A Call for Return to First Principles
Thomas Paine
[An Open Letter signed by
The Forester, Pennsylania Journal, 8 May, 1776]
Whoever will take the trouble of attending to the progress and
changeability of times and things, and the conduct of mankind
thereon, will find, that extraordinary circumstances do sometimes
arise before us, of a species, either so purely natural or so
perfectly original, that none but the man of nature can understand
them. When precedents fail to spirit us, we must return to the first
principles of things for information; and think, as if we were the
first men that thought. And this is the true reason that, in the
present state of affairs, the wise are become foolish, and the
foolish wise. I am led to this reflexion by not being able to
account for the conduct of the Quakers on any other: for although
they do not seem to perceive it themselves, yet it is amazing to
hear with what unanswerable ignorance many of that body, wise in
other matters, will discourse on the present one. Did they hold
places or commissions under the King, were they Governors of
provinces, or had they any interest apparently distinct from us, the
mystery would cease; but as they have not, their folly is best
attributed to that superabundance of worldly knowledge which in
original matters is too cunning to be wise. Back to the first plain
path of nature, friends, and begin anew: for in this business your
first footsteps were wrong. You have now travelled to the summit of
inconsistency, and that with such accelerated rapidity as to acquire
autumnal ripeness by the first of May. Now your resting time comes
on. You have done your utmost and must abide the consequences. Yet
who can reflect on such conduct without feeling concern! Who can
look, unaffected, on a body of thoughtful men, undoing in one rash
hour the labour of seventy years: Or what can be said in their
excuse, more, than that they have arrived at their second
childhood, the infancy of threescore and ten.?
But my chief design, in this letter, is to set forth the
inconsistency, partiality, and injustice of the dependant faction,1
and like an honest man, who courts no favor, to shew to them the
dangerous ground they stand upon; in order to do which, I must refer
to the business, event, and probable consequences of the late
election.
The business of that day was to do what? Why, to elect four
burgesses to assist those already elected, in conducting the
military proceedings of this province, against the power of that
crown by whose authority they pretend to sit: and those gentlemen
when elected, are according to the rules of that House (as the rest
have done) to take an oath of allegiance to serve the same King
against whom this province, with themselves at the head thereof, are
at war: and a necessary qualification required of many voters was,
that they likewise should swear allegiance to the same King against
whose power the same house of assembly had just before obliged them
either to fine or take up arms. Did ever national hypocrisy arise to
such a pitch as this! Under the pretence of moderation we are
running into the most damnable sins. It is now the duty of every man
from the pulpit and from the press, in his family and in the street
to cry out against it. Good God! Have we no remembrance of duty left
to the King of Heaven! No conscientious awe to restrain this
sacrifice of sacred things? Is this our chartered privilege? This
our boasted constitution, that we can sin and feel it not? The
clergy of the English church, of which I profess myself a member,
complain of their situation, and wish relief; in short, every
thinking man must feel distress. Yet, to the credit of the people be
it spoken, the sin lies not at their door. We can trace the iniquity
in this province to the fountain head, and see by what delusions it
has imposed on others. The guilt centres in a few, and flows from
the same source, that a few years ago avariciously suffered the
frontiers of this province to be deluged in blood; and though the
vengeance of Heaven hath slept since, it may awake too soon for
their repose.
A motion was sometime ago made to elect a convention to take into
consideration the state of the province. A more judicious proposal
could not be thought of. Our present condition is alarming. We are
worse off then other provinces, and such an enquiry is highly
necessary. The House of Assembly in its present form is disqualified
for such business, because it is a branch from that power against
whom we are contending. Besides, they are in intercourse with the
King's representative, and the members which compose the house have,
as members thereof taken an oath to discover to the King of England
the very business which, in that inquiry, would unavoidably come
before them. Their minds too are warped and prejudiced by the
provincial instructions they have arbitrarily and without right
issued forth. They are again improper because the enquiry would
necessarily extend to them as a body, to see how far it is proper to
trust men with such unlimited power as they have lately assumed. In
times like these, we must trace to the root and origin of things; It
being the only way to become right, when we are got systematically
wrong. The motion for a Convention alarmed the crown and proprietary
dependants;1 but, to every man of reflexion, it had a cordial and
restorative quality. The case is, first, we are got wrong-Secondly,
how shall we get right? Not by a House of Assembly; because they
cannot sit as Judges, in a case, where their own existence under
their present form and authority is to be judged of. However, the
objectors found out a way, as they thought, to supercede the
necessity of a Convention, by promoting a bill for augmenting the
number of representatives; not perceiving at the same time that such
an augmentation would encrease the necessity of a Convention;
because, the more any power is augmented, which derives it's
authority from our enemies, the more unsafe and dangerous it becomes
to us. Far be it from the writer of this to censure the individuals
which compose that House; his aim being only against the chartered
authority under which it acts. However, the bill passed into a law,
(which shews, that in Pennsylvania, as well as in England, there is
no constitution, but only a temporary form of government.? ) While,
in order to show the inconsistency of the House in its present
state, the motion for a convention was postponed, and four
conscientious independent gentlemen were proposed as candidates, on
the augmentation, who, had they been elected would not have taken
the oaths necessary to admit a person as member of that Assembly.
