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WorkThomas Paine

The American Crisis

Sixteen papers written through a whole war, the first rushed into print in Philadelphia days before Washington attacked Trenton.

by Thomas Paine290 passages held

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First published
(aged 39)
Original language
English

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Overview

A story first printed in 1809, in a hostile biography by the journalist James Cheetham, holds that George Washington had the first Crisis paper read aloud to his army before it crossed the Delaware to attack Trenton. No soldier's account confirms the reading, and neither Washington nor Paine ever mentioned one. The documented story is dramatic enough on its own: Thomas Paine had retreated across New Jersey with the defeated Continental Army as an aide to General Nathanael Greene, left for Philadelphia in early December 1776 to finish the paper, and had it in print before Christmas, days before the attack. It argued that a cause is measured by who stays with it while it is losing; that loyalists who sat at home hoping for a quiet life were serving the enemy; and that the retreat had cost the army ground, not the war. Paine kept writing these papers for more than six years, signing each one "Common Sense". Twelve more numbered papers and three extra ones followed, addressed by turns to Americans, to the British commander Lord Howe, to the people of England and to the Earl of Shelburne, Britain's prime minister, whom Paine told that no hope of reconquest remained. One, "The Crisis Extraordinary", is a plain case for paying taxes to fund the war. From February 1782 the pen was also a paid one: Washington and Robert Morris, the Superintendent of Finance, arranged a secret government stipend so that Paine would keep arguing for the revenue the army needed. The last numbered paper appeared on 19 April 1783, eight years to the day after the first shots of the war at Lexington, and told its readers the war was over.

Key concepts

What makes a moment a crisis, in the sense of these papers?

A crisis is the moment that sorts a cause's real supporters from its passengers. Paine issued a paper whenever the war's news called for one, and the first opens in the worst hour of 1776, after a retreat. Such moments, he argues, are not only dangers to be survived; they are tests, and a cause is measured by who stays with it while it is losing.

What does Paine mean by saying the retreat cost ground, not the war?

That a war is lost only when the people fighting it give it up. The army had been driven across New Jersey, and the first paper concedes the lost territory while denying that territory decides the outcome. What decides it is whether the people behind the army keep supporting it, which is why the paper spends its force less on the soldiers' position than on the resolve of the citizens reading it.

Why must a free people tax itself, according to The American Crisis?

Because independence that cannot be paid for does not last. In "The Crisis Extraordinary" Paine makes a plain case for paying taxes to fund the war, to readers who had learned to see taxation as the enemy's weapon. The distinction he needs is between a tax imposed from outside and one a people lays on itself for its own defence: the first was the grievance, the second is the cost of self-government.

Why did Paine address some Crisis papers to Britain's own leaders?

Because a war ends when the side paying for it concludes it cannot win, and Paine meant to hasten that conclusion. He wrote to Lord Howe, to the people of England and to the Earl of Shelburne, Britain's prime minister, telling him no hope of reconquest remained. These papers treat the enemy as people who can be reasoned with, and the reasoning is that continuing costs more than it could ever buy.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Who Stays With a Cause While It Is Losing

What is a cause worth to the people who hold it when it is losing? Paine's measure is who stays, and he counts those who wait at home for a quiet life as serving the enemy.

The first paper was finished in December 1776, after Paine had retreated across New Jersey with a beaten army, and it refuses to read the retreat as a verdict: the army had lost ground, not the war. The test of a cause falls in its worst hour, when support costs something. Paine turned the same test on the loyalists who sat at home hoping to be left alone. Their quiet was not neutrality, because a war is decided by who is willing to stand in it.

  • war
  • political independence
  • independence
  • perseverance
  • courage
  • civic duty
  • resistance
  • political loyalty
  • collective action
  • moral responsibility
  • political unity
  • public opinion
  • tyranny
  • conquest
  • military strategy
  • justice

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Taxes as the Price of Self-Government

A people that refused Britain's taxes now had to tax itself, so what makes the second burden legitimate when the first was not? And does an argument change when the government pays for it?

A war fought over taxation still had to be paid for, and Paine did not pretend otherwise. "The Crisis Extraordinary" makes a plain case for paying taxes to fund the war, addressed to citizens who had learned to see every levy as an imposition. From February 1782 the argument had a paymaster: Washington and Robert Morris, the Superintendent of Finance, arranged a secret stipend so that Paine would keep arguing for the revenue the army needed. The later papers raise a question they never state, whether a case changes when its author is paid to make it.

  • taxation
  • public finance
  • political economy
  • self-government
  • federalism
  • political legitimacy
  • political authority

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Telling the Enemy the War Was Lost

Can an argument end a war that armies have not yet ended? Paine wrote to Lord Howe, to the people of England and to their prime minister as if it could.

Not every paper was written for Americans. Paine addressed Lord Howe, the British commander, then the people of England, then the Earl of Shelburne, Britain's prime minister, whom he told that no hope of reconquest remained. The aim was to reach the other side's own reasoning and show those running the war that what they were paying for could not be bought. The series closed where the war had opened: the last numbered paper appeared on 19 April 1783, eight years to the day after Lexington, and told its readers the war was over.

  • war and peace
  • peace
  • imperialism
  • diplomacy
  • alliances
  • political rhetoric
  • political judgment

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Within this work

passages held
290
distinct concepts
496
by passages held, corpus-wide
#259

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “public finance” and “taxation”.
Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 16 pairings. 92 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
ConceptPaired conceptShared passages
public financetaxation16
military strategywar9
political judgmentwar6
political independencewar5
independencetaxation3
independencewar3
military strategypolitical judgment3
taxationwar3
independencemilitary strategy2
political independencepolitical judgment2
public financewar2
independencepolitical judgment1
independencepublic finance1
justicewar1
military strategypolitical independence1
military strategypublic finance1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

  1. 1776 Common Sense

    The book that made Paine's name, so much so that he signed the Crisis papers of the following years with its title.

     EN
  2. 1776 The American Crisis you are here EN
  3. 1782 Letter Addressed to the Abbé Raynal on the Affairs of North-America (Letter to the Abbe Raynal)

    Ten months after the victory at Yorktown, with the war winding down, Paine set out to put the record of the Revolution straight for European readers.

     EN
  4. 1791 Rights of Man

    Paine's contribution to the pamphlet war that Burke's Reflections set off in Britain; the writer Mary Wollstonecraft had answered Burke first, in November 1790.

     EN
  5. 1793 Reasons for Wishing to Preserve the Life of Louis Capet (Reasons for Preserving the Life of Louis Capet)

    Second of the three speeches Paine gave in the Convention on the king's fate: the first, in November 1792, argued that Louis should be tried; the last pleaded for a reprieve.

     EN
  6. 1794 The Age of Reason

    Between the two stretches in which it was written, Paine spent ten months in a Paris prison; it is his one sustained book on religion, and the one that cost him most.

     EN
  7. 1795 Dissertation on First Principles of Government

    Here Paine's political principles are condensed into a few dozen pages, in his last attempt to shape a French constitution from inside the Convention.

     EN
  8. 1797 Agrarian Justice

    Published in answer to a bishop's sermon on rich and poor, it carries the welfare proposals of Rights of Man to a principle: that the landless are owed a share of the earth.

     EN
  9. 1797 The Existence of God

    Addressed to the Theophilanthropists, the Paris society whose creed matched Paine's own, it gives the positive side of the case that The Age of Reason made against revealed religion.

     EN
  10. 1807 Examination of the Prophecies

    A companion to The Age of Reason, giving the Gospels' use of prophecy the same close reading that its second part gave the authorship of the Bible.

     EN
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