Thomas Paine Common Sense

10 Key excerpts on "Thomas Paine Common Sense"

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  Colonial Roots

  Settlement to 1783

  • Jeffrey H. Hacker(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Common Sense linked the colonial cause to the ideal of freedom throughout the world, casting the colonists in a millennial struggle between liberty and tyranny. Although freedom found itself “hunted round the globe,” he wrote, “we have it in our power to begin the world over again” and “prepare in time an asylum for mankind.”

  Common Sense did not lead the colonies on a direct path to independence; no single document could generate the consensus needed for such a momentous decision. What it did accomplish was to further fray the colonists’ ties to the British monarchy, to spark widespread public discussion of independence—a topic that had been largely taboo until that time—and to provide a framework for understanding the events that eventually pushed the colonies to declare their autonomy in July 1776. In short, Common Sense helped transform the imperial crisis from a colonial struggle for greater autonomy within the British Empire into a movement for complete independence.

  John Craig Hammond

  See also: Lexington and Concord and the “Shot Heard ’Round the World

  Chapter Three, Common Sense (excerpt), 1776

  Aside from its historical influence in marshaling colonial support for independence, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense

  holds a place of importance in American literary history for its rhetorical voice and its appeal to the colonial “everyman” in ordinary speech. As such, it is as revolutionary in prose style as it is in political message, eschewing the classical references and flowery Romantic phrasings of European oratory in favor of “plain arguments” and direct appeal. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Chapter Three, excerpted below, in which Paine analyzes “the struggle between England and America” and makes the case for independence. The uniquely America style of political discourse pioneered in

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  The Philosophy and Common Sense Reader

  Writings on Critical Thinking

  • Markar Melkonian(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  More recently, champions of common sense have taken up positions for and against a wide range of causes, including immigration reform, school vouchers, national health insurance, and same-sex marriage. In these disputes and hundreds of others, the side that had an exclusive claim to common sense was the side that had its mouth open at the moment. As one student put it, when it comes to politics, “common sense is what the opposition is lacking.”

  No document better exemplifies the contentious political character of common sense than that watershed document of modern factional agitation, Thomas Paine’s pamphlet, Common Sense (written in January 1776). In his tract, Paine laid out the main lines of his argument for the independence, sooner rather than later, of the American colonies from Great Britain. He brought much effort and skill to bear in order to convince his readers of what were supposed to be self-evident claims. But the first line of Paine’s Introduction to Common Sense appears to belie the self-evidence and “commonness” of his reflections: “Perhaps,” he wrote, “the sentiments contained in the following pages are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor …”

  When Paine’s pamphlet burst into print in January 1776, though, it did indeed gain favor throughout the thirteen colonies. Its message was simple: Britain had no right to govern America; the system of monarchy itself was basically corrupt, and Americans would be much better off on their own. Not everyone who read the pamphlet nodded with approval, though. Leaders of the large minority of pro-British loyalists in the colonies struck back. In March 1776, barely three months after the appearance of Common Sense, their rejoinder appeared, in the form of another pamphlet under the nearly synonymous title, Plain Truth. (As it turns out, Paine himself had originally considered titling his work Plain Truth; now his opponent took that title for the opposing argument.) The author of Plain Truth, who took the pseudonym “Candidus,” was in fact a wealthy planter from the colony of Maryland, named James Chalmers.3

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  Founding Leadership

  Lessons on Business & Personal Leadership From the Men Who Brought You the American Revolution

  • Brent Taylor(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Morgan James Publishing

    (Publisher)

  Common Sense “the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era.”

  Following the success of Common Sense , Paine produced a series of short papers that became known as The American Crisis . These papers opened with the famous words, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” The work was so powerful that Washington ordered that it be read aloud to the troops at Valley Forge.

  Ultimately, Paine traveled back to Europe where he wrote The Rights of Man and The Age of Reason , two famous tracts that influenced the French Revolution and the cause of reform in Europe. He later returned to America, but discovered that his fame had waned. Although Paine’s notoriety had faded, the impact and power of Common Sense live on.

  The ideas articulated in Common Sense were neither unique nor especially original. Many of his arguments were the same as those the Patriot “intelligentsia” had been debating for some time. What distinguished Common Sense from every previous published article, pamphlet, and letter was its electrifying appeal to the common man. In Common Sense , Paine captured the heart and mind of the average person, not just the political elite of the era, inciting them to adopt the cause as their own and take action.

  Yes, Paine’s arguments were brilliant and eloquent, but more important, they were emotionally compelling. They incited deeds as well as words.

