in the previous lecture i was talking about in particular uh two two issues um one of which was if you will uh elements of what was pushing the uh the colonists to move away from england to reject the uh to reject the powers that england had asserted um economic as well as as political and to claim the rights that the colonists believed that they that they possessed we'll talk a bit more about that and also i was talking about thomas paine who sorry to keep pushing pain on you but i think that many ways he was a uh under he's been an underappreciated figure in the move towards uh towards independence and i want to talk about some other features of his thought in relationship to the uh developing in the mid-1770s especially in 1776 um uh his his uh influence his impact on the way in which uh americans um in which the colonists are beginning to think beyond being a being a colony now i talked mainly about um the what we might want to call the push away from england and by that i had meant things like for example the economic situation where you have this relationship with england in which the english were essentially used the colonies as a source of raw materials for manufacture would then have those raw materials sent to england and then would resell them to the colonists and of course at a considerable and considerable profit i mean this is a classic example of the economic theory um called mercantilism again i referred to that in briefly in the previous lecture so you've got these economic you've got an economic push um and you also have and i referred to this as well you also have the uh increase of the the english attempting to assert control over uh the political control over the colonies um in such things as taxation again the phrase no taxation without representation is one that is one that we all know uh very very well but also it was the case that england increasingly was using in order to keep the colonies under control england was using military military force and again this is something that you probably um have picked up from uh your uh your uh history united states history or classes whether in high school or whether here at a m so as you see the the boiling of independence uh the british the the the more that uh the british perceived that the colonists um were ready to uh to stand up to england it was the case uh that uh that in turn england uh pushed back harder but it's also the case that um in uh in uh the reality of things um there were there were some reasons for uh what i let's see let me find my eraser here there we go um or what we might want to call pull and these uh these are not in insignificant um things that were motivating people towards uh independence in terms of what they uh what they aspire to what what they uh desired um and and i think probably first and foremost this goes back to a point i made right at the beginning of the last lecture um is that there is a um a widespread desire to realize um something like to realize um something something like um rights right that were not conferred in other words you've got a ideology here that that presses for uh the fact that the rights uh that that are possessed that the colonists possess are rights that are not matters of grant by the by the english government and um this is a very important distinction i think um there are two ways of of thinking about the nature of of rights um and one is that rights are essentially conventional and that it is government which assigns those rights and government can take them away um whereas we see in locke we see in pain in in different ways of course the assertion of those rights and uh and those rights being independent of and not reliant upon what it is that government can can assign and can can take away and this is a has becomes a widespread value in part um because of the influence of amongst especially amongst the political the educated class the political class i was talking about uh of the enlightenment and of course the enlightenment was a movement in the well i mean it starts even in the time of law but certainly in the 18th century um the enlightenment put a heavy emphasis on uh the powers of of humans of human reason to be able to uh on its own terms as part of human nature to be able to govern be essentially self-governing and that was something that you don't see in in england where in england as payne you know repeatedly points out um you have a uh a trade a tradition of of so-called the unwritten uh constitution which had a foundation in tradition uh rather than in a a concept of human freedom and of human equality and that that tradition then becomes the justification for um the the power of government and the understanding that government in uh the government assigns um uh the rights and the liberties and that there are no independent bases for those in human in human nature and that's central to um to enlightenment uh to enlightenment thought um so there is a widespread desire to make a claim uh that for at least for the american ideology and aspirations um that rights are independent and again both lock in pain uh and many others as well uphold that that that fundamental that fundamental value another factor in terms of the pull so this is essentially kind of ideological if you will um another factor in in that poll is if you will the sociology of the colonists [Music] sociology of the colonists and by that in particular i mean the fact that the uh that the the colonists uh and their their offspring um their their heirs uh really were uh very similar in many ways about why they chose to come to live in north america some of them were certainly adventurers who i i think maybe felt um you know cramped or under the control of england of of england and the english system and wanted to wanted something different um wanted to be more autonomous wanted to have more opportunities and of course part of the problem there is that the british very self-consciously attempted to halt the expansion of the colonies uh west in in the west towards the towards the west um in other words to give opportunities to the colonists uh uh to uh have and control increasing amounts of of territory independent of the grant of rights and liberties charters that had been the basis for the colonies to start with and the other i think important element is that many of the colonists were escaping from if you will they were escaping from and and the escaping from in particular had to do with escaping from um religious intolerance certainly some place for example like pennsylvania which