Independence

Independence, as Thomas Paine presents it in Common Sense, is not a remote aspiration or a narrow remedy for particular colonial grievances: it is the political consequence of war, the condition for governing America in its own interests, and an opening to establish a lasting continental constitution. Once argument gave way to arms, the old goal of reunion with Great Britain ceased to answer the circumstances. Paine insists that delay would prolong insecurity and pass the burden to the next generation, while a declared separation could turn a fractured resistance into a recognized political community.

From Debate to Separation

Before hostilities began, the opposing camps differed over how to secure union with Great Britain: one favored force, the other friendship. The outbreak of fighting changed the terms of the question. Paine likens prewar proposals to last year’s almanacs: once events had superseded them, continuing to debate reconciliation as if nothing had changed could not restore the former situation. He describes the appeal to arms as the king’s choice, accepted by the continent, and argues that the political era opened by that choice demanded a new way of thinking.

For Paine, the cause reaches far beyond a dispute between a city and a government. The contest concerns a continent and, because its consequences will shape the lives of descendants, the future of a large part of the inhabited world. He calls the present the seed-time of continental union, faith, and honor. A small fracture in that unity, like a pin mark in the tender bark of a young oak, would widen as the tree grew: later generations would inherit and read the damage. Independence therefore carries an obligation to act for posterity, not merely to secure immediate advantage.

The failure of reconciliation is also, in his account, a practical lesson about imperial connection. Earlier appeals and arguments had aimed at reunion, but the forceful approach had failed and the conciliatory approach had lost its influence. Paine urges readers to assess what America could trust if separated and what it could expect if still dependent. The issue is no longer whether an earlier arrangement can be recalled unchanged; it is whether continued dependence can provide security after the relationship has been transformed by war.

Dependence, War, and the Case for Self-Government

Paine argues that dependence draws America into European wars without giving it a corresponding say over the risks. As Great Britain’s subordinate, the continent can be made a counterweight in British political struggles and set against nations with which it otherwise has no quarrel. Because Europe is densely divided among kingdoms and cannot be expected to remain peaceful, a British war with another power threatens American commerce. Neutrality, he argues, would offer safer protection than being drawn into conflict through imperial allegiance.

That argument rests on a distinction between commerce and political attachment. America’s trade, in Paine’s account, can sustain friendly relations across Europe without a special alliance to Great Britain. He asserts that colonial produce can find a market wherever it is sold, and that imported goods must be paid for regardless of their source. He therefore presents commercial independence and political non-entanglement as compatible: America need not defy other powers to preserve its interests, but should avoid becoming an instrument of one European state’s policy.

Paine also challenges the claim that past prosperity proves continuing dependence is necessary. He compares that reasoning to insisting that a child who has thrived on milk must never eat solid food, or that the first twenty years of life should dictate the next twenty. In his view, American commerce could have flourished without European control, and past conditions cannot settle what future circumstances require. The colonies’ connection to Great Britain may once have had a place; it does not follow that it remains the proper basis for their political life.

The distance between England and America becomes, in Paine’s argument, more than a logistical inconvenience. He treats geography and the different historical circumstances of settlement as evidence that the two belong to separate political systems. An island, he argues, may reasonably protect small islands unable to defend themselves, but it is absurd to suppose that a continent must be governed perpetually from across the ocean. His image reverses the natural order of satellite and primary planet: England belongs with Europe, while America belongs to itself.

That distance makes imperial administration both unjust and unworkable. A petition or account of colonial affairs had to travel three or four thousand miles, wait four or five months for a response, and then require further months of explanation. A government so remote and, in Paine’s view, ignorant of American circumstances could not manage the growing complexity of the continent with reasonable convenience. If Great Britain could not conquer America, he contends, it could not govern it effectively either. Paine thus presents self-government not as a matter of pride or resentment but as the practical consequence of scale, distance, and the need for decisions responsive to local conditions.

