January 1776: Common Sense, Armed Resolve, and the Birth of an Idea

 In this episode of Live to Shoot – Defending the Second Amendment, Jeff Dowdle continues the Road to 250 series by examining how the publication of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense transformed the fight against British rule from a struggle over rights into a demand for full independence. 

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Transcript

0:00

Well, welcome to the live shoot podcast. My name is Jeff Doman. I've been a licensed. Firearms dealer for the last 18 years. And this podcast, we talk about all things related to the Second Amendment, as well as anything else going in the World Sports story or anything else I might find interesting. So if you just joining us, we have been going for the last several months, looking back, 250 years on that month to describe what was going on in the in the Revolutionary War. And why is that? Because in July of this year, we will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of this country, and, we wanted to highlight that, celebrate it, and kind of just kind of do a retrospective. Each month about how that month in 1776 or in previous 1775 impacted the revolution. So we're going month by month towards America's 200th, and this month it matters a lot because January, 1776 is when the American Revolution stopped being just a war against British control and became something far more dangerous to tyranny. It became a war of ideas. And once an idea takes hold in the minds of free people, no army on Earth can stop it. The year it opened up in hardship, the continental army were still camped around Boston. Men were cold, underpaid, and under-supplied. Enlistments were expiring. And Washington worried the army might just simply melt away. British forces remained entrenched. Victory was far from certain, and independence, at least publicly, was still not official. Beneath the surface, something had shifted. The colonies were no longer asking if they should break from Britain. They were beginning to ask why they hadn't already. In January, 1776, a small pamphlet began circulating through the colonies. It was something called Common Sense by Thomas Payne, and it hit like a hammer. Payne didn't write like a politician. He wrote like a man speaking for, for other free men. He argued that monarchy was unnatural. Inherited power was an insult to liberty that an island had no business ruling a continent, but most importantly, pain made independence sound not just possible, but necessary common sense sold by tens of thousands. Almost immediately men read it aloud and tavern shops and camps, and once they did the question of independence was no longer theoretical. It was inevitable. Here's some key points that historians gloss over pain's. Words mattered because the people reading them, they were already armed ideas alone, not don't overthrow empires. Ideas backed by means of resistance to, by January, 1776, Americans weren't reading common sense as dreamers. They're reading it as men who had already had muskets on their shoulder and powdering their ho. That reality gave the pamphlet weight. It wasn't philosophy. It was a call to action, and the people were already prepared to answer it. While Congress had not yet declared independence, generally marked a noticeable hardening of attitudes. Delegates who once clung to reconciliation were losing ground. The Prohibitory Act from Britain had made it clear the crown no longer saw the colonies of subjects, but his enemies, there were no. There would be no protection, no compromise, no. Turning back in response, colonial governments expanded militias, secured arms, and increased domestic weapons production. Again, this wasn't controversial. An armed populace was assumed. Debate was how best to organize it, not whether it should exist. George Wonder, George Washington understood the stakes. He knew that if Army collapsed before independence was declared, the cause would die with it. So January 17, 6, 17 76 became a month of discipline, reorganization, and quiet preparation. Washington wasn't just fighting the British. He was fighting doubt, fear, and fatigue, and he knew that once independence was declared, there'd be no going back for him and or the country. January, 1776 teaches us something critical. Liberty does not begin with government permission. It begins with conviction. The founders didn't wake up one morning and decide to rebel. They were pushed there by disarm and attempts by confiscations, by a government that refused to respect their rights. The Second Amendment would later ensure that future generations will never be put in that position again. It exists that ideas like common sense, never have to rely on hope alone. By the end of January, independence was no longer a radical idea. It was a logical conclusion. The groundwork had been laid, the people were armed, the argument had been made, the resolve was growing, and within six months, those ideas would be put to paper. In the Declaration of Independence, January 17th, 76 was the month America made up its mind. Empires fall. Not when they lose battles, but when they lose legitimacy. In January, 1776, the British Empire lost America in the minds of its people. And once that happened, independence was only a matter of time. So I'm Jeff Gottle. If you like what you're hearing, subscribe to this podcast. Share it with others. We'll be back next. Next month with what happened in February, 1776. So stay tuned, keep following. If you haven't listened to'em, go back and listen to previous episodes so you can get caught up. I appreciate it. Take care and have a good day.