What is Thomas Paine's message in The American Crisis?
Paine published The American Crisis No. 1, by far the most famous of the pamphlet series, in December of 1776, a time in which American fortunes in the Revolutionary War were at a low ebb. This was the time when the Americans had been driven from the vicinity of New York City after the campaign on Long Island, a campaign from which George Washington and his forces narrowly escaped total destruction. Additionally, the enlistment terms of many in the Continental Army were up on January 1, which meant that Washington's army, already outmanned, was threatened with disintegration with morale very low. So Paine's American Crisis was intended to be a sort of rallying cry for the Americans, both on the home front and among the Continental Army especially, to whom Washington had it read aloud.
Paine is basically urging Americans to continue fighting the good fight against the British. He opens by acknowledging that "these are the times that try mens' souls," and urges Americans to regard this as a challenge to be overcome rather than a source of disillusionment or despair:
The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
He goes on to argue, basically, that the Americans cannot lose, because they are in the right, and God favors the right. But the fight will be long and difficult, because "tyranny, like Hell, is not easily overcome." To demonstrate that Providence is in favor of the Americans, he offers the Continental Army's narrow escape from Long Island as an example, praising the army's "manly and martial spirit" in the retreat, conducted by Washington, who he compares favorably to great European military leaders.
The last part of the essay is somewhat less uplifting. In it, he urges firmness in dealing with the many Loyalists that populate Pennsylvania and the South. He points out that the war could be financed by confiscating their property and states his wish that these enemies of the Revolution should be expelled from the continent. Finally, after restating his belief that the Americans will, in the end, win independence, he offers a nightmarish alternative, predicting that, if they win, the British will not deal mercifully with American rebels. Even ordinary Americans will find their homes and families ravaged by the British and their Hessian allies.
In short, Paine seeks to steel the American people for the sacrifices he knows are coming soon. The American Crisis is a famous piece of wartime propaganda by a master of the art.
Further Reading
What is Thomas Paine's overall message to the troops in The Crisis?
The Crisis was a series of essays by Paine intended to, in short, rally the Continental troops who had suffered a series of defeats at the hands of the British. The army seemed likely to disintegrate through both expired enlistments and desertions, not to mention the ever-present possibility that they would be destroyed by the British Army. Philadelphia had been captured, and the future of George Washington as commander of the Continental Army seemed in doubt. Paine argued that the British army was nowhere near as strong as people believed, and that the privations and hardships suffered by the Continental Army were worth it when considering the ultimate prize of liberty:
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.
The Crisis consisted of several essays, but the first, written in the winter of 1776, is the most famous. It was in this piece that he laid out the basic themes of the rest. He accused Tories of cowardice, argued that the British government, like all monarchies, was thoroughly corrupt, and continued to paint the conflict as a contest between good and evil in which the Americans would inevitably prevail, if only they would persist in the struggle.
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Further Reading