Junius Unmasked Part 26

I now take up the original Declaration, beginning with the Introduction; and, as I have numbered its paragraphs, I shall use the figures to denote them, proceeding in their numerical order:

Paragraph 1. "Political bonds." The same figure is found on page 64, Common Sense.

"To a.s.sume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's G.o.d ent.i.tle them." Here the crowning thought is that G.o.d, through his natural laws, and by natural proofs, designed a separation. Thus Mr. Paine, in Common Sense, page 37, says: "The distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and America is a strong and _natural_ proof that the authority of the one over the other was never the design of Heaven." ... "Every thing that is right or _natural_ pleads for separation."

Note also above the phrase, "separate and _equal_ station." The writer of the Declaration considered England and America equal, and thus Mr.

Paine says, above: "It is proof that the authority of _the one_ over _the other_ was never the design of Heaven."

"A decent _respect_ for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." Note hereunder the phrase, "_decent respect_." Thus, in his introduction to his first Letter, which was an indictment and declaration of principles also, Junius says: "Let us enter into it [the inquiry] with candor and _decency_. _Respect_ is due to the station of ministers, and, if a resolution must at last be taken, there is none so likely to be supported with firmness as that which has been adopted with moderation."

The above are perfect parallels in idea, and in the expression of the prominent thought, "_decent respect_." But the thought is expanded from the narrow confines of the British nation to the whole world, and if Mr.

Paine wrote both, as they strongly indicate, to make the conclusion good we must find this change or mental growth in Mr. Paine to coincide therewith. Here it is: "In this extensive quarter of the globe, we forget the narrow limits of three hundred and sixty miles (the extent of England), and carry our friendship on a larger scale. We claim brotherhood with every European Christian, and triumph in the generosity of the sentiment.

"It is pleasant to observe by what regular gradations we surmount local prejudices as we enlarge our acquaintance with the world. A man born in any town in England," etc. I wish the reader to read the whole of the paragraph I have begun. See Common Sense, pages 35 and 36. See also Crisis, viii, near its close; a n.o.ble pa.s.sage on the same subject. Mr.

Paine frequently takes the pains to tell us how he outgrew his local prejudices, and how he at last considered the "world his country." He undertook, also, for America what he calls "_the business of a world_."--Common Sense, page 63.

Paragraph 2. "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights." Compare from Common Sense, pages 24, 25, and 28, as follows: "Mankind being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could not be destroyed by some subsequent circ.u.mstance." ...

"The equal rights of nature." ... "For all men being originally equals,"

etc. So, also, Junius says: "In the rights of freedom we are all equal."

... "The first original rights of the people," etc. To show that he believes these rights to be inalienable, he says:

"The equality can not be destroyed by some subsequent circ.u.mstance."

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Junius uses the terms, "Life, liberty, and fortune."--Let. 66. And Mr. Paine frequently, "Life, liberty, and property." But these terms were in quite common use with many writers.

"To secure these rights, _governments_ are inst.i.tuted among men." What is said on government in this paragraph is paraphrased or condensed from page 21, Common Sense. It is a concise repet.i.tion of Mr. Paine's pet theme and political principles, first given to the world in Junius, and then elaborated in Common Sense.

"_Prudence_ indeed will dictate." This word _prudence_ is ever flowing from the pen of Mr. Paine. See an example on page 21, Common Sense. It is quite common in Junius. The same may be said, also, of the word _experience_.

"And accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to _suffer while evils are sufferable_, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

Compare Common Sense, page 17, as follows: "As a long and violent abuse of power is generally the means of calling the right of it in question, and in matters, too, which might never have been thought of, had not the _sufferers_ been aggravated to the inquiry," etc.

"_Forms._" That is, the "forms of the const.i.tution." See Junius, Let.

44, where he says: "I should be contented to renounce the forms of the Const.i.tution once more, if there were no other way to obtain substantial justice for the people." And here the Declaration is renouncing the forms.

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute _tyranny_ over these States."

Paine says on _tyranny_: "Ye that oppose independence now, ye know not what ye do, ye are opening a door to _eternal tyranny_, by keeping vacant the seat of government." ... "Ye that dare oppose not only the _tyranny,_ but the tyrant, stand forth." Common Sense, p. 47.

"To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, _for the truth of which we pledge a faith, yet unsullied by falsehood_." The above sentence is very peculiar, and I will show wherein. The last member of the sentence which I have italicised was stricken out of the original draft by Congress. The peculiarity in it is that "_the truth of a fact_"

is affirmed, and its falsehood implied. Now a fact is always true. There can be no false facts. What is here meant, is, that we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood, that the statements are true. Not that the facts are _true_, but that they are facts. It is the pa.s.sion (if I may so express it) for conciseness, to speak of facts being true or false.

Now this is a peculiarity of Junius. In Let. 3 he says: "I am sorry to tell you, Sir William, that in this article your first fact is false."

It is thus Mr. Paine frequently sacrifices both grammar and strict definition to conciseness; but never to obscure the sense. An example from the publicly acknowledged pen of Mr. Paine ought to be here produced; I, therefore, give one from his letter to the Abbe Raynal, which is as follows: "His _facts_ are coldly and carelessly stated.

