PART II.

AN EXAMINATION OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

It is with painful feelings I now call your attention to the famous document which sets forth the political creed of the United States. More than once my pen has refused to set about this work, but I now ask: Who wrote the original Declaration of Independence? answer boldly, Thomas Paine. To prove this, my method is the same as with Junius, and the prejudices of the united world shall not intimidate me.

I

It is not my purpose to revive the old and long-forgotten controversy about the authorship of this document. Enough to say, volumes have been written to prove that it was not Jefferson's. But the method and object of a negative criticism I scorn. If it can not be shown to be some other man's, then let the claimant wear his honors; he certainly did not come by them mcanly or dishonorably; they were forced upon him.

My evidence will be such as to exclude the possibility of even literary theft in Jefferson, and that it is, as a whole, the work of the author of Common Sense, and can not possibly be the work of any body else. This is a bold assertion, and a little out of my turn,

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but my object is to raise the strongest doubt of the truth of what I assert in the mind of my reader, so as to enlist his attention, and hold me to the proof.

The method of my argument is as follows:

First, to show. wherein this document is exactly like Mr. Paine; and,

Secondly, wherein it is entirely unlike Mr. Jeffer

son.

The points wherein they would agree are necessarily thrown out, and count nothing on either side. For example, the principles therein contained may be common to both, and can have no weight in an argument. It is said, in defense of this paper being Mr. Jefferson's, that the "Summary View" of his submitted to, but not passed by the Virginia Delegate Convention in 1774, contained the "germs" of the Declaration. This I do not admit, but if it did, it would prove nothing, for so did the writings of John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin, and Samuel Adams, and especially of James Otis. A thousand men in America had, perhaps, expressed the cardinal doctrine of equal rights, and that the British Parliament had usurped them. There is nothing peculiar nor individual in this; but when we find one man only who makes a specialty of the Declaration, it attracts attention, and must have great weight when supported by a multitude of other special facts, all pointing in the same direction. I, therefore, go to show:

First, Common Sense was written by Mr. Paine for the sole purpose of declaring independence, and, with this document in view. I have heretofore reviewed Common Sense, beginning on page 156 of this book. If it

were practicable for the reader to read the whole of Common Sense at this time, it would render my labor much less; but as this may not be the case, I will now give the whole of the third division of that paper, being:

"THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF THE
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.

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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, must decide the contest; the appeal was the choice of the king, and the continent hath accepted the challenge.

"It has been reported of the late Mr. Pelham (who, though 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 shone 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 they 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 honor. 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 will 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, etc., prior to the nineteenth of April, i. e., to the commencement of hostilities, are like the almanacs of last year; which, though 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 has failed, and the second has 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 inquire 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 dependence, 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 toward her future happiness, and will always have the same effect. Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of argu

ment.

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 had any thing to do with her. The articles of commerce by which she has 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 motives, 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 dependence, 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 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.