ABSTRACT

This chapter 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. American patriots simply assumed that an independent America would be republican, that monarchy would come to an end in America once independence was declared. A more analytic reading of Common Sense suggests how much of that appeal was essentially subliminal. Paine's discussion of monarchy and hereditary succession is even more heavily freighted with appeals to the unarticulated half-thoughts of his audience. It is a good deal less obvious that Americans needed to have their king killed. There are in fact a great many indications that as late as 1776 there persisted within the Americans a vague feeling that their king was somehow, in some measure, the legitimate father of his subjects.