“Prepare the new world an asylum for mankind”
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America 250 at Mostly Aesthetics, Part 8: ‘Tis time to part.
In early 1776, Common Sense went viral in the colonies, turning heads and tipping the scales toward independence. At four dozen pages, it’s too long to go viral today, even with a Premium account, but plenty of 280-character segments have the sting to have potential.
The British and the Loyalists saw good in the British form and practice of government. Might the radicals be missing something? Paine demurs: British admiration is “more from national pride than reason,” and their judgment is worthless, for they are like
a man, who is attached to a prostitute:
he is “unfitted to choose or judge of a wife,” and likewise “any prepossession in favour of a rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning a good one.”
Opponents of independence said that America had flourished under Britain, before the crisis; but
we may as well assert that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat.
What about the French and Indian War? Did not Britain protect us from invasion, and foreign attack? Yes, but from vicious motives:
she did not protect us from our enemies on our account, but from her enemies on her own account.
Do we not owe Britain some loyalty, as our mother country? But that phrase is propaganda, to gain
an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds.
Anyway, some betrayals can never be forgiven:
Your future connection with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honour, will be forced and unnatural, and being formed only on the plan of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a relapse more wretched than the first.
Indeed, anyone who can so “love and honor” Britain, has
the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.
Delays, and dalliances with reconciliation, only put onto others, the work we should do ourselves:
let us come to a final separation, and not leave the next generation to be cutting throats.
These clips are great, but to feel the full distillation of the pamphlet’s power, it must be filtered and transposed into blank verse. Here it is, for the Fourth of July, 2026.
Common Sense: Addressed to the Inhabitants of America
Philadelphia, January 1776
In these pages I offer nothing more
Than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense.
The struggle for America has now
Become a test of arms; all plans proposed
Before last April are but almanacs
Of years gone by; and reconciliation
Has passed away like an agreeable
Dream. Britain is no mother country. Even brutes
Do not devour their young, nor savages
Make war upon their families. No one
Again can love or serve a power that
Brought fire and sword into his land; no more
Can you forgive the murders of Great Britain
Than can a man forgive the ravisher
Of his wife. Hark and listen, hear the dark
Blood of the slain cry out: ’tis time to part.
O ye that love mankind, who dare oppose
Tyranny, stand forth! Freedom hath been hunted
Round the globe—Europe regards her like
A stranger—England warns her to depart.
O! Receive the fugitive, prepare
This new world an asylum for mankind.
Read more of America 250 on Mostly Aesthetics: