Common Sense. Thomas Paine
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was taunted by Tories as a "garreteer," ate his crust contentedly, peace finding him a penniless patriot, who might easily have had fifty thousand pounds in his pocket.
The controversy between "Cato" and "The Forester" was the most important that preceded the Declaration of Independence. The president of the University represented "Toryism" in distress. The "massacre at Lexington" disabled him from justifying the government, which, however, he was not prepared to denounce. He was compelled to assume the tone of an American, while at the same time addressing his appeal "To the People of Pennsylvania," trying to detach its non-resident Quakers and its mercantile interest from sympathy with the general cause. Having a bad case, in view of Lexington, he naturally resorted to abuse of the plaintiff's attorney. He soon found that when it came to Quaker sentiment and dialect, his unknown antagonist was at home.
"Remember, thou hast thrown me the glove, Cato, and either thee or I must tire. I fear not the field of fair debate, but thou hast stepped aside and made it personal. Thou hast tauntingly called me by name; and if I cease to hunt thee from every lane and lurking hole of mischief, and bring thee not a trembling culprit before the public bar, then brand me with reproach by naming me in the list of your confederates."
"The Forester" declares his respect for the honest and undisguised opponents of independence. "To be nobly wrong is more manly than to be meanly right." But "Cato" wears the mask of a friend, and shall be proved a foe.
The so-called "Tories" of the American Revolution have never had justice done them. In another work I have told the story of John Randolph, King's Attorney in Virginia, and there were many other martyrs of loyalty in those days.8 Four months after the affair at Lexington, Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Randolph, in London: "Looking with fondness towards a reconciliation with Great Britain, I cannot help hoping you may be able to contribute towards expediting the good work." This was written on August 25, 1775; and if this was the feeling of Jefferson only ten months before the Declaration, how many, of more moderate temper, surrounded "Cato" and "The Forester" in loyal and peace-loving Philadelphia? But "Cato" was believed ungenuine. The Rev. Dr. William Smith, who wrote under that name, a native of Aberdeen with an Oxonian D.D., had been a glowing Whig patriot until June, 1775. But his wife was a daughter of the loyalist, William Moore. This lady of fashion was distinguished by her contempt for the independents, and her husband, now near fifty, was led into a false position.9
He held the highest literary position in Philadelphia, and perhaps felt some jealousy of Paine's fame. He picked out all the mistakes he could find in "Common Sense," and tried in every way to belittle his antagonist. Himself a Scotchman, his wife an Englishwoman, he sneered at Paine for being a foreigner; having modified his principles to those of the loyalist's daughter, he denounced Paine as an "interested writer." He was out of his element in the controversy he began with personalities. He spoke of the trouble as a lovers' quarrel. Paine answers:
"It was not in the power of France or Spain, or all the other powers in Europe, to have given such a wound, or raised us to such mortal hatred as Britain hath done. We see the same kind of undescribed anger at her conduct, as we would at the sight of an animal devouring its young."
The strongest point of "Cato" was based on the proposed embassy for negotiation, and he demanded reverence for "Ambassadors coming to negotiate a peace." To this "The Forester" replied:
"Cato discovers a gross ignorance of the British Constitution in supposing that these men can be empowered to act as Ambassadors. To prevent his future errors, I will set him right. The present war differs from every other, in this instance, viz., that it is not carried on under the prerogative of the crown, as other wars have always been, but under the authority of the whole legislative power united; and as the barriers which stand in the way of a negotiation are not proclamations, but acts of Parliament, it evidently follows that were even the King of England here in person, he could not ratify the terms or conditions of a reconciliation; because, in the single character of King, he could not stipulate for the repeal of any acts of Parliament, neither can the Parliament stipulate for him. There is no body of men more jealous of their privileges than the Commons: Because they sell them."
Paine wrote three letters in reply to "Cato," the last of which contained a memorable warning to the people on the eve of the Declaration of Independence: "Forget not the hapless African." That was forgotten, but the summing up made Dr. William Smith an object of detestation. He never ventured into political controversy again, and when he returned from exile to Philadelphia, a penitent patriot, he found his old antagonist, Thomas Paine, honored by a degree from the University of Pennsylvania into which the college had been absorbed.
On May 8th a fourth letter, signed "The Forester," appeared in the same paper (Pennsylvania Journal), which I at first suspected of not being from Paine's pen.10 This was because of a sentence beginning: "The clergy of the English Church, of which I profess myself a member," etc. There is no need to question the truth of this, for, as we have seen, Paine had been confirmed, and no doubt previously baptized; nor is there reason to disbelieve the statement of Oldys that he wished to enter holy orders. There was a good deal of rationalism in the American church at that time, and that Paine, with his religious fervor and tendency to inquire, should have maintained his place in that scholarly church is natural. His quakerism was a philosophy, but he could by no means have found any home in its rigid and dogmatic societies in Philadelphia. The casual sentence above quoted was probably inserted for candor, as the letter containing it opens with a censure on the attitude of the Quakers towards the proposal for independence. The occasion was an election of four burgesses to represent Philadelphia in the State Assembly, a body in which Quakers (loyalists) preponderated. Had the independents been elected they must have taken the oath of allegiance to the crown, with which the State was at war. Indeed Paine declares that the "Tories" succeeded in the election because so many patriots were absent for defence of their country. Under these circumstances Paine urges the necessity of a popular convention. The House of Assembly is disqualified from "sitting in its own case."
The extracts given from this letter are of historic interest as reflecting the conflict of opinions in Pennsylvania amid which the Declaration was passed two months later.
"Whoever will take the trouble of attending to the progress and changeability of times and things, and the conduct of mankind thereon, will find that extraordinary circumstances do sometimes arise before us, of a species, either so purely natural or so perfectly original, that none but the man of nature can understand them. When precedents fail to assist us, we must return to the first principles of things for information, and think, as if we were the first men that thought. And this is the true reason, that in the present state of affairs, the wise are become foolish, and the foolish wise. I am led to this reflection by not being able to account for the conduct of the Quakers on any other; for although they do not seem to perceive it themselves, yet it is amazing to hear with what unanswerable ignorance many of that body, wise in other matters, will discourse on the present one. Did they hold places or commissions under the king, were they governors of provinces, or had they any interest apparently distinct from us, the mystery would cease; but as they have not, their folly is best attributed to that superabundance of worldly knowledge which in original matters is too cunning to be wise. Back to the first plain path of nature, friends, and begin anew, for in this business your first footsteps were wrong. You have now travelled to the summit of inconsistency, and that, with such accelerated rapidity as to acquire autumnal ripeness by the first of May. Now your rotting time comes on."
"The Forester" reminds the Quakers of their predecessors who, in 1704, defended the rights of the people against the proprietor. He warns them that the people, though unable to vote, represent a patriotic power tenfold the strength of Toryism, by which they will not submit to be ruled.
"He that is wise will reflect, that the safest asylum, especially in times of general convulsion, when no settled form of government prevails, is the love of the people. All property is safe under their protection. Even in countries where the lowest and most licentious of them have risen into outrage, they