth
inquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.

In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology there were no kings; the
consequence of which was, there were no wars; it is the pride of kings which throws mankind
into confusion. Holland, without a king hath enjoyed more peace for this last century than any
of the monarchical governments in Europe. Antiquity favours the same remark; for the quiet
and rural lives of the first Patriarchs have a happy something in them, which vanishes when we
come to the history of Jewish royalty.

Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the
children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on
foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens paid divine honours to their deceased kings,
and the Christian World hath improved on the plan by doing the same to their living ones. How
impious is the title of sacred Majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is
crumbling into dust!

As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the equal rights of
nature, so neither can it be defended on the authority of scripture; for the will of the Almighty
as declared by Gideon, and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproves of government by Kings.
All anti-monarchical parts of scripture, have been very smoothly glossed over in monarchical
governments, but they undoubtedly merit the attention of countries which have their
governments yet to form. Render unto Cesar the things which are Cesar’s, is the scripture
doctrine of courts, yet it is no support of monarchical government, for the Jews at that time
were without a king, and in a state of vassalage to the Romans.

Near three thousand years passed away, from the Mosaic account of the creation, till the Jews
under a national delusion requested a king. Till then their form of government (except in
extraordinary cases where the Almighty interposed) was a kind of Republic, administered by a
judge and the elders of the tribes. Kings they had none, and it was held sinful to acknowledge
any being under that title but the Lord of Hosts. And when a man seriously reflects on the
idolatrous homage which is paid to the persons of kings, he need not wonder that the Almighty,
ever jealous of his honour, should disapprove a form of government which so impiously invades
the prerogative of Heaven.

Monarchy is ranked in scripture as one of the sins of the Jews, for which a curse in reserve is
denounced against them. The history of that transaction is worth attending to.

The children of Israel being oppressed by the Midianites, Gideon marched against them with a
small army, and victory thro’ the divine interposition decided in his favour. The Jews, elate with
success, and attributing it to the generalship of Gideon, proposed making him a king, saying,
Rule thou over us, thou and thy son, and thy son’s son. Here was temptation in its fullest extent;
not a kingdom only, but an hereditary one; but Gideon in the piety of his soul replied, I will not
rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you. THE LORD SHALL RULE OVER YOU.
Words need not be more explicit; Gideon doth not decline the honour, but denieth their right to
give it; neither doth he compliment them with invented declarations of his thanks, but in the
positive stile of a prophet charges them with disaffection to their proper Sovereign, the King of
Heaven.

About one hundred and thirty years after this, they fell again into the same error. The hankering
which the Jews had for the idolatrous customs of the Heathens, is something exceedingly
unaccountable; but so it was, that laying hold of the misconduct of Samuel’s two sons, who
were intrusted with some secular concerns, they came in an abrupt and clamorous manner to
Samuel, saying, Behold thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways, now make us a king to
judge us like all the other nations. And here we cannot but observe that their motives were bad,
viz. that they might be like unto other nations, i. e. the Heathens, whereas their true glory lay in
being as much unlike them as possible. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, give
us a King to judge us; and Samuel prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord said unto Samuel, hearken
unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee, for they have not rejected thee, but
they have rejected me, THAT I SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM. According to all the
works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this
day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other Gods: so do they also unto thee. Now
therefore hearken unto their voice, howbeit, protest solemnly unto them and show them the
manner of the King that shall reign over them, i. e. not of any particular King, but the general
manner of the Kings of the earth whom Israel was so eagerly copying after. And notwithstanding
the great distance of time and difference of manners, the character is still in fashion. And Samuel
told all the words of the Lord unto the people, that asked of him a King. And he said, This shall
be the manner of the King that shall reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them
for himself for his chariots and to be his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariots (this
description agrees with the present mode of impressing men) and he will appoint him captains
over thousands and captains over fifties, will set them to ear his ground and to reap his harvest,
and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your
daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers (this describes the expense
and luxury as well as the oppression of Kings) and he will take your fields and your vineyards,
and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the
tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give them to his officers and to his servants (by
which we see that bribery, corruption, and favouritism, are the standing vices of Kings) and he
will take the tenth of your men servants, and your maid servants, and your goodliest young
men, and your asses, and put them to his work: and he will take the tenth of your sheep, and ye
shall be his servants, and ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have
chosen, AND THE LORD WILL NOT HEAR YOU IN THAT DAY. This accounts for the
continuation of Monarchy; neither do the characters of the few good kings which have lived
since, either sanctify the title, or blot out the sinfulness of the origin; the high encomium given
of David takes no notice of him officially as a King, but only as a Man after God’s own heart.
Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay but we will
have a king over us, that we may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and go
out before us and fight our battles. Samuel continued to reason with them but to no purpose; he
set before them their ingratitude, but all would not avail; and seeing them fully bent on their
folly, he cried out, I will call unto the Lord, and he shall send thunder and rain (which was then
a punishment, being in the time of wheat harvest) that ye may perceive and see that your
wickedness is great which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, IN ASKING YOU A KING.
So Samuel called unto the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people
greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants
unto the Lord thy God that we die not, for WE HAVE ADDED UNTO OUR SINS THIS EVIL,
TO ASK A KING. These portions of scripture are direct and positive. They admit of no
equivocal construction. That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchical
government is true, or the scripture is false. And a man hath good reason to believe that there is
as much of kingcraft as priestcraft in withholding the scripture from the public in popish
countries. For monarchy in every instance is the popery of government.