The constitutional danger of reconciliation, as he describes it, lies in the power it would leave in the crown. The king would retain a veto over colonial legislation, while America would remain vulnerable to the refusal of laws needed for its defense. The same power could approve or block legislation according to British interests, even where those interests conflicted with American growth. Paine argues that the king’s veto in America would be more dangerous than in England, because England was the king’s residence and would be more likely to receive approval for measures strengthening its own security.

He develops the point from legislative control to political subordination. America, in this account, is only a secondary object in British politics: England considers American welfare insofar as it serves England’s purposes. Even if the complained-of laws were repealed, Paine warns, reconciliation could restore the crown’s authority and allow it to constrain the continent by policy rather than force. A change in the name of the relationship would not turn enemies into friends, nor would it remove the underlying conflict of interest. For that reason, he defines independence in direct constitutional terms: whether America will make its own laws or leave the king to determine which laws it may have.

Resistance, Legitimacy, and the Cost of Delay

Paine grounds resistance in the failure of peaceful remedies and in the harms that, he argues, have made ordinary submission untenable. Repeated petitions, rather than securing redress, have been met with disdain. He warns that continued petitioning can strengthen royal obstinacy instead of checking it. His argument is not that force should be used to settle a minor financial disagreement: taking up arms merely to compel repeal of a pecuniary law would not justify the lives at stake. The moral basis for resistance, as he presents it, is the threat and use of force against people, the destruction of property by armed power, and the invasion of the country.

This distinction allows Paine to describe resistance as defensive and to date the break in political obligation from the first armed attack. The colonies, he says, did not originate the chain of events that brought them to this point. Once defense by arms became necessary, he argues, subjection to Great Britain should have ceased; America’s independence should be understood as beginning with the first musket fired against it. The claim joins a moral judgment about the grounds for resistance to a political judgment about when imperial authority lost its legitimacy.

The consequences of delay, in Paine’s account, extend beyond the immediate danger of defeat. He warns that America could conquer itself through hesitation and timidity even if no external power could conquer it. The winter then at hand might, if used well, be worth an age; if wasted, the whole continent would share the loss. Appeals to pass over the conflict and trust that the parties would again become friends, he argues, ignore both the damage already suffered and the possibility that a renewed connection would be forced and unstable. An agreement formed for immediate convenience, without restored trust, could relapse into a condition worse than the first.

He also argues that war has made a lesser settlement inadequate. Removing a ministry or obtaining repeal of the disputed acts would not justify the expense if the continent had taken up arms and its people had borne the burdens of defense. A settlement on the earlier footing would have to address more than laws: Paine points to damaged towns, private losses, and public debts incurred for defense. By the time he writes, he says, the opportunity for such a settlement has passed. The comparison with a tenant whose lease is nearly over makes renewed litigation seem wasteful: if independence is approaching in any case, fighting only to regulate a temporary grievance squanders resources without securing the future.

Paine’s urgency is reinforced by his account of America’s unresolved political condition. The continent, he writes, has legislation without law, wisdom without a plan, and a constitution without a name; it is held together by a concurrence of sentiment that can change. In this unsettled situation, he argues, property is insecure and there is no defined legal distinction between conduct amounting to treason and other political acts. He distinguishes captured English soldiers, whom he treats as prisoners of war, from American inhabitants who take up arms, whom he says should be treated as traitors under the emerging authority of the state. The contrast exposes a central difficulty of revolution: resistance is already being exercised, but its legal status and governing institutions have not yet been firmly established.

That weakness, he warns, invites division. The continental bond is too loosely secured, while royal supporters and misleading publications may work to divide the colonies. Paine fears that delay could leave neither reconciliation nor independence practicable. His alternative to passivity is not simply a declaration in words, but the timely creation of a political order capable of distinguishing lawful authority from unregulated action and binding the colonies together.

Independence Abroad and a Continental Constitution

A declaration of independence would change America’s standing among other powers. While the colonies continued to call themselves subjects of Great Britain, Paine argues, foreign governments could not mediate the conflict as a war between separate parties. Nor could France or Spain be expected to help America merely so that it could repair its dispute with Great Britain and strengthen the imperial connection. In the eyes of foreign courts, resistance undertaken in the name of British subjects also appeared contradictory and potentially dangerous to other states, which might fear the precedent of subjects bearing arms against their government.

