2.04 Quiz: Voices of an Emerging Nation

Read the sentence from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous was not sufficient to prevent our slipping; and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. Which saying from Poor Richard's Almanac conveys a similar message?

"'Tis easier to prevent bad habits than to break them."

Which detail from The American Crisis develops the key idea that times of crisis often reveal important truths that inspire change?

"But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered."

In Common Sense, Paine claims that Great Britain has lost the authority and the ability to fairly and effectively govern America. What reasoning does Paine use to support this point?

"To be always running three or four thousand miles with a tale or a petition, waiting four or five months for an answer, which when obtained requires five or six more to explain it in, will in a few years be looked upon as folly and childishness—there was a time when it was proper, and there is a proper time for it to cease."

Read the sentence from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Hearing their conversations, and their accounts of the approbation their papers were received with, I was excited to try my hand among them; but, being still a boy, and suspecting that my brother would object to printing anything of mine in his paper if he knew it to be mine, I contrived to disguise my hand, and, writing an anonymous paper, I put it in at night under the door of the printing-house. What does the use of the word anonymous suggest?

-Franklin does not take credit for his writing. -Franklin wants to hide his identity as the writer of the paper.

Read the excerpt from Common Sense. Our prayers have been rejected with disdain; and only tended to convince us, that nothing flatters vanity, or confirms obstinacy in kings more than repeated petitioning—and nothing hath contributed more than that very measure to make the kings of Europe absolute... Wherefore since nothing but blows will do, for God's sake, let us come to a final separation, and not leave the next generation to be cutting throats, under the violated unmeaning names of parent and child.... How does Paine's style contribute to the persuasiveness of the text?

He appeals to readers' concerns about the safety of future generations to motivate them to resist British rule.