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Thomas
Paine on War and Taxes
by George F. Smith  On
January 10, 1776 Thomas Paine published Common Sense, the
pamphlet that turned a revolt into a revolution. Only six months later
the Virginia delegation to the Continental Congress proposed that these
colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states -- an
idea that had only a few quiet advocates before Paine spoke out.
Common Sense earned Paine a worldwide reputation. By 1790
he was in Europe, entangling himself in the politics of the French
Revolution and defending it against intellectual attacks.
Edmund Burke, a member of the British Whig party, was alarmed at what he
saw happening in France. Burke had always been suspicious of
government power and years earlier had often urged Parliament to avoid
going to war with the American colonies, saying that “a great many
redcoats will never rule America.”
But on November 1, 1790, Burke published a 350-page book called Reflections
on the Revolution in France, in which he attempted to wake up those
English gentlemen who had no desire to see “their mansions pulled down
and pillaged, their persons abused, insulted, and destroyed.” [1]
Reflections earned Burke praise from his enemies and rebukes from
his fellow Whigs. His old foe George III loved it and encouraged others
to read it. Charles James Fox, once Burke’s “pupil,”
criticized the tome as being in “very bad taste.” [2]
The two men argued in Parliament over it, and Burke ended by terminating
their friendship.
Paine had been Burke’s friend, too, but his mission now was to defend
the French Revolution. He studied Reflections and found
himself agreeing with a great many points, such as Burke’s claim that
“a jealous, ever-waking vigilance” was needed to “guard the
treasure of liberty.” But Burke launched into ad hominen attacks
on various individuals, including Paine, deriding his line from Common
Sense that “government, like dress, is the badge of lost
innocence.” He also ripped the artisan class from which Paine
originated, saying that such occupations cannot be a matter of honor to
those employed in them. Burke made it clear that he preferred
existing states of inequality in society and attacked the ideals of
republican self-government.
Reflections was immensely popular and was finding sympathy in
public replies. Paine knew that his answer to Burke had to be
strong and expressed in a style commensurate with his views. Burke wrote
in the familiar heavy style of the privileged status quo; Paine would
need to write in a manner more fitting for a republican. As with Common
Sense, his goal was to avoid “every literary ornament” and make
his rebuttal “as plain as the alphabet.” [3]
Paine’s reply was Rights of Man, which eventually earned him an
absentia conviction of seditious libel in England. Though parts of it
delve into welfare and social security proposals, there is much in it
that libertarians can treasure. I have extracted some of Paine’s
insights on war and taxation, and present them here for your Fourth of
July enjoyment.
And remember: American wars include those waged against other countries,
as well as the domestic kind, such as the War on Drugs.
From Rights of Man, by Thomas Paine:
To reason with governments, as they have existed for ages, is to argue
with brutes. It is only from the nations themselves that reforms can be
expected.
. . .
Had governments agreed to quarrel on purpose to fleece their countries
by taxes, they could not have succeeded better than they have done.
. . .
[G]overnment seems to be placarding its need of a foe; for unless it
finds one somewhere, no pretext exists for the enormous revenue and
taxation now deemed necessary.
. . .
War is the common harvest of all those who participate in the division
and expenditure of public money, in all countries. It is the art of
conquering at home; the object of it is an increase of revenue; and as
revenue cannot be increased without taxes, a pretense must be made for
expenditure. In reviewing the history of the English Government, its
wars and its taxes, a bystander, not blinded by prejudice nor warped by
interest, would declare that taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but
that wars were raised to carry on taxes.
. . .
[T]he portion of liberty enjoyed in England is just enough to enslave a
country more productively than by despotism, and that as the real object
of all despotism is revenue, a government so formed obtains more than it
could do either by direct despotism, or in a full state of freedom, and
is, therefore on the ground of interest, opposed to both.
. . .
[T]he caterpillar principle of all Courts and Courtiers are alike. They
form a common policy throughout Europe, detached and separate from the
interest of Nations: and while they appear to quarrel, they agree to
plunder.
. . .
Every war terminates with an addition of taxes, and consequently with an
addition of revenue; and in any event of war, in the manner they are now
commenced and concluded, the power and interest of Governments are
increased. War, therefore, from its productiveness, as it easily
furnishes the pretense of necessity for taxes and appointments to places
and offices, becomes a principal part of the system of old Governments;
and to establish any mode to abolish war, however advantageous it might
be to Nations, would be to take from such Government the most lucrative
of its branches.
. . .
It is time to dismiss that inattention which has so long been the
encouraging cause of stretching taxation to excess.
. . .
To say that any people are not fit for freedom, is to make poverty their
choice, and to say they had rather be loaded with taxes than not.
. . .
If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those
which are in an advanced stage of improvement we still find the greedy
hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of
industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is
continually exercised to furnish new pretenses for revenue and taxation.
It watches prosperity as its prey, and permits none to escape without a
tribute.
. . .
Can we possibly suppose that if governments had originated in a right
principle, and had not an interest in pursuing a wrong one, the world
could have been in the wretched and quarrelsome condition we have seen
it? What inducement has the farmer, while following the plough, to lay
aside his peaceful pursuit, and go to war with the farmer of another
country? or what inducement has the manufacturer? What is dominion to
them, or to any class of men in a nation? Does it add an acre to any
man's estate, or raise its value? Are not conquest and defeat each of
the same price, and taxes the never-failing consequence?
. . .
Government, on the old system, is an assumption of power, for the
aggrandizement of itself; on the new, a delegation of power for the
common benefit of society. The former supports itself by keeping up a
system of war; the latter promotes a system of peace, as the true means
of enriching a nation. The one encourages national prejudices; the other
promotes universal society, as the means of universal commerce. The one
measures its prosperity, by the quantity of revenue it extorts; the
other proves its excellence, by the small quantity of taxes it requires.
. . .
It can only be by blinding the understanding of man, and making him
believe that government is some wonderful mysterious thing, that
excessive revenues are obtained. Monarchy is well calculated to ensure
this end. It is the popery of government; a thing kept up to amuse the
ignorant, and quiet them into taxes.
. . .
The government of a free country, properly speaking, is not in the
persons, but in the laws. The enacting of those requires no great
expense; and when they are administered, the whole of civil government
is performed- the rest is all court contrivance.
. . .
Government ought to be as much open to improvement as anything which
appertains to man, instead of which it has been monopolized from age to
age, by the most ignorant and vicious of the human race. Need we any
other proof of their wretched management, than the excess of debts and
taxes with which every nation groans, and the quarrels into which they
have precipitated the world?
. . .
If there is a country in the world where concord, according to common
calculation, would be least expected, it is America. Made up as it is of
people from different nations, accustomed to different forms and habits
of government, speaking different languages, and more different in their
modes of worship, it would appear that the union of such a people was
impracticable; but by the simple operation of constructing government on
the principles of society and the rights of man, every difficulty
retires, and all the parts are brought into cordial unison. There the
poor are not oppressed, the rich are not privileged. Industry is not
mortified by the splendid extravagance of a court rioting at its
expense. Their taxes are few, because their government is just: and as
there is nothing to render them wretched, there is nothing to engender
riots and tumults.
1.
Keane, John Tom Paine: A Political Life, Grove Press, NY, 1995,
p. 289.
2. Ibid, p. 290
3. Ibid., p. 295
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