radicals; they were mostly extremely democratic, as we should say in England to-day, and their advanced views frightened many of the steadier and wealthier colonists, for whom class privileges and distinctions had considerable charm. But early in 1776 an able and persuasive Englishman, Tom Paine, published a pamphlet at Philadelphia with the title of Common Sense, which had an enormous effect on public opinion. Its style was rhetorical by modern standards. "The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of Nature cries, ′'Tis time to part,'" and so forth. But its effects were very great. It converted thousands to the necessity of separation. The turn-over of opinion, once it had begun, was rapid.
Only in the summer of 1776 did Congress take the irrevocable step of declaring for separation. "The Declaration of Independence," another of those exemplary documents which it has been the peculiar service of the English to produce for mankind, was drawn up by Thomas Jefferson; and after various amendments and modifications it was made the fundamental document of the United States of America. There were two noteworthy amendments to Jefferson's draft. He had denounced the slave trade fiercely, and blamed the home government for interfering with colonial attempts to end it. This was thrown out, and so too was a sentence about the British: "we must endeavour to forget our former love for them… we might have been a free and a great people together."
(But for the British crown and great proprietors and the mutual ignorance of the common men in the two countries.)[1]
Towards the end of 1782, the preliminary articles of the treaty in which Britain recognized the complete independence of the
- ↑ I think this gives an erroneous impression that there was no real chance of reconciliation in 1776. There was. And indeed the whole separation was far from inevitable. If the British had (1) recognized the autonomy in each colony of its legislature, and (2) granted to the colonies cabinet government in place of government by governors sent from England, there would have been no schism. By 1839, the time of Lord Durham's report, the British had learned to make the recognition and the grant; and with greater wisdom they could have made both in 1776. A great statesman in 1776 could have stopped the separation, and made history different. I am inclined to say that nothing is inevitable in history—except that when you don't have good men, you don't get good results. And that was the position under George III and Lord North.—E. B.
