If you call yourself a “patriot” or American, you would likely know of a man named Thomas Paine. He was a man who authored two of the most influential pamphlets in 1776, leading up to the American Revolution for independence against the British. One titled “Common Sense” and another titled “The American Crises.” He not only defended American independence, he also advocated for French independence, with his work “The Rights of Man” in 1791. His work was so influential and he also challenged mainstream religion and Christianity with Deism, leading to his arrest in 1793, though another American founding father, James Monroe, would help to free him.
Later in his life, he found himself at odds with America’s first president and founding father, George Washington, whom he called a hypocrite for several reasons, as well as the American constitution with it’s numerous problems that others such as Patrick Henry spoke openly about, though labeled as “Anti-Federalist” and attacked or censored at the time. (Detailed in our article on “The Shady History of the Constitution”) This parallels to exactly what prominent abolitionists in the 19th century, such as William Lloyd Garrison and Lysander Spooner were pointing out. They saw a government claiming that everyone was equal, or that people should be protected, as a hypocritical system creating the inequality and insecurity they claim to prevent. Similarly, Thomas Paine went even further in his fundamental understanding of the nature of government.
First, Paine shares with us how public opinion and moral suasion is the real determinant of our future, emphasizing cultural and social changes or education, similar to what Abolitionists like Josiah Warren and Adin Ballou talked about:
“It is to the great and fundamental principles of society and civilization — to the common usage universally consented to, and mutually and reciprocally maintained — to the unceasing circulation of interest, which, passing through its million channels, invigorates the whole mass of civilized man — it is to these things, infinitely more than to anything which even the best instituted government can perform, that the safety and prosperity of the individual and of the whole depends.” “Reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think.”
Second, Paine details the common historic problem of assuming man has a “right to rule” over his fellow man, and the problem with working to try and better government:
“Under how many subtilties or absurdities has the divine right to govern been imposed on the credulity of mankind?” “It is by distortedly exalting some men that others are distortedly debased, till the whole is out of nature. A vast mass of mankind are degradedly thrown into the background of the human picture, to bring forward with greater glare the puppet-show of state and aristocracy... To reason with governments, as they have existed for ages, is to argue with brutes.”
Third, most shockingly, Paine details how with the foundation of America, there was a period of time in which no government existed, and yet there was peace. This helps us understand the fundamentals of voluntaryism, or philosophical anarchism, as more specifically detailed by the American Abolitionists.:
“For upwards of two years from the commencement of the American War, and to a longer period in several of the American States, there were no established forms of government. The old governments had been abolished, and the country was too much occupied in defence to employ its attention in establishing new governments; yet during this interval order and harmony were preserved as inviolate as in any country in Europe. There is a natural aptness in man, and more so in society, because it embraces a greater variety of abilities and resource, to accommodate itself to whatever situation it is in. The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act: a general association takes place, and common interest produces common security.”
Now, think about the following American founding father quotes in relation to what Thomas Paine has said and reflect on the fact that modern America is not a place of freedom, as evident by the taxation, the permits, the endless laws, the illegality of plants like Cannabis or foods like Raw Milk, the FDA raids on farmers happening to this day or the history of the Federal Reserve etc. Starting with Thomas Jefferson, who was attacked by the influential pro-slavery pro-government advocate George Fitzhugh:
“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.” “I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.” Similarly, Benjamin Franklin stated “Any society that will give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
How about these powerful words from Edmund Burke, who was from Britain, working to achieve peace between the different nations, sympathizing with their concerns but also seeing the big picture and wanting to end slavery:
“Pursuing the same plan of punishing by the denial of the exercise of government to still greater lengths, we wholly abrogated the ancient government of Massachusetts. We were confident that the first feeling, if not the very prospect, of anarchy would instantly enforce a complete submission. The experiment was tried. A new, strange, unexpected face of things appeared. Anarchy is found tolerable. A vast province has now subsisted, and subsisted in a considerable degree of health and vigor for near a twelvemonth, without Governor, without public Council, without judges, without executive magistrates.” Abolitionist Ralph Waldo Emerson paralleled this saying “Massachusetts, in its heroic day, had no government – was an anarchy. Every man stood on his own feet, was his own governor; and there was no breach of peace from Cape Cod to Mount Hoosac.”
Furthermore, perhaps there is a reason why we don’t hear about these quotes, or ask of how they relate to our current world. Perhaps there is a reason why the rulers of the world do not engage with philosophy, but certainly engage with hidden psychology in order to further manipulate others. Freedom is order, but they’d rather do everything in their power, literally, to help you see that it is chaos to live in perpetual fear and denial of it.
Learn more about the nature of slavery and freedom in my book: https://theliberator.us/book