And in that case, the house would have had neither one kind of
authority or another, while the old part remained sworn to divulge
to the King what the new part thought it their duty to declare
against him. Thus matters stood on the morning of election.
On our side we had to sustain the loss of those good citizens who
are now before the walls of Quebec, and other parts of the
continent; while the tories by never stirring out remain at home to
take the advantage of elections; and this evil prevails more or less
from the Congress down to the Committees. A numerous body of Germans
of property, zealots in the cause of freedom, were likewise excluded
for non-allegiance. Notwithstanding which, the tory non-conformists,
that is those who are advertised as enemies to their country, were
admitted to vote on the other side. A strange contradiction indeed!
To which were added the testimonizing Quakers, who, after suffering
themselves to be duped by the meanest of all passions, religious
spleen, endeavour in a vague uncharitable manner to possess the
Roman Catholics of the same disease. These parties, with such others
as they could influence, were headed by the proprietary dependants
to support the British and Proprietary power against the public.
They had pompously given out that nine tenths of the people were on
their side. A vast majority truly! But it so happened that,
notwithstanding the disadvantages we laid under of having many of
our votes rejected, others disqualified for non-allegiance, with the
great loss sustained by absentees, the manœuvre of shutting up
the doors between seven and eight o'clock, and circulating the
report of adjourning, and finishing the next morning, by which
several were deceived,-it so happened, I say, that on casting up the
tickets, the first in numbers on the dependant side, and the first
on the independant side, viz. Clymer and Allen, were a tye: 923
each.?
To the description which I have already given of those who are
against us, I may add, that they have neither associated nor
assisted, or but very few of them; that they are a collection of
different bodies blended by accident, having no natural relation to
each other; that they have agreed rather out of spite than right;
and that, as they met by chance, they will dissolve away again for
the want of a cement.
On our side, our object was single, our cause was one; wherefore,
we cannot separate, neither will we separate. We have stood the
experiment of the election, for the sake of knowing the men who were
against us. Alas, what are they? One half of them ought to be now
asking public pardon for their former offences; and the other half
may think themselves well off that they are let alone. When the
enemy enters the country, can they defend themselves? Or will they
defend themselves? And if not, are they so foolish as to think that,
in times like these, when it is our duty to search the corrupted
wound to the bottom, that we, with ten times their strength and
number (if the question were put to the people at large) will submit
to be governed by cowards and tories?
He that is wise will reflect, that the safest asylum, especially in
times of general convulsion when no settled form of government
prevails, is, the love of the people. All property is safe under
their protection. Even in countries where the lowest and most
licentious of them have risen into outrage they have never departed
from the path of natural honor. Volunteers unto death in defence of
the person or fortune of those who had served or defended them,
division of property never entered the mind of the populace. It is
incompatible with that spirit which impels them into action. An
avaricious mob was never heard of; nay, even a miser pausing in the
midst of them, and catching their spirit, would from that instant
cease to be covetous.
I shall conclude this letter with remarking, that the English fleet
and army have of late gone upon a different plan of operation to
what they first set out with; for instead of going against those
Colonies where independence prevails most, they go against those
only where they suppose it prevails least. They have quitted
Massachusetts-Bay and gone to North-Carolina, supposing they had
many friends there. Why are they expected at New-York? But because
they imagine the inhabitants are not generally independents, (yet
that province hath a large share of virtue, notwithstanding the
odium which its House of Assembly brought upon it.) From which I
argue that the electing the King's Attorney for a Burgess of this
city, is a fair invitation for them to come here; and in that case,
will those who have invited them turn out to repulse them? I suppose
not, for in their 923 votes there will not be found more than sixty
armed men, perhaps not so many. Wherefore, should such an event
happen, which probably will, I here give my first vote to levy the
expence attending the expedition against them, on the estates of
those who have invited them.
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