To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a
degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult
and imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a
right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and tho’ himself
might deserve some decent degree of honours of his cotemporaries, yet his descendants might
be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary
right in Kings, is that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into
ridicule, by giving mankind an Ass for a Lion.

Secondly, as no man at first could possess any other public honors than were bestowed upon
him, so the givers of those honors could have no power to give away the right of posterity, and
though they might say “We choose you for our head,” they could not without manifest injustice
to their children say “that your children and your children’s children shall reign over ours
forever.” Because such an unwise, unjust, unnatural compact might (perhaps) in the next
succession put them under the government of a rogue or a fool. Most wise men in their private
sentiments have ever treated hereditary right with contempt; yet it is one of those evils which
when once established is not easily removed: many submit from fear, others from superstition,
and the more powerful part shares with the king the plunder of the rest.

This is supposing the present race of kings in the world to have had an honorable origin: whereas
it is more than probable, that, could we take off the dark covering of antiquity and trace them
to their first rise, we should find the first of them 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 defenceless to purchase their safety by frequent contributions. Yet his
electors could have no idea of giving hereditary right to his descendants, because such a
perpetual exclusion of themselves was incompatible with the free and unrestrained principles
they professed to live by. Wherefore, hereditary succession in the early ages of monarchy could
not take place as a matter of claim, but as something casual or complemental; but as few or no
records were extant in those days, and traditionary history stuff’d with fables, it was very easy,
after the lapse of a few generations, to trump up some superstitious tale conveniently timed,
Mahomet-like, to cram hereditary right down the throats of the vulgar. Perhaps the disorders
which threatened, or seemed to threaten, on the decease of a leader and the choice of a new one
(for elections among ruffians could not be very orderly) induced many at first to favour
hereditary pretensions; by which means it happened, as it hath happened since, that what at first
was submitted to as a convenience was afterwards claimed as a right.

England since the conquest hath known some few good monarchs, but groaned beneath a much
larger number of bad ones: yet no man in his senses can say that their claim under William the
Conqueror is a very honourable one. A French bastard landing with an armed Banditti and
establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very
paltry rascally original. It certainly hath no divinity in it. However it is needless to spend much
time in exposing the folly of hereditary right; if there are any so weak as to believe it, let them
promiscuously worship the Ass and the Lion, and welcome. I shall neither copy their humility,
nor disturb their devotion.

Yet I should be glad to ask how they suppose kings came at first? The question admits but of
three answers, viz. either by lot, by election, or by usurpation. If the first king was taken by lot,
it establishes a precedent for the next, which excludes hereditary succession. Saul was by lot,
yet the succession was not hereditary, neither does it appear from that transaction that there was
any intention it ever should. If the first king of any country was by election, that likewise
establishes a precedent for the next; for to say, that the right of all future generations is taken
away, by the act of the first electors, in their choice not only of a king but of a family of kings
for ever, hath no parallel in or out of scripture but the doctrine of original sin, which supposes
the free will of all men lost in Adam; and from such comparison, and it will admit of no other,
hereditary succession can derive no glory. For as in Adam all sinned, and as in the first electors
all men obeyed; as in the one all mankind were subjected to Satan, and in the other to
sovereignty; as our innocence was lost in the first, and our authority in the last; and as both
disable us from re-assuming some former state and privilege, it unanswerably follows that
original sin and hereditary succession are parallels. Dishonourable rank! inglorious connection!
yet the most subtle sophist cannot produce a juster simile.

As to usurpation, no man will be so hardy as to defend it; and that William the Conqueror was
an usurper is a fact not to be contradicted. The plain truth is, that the antiquity of English
monarchy will not bear looking into.

But it is not so much the absurdity as the evil of hereditary succession which concerns mankind.
Did it ensure a race of good and wise men it would have the seal of divine authority, but as it
opens a door to the foolish, the wicked, and the improper, it hath in it the nature of oppression.
Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent. Selected
from the rest of mankind, their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act
in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing
its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and
unfit of any throughout the dominions.