was uh founded on quaker principles maryland which was founded on catholic as a catholic uh colony now in keeping in mind that still in the 18th century catholics so-called papists um had uh no status or little legal status in in england they were they remained feared so i mean there are some examples um but there are many of them right rhode island and a number of the colonies were consciously established as a way of escaping from religious control by uh by the the english and this is a period when you still have you know widespread uh religious intolerance in in england so again there's the spirit of wanting something different and better and escaping and i mean arguably that that self-consciousness has something to do with the the the desire for the colonists to break free um to become uh uh to to be able to live the lives they wanted to live and again this involves getting out of the control of the king of the aristocracy of that that very uh a very stratified society in england um so those are some some elements and this leads i think in pain excuse me pain caught on to this right to a collective desire for independence uh for a collective desire on the part of the colonists for one reason or another to be free from english domination and to create something something different um payne actually interestingly um objected to or criticized in in his writings um the whole representation no taxation without representation because he in fact felt that that was a mistake because that tied the colonies to england because all they were asking for is to have the same rights as other englishmen and many of the colonists or the political elite still saw themselves in many ways as being englishmen as being english citizens it's just they were being treated unfairly um in the uh in the well again increasing taxation uh you know the imposition of duties and so forth uh and payne's view was that's a that's an error because america and colonies collectively were something different um they were a there were people unto themselves and that was a that was a big issue certainly uh in the 18th century are we englishmen who in fact uh uh uh who were englishmen who in fact were just being treated unfairly or or unequally by the by the british by the crown by parliament or will be something different and of course in the end it's that something different that one out it's that idea that there is a collective beyond the beyond the separate colonies there's a collective identity and that shows up in payne's insistence or payne's a strong recommendation that there be uh some sorts of representative institutions remember representation for him is very important some represent some representative institutions um that in fact reflect that that that difference right that that americanness that goes beyond went beyond the um the uh uh the status of being simply not being treated well by the by the british and that political elite that i was talking about in the last lecture in fact is somewhat split on that on that issue do they want to be english english people english subjects of the crown who are treated in the same way as those subjects in the crown across the atlantic or do they want really something different and pain in in his writings certainly uh it's the case in common sense pain is asserting that latter position and in fact advocates for something like what would be called the eventually continental congress right but would uh asserted that uh that the the colonists have to uh come up with and develop institutions that in fact reflect this this united independence and of course um the the the values that are there and part of this is derived from law part of its derived from pain but the values that are are there are of course brilliantly expressed in the words written by thomas jefferson in the declaration of independence right i mean you know famously jefferson begins the declaration with the following statement when in the course of human events it is necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the of the earth the separate and equal station in which the laws of nature and of nature's god entitle them a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights right that goes back to this idea or the criticism of rights being conventional and therefore able to to be taken away by government uh endowed by the creator with certain inalienable rights that among these are life liberty in the pursuit of happiness that that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states again united colonies there um they are to be absolved from all allegiance to the british crown and that all political connection between them and the state of great britain is and ought to be totally dissolved uh now again uh some of that sounds like it's right out of locke's second treatise the happiness thing is interesting um and it's interesting because pain talks a good deal about the end of government being providing the conditions for human happiness and people have always thought the happiness thing well why isn't if it's lock-in why isn't life liberty in a state um now it's certainly the case that payne thought that government had a responsibility to protect property but he goes a bit farther and that's where the happiness thing falls falls out um nevertheless it's the case that on the one hand jefferson is making uh is is arguing for that same kind of independence that penis is talking about um but he's also arguing for the idea that there is a um uh that um there there is a need for the institutions at least some kinds of institutions to be able to um to be able to hold the country together based on these values this emerging country based on these these values so um the declaration obviously is a key moment in in important times um 1776 is absolutely crucial starting with publication and widespread dissemination of common sense jefferson's declaration of independence and its acceptance by a a quote-unquote representative group of the colonists and then at the end of 1776 disasters at the end of 1776 it's the case that the um that the american army this the continental army is in big trouble uh it is failing and it is uh and it it's the troops are dispirited um they lack food they're not being paid and pain comes along and then writes something else you've been asked to read namely the american crisis now the american crisis isn't just one work the one that we folk we tend to focus on is the first document in part because it's so powerful but in fact american crisis is in fact a number of short treatises