The Great Declaration 117while eager to have the support of the lower classes,
were concerned about what they would make of
actual independence. In addition, not all the prop-
erty that had been destroyed belonged to Loyalists
and British officials. Too much exalted talk about
“rights” and “liberties” might well give the poor (to
say nothing of the slaves) an exaggerated impression
of their importance.
Finally, in a world where every country had some
kind of monarch, could common people reallygovern
themselves? The most ardent defender of American
rights might well hesitate after considering all the
implications of independence.
Yet independence was probably inevitable by the
end of 1775. The belief that George III had been
misled by evil or stupid advisers on both sides of the
Atlantic became progressively more difficult to sus-
tain. Mistrust of Parliament—indeed, of the whole of
British society—grew apace.
Two events in January 1776 pushed the colonies
a long step toward a final break. First came the news
that the British were sending hired Hessian soldiers to
fight against them. Colonists associated mercenaries
with looting and rape and feared that the German-
speaking Hessians would run amok among them.
Such callousness on the part of Britain made reconcil-
iation seem out of the question.
The second decisive event was the publication of
Common Sense. This tract was written by Thomas
Paine, a one-time English corset-maker and civil servant
turned pamphleteer, who had been in America scarcely
a year. Common Sensecalled boldly for complete inde-
pendence. It attacked not only George III but the idea
of monarchy itself. Paine applied the uncomplicated
logic of the zealot to the recent history of America.
Where the colonists had been humbly
petitioning George III and swallow-
ing their resentment when he ignored
them, Paine called George a “Royal
Brute” and “the hardened sullen-
tempered Pharaoh of England.”
Many Americans had wanted to con-
trol their own affairs but feared the
instability of untried republican gov-
ernment. To them Paine said, “We
have it in our power to begin the
world again.” “A government of our
own is our natural right,” he insisted.
“O! ye that love mankind! Ye that
dare oppose not only tyranny but the
tyrant, stand forth!”
Virtually everyone in the
colonies must have read Common
Senseor heard it explained and dis-
cussed. About 150,000 copies were
sold in the critical period between January and July.
Not every Patriot was impressed by Paine’s argu-
ments. John Adams dismissedCommon Senseas “a
tolerable summary of arguments which I had been
repeating again and again in Congress for nine
months.” But no one disputed the impact of Paine’s
pamphlet on public opinion.
The tone of the debate changed sharply as Paine’s
slashing attack took effect. In March 1776 the
Congress unleashed privateers against British com-
merce; in April it opened American ports to foreign
shipping; in May it urged the Patriots who had set up
extralegal provincial conventions to frame constitu-
tions and establish state governments.
On June 7 Richard Henry Lee of Virginia intro-
duced a resolution of the Virginia Convention:RESOLVED: That these United Colonies are, and
of right ought to be, free and independent States,
that they are absolved from all allegiance to the
British Crown, and that all political connection
between them and the State of Great Britain is, and
ought to be, totally dissolved.This momentous resolution was not passed until
July 2; the Congress first appointed a committee con-
sisting of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John
Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston to
frame a suitable justification of independence.
Livingston, a member of one of the great New York
landowning families, was put on the committee in an
effort to push New York toward independence.
Sherman, a self-educated Connecticut lawyer and
merchant, was a conservative who opposed parlia-
mentary control over colonial affairs. Franklin, theFort Ticonderoga, the major fortress between Lake Champlain and Lake George, crucial to
controlling travel between Canada and New York.