Another evil which attends hereditary succession is, that the throne is subject to be possessed
by a minor at any age; all which time the regency acting under the cover of a king have every
opportunity and inducement to betray their trust. The same national misfortune happens when
a king worn out with age and infirmity enters the last stage of human weakness. In both these
cases the public becomes a prey to every miscreant who can tamper successfully with the follies
either of age or infancy.

The most plausible plea which hath ever been offered in favor of hereditary succession is, that
it preserves a nation from civil wars; and were this true, it would be weighty; whereas it is the
most bare-faced falsity ever imposed upon mankind. The whole history of England disowns the
fact. Thirty kings and two minors have reigned in that distracted kingdom since the conquest,
in which time there has been (including the revolution) no less than eight civil wars and nineteen
Rebellions. Wherefore instead of making for peace, it makes against it, and destroys the very
foundation it seems to stand upon.
The contest for monarchy and succession, between the houses of York and Lancaster, laid
England in a scene of blood for many years. Twelve pitched battles besides skirmishes and
sieges were fought between Henry and Edward. Twice was Henry prisoner to Edward, who in
his turn was prisoner to Henry. And so uncertain is the fate of war and the temper of a nation,
when nothing but personal matters are the ground of a quarrel, that Henry was taken in triumph
from a prison to a palace, and Edward obliged to fly from a palace to a foreign land; yet, as
sudden transitions of temper are seldom lasting, Henry in his turn was driven from the throne,
and Edward re-called to succeed him. The parliament always following the strongest side.

This contest began in the reign of Henry the Sixth, and was not entirely extinguished till Henry
the Seventh, in whom the families were united. Including a period of 67 years, viz. from 1422
to 1489.

In short, monarchy and succession have laid (not this or that kingdom only) but the world in
blood and ashes. ‘Tis a form of government which the word of God bears testimony against,
and blood will attend it.

If we enquire into the business of a King, we shall find that in some countries they may have
none; and after sauntering away their lives without pleasure to themselves or advantage to the
nation, withdraw from the scene, and leave their successors to tread the same idle round. In
absolute monarchies the whole weight of business civil and military lies on the King; the
children of Israel in their request for a king urged this plea, “that he may judge us, and go out
before us and fight our battles.” But in countries where he is neither a Judge nor a General, as
in England, a man would be puzzled to know what is his business.

The nearer any government approaches to a Republic, the less business there is for a King. It is
somewhat difficult to find a proper name for the government of England. Sir William Meredith
calls it a Republic; but in its present state it is unworthy of the name, because the corrupt
influence of the Crown, by having all the places in its disposal, hath so effectually swallowed
up the power, and eaten out the virtue of the House of Commons (the Republican part in the
constitution) that the government of England is nearly as monarchical as that of France or Spain.
Men fall out with names without understanding them. For ‘tis the Republican and not the
Monarchical part of the constitution of England which Englishmen glory in, viz. the liberty of
choosing an House of Commons from out of their own body—and it is easy to see that when
Republican virtues fails, slavery ensues. Why is the constitution of England sickly, but because
monarchy hath poisoned the Republic; the Crown hath engrossed the Commons.

In England a King hath little more to do than to make war and give away places; which, in plain
terms, is to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears. A pretty business indeed for a
man to be allowed eight hundred thousand sterling a year for, and worshipped into the bargain!
Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned
ruffians that ever lived.

THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF AMERICAN AFFAIRS.

In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common
sense: and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself
of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for
themselves: that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man,
and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day.

Volumes have been written on the subject of the struggle between England and America. Men
of all ranks have embarked in the controversy, from different motives, and with various designs;
but all have been ineffectual, and the period of debate is closed. Arms as the last resource decide
the contest; the appeal was the choice of the King, and the Continent has accepted the challenge.

It hath been reported of the late Mr. Pelham (who tho’ an able minister was not without his
faults) that on his being attacked in the House of Commons on the score that his measures were
only of a temporary kind, replied, “they will last my time.” Should a thought so fatal and
unmanly possess the Colonies in the present contest, the name of ancestors will be remembered
by future generations with detestation.

The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. ‘Tis not the affair of a City, a County, a
Province, or a Kingdom; but of a Continent—of at least one eighth part of the habitable Globe.
‘Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest,
and will be more or less affected even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the
seed-time of Continental union, faith and honour. The least fracture now will be like a name
engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound would enlarge
with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters.
By referring the matter from argument to arms, a new era for politics is struck—a new method
of thinking hath arisen. All plans, proposals, &c. prior to the nineteenth of April, i.e. to the
commencement of hostilities,1 are like the almanacks of the last year; which tho’ proper then,
are superseded and useless now. Whatever was advanced by the advocates on either side of the
question then, terminated in one and the same point, viz. a union with Great Britain; the only
difference between the parties was the method of effecting it; the one proposing force, the other
friendship; but it hath so far happened that the first hath failed, and the second hath withdrawn
her influence.

