says, "was not an act of sudden passion nor the work of one man or one
assembly. It had been discussed in every part of the country by farmers
and merchants, by mechanics and planters, by the fishermen along the
coast and the backwoodsmen of the West; in town meetings and from the
pulpit; at social gatherings and around the camp fires; in county
conventions and conferences or committees; in colonial congresses and
assemblies."

[Illustration: _From an old print_

THOMAS PAINE]

=Paine's "Commonsense."=--In the midst of this ferment of American
opinion, a bold and eloquent pamphleteer broke in upon the hesitating
public with a program for absolute independence, without fears and
without apologies. In the early days of 1776, Thomas Paine issued the
first of his famous tracts, "Commonsense," a passionate attack upon the
British monarchy and an equally passionate plea for American liberty.
Casting aside the language of petition with which Americans had hitherto
addressed George III, Paine went to the other extreme and assailed him
with many a violent epithet. He condemned monarchy itself as a system
which had laid the world "in blood and ashes." Instead of praising the
British constitution under which colonists had been claiming their
rights, he brushed it aside as ridiculous, protesting that it was "owing
to the constitution of the people, not to the constitution of the
government, that the Crown is not as oppressive in England as in
Turkey."

Having thus summarily swept away the grounds of allegiance to the old
order, Paine proceeded relentlessly to an argument for immediate