The American Crisis No. X

On the Present State of Affairs in America

The American Crisis by Thomas Paine
Published March 5, 1782

Of all the innocent passions which actuate the human mind, there is none more universally prevalent than curiosity. It reaches all mankind, and in matters which concern us, or concern us not, it alike provokes in us a desire to know them.

Although the situation of America, superior to every effort to enslave her and daily rising to importance and opulence, has placed her above the region of anxiety, it has still left her within the circle of curiosity. Her fancy to see the speech of a man who had proudly threatened to bring her to his feet was visibly marked with that tranquil confidence which cared nothing about its contents. It was inquired after with a smile, read with a laugh, and dismissed with disdain.

But, as justice is due even to an enemy, it is right to say that the speech is as well managed as the embarrassed condition of their affairs could well admit of; and though hardly a line of it is true, except the mournful story of Cornwallis, it may serve to amuse the deluded commons and people of England, for whom it was calculated.

“The war,” says the speech, “is still unhappily prolonged by that restless ambition which first excited our enemies to commence it.” How easy it is to abuse truth and language, when men, by habitual wickedness, have learned to set justice at defiance.

That the very man who began the war, who with the most sullen insolence refused to answer, and even to hear the humblest of all petitions, who has encouraged his officers and his army in the most savage cruelties and scandalous plunderings, who has stirred up the Indians on one side and the enslaved on the other, and invoked every aid of hell in his behalf, should now, with an affected air of pity, turn the tables from himself and charge to another the wickedness that is his own, can only be equaled by the baseness of the heart that spoke it.

Source: ushistory.org