ts, 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
separation from Great Britain. There was nothing in the sphere of
practical interest, he insisted, which should bind the colonies to the
mother country. Allegiance to her had been responsible for the many wars
in which they had been involved. Reasons of trade were not less weighty
in behalf of independence. "Our corn will fetch its price in any market
in Europe and our imported goods must be paid for, buy them where we
will." As to matters of government, "it is not in the power of Britain
to do this continent justice; the business of it will soon be too
weighty and intricate to be managed with any tolerable degree of
convenience by a power so distant from us and so very ignorant of us."

There is accordingly no alternative to independence for America.
"Everything that is right or natural pleads for separation. The blood of
the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries ''tis time to part.' ...
Arms, the last resort, must decide the contest; the appeal was the
choice of the king and the continent hath accepted the challenge.... The
sun never shone on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the affair of a
city, a county, a province or a kingdom, but of a continent.... 'Tis not
the concern of a day, a year or an age; posterity is involved in the
contest and will be more or less affected to the end of time by the
proceedings now. Now is the seed-time of Continental union, faith, and
honor.... O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only the
tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth.... Let names of Whig and Tory be
extinct. Let none other be heard among us than those of a good citizen,
an open and resolute friend, and a virtuous supporter of the rights of
mankind and of the free and independent states of America." As more than
100,000 copies were scattered broadcast over the country, patriots
exclaimed with Washington: "Sound doctrine and unanswerable reason!"

=The Drift of Events toward Independence.=--Official support for the
idea of independence began to come from many quarters. On the tenth of
February, 1776, Gadsden, in the provincial convention of South Carolina,
advocated a new