  In Common Sense , Paine’s objective was not merely to engage in an academic exercise. He had more in mind than positing a well-crafted thesis and supporting it with well-reasoned arguments built on logic and references to great classical philosophers. He had more in mind than a pamphlet that would spur dialectics among “eggheads” over Madeira and quail at the local taverns. No, Paine’s goal was to educate, persuade, and inspire the masses

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  Common Sense and Rights of Man

  Bold-faced thoughts on revolution, reason, and personal freedom

  • Thomas Paine(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Union Square & Co.

    (Publisher)

  The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested. The laying a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censure, is the AUTHOR.

  P.S. The Publication of this new Edition hath been delayed, with a View of taking notice (had it been necessary) of any Attempt to refute the Doctrine of Independance: As no Answer hath yet appeared, it is now presumed that none will, the Time needful for getting such a Performance ready for the Public being considerably past.

  Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the doctrine itself, not the Man.

  Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any Party, and under no sort of Influence public or private, but the influence of reason and principle.

  —Philadelphia, February 14, 1776

  Passage contains an image

  For Further Thought

  In his brief Introduction to Common Sense, Thomas Paine (writing anonymously, it should be noted, in the belief that attention should be paid to “the doctrine itself, not the Man”) introduces the main theme of his tract: his fervent belief in defending personal freedom and human rights against hereditary rule, rank, and privilege. He emphasizes that, although the topic at hand is “the cause of America,” his arguments are based on what he believes are universal principles, applicable to any place and time.

  Paine’s deeply felt passions, absolute beliefs, and bold calls to action—these are what made Common Sense

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  Thomas Paine

  Social and Political Thought

  • Gregory Claeys(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  A New Yorker reported that it was ‘eagerly read and much admired’. General Charles Lee called the tract ‘a masterly, irresistible performance’, while one American officer regarded it as equivalent in morale to 5,000 troops. Individual readers were often overwhelmed; one recorded that ‘I could not withhold my assent to the arguments of the victorious author’. Common Sense in fact, had ‘broken the spell’, as Paine later put it, of Britain’s hold over the colonies. It convinced Americans, as Gilbert Vale wrote, ‘that the British constitution was not the best that could be, and that a government of kings, lords, and commons, might not be the essence of all that was excellent in each’. 28 Common Sense effected this ‘sudden and virtually complete revolution in attitude’ towards British rule (in Cecelia Kenyon’s words) by releasing all of the pent-up resentment against the monarch which pervaded colonial America. Loyalty to George III was hard enough by 1776; Paine transformed the king into a tyrant – even ‘killed’ him metaphorically, it has been suggested – and made attachment nearly impossible thereafter. In this sense the tract was central to defining ‘America’ in republican terms. Moreover, Paine appealed to an audience hitherto ignored by political writers. As Gordon Wood has written, some of the ‘awe and consternation’ Common Sense aroused ‘came from its deliberate elimination of the usual elitist apparatus of persuasion and its acknowledged appeal to a wider reading public’. 29 Paine found particular favour in Philadelphia and other large cities where artisans and tradesmen were as anxious to battle the native aristocracies governing their colonial assemblies as to reject British imperial rule

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  My Pen and My Soul Have Ever Gone Together

  Thomas Paine and the American Revolution

  • Vikki Vickers(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  However, a close survey of the historiography of Paine’s life and career reveals the reason for this gulf in Paine studies: improper or nonexistent contextualization. Scholars of rhetoric, history, political science, and religion, have studied Paine within their separate spheres, rather than communicating across disciplines. Nowhere is this schism more apparent than in studies of Common Sense, the pamphlet that launched Paine’s public career and catapulted America towards Independence. The result of this scholarly disconnectedness is an assortment of theories regarding the origins and significance of Paine’s writings. Sadly, these theories do little to advance Paine scholarship; they provide us with more pieces of the puzzle, but no complete portrait to aid in its construction. To advance scholarship on the evolution of Paine’s career as a writer, therefore, it is important to begin by establishing the context. Bailyn (who has come closer than any other scholar to answering this all-important question) correctly hinted that the answer lies in the study of Paine the individual. In a 1973 article on the originality of Common Sense, Bailyn argued that “there is something unique in the intellectual idiom of the pamphlet.” 5 He further noted that the language of Common Sense suggests “deeper elements—qualities of mind, styles of thought, a writer’s personal culture.” 6 In other words, Paine’s revolutionary pamphlet is a reflection of Paine himself: his thoughts, his ideas, his own unique context. Historians who study the Declaration of Independence, for example, are in no way surprised to discover that Jefferson’s work closely resembles Locke’s Second Treatise, because it is well-known that Jefferson was a devotee of John Locke. As Bailyn suggests, understanding an author’s work often begins with understanding the author himself; any other method of research (as has been the case with Paine studies) would be placing the cart before the horse

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  An Oration on the Life and Services of Thomas Paine