As much hath been said of the advantages of reconciliation, which, like an agreeable dream,
hath passed away and left us as we were, it is but right that we should examine the contrary side
of the argument, and enquire into some of the many material injuries which these Colonies
sustain, and always will sustain, by being connected with and dependent on Great-Britain. To
examine that connection and dependance, on the principles of nature and common sense, to see
what we have to trust to, if separated, and what we are to expect, if dependent.

I have heard it asserted by some, that as America has flourished under her former connection
with Great-Britain, the same connection is necessary towards her future happiness, and will
always have the same effect. Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of argument. We
may as well assert that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat, or
that the first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty. But even
this is admitting more than is true; for I answer roundly, that America would have flourished as
much, and probably much more, had no European power taken any notice of her. The commerce
by which she hath enriched herself are the necessaries of life, and will always have a market
while eating is the custom of Europe.

But she has protected us, say some. That she hath engrossed us is true, and defended the
Continent at our expense as well as her own, is admitted; and she would have defended Turkey
from the same motive, viz. for the sake of trade and dominion.

Alas! we have been long led away by ancient prejudices and made large sacrifices to
superstition. We have boasted the protection of Great Britain, without considering, that her
motive was interest not attachment; and that she did not protect us from our enemies on our
account; but from her enemies on her own account, from those who had no quarrel with us on
any other account, and who will always be our enemies on the same account. Let Britain waive
her pretensions to the Continent, or the Continent throw off the dependance, and we should be
at peace with France and Spain, were they at war with Britain. The miseries of Hanover last
war ought to warn us against connections.

It hath lately been asserted in parliament, that the Colonies have no relation to each other but
through the Parent Country, i.e. that Pennsylvania and the Jerseys, and so on for the rest, are
sister Colonies by the way of England; this is certainly a very roundabout way of proving
relationship, but it is the nearest and only true way of proving enmity (or enemyship, if I may
so call it.) France and Spain never were, nor perhaps ever will be, our enemies as Americans,
but as our being the subjects of Great Britain.

But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes
do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families; Wherefore, the assertion,
if true, turns to her reproach; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so, and the phrase
parent or mother country hath been jesuitically adopted by the King and his parasites, with a
low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds. Europe,
and not England, is the parent country of America. This new World hath been the asylum for
the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they
fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is
so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues
their descendants still.

In this extensive quarter of the globe, we forget the narrow limits of three hundred and sixty
miles (the extent of England) and carry our friendship on a larger scale; we claim brotherhood
with every European Christian, and triumph in the generosity of the sentiment.

It is pleasant to observe by what regular gradations we surmount the force of local prejudices,
as we enlarge our acquaintance with the World. A man born in any town in England divided
into parishes, will naturally associate most with his fellow parishioners (because their interests
in many cases will be common) and distinguish him by the name of neighbor; if he meet him
but a few miles from home, he drops the narrow idea of a street, and salutes him by the name
of townsman; if he travel out of the county and meet him in any other, he forgets the minor
divisions of street and town, and calls him countryman, i.e. countyman: but if in their foreign
excursions they should associate in France, or any other part of Europe, their local remembrance
would be enlarged into that of Englishmen. And by a just parity of reasoning, all Europeans
meeting in America, or any other quarter of the globe, are countrymen; for England, Holland,
Germany, or Sweden, when compared with the whole, stand in the same places on the larger
scale, which the divisions of street, town, and county do on the smaller ones; Distinctions too
limited for Continental minds. Not one third of the inhabitants, even of this province,
[Pennsylvania], are of English descent. Wherefore, I reprobate the phrase of Parent or Mother
Country applied to England only, as being false, selfish, narrow and ungenerous.

But, admitting that we were all of English descent, what does it amount to? Nothing. Britain,
being now an open enemy, extinguishes every other name and title: and to say that reconciliation
is our duty, is truly farcical. The first king of England, of the present line (William the
Conqueror) was a Frenchman, and half the peers of England are descendants from the same
country; wherefore, by the same method of reasoning, England ought to be governed by France.

Much hath been said of the united strength of Britain and the Colonies, that in conjunction they
might bid defiance to the world: But this is mere presumption; the fate of war is uncertain,
neither do the expressions mean any thing; for this continent would never suffer itself to be
drained of inhabitants, to support the British arms in either Asia, Africa, or Europe.