held together by one purpose which is the attempt to um rally the troops now washington is december of 1776 washington's troops valley forge um and things are not looking good and common and i'm sorry uh american crisis the first american crisis is consciously an attempt to uh to rally around to rally the troops to the basic values and of course it starts with uh the um uh the the famous line uh now are the times that test men's souls it's pretty close to being right um i'm really bad at quoting things some people could just remember all these things the tri-men's souls sorry um but then he goes on immediately after that and says he criticizes what is he called the summer warriors it criticizes people who will fight for their goals when when it's all looking good but who when things are bad basically when you're stuck in december of 1776 in valley forge suddenly give up their or surrender their um uh uh surrender their commitment to the aspirations and valued values for which they fought so or for which they entered uh into um washington's army the continental army and um this uh this work i mean these these series of of short writings in fact have some clear impact again ideas matter folks right um that a that a a persuasive well-written um thoughtful an attempt to to motivate people in this case people in a pretty bad light pretty bad situation to stick with the program is a significant contribution and um without going too much back into pain and pain will increasingly recede um from from view but i think at this point is so important um that pain is uh is successful in building on all of this um in in in a way building on his theories but in a way that has uh that has powerful uh that's based on powerful um polemical uh persuasive skills and in fact i mentioned i think in the last lecture that pain is for a long time was not taken very seriously because he was seen as merely a polemicist who had no deep principles well i talked about those principles in the last lecture so i'm not going to not going to repeat them one thing i didn't say was that pain is uh certainly in a common sense but elsewhere as well pain regards government to be a necessary evil um and and that's that goes back to that theory of human nature in particular the idea that human beings when left alone are weak and that we need government in order to organize and maintain order um in in such a way that these individuals these weak individuals can can work together but pain does not see pain does not believe that government should have functions beyond that um he like like locke proposes in fact pushes the idea of liberty of conscience liberty of political practice as being a fundamental goal and again you can see how this fits into some of the things i was talking about in terms of the of the pull of the idea of religious freedom that in fact had been a major reason why the colonies were established and more importantly what brought many of the colonists to north america so uh what we have here then is a it seems to me is an attempt on payne's part to use these values that he has an established theoretical groundwork for to use these values in such a way as to remind um those who were in um you know in the in sort of the depths of misery um that what they were fighting for was something that was valuable something worth fighting for something that they were committed to and and should be willing to make a need to make sacrifices for if they're going to be if they're going to be fulfilled you might be realized so 1776 is not just an important year for the declaration of independence for the fourth of july that we celebrate but it's an important year in moving from you know the pain's general principles and common sense through to the declaration which of course is a marvelous document again you're assigned to read it so i assume uh most of you if not all of you have at one time or another read the declaration but go back and read it and put it in that kind of context to the disasters uh that are before in the continental army at the end of 1776. of course we all know the story in the end the british are defeated not only by the by the continental armies but of course then by the help of lafayette and the french and so on and it's the case that you then begin to get an attempt to actually put into reality put into action the this idea of the of political institutions that are uh reflective of uh this this this sense of commonality of of national uh of national identity that is different from the the british uh you begin to see an attempt to in a way consonant with the the american now the developing american self-consciousness that goes beyond the colonies some attempt to create institutional structures paine had some involvement in this but in the end eventually goes back to england gets himself in a lot of trouble winds up in france and it's a marvelous story but it's not one that's completely relevant here in this in this context um and those institutions that i was discussing especially representative institutions um get traction in the later 1770s and of course what we wind up with is the first and ultimately failed attempt to uh to realize in a very imperfect attempt to realize this this idea that beyond the colonies beyond what now have become the state the individual states there is something that is uh there's there's a um apatria i mean in the classic sense right that is worth working towards realizing and um and as i've suggested sacrificing and of course in the end this leads to the first attempt to realize the goals of pain and others and that's the articles of confederation now in the next lecture i'm going to talk about the articles of confederation and i'm going to talk about how we shift from that to the constitution and then how that is ultimately um is ultimately defended but also criticized and ultimately of course in 789 ratified so that's where we're headed sort of away from the revolutionary era and i promise you may hear a little bit more about pain and i'm sorry to be such a pain about it um but i think he's as i've said before i think he's under-recognized under acknowledged for how he what he contributed to to bringing the idea of an american an independent american nation not just 13 colonies who happen to be close by and get together um but a the idea that um the united states was what becomes the united states was something very different and that that difference um needed to be fully uh fully realized in an institutional way so we're going to be coming back to that in the next lecture