Familial Politics: Thomas Paine and the Killing of the King, 1776

Abstract

THIS exploratory paper attempts a probe into the problem of who killed George III and why. It seeks as well to inquire into the subliminal sources of popular political influence. It also raises indirectly the problem of how and indeed whether historians should explore such arcane instances of homicide. Granted, any reports concerning the death of George III in 1776 may be said in one sense to be greatly exaggerated. Nonetheless one can propose that in 1776 George III was killed in his American provinces vicariously but very effectively by an anonymous hand and that this act of murder constitutes a legitimate subject for historical inquiry. The American Revolution has been occasionally placed upon the couch for a brisk session of psychiatric analysis; the resulting diagnoses of American independence as a rejection of the British father have not been difficult.' But they have also apparently not been wholly persuasive to the rather large number of historians who think that generalizations about a major historical event ought somehow to be tied to what facts are known about it. If one looks at these facts, and particularly at the public discussion during 1775 and during the first six months of 1776 about separation from Britain, one becomes impressed by the way Americans strummed persistently upon certain themes: that there was the utmost necessity for union among the colonies, that the British government had mounted a conspiracy to deprive American colonials of their rights, that Americans were threatened with outright enslavement, that Great Britain and especially the British government was steeped in corruption and degeneracy. These are familiar. Yet one theme which one might reasonably expect to find usually arose only implicitly: American patriots simply assumed that an independent America would be republican, that monarchy would come to an end in