Thomas Paine As A Transcendentalist View Of Freedom

Though its intention may seem simple, the notion of freedom is bursting with complexities. Many forms of freedom exist: political, personal, and economic to name a few, and who gains this freedom depends on the time in history. In the late eighteenth century, Common Sense, written by British radical Thomas Paine, attempted to convince the colonies, which were enslaved by Great Britain’s oppressive tyranny, to fight for political and personal freedoms. However, this right to a government to ensure security and property excluded African Americans, and thus, did not truly encompass the notion of freedom. African Americans continued to be mistreated throughout the following century. As a result, Henry David Thoreau, a transcendentalist of the

He argued that America’s government failed to offer its promise of equal representation to the slaves, and pleaded for a government that could provide justice to the slaves. Thoreau’s empowering view on the government’s role of ensuring one’s freedom to representation and justice privileged many more Americans than Paine’s racially limiting view. Thoreau’s view on the government’s responsibility to offer freedom to representation privileged many more Americans than Paine’s limiting view that strictly applied to White Americans. On the opening page of his pamphlet, Common Sense, Paine believed that security is the, “true design and end of government.” Paine illustrated here that it was government’s duty to provide security to its citizens. Security, which includes the protection of property, privileged only a portion of those in American society

It should not be assumed that Paine did not believe in the principle of justice. In fact, he was a major proponent of the colonies revolting against hierarchy in the pursuit of it. In his pamphlet, Paine contended that the colonies should maintain, “some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue.” The government that Paine desired in this excerpt succeeded in offering an uncorrupted government to Whites, but at the loss of personal freedom for a sizeable amount of other Americans, specifically slaves. Therefore, this government failed to ensure the freedom to justice to all of its citizens. On the contrary, Thoreau’s view provided justice to all citizens, black and white. In his speech, Thoreau stated, “The only government that I recognize, -and it matters not how few are a the head of it, or how small its army, -is that power that establishes justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice.” Thoreau demonstrated in this excerpt that the size of the government was irrelevant, but the government’s ability to provide freedom to justice was not. The right to exercise political and personal freedom to justice was offered to African Americans in this empowering view of the role of government. A government that functioned unjustly, like the one depicted in Paine’s racially discriminatory view, provided