1 / 25

American Culture I

American Culture I. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (1776) Thomas Jefferson’s The Declaration of Independence (1776). From 1757 to 1774 he was, by turns, a corset maker, a tobacconist and grocer, a schoolteacher, and an exciseman (a government employee who taxed goods). Thomas Paine (1737-1809).

jsophia
Download Presentation

American Culture I

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. American Culture I Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (1776) Thomas Jefferson’s The Declaration of Independence (1776)

  2. From 1757 to 1774 he was, by turns, a corset maker, a tobacconist and grocer, a schoolteacher, and an exciseman (a government employee who taxed goods). Thomas Paine (1737-1809) Paine’s writing style: “plainness”. He said he needed no “ceremonious expressions”. “It is my design”, he wrote, “to make those who can scarcely read understand”, to put arguments in a language “as plain as the alphabet”, and to shape everything “to fit the powers of thinking and the turn of language to the subject, so as to bring out a clear conclusion that shall hit the point in question and nothing else”. Philadelphia, in 1774. Journalist, anonymous author of Common Sense, pamphlet urging immediate independence from the British crown.

  3. Common: community, public. Sense: sensible, reasonable, good judgment. Common Sense (1776) introduction The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will, arise which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all lovers of mankind are affected, and in the event of which their affections are interested.

  4. from III. THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF AMERICAN AFFAIRS Common Sense (1776) FROM ARGUMENTS TO ARMS In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense. […] The subject of the struggle between England and American. […] but all have been ineffectual, and the period of debate is closed. Arms as the last resource decide the contest; the appeal was the choice of the King, and the continent has accepted the challenge.

  5. A HUGE STEP FOR THE CONTINENT Common Sense (1776) The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. ‘Tis not the affair of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom; but of a continent – of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe. ‘Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honor.

  6. reconciliation Common Sense (1776) Separation […] the advantages of reconciliation […] it is but right that we should examine the contrary side of the argument, and inquire into some of the many material injuries which these colonies sustain, and always will sustain, by being connected with and dependent on Great Britain. […] on the principles of nature and common sense, to see what we have to trust to, if separated, and what we are to expect, if dependent.

  7. Common Sense (1776) But she has protected us, say some. […] we have boasted the protection of Great Britain without considering that her motive was interest not attachment. […] and we should be at peace with France and Spain, were they at war with Britain. The miseries of Hanover’s last war ought to warn us against connections. […] the same connection is necessary towards her future happiness, […] for I answer roundly, that America would have flourished as much, and probably much more, had no European power taken any notice of her. The commerce by which she hath enriched herself are the necessaries of life, and will always have a market while eating is the custom of Europe.

  8. Common Sense (1776) […] English descent […]. The first King of England of the present line (William the Conqueror) was a Frenchman, and half the peers of England are descendants from the same country; wherefore, by the same method of reasoning, England ought to be governed by France. But Britain is the parent country, say some. […] Europe, and not England, is the parent country of American. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster.

  9. Commerce Leads to Peace Common Sense (1776) Besides, what have we to do with setting the world at defiance? Our plan is commerce, and that, well attended to, will secure us the peace and friendship of all Europe […]. As Europe is our market for trade, we ought to form no partial connection with any part of it. It is the true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions, which she never can do, while, by her dependence on Britain, she is made the makeweight in the scale of British politics.

  10. Those Who Stand for Reconciliation Are… Common Sense (1776) […] that all those who espouse the doctrine of reconciliation may be included within the following descriptions: (1)Interested men who are not be trusted, (2) weak men who cannot see (3) prejudiced men who will not see, (4)and a certain set of moderate men who think better of the European world than it deserves - and this last class, by an ill-judged deliberation, will be the cause of more calamities to this continent than all the other three.

  11. Common Sense (1776) But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of acoward, and the spirit of a sycophant.

  12. Good guys X Bad guys Common Sense (1776) Ye that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, can ye restore to us the time that is past? Can ye give to prostitution its former innocence? Neither can ye reconcile Britain and America. […] The robber and the murderer would often escape unpunished, did not the injuries which our tempers sustain provoke us into justice. Ye that oppose independence now, ye know not what ye do: ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny by keeping vacant the seat of government. There are thousands and tens of thousands, who would think it glorious to expel from the continent that barbarous and hellish power, which hath stirred up the Indians and the Negroes to destroy us;

  13. 3rd President of the United States First secretary of states Minister to France Governor of Virginia, and congressman Bought Louisiana from France, in 1803 Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) He once said that he wished to be remembered for only three things: (1)drafting the Declaration of Independence, (2) writing and supporting the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786), (3) and founding the University of Virginia (1819).

  14. on June 11, 1776, he (Virginia) was appointed to join Benjamin Franklin (Pennsylvania), John Adams (Massachusetts), Roger Sherman Connecticut), and Robert Livingston (New York) in drafting a declaration of independence. Although committee members made suggestions, the draft was very much Jefferson’s own. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) Critics say Jefferson was unhappy with the changes made by Congress to his draft, and rightly so; for congressional changes went contrary to some of his basic arguments. […] and he wished to include a strong statement against slavery. Although he had argued for the freedom of slaves, he kept the same prejudices as most of his contemporaries in the colonies, and then the United States as a whole.

  15. FOREWORD The Declaration of Independence (1776) As the sentiments of men are known not only by what they receive, but what they reject also, I will state the form of the Declaration as originally reported. The parts struck out by Congress shall be distinguished by a black line drawn under them, and those inserted by them shall be placed in the margin, or in a concurrent column. The clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it.

  16. Semantic Choices A DECLARATION BY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN GENERAL CONGRESS ASSEMBLED despotism, tyranny, tyrants, injuries, usurpations, forbidden, refused, dissolved, endeavored to prevent, harass, obstructed, plundered, ravaged, destroyed, works of death, desolation, cruelty, perfidy, etc.

  17. The Declaration of Independence (1776) […] the consent of the governed; […] government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. […] under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

  18. The American Dream

  19. Reasons to Claim for Independence The Declaration of Independence (1776) He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguishable destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

  20. Excerpt: Against Slavery The Declaration of Independence (1776) He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of lie and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither […].

  21. The United States of America: From Colonies to Independent States The Declaration of Independence (1776) We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled, […] these united colonies are, of right ought to be free and independent states; […] and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be totally dissolved, and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent stats may of right do.

More Related