Even after armed hostilities broke out between American settlers and British forces in 1775, many prominent settlers seemed reluctant to consider the idea of actually breaking away from Britain, and instead insisted that they were still his loyal subjects, even if they resisted what they saw. than its tyrannical laws and unfair taxation.
But a single 47-page pamphlet – the 18th-century equivalent of a paperback – did a lot to quickly change that and shift American sentiment toward independence. Common sense, written by Thomas Paine and first published in Philadelphia in January 1776, was in part a scathing controversy against the injustice of a king’s reign. But its author also made an equally compelling argument that Americans had a unique opportunity to change the course of history by creating a new type of government in which people were free and had the power to govern themselves. .
‘Common Sense’, published in 1776, inspired American colonists to declare their independence from England.
Joy of museums / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0
“We have every opportunity and every encouragement before us to form the noblest and purest constitution on the face of the earth,” Paine wrote. “We have the power to start the world anew. “
Centuries before the Internet existed, Common sense managed to go viral, selling around 500,000 copies. By the end of the War of Independence, around half a million copies were in circulation in the colonies.
By promoting the idea of American exceptionalism and the need to form a new nation to fulfill its promise, Paine’s pamphlet not only garnered public support for the Revolution, but also put pressure on the leaders of the rebellion. to declare independence. And even after the victory over the British, Paine’s influence persisted, and some of his ideas found their way into the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Who was Thomas Paine and why did he write “common sense”?
Paine’s provocative pamphlet was the first real success of his life. Born in 1737 in England to a family in financial difficulty, he had to leave school at 13 to work as an apprentice in his father’s corset shop. He made a brief stint as a sailor on a privateer ship at the age of 20, and tried unsuccessfully to start a craft business. He managed to land a government job as an excise tax collector, but was sacked twice, the second time after waging an unsuccessful campaign to secure higher wages for himself and his colleagues. His unsuccessful efforts to put pressure on Parliament left him with a grim view of the British system of government.
Deprived of prospects at 37, he convinced Benjamin Franklin, whom he had met in London, to give him a letter of recommendation, and emigrated to America in the hope of finally taking a break.
When Paine arrived in America in 1774 and found work as a journalist in Philadelphia, the colonies were already plagued by opposition to British attempts to impose new taxes and restrict trade.
“Paine witnessed it all and thought these people were ripe for a revolution,” says Harvey J. Kaye, author of Thomas Paine and America’s Promise.
In 1775, with encouragement from Franklin and Benjamin Rush, the physician and activist who became a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Paine began writing a pamphlet that would urge Americans to go beyond mere resistance to the British authority. “He encouraged them to realize that they weren’t British, that they were Americans,” says Kaye.
Paine originally wanted to call his brochure The real truth, but Rush, who unofficially served as editor, persuaded him to appoint him Common sense instead, according to Stephen Fried’s biography of the doctor. This phrase fits one of Paine’s most important notions, that Americans should trust their feelings, rather than get bogged down in abstract political debates.
“The Almighty has implanted in us these inextinguishable feelings for good and wise ends,” Paine wrote. “They are the guardians of his image in our hearts.
Key points made in the “right way”
Here are some of Paine’s key points:
- The purpose of the government was to serve the people. Paine described government as a “necessary evil,” which existed to give people a structure so that they could work together to solve problems and prosper. But in order to do that, he had to be responsive to people’s needs. The British system, Paine argued, failed at this because it gave the monarchy and nobles in Parliament too much power to thwart the elected representatives of the people. “The constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation can suffer for years together without being able to find out what the fault is, some will say in one and others in the other, and every political doctor will advise a different drug, ”Paine wrote.