Besides, what have we to do with setting the world at defiance? Our plan is commerce, and
that, well attended to, will secure us the peace and friendship of all Europe; because it is the
interest of all Europe to have America a free port. Her trade will always be a protection, and her
barrenness of gold and silver secure her from invaders.

I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation to show a single advantage that this
continent can reap by being connected with Great Britain. I repeat the challenge; not a single
advantage is derived. Our corn will fetch its price in any market in Europe, and our imported
goods must be paid for buy them where we will.

But the injuries and disadvantages which we sustain by that connection, are without number;
and our duty to mankind at large, as well as to ourselves, instruct us to renounce the alliance:
because, any submission to, or dependance on, Great Britain, tends directly to involve this
Continent in European wars and quarrels, and set us at variance with nations who would
otherwise seek our friendship, and 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 never can do,
while, by her dependance on Britain, she is made the make-weight in the scale of British
politics.

Europe is too thickly planted with Kingdoms to be long at peace, and whenever a war breaks
out between England and any foreign power, the trade of America goes to ruin, because of her
connection with Britain. The next war may not turn out like the last, and should it not, the
advocates for reconciliation now will be wishing for separation then, because neutrality in that
case would be a safer convoy than a man of war. Every thing that is right or reasonable pleads
for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, ‘TIS TIME TO PART.
Even the distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and America is a strong and
natural proof that the authority of the one over the other, was never the design of Heaven. The
time likewise at which the Continent was discovered, adds weight to the argument, and the
manner in which it was peopled, increases the force of it. The Reformation was preceded by the
discovery of America: As if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted
in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety.

The authority of Great Britain over this continent, is a form of government, which sooner or
later must have an end: And a serious mind can draw no true pleasure by looking forward, under
the painful and positive conviction that what he calls “the present constitution” is merely
temporary. As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently
lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of
argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it,
otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover the line of our duty rightly, we
should take our children in our hand, and fix our station a few years farther into life; that
eminence will present a prospect which a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our
sight.

Though I would carefully avoid giving unnecessary offence, yet I am inclined to believe, that
all those who espouse the doctrine of reconciliation, may be included within the following
descriptions.
Interested men, who are not to be trusted, weak men who cannot see, prejudiced men who will
not see, and a certain set of moderate men who think better of the European world than it
deserves; and this last class, by an ill-judged deliberation, will be the cause of more calamities
to this Continent than all the other three.

It is the good fortune of many to live distant from the scene of present sorrow; the evil is not
sufficiently brought to their doors to make them feel the precariousness with which all American
property is possessed. But let our imaginations transport us a few moments to Boston; that seat
of wretchedness will teach us wisdom, and instruct us for ever to renounce a power in whom
we can have no trust. The inhabitants of that unfortunate city who but a few months ago were
in ease and affluence, have now no other alternative than to stay and starve, or turn out to beg.
Endangered by the fire of their friends if they continue within the city, and plundered by the
soldiery if they leave it, in their present situation they are prisoners without the hope of
redemption, and in a general attack for their relief they would be exposed to the fury of both
armies.

Men of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over the offences of Great Britain, and, still
hoping for the best, are apt to call out, Come, come, we shall be friends again for all this. But
examine the passions and feelings of mankind: bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the
touchstone of nature, and then tell me whether you can hereafter love, honour, and faithfully
serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If you cannot do all these, then
are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon posterity. Your future
connection with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honour, will be forced and unnatural,
and being formed only on the plan of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a relapse
more wretched than the first. But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask,
hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your
wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a
child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are
you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers,
then are you unworthy the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your
rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.
This is not inflaming or exaggerating matters, but trying them by those feelings and affections
which nature justifies, and without which we should be incapable of discharging the social
duties of life, or enjoying the felicities of it. I mean not to exhibit horror for the purpose of
provoking revenge, but to awaken us from fatal and unmanly slumbers, that we may pursue
determinately some fixed object. ‘Tis not in the power of Britain or of Europe to conquer
America, if she doth not conquer herself by delay and timidity. The present winter is worth an
age if rightly employed, but if lost or neglected the whole Continent will partake of the
misfortune; and there is no punishment which that man doth not deserve, be he who, or what,
or where he will, that may be the means of sacrificing a season so precious and useful.

‘Tis repugnant to reason, to the universal order of things, to all examples from former ages, to
suppose that this Continent can long remain subject to any external power. The most sanguine
in Britain doth not think so. The utmost stretch of human wisdom cannot, at this time, compass
a plan, short of separation, which can promise the continent even a year’s security.
Reconciliation is now a fallacious dream. Nature hath deserted the connection, and art cannot
supply her place. For, as Milton wisely expresses, “never can true reconcilement grow where
wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep.”

