It is idle to look in the writings of the Revolutionary period
for the literature of beauty, for a quiet harmonious unfolding of
the deeper secrets of life. It was a time of swift and pitiless
change, of action rather than reflection, of the turning of many
separate currents into one headlong stream. "We must, indeed, all
hang together," runs Franklin's well-known witticism in
Independence Hall, "or, most assuredly, we shall all hang
separately." Excellently spoken, Doctor! And that homely, cheery,
daring sentence gives the keynote of much of the Revolutionary
writing that has survived. It may be heard in the state papers of
Samuel Adams, the oratory of Patrick Henry, the pamphlets of
Thomas Paine, the satires of Freneau and Trumbull, and in the
subtle, insinuating, thrilling paragraphs of Thomas Jefferson.
We can only glance in passing at the literature of the Lost
Cause, the Loyalist or "Tory" pleadings for allegiance to
Britain. It was written by able and honest men, like Boucher and
Odell, Seabury, Leonard and Galloway.
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