The convulsions of Europe might have thrown her from one conqueror to another, till she had been the slave of all, and ruined by every one; for until she had spirit enough to become her own master, there was no knowing to which master she should belong.
Paine asserts in "The American Crisis" that America's only path to avoiding subjugation by European powers is to achieve self-mastery.
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They had a cause at stake, on which depended their freedom or their slavery.
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