Every quiet method for peace hath been ineffectual. Our prayers have been rejected with
disdain; and hath tended to convince us that nothing flatters vanity or confirms obstinacy in
Kings more than repeated petitioning—and nothing hath contributed more than that very
measure to make the Kings of Europe absolute. Witness Denmark and Sweden. Wherefore,
since nothing but blows will do, for God’s sake let us come to a final separation, and not leave
the next generation to be cutting throats under the violated unmeaning names of parent and
child.

To say they will never attempt it again is idle and visionary; we thought so at the repeal of the
stamp act, yet a year or two undeceived us; as well may we suppose that nations which have
been once defeated will never renew the quarrel.

As to government matters, ‘tis not in the power of Britain to do this continent justice: the
business of it will soon be too weighty and intricate to be managed with any tolerable degree
of convenience, by a power so distant from us, and so very ignorant of us; for if they cannot
conquer us, they cannot govern us. To be always running three or four thousand miles with a
tale or a petition, waiting four or five months for an answer, which, when obtained, requires
five or six more to explain it in, will in a few years be looked upon as folly and childishness.
There was a time when it was proper, and there is a proper time for it to cease.

Small islands not capable of protecting themselves are the proper objects for government1 to
take under their care; but there is something absurd, in supposing a Continent to be perpetually
governed by an island. In no instance hath nature made the satellite larger than its primary
planet; and as England and America, with respect to each other, reverse the common order of
nature, it is evident that they belong to different systems. England to Europe: America to itself.

I am not induced by motives of pride, party, or resentment to espouse the doctrine of separation
and independence; I am clearly, positively, and conscientiously persuaded that it is the true
interest of this Continent to be so; that every thing short of that is mere patchwork, that it can
afford no lasting felicity,—that it is leaving the sword to our children, and shrinking back at a
time when a little more, a little further, would have rendered this Continent the glory of the
earth.

As Britain hath not manifested the least inclination towards a compromise, we may be assured
that no terms can be obtained worthy the acceptance of the Continent, or any ways equal to the
expense of blood and treasure we have been already put to.

The object contended for, ought always to bear some just proportion to the expense. The
removal of North, or the whole detestable junto, is a matter unworthy the millions we have
expended. A temporary stoppage of trade was an inconvenience, which would have sufficiently
balanced the repeal of all the acts complained of, had such repeals been obtained; but if the
whole Continent must take up arms, if every man must be a soldier, ‘tis scarcely worth our
while to fight against a contemptible ministry only. Dearly, dearly do we pay for the repeal of
the acts, if that is all we fight for; for, in a just estimation ‘tis as great a folly to pay a Bunker-
hill price for law as for land. As I have always considered the independency of this continent,
as an event which sooner or later must arrive, so from the late rapid progress of the Continent
to maturity, the event cannot be far off. Wherefore, on the breaking out of hostilities, it was not
worth the while to have disputed a matter which time would have finally redressed, unless we
meant to be in earnest: otherwise it is like wasting an estate on a suit at law, to regulate the
trespasses of a tenant whose lease is just expiring. No man was a warmer wisher for a
reconciliation than myself, before the fatal nineteenth of April, 1775, but the moment the event
of that day was made known, I rejected the hardened, sullen-tempered Pharaoh of England for
ever; and disdain the wretch, that with the pretended title of FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE can
unfeelingly hear of their slaughter, and composedly sleep with their blood upon his soul.

But admitting that matters were now made up, what would be the event? I answer, the ruin of
the Continent. And that for several reasons.

First. The powers of governing still remaining in the hands of the King, he will have a negative
over the whole legislation of this Continent. And as he hath shown himself such an inveterate
enemy to liberty, and discovered such a thirst for arbitrary power, is he, or is he not, a proper
person to say to these colonies, You shall make no laws but what I please!? And is there any
inhabitant of America so ignorant as not to know, that according to what is called the present
constitution, this Continent can make no laws but what the king gives leave to; and is there any
man so unwise as not to see, that (considering what has happened) he will suffer no law to be
made here but such as suits his purpose? We may be as effectually enslaved by the want of laws
in America, as by submitting to laws made for us in England. After matters are made up (as it
is called) can there be any doubt, but the whole power of the crown will be exerted to keep this
continent as low and humble as possible? Instead of going forward we shall go backward, or be
perpetually quarrelling, or ridiculously petitioning. We are already greater than the King wishes
us to be, and will he not hereafter endeavor to make us less? To bring the matter to one point,
Is the power who is jealous of our prosperity, a proper power to govern us? Whoever says No,
to this question, is an Independent for independency means no more than this, whether we shall
make our own laws, or, whether the King, the greatest enemy this continent hath, or can have,
shall tell us there shall be no laws but such as I like.