Paine proposes that a public statement to foreign courts could explain the suffering the colonies had endured and the peaceful remedies they had tried without success. It would declare that they could no longer live safely or happily under the British court, announce the necessity of ending political connections with it, and assure other governments of America’s peaceful intentions and desire for trade. Such a declaration, he argues, could accomplish more than another shipload of petitions to Great Britain. Under the name of British subjects, America could neither be received nor heard abroad; independence would allow it to take its place among nations.

For Paine, this diplomatic change is also a way to end a damaging suspension between resistance and allegiance. Until independence was declared, the continent would resemble someone repeatedly putting off an unpleasant task while knowing it must be done. Each delay would preserve not peace but anxiety about an unresolved necessity. A declaration could make the situation intelligible to foreign powers and to the colonies themselves, replacing an unstable claim of simultaneous subjection and self-direction with an explicit political status.

The practical form of independence, however, remains essential. Paine acknowledges that fear of independence partly arises because no plan has yet been laid down. As an opening contribution rather than a finished constitution, he proposes annual assemblies with a president only, more equal representation, and domestic business subject to the authority of a Continental Congress. He suggests dividing each colony into six, eight, or ten districts, each sending delegates so that every colony would send at least thirty and Congress would contain at least 390 members.

His proposed method for selecting the congressional president is designed to rotate authority among the colonies. At each Congress, one colony would be chosen by lot; the members would then elect a president by ballot from that colony’s delegates. In the next Congress, the previous president’s colony would be excluded from the drawing, with the rotation continuing until all thirteen colonies had their turn. Paine further proposes that a measure require at least three-fifths of Congress to count as a majority, making broad agreement a condition for legislation. These provisions give concrete form to his contention that independence must unite the continent through representative arrangements rather than merely remove British authority.

Paine’s account of the possible routes to independence underscores the stakes of that design. He identifies three means by which it might eventually be achieved: the legal voice of the people in Congress, military power, or a mob. If Congress enacted it, he argues, America would have the opportunity and encouragement to form an exceptionally strong constitution. If the moment were neglected, independence might instead arrive through military power or popular force, outcomes he presents as less secure because neither the soldiers nor the multitude could be assumed always to act with civic virtue and judgment.

A Founding Decision for Posterity

The importance of Independence rests, finally, on the kind of political future it makes possible. Paine does not regard separation as an end in itself or as a guarantee that freedom will endure automatically. Virtue, he observes, is neither hereditary nor perpetual. Independence therefore requires the creation of institutions able to translate resistance into law and collective decision, and it requires the present generation to take responsibility for the consequences of its choice.

The alternative is to leave the next generation a conflict the present has refused to resolve. Paine argues that a renewed connection would leave the sword to children and that a temporary arrangement could not secure what parents hoped to bequeath. His appeal to look ahead by imagining children carried a few years farther into life shifts the measure of political judgment away from immediate fear and toward the conditions those children will inherit. Delay is not neutral in this reasoning: it determines whether future Americans receive an established political order or the costs of an unfinished break.

The rhetoric of a new world gives the proposed independence its broadest significance. Paine describes the present as a rare opening, comparable to a new beginning in human history, in which a people on a continental scale might receive freedom through events unfolding over a few months. He weighs that possibility against the small disputes and private interests obstructing it. If independence came through the legal decision of Congress, he argues, America could begin again on a firm and honorable basis; if the opportunity were missed, those opposing the measure would bear responsibility for the consequences.

At the heart of the argument, then, Independence is both a necessary severance and a demanding act of construction. War has made reconciliation inadequate; imperial dependence, in Paine’s account, exposes American law, security, trade, and diplomacy to decisions made for another power. Separation promises self-government and a recognized place abroad, but its lasting value depends on continental unity, representative institutions, and action timely enough to prevent resistance from hardening into disorder. The decisive question is not simply whether America can break its connection with Great Britain, but whether it will use that break to establish a political order worthy of the generations who inherit it.