t measure, a protest against American chauvinism
and the violation of international obligations. "It has been said the
world ought to rejoice if Britain was sunk in the sea; if where there
are now men and wealth and laws and liberty there was no more than a
sand-bank for sea-monsters to fatten on; space for the storms of the
ocean to mingle in conflict. . . . What is patriotism? Is it a narrow
affection for the spot where a man was born? Are the very clods where
we tread entitled to this ardent preference because they are
greener? . . . I see no exception to the respect that is paid among
nations to the law of good faith. . . . It is observed by
barbarians--a whiff of tobacco-smoke or a string of beads gives not
merely binding force but sanctity to treaties. Even in Algiers a truce
may be bought for money, but, when ratified, even Algiers is too wise
or too just to disown and annul its obligation." Ames was a scholar,
and his speeches are more finished and thoughtful, more _literary_, in
a way, than those of his contemporaries. His eulogiums on Washington
and Hamilton are elaborate tributes, rather excessive, perhaps, in
laudation and in classical allusions. In all the oratory of the
Revolutionary period there is nothing equal in deep and condensed
energy of feeling to the single clause in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address,
"that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in
vain."

A prominent figure during and after the War of the Revolution was
Thomas Paine, or, as he was somewhat disrespectfully called, "Tom
Paine." He was a dissenting minister who, conceiving himself
ill-treated by the British government, came to Philadelphia in 1774 and
threw himself heart and soul into the colonial cause. His pamphlet,
_Common Sense_, issued in 1776, began with the famous words, "These are
the times that try men's souls." This was followed by the _Crisis_, a
series of political essays advocating independence and the
establishment of a republic, published in periodical form, though at
irregular intervals. Paine's rough and vigorous advocacy was of great
service to the American patriots. His writings were popular and his
arguments were of a kind easily understood by plain people, addressing
themselves to the common sense, the prejudices and passions of
unlettered readers. He afterward went to France and took an active
part in the popular movement there, crossing swords with Burke in his
_Rights of Man_,