But the King, you will say, has a negative in England; the people there can make no laws without
his consent. In point of right and good order, it is something very ridiculous that a youth of
twenty-one (which hath often happened) shall say to several millions of people older and wiser
than himself, “I forbid this or that act of yours to be law.” But in this place I decline this sort of
reply, though I will never cease to expose the absurdity of it, and only answer that England
being the King’s residence, and America not so, makes quite another case. The King’s negative
here is ten times more dangerous and fatal than it can be in England; for there he will scarcely
refuse his consent to a bill for putting England into as strong a state of defense as possible, and
in America he would never suffer such a bill to be passed.

America is only a secondary object in the system of British politics. England consults the good
of this country no further than it answers her own purpose. Wherefore, her own interest leads
her to suppress the growth of ours in every case which doth not promote her advantage, or in
the least interferes with it. A pretty state we should soon be in under such a secondhand
government, considering what has happened! Men do not change from enemies to friends by
the alteration of a name: And in order to show that reconciliation now is a dangerous doctrine,
I affirm, that it would be policy in the King at this time to repeal the acts, for the sake of
reinstating himself in the government of the provinces; In order that HE MAY ACCOMPLISH
BY CRAFT AND SUBTLETY, IN THE LONG RUN, WHAT HE CANNOT DO BY FORCE
AND VIOLENCE IN THE SHORT ONE. Reconciliation and ruin are nearly related.

Secondly. That as even the best terms which we can expect to obtain can amount to no more
than a temporary expedient, or a kind of government by guardianship, which can last no longer
than till the Colonies come of age, so the general face and state of things in the interim will be
unsettled and unpromising. Emigrants of property will not choose to come to a country whose
form of government hangs but by a thread, and who is everyday tottering on the brink of
commotion and disturbance; and numbers of the present inhabitants would lay hold of the
interval to dispose of their effects, and quit the Continent.

But the most powerful of all arguments is, that nothing but independence, i.e. a Continental
form of government, can keep the peace of the Continent and preserve it inviolate from civil
wars. I dread the event of a reconciliation with Britain now, as it is more than probable that it
will be followed by a revolt some where or other, the consequences of which may be far more
fatal than all the malice of Britain.

Thousands are already ruined by British barbarity; (thousands more will probably suffer the
same fate.) Those men have other feelings than us who have nothing suffered. All they now
possess is liberty; what they before enjoyed is sacrificed to its service, and having nothing more
to lose they disdain submission. Besides, the general temper of the Colonies, towards a British
government will be like that of a youth who is nearly out of his time; they will care very little
about her: And a government which cannot preserve the peace is no government at all, and in
that case we pay our money for nothing; and pray what is it that Britain can do, whose power
will be wholly on paper, should a civil tumult break out the very day after reconciliation? I have
heard some men say, many of whom I believe spoke without thinking, that they dreaded an
independence, fearing that it would produce civil wars: It is but seldom that our first thoughts
are truly correct, and that is the case here; for there is ten times more to dread from a patched
up connection than from independence. I make the sufferer’s case my own, and I protest, that
were I driven from house and home, my property destroyed, and my circumstances ruined, that
as a man, sensible of injuries, I could never relish the doctrine of reconciliation, or consider
myself bound thereby.

The Colonies have manifested such a spirit of good order and obedience to Continental
government, as is sufficient to make every reasonable person easy and happy on that head. No
man can assign the least pretense for his fears, on any other grounds, than such as are truly
childish and ridiculous, viz., that one colony will be striving for superiority over another.

Where there are no distinctions there can be no superiority; perfect equality affords no
temptation. The Republics of Europe are all (and we may say always) in peace. Holland and
Switzerland are without wars, foreign or domestic: Monarchical governments, it is true, are
never long at rest: the crown itself is a temptation to enterprising ruffians at home; and that
degree of pride and insolence ever attendant on regal authority, swells into a rupture with
foreign powers in instances where a republican government, by being formed on more natural
principles, would negotiate the mistake.

If there is any true cause of fear respecting independence, it is because no plan is yet laid down.
Men do not see their way out. Wherefore, as an opening into that business I offer the following
hints; at the same time modestly affirming, that I have no other opinion of them myself, than
that they may be the means of giving rise to something better. Could the straggling thoughts of
individuals be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise and able men to improve
into useful matter.

Let the assemblies be annual, with a president only. The representation more equal, their
business wholly domestic, and subject to the authority of a Continental Congress.
Let each Colony be divided into six, eight, or ten, convenient districts, each district to send a
proper number of Delegates to Congress, so that each Colony send at least thirty. The whole
number in Congress will be at least 390. Each congress to sit and to choose a President by the
following method. When the Delegates are met, let a Colony be taken from the whole thirteen
Colonies by lot, after which let the Congress choose (by ballot) a president from out of the
Delegates of that Province. In the next Congress, let a Colony be taken by lot from twelve only,
omitting that Colony from which the president was taken in the former Congress, and so
proceeding on till the whole thirteen shall have had their proper rotation. And in order that
nothing may pass into a law but what is satisfactorily just, not less than three fifths of the
Congress to be called a majority. He that will promote discord, under a government so equally
formed as this, would have joined Lucifer in his revolt.