- Having a king was a bad idea. Paine did not only find fault with the British rule of the colonies. He ridiculed the very idea of having a hereditary monarch. “In England a king has little more to do than wage war and cede places, which, in plain language, is to impoverish the nation and bring it together by the ears,” Paine wrote. “A nice deal for a man to be entitled to eight hundred thousand pounds a year and to be worshiped on top of that!” An honest man is worth more in society and in the sight of God than any crowned bandit who has ever lived. “
- America, homeland of freedom. Paine refuted the idea that Americans should be loyal to a motherland he saw as a bad parent. “Even bullies do not devour their young, nor do savages make war on their families,” he wrote. Furthermore, he argued, America’s real connection was with people all over the world who yearned to escape oppression. “This new world has been the asylum of persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from all parts of Europe,” Paine proclaimed. “It is here that they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from their homes, still pursues their descendants. “
- America had a rare opportunity to create a new nation based on self-reliance. In Paine’s eyes, the Americans and the British knew it was inevitable that the colonies would break free. “I have never met a man, neither in England nor in America, who did not confess his opinion, that a separation between the countries would take place one day or the other.” And that moment had come. America had raw materials, from wood and hemp to iron, and the skills it needed to build and equip an army and navy for its defense. Equally important, individual colonies had the potential to put differences aside and form a powerful nation. But they had to do it quickly, before the population grew to the point where new divisions could develop. The moment in history was “that particular moment, which never happens to a nation more than once,” he wrote.
- A strong central government was needed. Paine envisioned that the new nation would have a strong central government, with a constitution that would protect individual rights, including freedom of religion. “A firm market and a fair calculation make long friends,” he argued.
Why has Paine’s brochure become so influential?
Jefferson considered Paine the best writer of the Revolution, according to Kaye. But it wasn’t just his arguments that appealed to people. Unlike other American leaders who were well-educated land aristocrats, Paine could tap into his humble past to find his voice.
“He knew people weren’t thinking in the abstract,” Kaye explains. “Paine wrote to his peers, in a language anyone could understand. “
Equally important, Paine understood that philosophical abstractions were not as powerful as emotion and experience. Instead, Paine urged Americans to adopt “common sense” and trust their own feelings about what was right and how the country should be run, just as they did with others. daily decisions. “They recognized themselves in this argument,” says Kaye.
“I attribute its success to two things,” Jack Fructman, Jr., author of Thomas Paine’s political philosophy and Thomas Paine: Apostle of Liberty, Explain. “First, it was the first published article that I know of advocating the separation of the British Empire. And second, there were pirated copies circulating, a fairly common occurrence in the 18th century before copyright laws. In addition, he notes, “it was often read aloud, which helped to expand its popularity and notoriety.”
The popularity of Common sense made it difficult for the colonial rulers to take an intermediary position against the British. As John Adams wrote to his wife in April 1776: “Common sense, like a ray of revelation, has come at the right time to dispel our doubts and to fix our choice.
As Thomas Jefferson’s biographer Joseph J. Ellis wrote, Common sense “swept through the colonies like a firestorm, destroying any final vestige of loyalty to the British crown.” A few months after its publication, the Continental Congress asked each colony to draft new state constitutions, an act that clearly put the colonies on the path to declaration of independence.
From left to right, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Franklin and Adams helped revise the Declaration of Independence, which drew on Paine’s “common sense” to justify the need for independence.
Bettmann / CORBIS
Thomas Jefferson, who had received a first copy of Common sense in February 1776, began to draft an official document in June which would announce to the world that the new nation had been created.
But Paine’s pamphlet could actually have done more than a statement than to unify Americans and win converts to the cause. Paine’s adherence to religious freedom, for example, attracted people who disliked being forced to tithe to churches they did not belong to.
During the Revolution, “most Americans thought Common sense was the revolutionary document, not the declaration of independence, ”says Kaye.
In the nearly 250 years since Paine’s publication of Common sense, Paine, who some call “the forgotten founder”, did not receive as much recognition as other important figures of the Revolution. There isn’t even a statue of him in the nation’s capital. Nonetheless, Paine’s pamphlet continues to be read, and the ideas it contains – especially the idea of American exceptionalism – continue to resonate among new generations of Americans.
