What Does Huntly Mean By Thomas Paine

Charles Brockden Brown’s Edgar Huntly is an American novel that deals with fundamental questions that Americans faced in the decades following the creation of a new nation. Central to the question of American liberty was, and still is, the extent to which laws can infringe upon the individual’s right to act as they please. Thomas Paine, in his “Common Sense,” explored these ideas of justice and freedom while he explains the need for liberty in the “present state of America;” in which “Nothing is criminal; there is no such thing as treason; wherefore, every one thinks himself at liberty to act as he pleases...The first [English soldiers] are prisoners, but the latter [American patriots] traitors. The one forfeits his liberty, the other his

head” (31). Paine explains the contrast between lawful sacrifice of liberty and acting upon personal passions without regard for justice––of course, he believes that the traitors are in the right, but he cautions against letting liberty go too far. Paine argues in favor of natural law––the idea that inherent human reason can guide behavior without the need for governmental law. A small scale version of this concept plays out in Edgar Huntly. Brown explores the oppositions of reason and impulse, with impulse representing personal liberty and reason representing the natural law. While he does not make this application to American law and liberty explicit, it can be seen through the actions of Clithero, the native Americans (“Indians”) and Edgar Huntly himself.
In Edgar Huntly, the Indians are analogous to what Paine fears could happen if Americans enact total liberty without natural law, which would lead to passions and irrational behavior. Brown portrays Native Americans as “savages” and “adepts in killing” (215). The general lawlessness of the Indians is something that causes fear throughout the novel. When a band of Indians was thought to have been seen in a neighborhood, Edgar questions “Were they not suspected of hostile designs? Had they not already committed some mischief? Some passenger, perhaps, had been attacked; or fire had been set to some house?” (224). It is implied that Indians have not only no regard for laws but do not operate on the same system of morality or natural law. They destroy property harm others––though it is important to note that this could be read as a layered criticism of the fact that English and Dutch colonizers committed genocide and mass displacement of Native Americans, if you give Brown enough credit. Edgar’s suspicion of “savage” behavior is confirmed when the protagonists receive “disastrous news of Indians being seen within these precincts...farmer was shot in his fields, a dwelling in Chetasco was burnt to the ground, and its inhabitants murdered or made captives” (240). Brown is not subtle in his depiction of Indians as existing outside of what early Americans thought of as civilized society and without regard for natural law. As Paine writes, in Indian society, “Nothing is criminal... every one thinks himself at liberty to act as he pleases.” Neither Brown nor Paine would argue that the Indians did not have liberty––but their lack of perceived natural law was an ultimate disaster in the minds of Brown and Paine for both the Indians and their “victims.”
Clithero represents the tension between governmental law, natural law, and personal liberty––Paine would say that this is the current state of Americans at the time of writing “Common Sense.” Americans desire radical liberty to follow their personal passions but recognize that they must face both natural law and the laws of the state. Clithero’s struggle with liberty and reason comes from his unconscious actions, manifested through sleepwalking. Clithero and Edgar find this lack of control concerning, as Clithero says, “I was anew distressed at the discovery that my thoughts found their way to my lips, without my being conscious of it, and that my steps wandered forth unknowingly and without the guidance of my will” (84). The consequences of Clithero’s actions, however, go beyond harmless sleepwalking. In stated self-defence, he kills Arthur, the brother of his caretaker Mrs. Lorimer. After this act, he says, “What had I done? I had meditated nothing. I was impelled by an unconscious necessity. Had the assailant been my father the consequence would have been the same. My understanding had been neutral. Could it be? In a space so short, was it possible that so tremendous a deed had been executed? Was I not deceived by some portentous vision?” (70). Clithero is driven by “unconscious necessity” and personal passion to kill another person. That he compares his assailant to his father increases the seriousness of his act, elevating it from murder to patricide. For acting on a passions such as these, Clithero fails to let reason rule over his liberty. Thus, he is more like the Indians than a true American patriot. Clithero’s life is largely ruined by his inability to obey natural law. As explained below, he also faces tension with governmental laws. Brown is making the same warning that Paine makes in Common Sense, that Americans need to balance natural law and personal freedom in order to survive as a society and to avoid the disaster that befalls the Indians and Clithero.
Edgar Huntly represents the ideal balance of natural law over impulse and liberty; the key aspect of this balance, for both Paine and Brown, is that the reason comes from within the individual and not from an outside source like the monarchy or the state.