But as there is a peculiar delicacy from whom, or in what manner, this business must first arise,
and as it seems most agreeable and consistent that it should come from some intermediate body
between the governed and the governors, that is, between the Congress and the People, let a
Continental Conference be held in the following manner, and for the following purpose,

A Committee of twenty six members of congress, viz. Two for each Colony. Two Members
from each House of Assembly, or Provincial Convention; and five Representatives of the people
at large, to be chosen in the capital city or town of each Province, for, and in behalf of the whole
Province, by as many qualified voters as shall think proper to attend from all parts of the
Province for that purpose; or, if more convenient, the Representatives may be chosen in two or
three of the most populous parts thereof. In this conference, thus assembled, will be united the
two grand principles of business, knowledge and power. The Members of Congress,
Assemblies, or Conventions, by having had experience in national concerns, will be able and
useful counsellors, and the whole, being impowered by the people, will have a truly legal
authority.

The conferring members being met, let their business be to frame a Continental Charter, or
Charter of the United Colonies; (answering to what is called the Magna Charta of England)
fixing the number and manner of choosing Members of Congress, Members of Assembly, with
their date of sitting; and drawing the line of business and jurisdiction between them: Always
remembering, that our strength is Continental, not Provincial. Securing freedom and property
to all men, and above all things, the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of
conscience; with such other matter as it is necessary for a charter to contain. Immediately after
which, the said conference to dissolve, and the bodies which shall be chosen conformable to
the said charter, to be the Legislators and Governors of this Continent for the time being: Whose
peace and happiness, may GOD preserve. AMEN.

Should any body of men be hereafter delegated for this or some similar purpose, I offer them
the following extracts from that wise observer on Governments, Dragonetti. “The science,” says
he, “of the Politician consists in fixing the true point of happiness and freedom. Those men
would deserve the gratitude of ages, who should discover a mode of government that contained
the greatest sum of individual happiness, with the least national expense.” (Dragonetti on
“Virtues and Reward.”)

But where, say some, is the King of America? I’ll tell you, friend, he reigns above, and doth not
make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Great Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be
defective even in earthly honours, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the Charter;
let it be brought forth placed on the Divine Law, the Word of God; let a crown be placed thereon,
by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law
is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be
king; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the Crown
at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right
it is.

A government of our own is our natural right: and when a man seriously reflects on the
precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer,
to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power,
than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance. If we omit it now, some Massanello
may hereafter arise, who, laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the
desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government,
finally sweep away the liberties of the Continent like a deluge. Should the government of
America return again into the hands of Britain, the tottering situation of things will be a
temptation for some desperate adventurer to try his fortune; and in such a case, what relief can
Britain give? Ere she could hear the news, the fatal business might be done; and ourselves
suffering like the wretched Britons under the oppression of the Conqueror. Ye that oppose
independence now, ye know not what ye do: ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny, by keeping
vacant the seat of government. There are thousands and tens of thousands, who would think it
glorious to expel from the Continent, that barbarous and hellish power, which hath stirred up
the Indians and the Negroes to destroy us; the cruelty hath a double guilt, it is dealing brutally
by us, and treacherously by them.

To talk of friendship with those in whom our reason forbids us to have faith, and our affections
wounded thro’ a thousand pores instruct us to detest, is madness and folly. Every day wears out
the little remains of kindred between us and them; and can there be any reason to hope, that as
the relationship expires, the affection will increase, or that we shall agree better when we have
ten times more and greater concerns to quarrel over than ever?

Ye that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, can ye restore to us the time that is past? Can ye
give to prostitution its former innocence? neither can ye reconcile Britain and America. The last
cord now is broken, the people of England are presenting addresses against us. There are injuries
which nature cannot forgive; she would cease to be nature if she did. As well can the lover
forgive the ravisher of his mistress, as the Continent forgive the murders of Britain. The
Almighty hath implanted in us these unextinguishable feelings for good and wise purposes.
They are the Guardians of his Image in our hearts. They distinguish us from the herd of common
animals. The social compact would dissolve, and justice be extirpated from the earth, or have
only a casual existence were we callous to the touches of affection. The robber and the murderer
would often escape unpunished, did not the injuries which our tempers sustain, provoke us into
justice.

O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth!
Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the
Globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England
hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for
mankind.