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:
“Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“There is no assurance of the great fact in question [namely, immortality]. All the arguments are mere probabilities, analogies, fancies, whims. We believe, or disbelieve, or are in doubt according to our own make-up—to accidents, to education, to environment. For myself, I do not reach either faith or belief ... that I—the conscious person talking to you—will meet you in the world beyond—you being yourself a conscious person—the same person now reading what I say.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“They have to prove their superiority every day. It’s their one tremendous weakness.”
—Edmund H. North, British screenwriter, and Lewis Gilbert. Captain Shepard (Kenneth More)
“The condition that gives birth to a rule is not the same as the condition to which the rule gives birth.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)