Paine's Arguments Against British Rule
- It was absurd for an island to rule a continent.
- America was not a "British nation"; but was composed of influences and peoples from all of Europe.
- Even if Britain were the "mother country" of America, that made her actions all the more horrendous, for no mother would harm her children so brutally.
- Being a part of Britain would drag America into unnecessary European wars, and keep her from the international commerce at which America excelled.
- The distance between the two nations made governing the colonies from England unwieldy. If some wrong were to be petitioned to Parliament, it would take a year before the colonies received a response.
- The New World was discovered shortly before the Reformation. The Puritans believed that God wanted to give them a safe haven from the persecution of British rule.
- Britain ruled the colonies for her own benefit, and did not consider the best interests of the colonists in governing them.
Read more about this topic: Common Sense (pamphlet)
Famous quotes containing the words paine, arguments, british and/or rule:
“The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“We are seeing an increasing level of attacks on the “selfishness” of women. There are allegations that all kinds of social ills, from runaway children to the neglected elderly, are due to the fact that women have left their “rightful” place in the home. Such arguments are simplistic and wrongheaded but women are especially vulnerable to the accusation that if society has problems, it’s because women aren’t nurturing enough.”
—Grace Baruch (20th century)
“Gorgonised me from head to foot,
With a stony British stare.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“The earliest instinct of the child, and the ripest experience of age, unite in affirming simplicity to be the truest and profoundest part for man. Likewise this simplicity is so universal and all-containing as a rule for human life, that the subtlest bad man, and the purest good man, as well as the profoundest wise man, do all alike present it on that side which they socially turn to the inquisitive and unscrupulous world.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)