Edgar Huntly, at the beginning of the novel, has not achieved this balance. Clithero points out, “You, like others, are blind to the most momentous consequences of your own actions” (35). Edgar, however, realizes that he needs to achieve this balance. He writes, “If forbearance be the dictate of wisdom, cannot it be so deeply engraven on my mind as to defy all temptation, and be proof against the most abrupt surprise” (15). His desire to use “wisdom” to “defy all temptation” describes the fundamental goal of natural law an inherent justice: to prioritize enlightenment ideas of reason over passions. Edgar achieves his own balance of natural law over his passions through analyzing Clithero’s behavior. He writes, “Reason was no less an antidote to the illusions of insanity like his, than to the illusions of error” (91). Here, Edgar describes how reason can counteract insanity. This is Brown arguing in favor of natural law; if Clithero properly used his reason, natural law would curb his passions and be a solution to his problems. Brown employs the language of duality and unity to describe insanity and natural law: Edgar asks, “Was it possible to bring them together; to win the maniac from his solitude, wrest from him his

fatal purposes, and restore him to communion with the beings whose imagined indignation is the torment of his life” (256). Here, natural law is given a higher meaning. Not only does it indicate that reason can be an antidote for insanity, but it can also create human bonds and communion. There is an aspect of religious language to writings on natural law in general and in this passage specifically––Edgar Huntly believes that natural law is a redeeming force. The novel’s close, while not a happy ending for the protagonist, brings disaster for the Indians and Clithero. Only Edgar, who prioritized natural law, has success.
Charles Brockden Brown and Thomas Paine set up natural law in contrast to governmental law, which is evident in Edgar Huntly.

Paine’s situation is different, because the law at his time of writing was the in flux between monarchy and democracy, whereas Brown was writing in the early years of the republic. They both, however, are in favor of letting natural law dictate the laws of the government. The figure that most embodies this is Mrs. Lorimer. Brown writes “her justice was inflexible: She knew full well the incurableness of his depravity; that banishment was the mildest destiny that would befall him; that estrangement from ancient haunts and associates was the condition from which his true friends had least to fear” (46). Mrs. Lorimer’s “inflexible” ideas justice counteracts natural law and results in the estrangement of her beloved brother. Justice as dictated by the state is similarly inflexible and often needlessly punitive, in Paine and Brown’s beliefs. The primary criticism of the use of governmental law over natural law comes when Edgar learns of Clithero’s murder. The former asks, “Shall we impute guilt where there is no design? ...Shall we deem ourselves criminal because we do not enjoy the attributes of deity?” (87). Here, he is questioning if governmental law and natural law should judge the acts themselves or the intent behind them. Edgar believes that Clithero is a good man, and struggles with how to address the acts he’s committed. Another instance of

criticism regarding the same act occurs when Edgar asks, “Could law be resorted to? Against an evil like this, no legal provision had been made…” (63). This is another common argument in favor of natural law over governmental law; when no law has been written regarding a subject, it is legal, leaving room for violations of natural law without punishment. Brown agrees with Paine that judicial practice should be determined not to legislation but to natural law.
In one of the first American novels, Charles Brockden Brown explores a debate that is fundamentally American: how to balance extreme personal liberty with natural law. This debate in Edgar Huntly echoes Thomas Paine’s writing in “Common Sense.” Both writers grapple with how to achieve this balance, Paine by giving his recommendation to the American people and Brown by creating an example of a characters who do and don’t successfully prioritize natural law over their personal passions.

Brown, Charles Brockden and Norman S. Grabo. Edgar Huntly, or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker. Penguin Books, 1988. Penguin Classics.
Paine, Thomas. Common Sense. South Bend, US: Infomotions, Inc., 2000. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 19 February 2017.