In just a few months, we’ll be celebrating the 250th declaration of our independence – what was literally “No King” day.
The thing we overlook, though, is that about six months before that occurred, many of our predecessors were not at all convinced that independence was necessary or even a good idea. Many felt they just needed more consideration of their concerns from their king and parliament, but not total separation. Sure, they had been unfairly taxed and there were unsympathetic soldiers being quartered in their homes. They’d even fought with their king’s troops at Lexington and Concord and on Bunker Hill, but that was just to demonstrate their serious dissatisfaction with the treatment they’d received, and they didn’t want anyone patrolling their cities and towns. After all, uprisings had occurred before — remember that tea dumping fiasco? — but those problems had been resolved and life had gone on.
Then, in January of that year, something happened that changed the course of our history. A man named Thomas Paine, who had actually been born in England and had been in the colonies for less than two years, published a 46-page pamphlet called “Common Sense.” Even to say it struck like a lightning bolt is too mild an assessment. It was written clearly and directly, so everyone could understand the message — and the message was that American independence was not only a good idea, but in light of the treatment the colonies had suffered, which was sure to continue, it was the only course of action that could produce the results the colonies hoped for to satisfy their concerns. Printing after printing sold out immediately and copies were passed from hand to hand, as though it was a new gospel that had arrived from someplace above. Almost instantly, the population was radicalized and independence was on the lips of people who wouldn’t have spoken the word just a few weeks before.
Of course, the rest has become our national creation history, but Paine wasn’t finished yet. Despite his overnight celebrity, he enlisted as a private with Washington’s army that ended up being chased across New Jersey and into Pennsylvania by the British and their Hessian mercenaries. It got so bad that by the end of 1776, the American rebellion looked nearly hopeless and on the verge of collapse. Washington’s largely ragtag troops were cold and hungry and without shoes, and many of them who had signed up for limited terms were heading home to their families and farms. Washington sensed his army was simply evaporating from one day to the next.
Then somehow lightning struck again — and again it was Paine’s doing. He gave Washington another piece he had written called “The American Crisis.” It began with words we all know, though we may be unsure where they came from or what the context was: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” It went on: “The summer soldier and 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. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph: ’Tis dearness only that gives every thing its value.” Washington made sure his soldiers heard the challenge; there were reports that he’d read it to them himself.
Again, the electricity shocked those who were ready to abandon the cause, and many who had given up and even started for home were convinced to make one last stand. That took place on Christmas night, when Washington led the men across the Delaware in a blizzard and routed the unsuspecting Hessians who were holding Trenton. They moved on from there to take Princeton, and just enough optimism took hold that the cause wasn’t lost. Yes, there were still defeats and hardships ahead, but the revolutionary spirit held — and here we are.
These should be our questions: “Where are those voices among us today? Who is willing to risk everything to stand up against tyranny and repression right here at home? If not for this cause, then for which one? If not now, then when?”
L. Phillips Runyon III has practiced law in Peterborough for 50 years and was the presiding justice of the 8th Circuit Court for 27 years.