Primary sources: Paine's Common Sense and Chalmers' Plain Truth, 1776

Paine v. Chalmers

Maintaining historical perspective is a difficult task nearly two-hundred and fifty years after the event but a reading of Thomas Paine's Common Sense (Paine, 1997) and the contradictory pamphlet, Plaint Truth (Chalmers, 2010), prepared by British loyalist, James Chalmers, offers readers an excellent glance at the situation in colonial America in the beginning days of the Revolution. As evidenced by the rhetoric in both volumes, lines were being sharply drawn which would seem to indicate that there were only two sides to the issue but, in reality, the Chalmers and Paine writings are only examples of the two extremes and most of the colonists were philosophically positioned somewhere in between the two extremes.

The significance of Paine's pamphlet cannot be overstated. Relations between the Mother Country, England, and her colonies had been growing strained for a number of years but the impassioned words of a young dissident, who was relatively unknown at the date of his publishing Common Sense, would serve to galvanize the colonists and motivate them to participate in open rebellion. Paine put into words the idea that Britain no longer had the right to govern the colonies (Paine: p. 25); that the monarchy was essentially corrupt both in operation and concept (Paine: p. 16); and, that the colonies were capable of sustaining themselves (Paine: p. 27). These were attitudes and beliefs that had been developing in the colonies for some time and particularly since the end of the French and Indian War but it was left to Paine to put them into words and circulate those words.

Breaking away from the monarchy, however, was not a universally held belief. There remained a significant segment of colonial society that held a contrary view. The publication of Paine's pamphlet was met with a certain measure of surprise and those who remained loyal to the crown were not content to sit back and allow Paine's views to go unchallenged. One individual determined to profess the opposing view was a prominent gentleman farmer from Maryland named James Chalmers. Within a few months of Paine's publishing of Common Sense, Chalmers published his own pamphlet, Plain Truth that took dead aim on the assertions made by Paine. Unfortunately, Chalmers attempt at attacking Paine's views did little to attract the interest of most colonial Americans. Unlike the simple, easily understood language used by Paine in his pamphlet, Chalmers wrote his treatise using language that reflected his education and status and which most colonists were unable to understand. As a result, Chalmers' work was well received among the wealthy and educated of the colonists but was largely ignored among the rank and file that comprised the bulk of the revolutionary movement. As it was Chalmers' work reached only those that he did not need to convince -- the upper class colonists that were already numbered among the loyalists. He did not reach the vast majority of colonists who were in favor of breaking away.

Chalmers might have been successful in professing loyalty to England if he had been able to reach a broader base of the colonists. The views expressed by Paine were still considered radical by a great number but Chalmers' inability to address his comments to the common people served to negate their importance and validity.