They neither inform the reader, nor interest him. Many of them are _erroneous_, and most of them are defective and obscure." Here "erroneous facts," "false facts," and "facts for the truth of which we pledge a faith unsullied by falsehood," are evidence of the same head and hand. It is thus an author puts some peculiar feature of his soul on paper unwittingly; and it lies there a fossil, till the critic, following the lines of nature, gathers it up to cla.s.sify, arrange, and combine with others, and then to put on canvas, or in marble bust. It may be well to remind the reader that the above peculiarity I can nowhere find in Jefferson's writings.

I now call attention to the sentence: "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations [begun at a distinguished period, and pursuing invariably the same object] evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."

I have placed in brackets what has been interpolated by Jefferson. I conclude this from the following reasons:

1. It breaks the measure.

2. It destroys the harmony of the period, and the sentence is complete and harmonious without it.

3. "Begun at a distinguished period," is indefinite.

4. It refers to time, and is mixed up with other subject matter, and is therefore in the wrong place.

5. It is tautology, for two sentences further on it is all expressed in its proper place, in referring to the history of the king.

In all of these particulars it is not like Mr. Paine, for he is never guilty of such a breach of rhetoric. But in all of the above particulars it is just like Mr. Jefferson.

The above two paragraphs comprise the Introduction and the Bill of Rights, and are the foundation of the Declaration. It is a basis fit and substantial, because one of universal principles, so that whatever special right may be enunciated, it will rest firmly on this foundation; or whatever special denunciation of wrongs, it will have its authority therein.

I now pa.s.s to consider the indictment under its three divisions--_Usurpation_, _Abdication_, and _War_.

If the reader will now turn back to page 223, he will find from paragraphs 3 to 15, inclusive, the whole charge of usurpation included therein. But, separately, we find paragraph 3 to be a charge of the abuse of the king's negative; and he concludes in paragraph 15 with the climax, "suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves [the king and parliament] invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever." Now, if the reader will turn to page 41, Common Sense, which is page 213 of this book, he will find Mr. Paine beginning the first of his "several reasons" as follows:

"1. The powers of governing still remaining in the hands of the king, he will have a negative over the whole of this continent."

It will be observed, in a general view, that the _reasons_ given by Mr.

Paine cover the whole thirteen paragraphs; and it will be observed specially that he begins the reasons the same as he does the indictment--namely, with the king's negative. Mr. Paine was violently opposed to the king's negative, and all through life he never fails to attack it, when the opportunity offered itself. This would weigh most heavily on his mind, and be most naturally uttered first. On page 59 of Common Sense will also be found reasons for independence, which come within this part of the indictment. But pages 41, 42, 43 of Common Sense cover nearly, or quite all of it. But they are stated _generally_ for the sake of argument--not _specially_ for the sake of indictment.

Paragraph 16. "He has abdicated government here, withdrawing his governors, and declaring us out of his allegiance and protection."

Compare with this the following, to be found on page 61 of Common Sense: "The present state of America is truly alarming to every man who is capable of reflection. _Without law, without government, without any other mode of power than what is founded on and granted by courtesy._ Held together by an unexampled occurrence of sentiment, which is, nevertheless, subject to change, and which every secret enemy is endeavoring to dissolve. Our present condition is legislation without law, wisdom without a plan, a const.i.tution without a name."

I now take up the third part of the indictment--_War_.

Paragraph 17. "He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people."

Paragraph 18. "He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun, with circ.u.mstances of cruelty and perfidy unworthy the head of a civilized nation."

On the above two counts, which charge war and invasion, I submit from Common Sense, page 62, as follows: "_It is the violence which is done and threatened to our persons, the destruction of our property by an armed force, the invasion of our country by fire and sword_, which conscientiously qualifies the use of arms; and the instant in which such mode of defense became necessary, all subjection to Britain ought to have ceased, and the independence of America should have been considered as dating its era from, and published by the first musket that was fired against her."

Under the above, also, may be cla.s.sed paragraph 19.

Paragraph 20. "He has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, s.e.xes, and conditions of existence." Compare Common Sense, page 47, as follows: "There are thousands and tens of thousands who would think it glorious to expel from the continent that barbarous and h.e.l.lish power which hath stirred up the Indians and negroes to destroy us."

Paragraph 21. "He has excited _treasonable insurrection_," etc. Compare Common Sense, page 61, as follows: "The tories dared not have a.s.sembled _offensively_, had they known that their lives, by that act, were forfeited to the laws of the State. A line of distinction should be drawn between English soldiers taken in battle and inhabitants of America _taken in arms_: the first are prisoners, but the latter _traitors_--the one forfeits his liberty, the other his head."

The above paragraph and the following one, it will be remembered, were stricken out by Congress.

I now come to the closing paragraph of this part of the indictment, and, as it is the most important of all, the author kept it for a climax, and he throws his whole soul into it. I will transcribe it here:

Paragraph 22. "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty, in the persons of a distant people, who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain.

Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prost.i.tuted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce; and, that this a.s.semblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them; thus paying off former crimes, committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another."

The capital words in the above are his own. Let us begin with the last sentence, and go backward. The substance of the last sentence is, that by exciting the negroes to rise on the people of this continent, the king was guilty of a double crime, both against the _liberties_ of the negroes and the _lives_ of the American people. Compare Common Sense, page 47, as follows: "He hath stirred up the Indians and _negroes_ to destroy us; _the cruelty hath a double guilt--it is dealing brutally by us and treacherously by them_." This is the same complex idea, well reasoned out, and expressed almost in the same language--certainly in the same style. But Jefferson "never consulted a single book," so original was the Declaration to his own mind and habits of thought!