The American Crisis

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

Paine’s memorable and passionate opening lines capture the urgency of the American “crisis” that was The Revolutionary War. Paine shows that he understands Americans’ anxiety as they cope with this insecure and divisive time, and his first lines set both his tone and his theme of his essays to come, in which he uses his passionate, poetic prose to persuade Americans to support independence and the war.

“Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but ‘to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER,’ and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth.”

Paine continually compares being royal subject to a form of enslavement, though never mentions the fact that many American colonists own slaves themselves or otherwise benefit from the system of American slavery. This hypocrisy appears throughout Paine’s essays.

“Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it.”

This quote demonstrates Paine’s typical poetic prose and his ability to effectively inspire his readers to unite in support of independence. It also paints the American people as a morally upright underdog.