In comparing the works “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine and Letters from an American Farmer by J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur the reader is shown two sides of what is to become the United States: the ideal, and the actual. The contrast between these two is what helps to define early Americanism as shaped by what is was meant to be and what it actually was during the founding of this new country. It is Paine who set out to encourage what he felt was an inevitable independence from England to form a country founded on the natural rights of man, but is Crevecoeur who puts Paine’s idea of natural law into a practical application in society, through his narration of a ‘typical’ American farmer. Through both these works we see that that underlying theme is the desire for natural rights, but the interpretation of how these natural rights will maintain the virtuousness of America is what ultimately divides these two authors.
The idea of natural rights and natural law were not new ideas to the time. In fact, Paine’s conception of a government upon a “principle in nature” and “the simple voice of nature and of reason” echoed ideas that were put forth by John Locke (Paine 9). Locke’s political theories were quite popular during the American revolutionary period even with Thomas Jefferson, who later included these same ideas to form the basis of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Natural law is distinct from divine law in that it relies on man’s reason alone to determine laws, not divine command, and this distinction was important to recognize, especially since the King of English derived his power through the divine law of the Anglican Church. It is the king that resides at the heart of the complaints of the colonists, and the call for independence relies on this desire for guidance not based on divine law, but that is based on the laws natural world, and what man can reason.
England and her king are vilified with the claim that the laws of England were encroaching on American’s right to self-governance and open-market commerce. These rights, Paine argues, are natural because they are universal rights, of every man the world over:
The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind…The laying a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring war against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling. (6)
Paine considers freedom of religion, property, and personal liberty to be staples of natural rights (43) and he believes that all men are naturally entitled to these things that are being stripped away by the aristocracy of England. He blames England for depriving America of the ability to give her people what they need, namely the freedom to set up a government, to practice religion freely, to trade in an open market, to have representation in a government they are being taxed by, and to have due course of the law to petition for those shortcomings of the English government. Each of these needs contribute to America’s dissatisfaction with belonging to the English nation, and Paine attempts to build a case for revolution based on these needs, and other sources of perceived injustice.
Paine then gives the reader an explanation of how a self-governing American republic would operate, putting special emphasis on the independence of the American nation. This independence is as natural as the laws, he claims, that will make her successful:
…there is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island. In no instance hath nature made the satellite larger than its primary planet, and as to England and America, with respect to each other, reverses the common order of nature, it is evident they belong to different systems: England to Europe, America to itself. (28)
Robert A. Ferguson looks at the popular reaction to this new scope of government in his essay “The Commonalities of Common Sense” when he discusses the implications of this new, independent identity that Americans were considering for the first time:
The implications for Americans choosing between their king and their independence were mesmerizing. You could be fallen and naturally depraved and, thereby, subject to the crown under previous historical conceptions of identity, or you could find yourself to be socially integrated in your natural goodness and therefore, deserving of ever greater dimensions of freedom. (479)
Independence is more than just the absurd notions of a displaced Englishman trying to stir trouble in the American colonies. It is the statement of people who are rational enough to realize that they have rights beyond those given by the crown, and are willing to seize those rights through the unity of their stance as a country. “In short, Independence is the only BOND that can tye and keep us together. We shall then see our object, and our ears will be legally shut against the intriguing, as well, as a cruel enemy” (Paine 53).
Crevecoeur recognized America as the testing ground for several new theories of social order that were rising up from the people must like the farmer’s crops were raising from the soil. Elayne Rapping writes in her article “Theory and Experience in Crevecoeur’s America” that:
…agrarian democracy was an ideal social structure, for it allowed man to live in a middle state between primitive savagery and overly complex civilization…The American continent…was an ideal setting in which to bring the model to life; and so the establishment of a perfect society became an actual possibility for the first time in history. (708)
In the spirit of this seemingly perfect model of natural law, Crevecoeur’s third letter “What is an American?” presents this ideal nation built upon the very idealistic foundations that Paine proposes in his pamphlet. He brags of a nation that is “…the most perfect society now existing the world. Here man is free as he ought to be, nor is this pleasing equality so transitory as many others are” (67). As evidence, he describes a society “not composed…of great lords who possess everything and of a herd of people who have nothing,” which also lacks titles, having “no courts, no kings, no bishops, no ecclesiastical dominion,” and where “the rich and the poor are not so far removed from each other” (67).
Like Paine’s emphasis of natural law over divine law, Crevecoeur downplays the role of religion as a major force in the colonies. He describes a generational gap, where religious zeal is lost as the younger generations learn instead to embrace the “imperfect education” of a mixed-religious family (75). This is important to note from the text, because it is religious zeal that keeps most English tied to the crown, as the symbol of the Anglican religion. “James” is a perfect model for Paine’s new America, and he embodies all of the assumptions that one would have to make about a perfect American citizen. James is a working freeholder, who relies on his reason and industry to be a success. He has faith in human reason, and belief in simple and just laws based on the natural order of the world without zealous ties to a crushing religious influence (Rapping 709).
