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Vol. II, Num. 225. 4pp. 4to. A profoundly important issue, published just three days before the Continental Congress voted on July 2 to declare independence, containing Thomas Paine's letter to the Pennsylvania Evening Post, written under the pseudonym Republicus but widely attributed to Paine, beginning: "Every moment that I reflect on our affairs, the more am I convinced of the necessity of a formal Declaration of Independance. Reconciliation is thought of now by none but knaves, fools and madmen; and as we cannot offer terms of peace to Great-Britain, until, as other nations have done before us, we agree to call ourselves by some name, I shall rejoice to hear the title of the United States of America, in order that we may be on a proper footing to negotiate peace." Historians and linguists, including William Safire and Byron DeLear, have long debated who was the first to name our country the "United States of America." In manuscript, the earliest known reference would seem to be a letter from Stephen Moylan to James Reed, dated January 2, 1776. In print, the earliest so far found is a pro-independence essay signed anonymously by "A Planter" appearing in the April 6, 1776 issue of the Virginia Gazette. Those references, however, are largely used in passing in the same meaning as the "united colonies" or "independent states". The present essay by Paine uses the phrase deliberately in contemplating how the new nation should be named post-independence. One wonders whether by this date Paine had seen Thomas Jefferson's manuscript draft of the Declaration, which uses the phrase at the very top. Paine's essay continues by advocating for indendence, suggesting that it was necessary in order to negotiate exhanges of prisoners already taken, before continuing: "Were Britain to make a conquest of America, I would, for my own part, choose rather to be conquered as an independant state than as an acknowledged rebel . Upon the whole, we may be benefited by independance, but we cannot be hurt by it, and every man that is against it is a traitor." On July 2, 1776, the Pennsylvania Evening Post would become the first newspaper to announce independence and on July 6, 1776 it was the first newspaper to print the Declaration. Printer Benjamin Towne came to America from Great Britain in 1769, working initially for the weekly newspaper the Pennsylvania Chronicle. On January 24, 1775 he established and printed the first issue of his own newspaper, the Pennsylvania Evening Post. The Post was the city's first evening paper as well as its first tri-weekly, with only weekly newspapers issued in Philadelphia to that point. Given its evening publication, frequency and location in Philadelphia in the formative years leading to independence and the American Revolution, the Evening Post would hold the distinction of being the first to print many important resolves of the Continental Congress most notably being a first-page printing of the Declaration of Independence on July 6, 1776 as well as other important works such as Thomas Paine's American Crisis, the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the Pennsylvania Constitution and more. Towne would continue to publish his newspaper during the Revolution, staying in Philadelphia during the British occupation and being branded as a traitor as a result, although returning to the patriot cause after the British left the city. On May 30, 1783, Towne would turn the Pennsylvania Evening Post into the first daily newspaper in the United States, though it would be short-lived, with the final issue published on October 26 1784. Brigham, History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, vol.2, pp. 931-933.
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