A History of the American People

the only possible outcome. Nor did he try to make a distinction, as Congress still did, between a
wicked parliament and a benign sovereign. He called George III the royal brute.' Indeed, it was Paine who transformed this obstinate, ignorant, and, in his own way, well-meaning man into a personal monster and a political tyrant, a bogey-figure for successive generations of American schoolchildren. Such is war, and such is propaganda. Paine's Common Sense was by no means entirely common sense. Many thought it inflammatory nonsense. But it was the most successful and influential pamphlet ever published.' It was against this explosive background that Thomas Jefferson began his finest hour. By March, Adams noted that Congress had moved fromfighting half a war to three quarters' but
that Independence is a hobgoblin of so frightful a mien that it would throw a delicate person into fits to look it in the face.' By this he was referring to opponents of outright independence such as John Dickinson and Carter Braxton, who feared that conflicts of interest between the colonies would lead to the dissolution of the union, leaving America without any sovereign. But the logic of war did its work. The British introduced not just German but-heavens above!-Russian mercenaries, allegedly supplied by the Tsar, the archetypal tyrant, who had equipped them with knouts to belabor decent American backs. More seriously, they were inciting slaves to rebel, and that stiffened the resolve of the South. On June 7 the Virginia Assembly instructed Richard Henry Lee to table a resolutionThat these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free
and independent States,' which was seconded by Adams on behalf of Massachusetts., At this
stage Pennsylvania, New York, South Carolina, and New Jersey were opposed to independence.
Nonetheless, on June 11 Congress appointed a committee of Franklin, Adams, Roger Sherman,
Robert Livingston, and Jefferson to draft a Declaration of Independence in case the Congress agreed thereto.' Congress well knew what it was doing when it picked these able men to perform a special task. It was aware that the struggle against a great world power would be long and that it would need friends abroad. It had already set up a Committee of Correspondence, in effect aForeign
Office,' led by Franklin, to get in touch with France, Spain, the Netherlands, and other possible
allies. It wanted to put its case before the court of world opinion,' and needed a dignified and
well-argued but ringing and memorable statement of what it was doing and why it was doing it.
It also wanted to give the future citizens of America a classic statement of what their country was
about, so that their children and their children's children could study it and learn it by heart.
Adams (if he is telling the truth) was quite convinced that Jefferson was the man to perform this
miracle and proposed he be chairman of the Committee, though in fact he was the youngest
member of it (apart from Livingston, the rich son of a New York judge). He recorded the
following conversation between them. Jefferson: Why?' Adams:Reasons enough.' What can be your reasons?'Reason first: you are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head
of the business. Reason second: I am obnoxious, suspect and unpopular. You are very much
otherwise. Reason third: you can write ten times better than I can.' All this was true enough.
Jefferson produced a superb draft, for which his 1774 pamphlet was a useful preparation. All
kinds of philosophical and political influences went into it. They were all well-read men and
Jefferson, despite his comparative youth, was the best read of all, and he made full use of the
countless hours he had spent poring over books of history, political theory, and government. The
Declaration is a powerful and wonderfully concise summary of the best Whig thought over
several generations. Most of all, it has an electrifying beginning. It is hard to think of any way in
which the first two paragraphs can be improved: the first, with its elegiac note of sadness at
dissolving the union with Britain and its wish to show `a decent respect to the opinions of