Despite the high hopes for these new ways of governance, there are subtle doubts expressed through the letters of James’ travels through the American landscape, especially in his letter “On Charles Town and Slavery.” This letter shows a perversion of the natural laws to the fullest extent:
…the poison of slavery, the fury of despotism, and the rage of the superstition are all combined against man! There only the few live and rule, whilst the many starve and utter ineffectual complaints; there human nature appears more debased, perhaps, than in the less favoured climates. (176)
Elayne Rapping extends this observation by pointing out that “Farmer James becomes confused and dismayed as he tries to interpret behavior in Charles Town in terms of his model…here reason, self-interest, and natural law lead to gross inequity and cruelty rather than peace, because human instinct is vicious instead of virtuous” (711). Instead of an ideal society built on natural laws, and reason, Crevecoeur shifts into a vision of humanity twisted into selfish, heartless individuals who are using a subservient race to keep their own in power.
It is realized with these later letters that the natural laws have the same flaws of those divine laws of Europe that Paine turns away from in “Common Sense.” The same individuality that is so revered in “Common Sense” is shown to be inadequate against the passions of man, which “must forever oppose his happiness” (Crevecoeur 174). In contrast to this call for independence is how Crevecoeur identifies that man “cannot live in solitude; he must belong to some community bound by some ties, however imperfect” (201). This skepticism of independence that Crevecoeur expresses does not necessarily mean that he intended America to throw down its weapon and succumb to British rule. Instead he is simple giving these new “Americans” a clearer portrait of the nation that they will have once they are independent, and he is proposing that independence from England should not mean independence among brethren: the very survival of America will rely on its own unity as a nation.
Both authors, as foreigners, show America from a perspective that would not otherwise be captured by an American-born citizen. They both are trying to create a better America, Paine through the use of propaganda to support his cause of independence, and Crevecoeur by pointing out the flaws in what was then a budding American culture. Natural rights as men are the focus of their writing because that is what they feel is lacking in the European strategies of government. Robert Ferguson explains Paine’s insight into American reasoning when he writes:
Paine, the disenchanted Englishman, knew what American colonials could never quite admit to themselves as imperial subjects in need of a useable past. He saw that a belief in monarchy was the mortal enemy of common sense in representative government and that it had to be answered directly. (480)
Even the name “Common Sense” implies that reliance on reason alone would lead the reader to the same conclusions that Paine is drawing from his rhetoric, and common sense would dictate that the rationality of man is more than adequate to maintain a healthy nation independent of the unnatural leadership of monarchy.
It is also of great significance that the authors of these works that help to shape the definition of an American, are themselves outsiders to the culture. As James says,
He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds…Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.” (Crevecoeur 70)
The act of someone born on foreign soil, of foreign citizenship writing these words gives truth to the very meaning of them. It is the same with Paine: a European creating an acceptable definition of what it is to be an American only confirms that there is an acceptance of those who do not belong in Europe, and in not belonging they are themselves defining America.
This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe…In this extensive quarter of the globe, we forget the narrow limits…and claim our friendship on a larger scale; we claim brotherhood with every European Christian, and triumph in the generosity of the sentiment. (Paine 23)
Through the contrast of these two works a definition is generated of what it is to be an American in early America, and the definition comes not from what is said, but from what is not said. Paine wants to inspire Americans to take pride in the rare opportunity they have to found a country based on the natural rights of all men, and not on the divine right of one man as it is in a monarchy. In contrast, Crevecoeur shows the reality of such laws in action, and we realize that this natural law is not the ideal that it seems to be. What we are left with is what is in between the ideal and actual: man’s natural rights, with a government that has power enough to enforce the law, but also the reason and foresight to realize that founding a new nation is not easy and will not always be ideal, but the virtue that will come from the foundation will serve to create a great nation if it can become unified in its cause.
Crevecoeur, J. Hector St. John. Letters from an American Farmer. New York: Penguin Group (USA), 1986.
Ferguson, Robert A. “The Commonalities of Common Sense.” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 57, No. 3 (Jul., 2000): 465-504. Published by: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2674263.
Jefferson, Thomas. “The Declaration of Independence.” The U.S. National Archives & Records Administration. www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html.
Paine, Thomas. “Common Sense.” In Collected Writings, ed. Eric Foner. New York: Library of America, 1995.
Rapping, Elayne Antler. “ Theory and Experience in Crevecoeur’s America.” American Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Winter, 1967): 707-718. Published by: The John Hopkins University Press, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2710897.
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