  • Robert Green Ingersoll(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Perlego

    (Publisher)

  In my judgment Thomas Paine was the best political writer that ever lived. "What he wrote was pure nature, and his soul and his pen ever went together." Ceremony, pageantry, and all the paraphernalia of power, had no effect upon him. He examined into the why and wherefore of things. He was perfectly radical in his mode of thought. Nothing short of the bed-rock satisfied him. His enthusiasm for what he believed to be right knew no bounds. During all the dark scenes of the Revolution, never for one moment did he despair. Year after year his brave words were ringing through the land, and by the bivouac fires the weary soldiers read the inspiring words of "Common Sense," filled with ideas sharper than their swords, and consecrated themselves anew to the cause of Freedom.

  Paine was not content with having aroused the spirit of independence, but he gave every energy of his soul to keep that spirit alive. He was with the army. He shared its defeats, its dangers, and its glory. When the situation became desperate, when gloom settled upon all, he gave them the "Crisis." It was a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, leading the way to freedom, honor, and glory. He shouted to them, "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier, and the sunshine patriot, will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

  To those who wished to put the war off to some future day, with a lofty and touching spirit of self-sacrifice he said: "Every generous parent should say, 'If there must be war let it be in my day that my child may have peace.'" To the cry that Americans were rebels, he replied: "He that rebels against reason is a real rebel; but he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to 'Defender of the Faith' than George the Third."

  Some said it was not to the interest of the colonies to be free. Paine answered this by saying, "To know whether it be the interest of the continent to be independent, we need ask only this simple, easy question: 'Is it the interest of a man to be a boy all his life?'" He found many who would listen to nothing, and to them he said, "That to argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead." This sentiment ought to adorn the walls of every orthodox church.

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  The Legacy of Thomas Paine in the Transatlantic World

  • Sam Edwards, Marcus Morris(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Even when he considered himself to be an American citizen, following the declaration of the independence of the United States, there were many who continued to call him English. Meanwhile, the British claimed he was American, and continued to do so for many generations. In 1791, an anonymous tract, Defence of the Rights of Man, referred to Paine as ‘our American author’. 6 A British Freeholder’s Address to his Countrymen on Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, published the same year, described him as ‘a foreign emissary … a demi-savage intruder … this American interloper who wants to cram French cookery down English throats’. 7 Another response to Rights of Man denounced Paine as ‘the American Spy’. 8 Thus, the contest over Paine’s nationality that so significantly impacted his legacy was just as fiercely fought during his lifetime, and contemporary designations informed later views. While Godwin clearly admired Paine’s pamphlet, there were also several hostile responses to Common Sense. Charles Inglis entered the lists early in Philadelphia. His tract, The true interest of American impartially stated in certain strictures on a pamphlet intitled Common Sense by an American, is dated 12 February 1776. Inglis denounced the author of Common Sense for giving ‘vent to his own private resentment and ambition’. ‘He unites the violence and rage of a republican’, he asserted, ‘with all the enthusiasm and folly of a fanatic’. 9 William Smith, a leading Anglican divine in Philadelphia, wrote a series of eight letters in the City’s newspapers under the pseudonym ‘Cato’ which castigated Paine’s advocacy of independence for Britain’s American colonies

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  Common Sense in Early 18th-Century British Literature and Culture

  • Christoph Henke(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter

    (Publisher)

  The long-winded narrative, which spans an epic story time of some two thousand years from Grecian antiquity to 1760s England, is a rather forced affair with the purpose of commenting on the twists and turns of British history since early modern times from the personified viewpoint of Common Sense, who is the homodiegetic narrator of the book. Quite tellingly, Common Sense is born in ancient Athens to his mother Truth and his father Wit, a playwright of loose morals, who has tricked Truth into marriage by disguising himself as her fiancé Wisdom. When Wit abandons his young family for his concubine Vanity soon after the wedding, Wisdom joins his partner Truth again and they raise her boy Common Sense with the help of the governess Prudence. In later years, Common Sense decides to become a doctor specialising in the cure of lunacy and madness, and conducts a grand tour of the world for his training which lasts about a hundred years. After his return to Greece, he notices that “the Grecian Empire was become the Shadow of what it was when I left it” (Lawrence 1974: I, 90 – 91), whereupon the whole family moves to Rome. With the birth of Jesus Christ, Common Sense and his family become Christian and praise the Son of God as a champion of Truth and Wisdom. During the ‘dark’ Middle Ages, Common Sense continues to work as a ‘psychiatrist’ among Kings, rulers, and church leaders throughout Europe (in a Eurocentric affirmation of cultural superiority, Common Sense’s attitude to the rest of the known world is such that “I found the People so bigoted, ignorant and superstitious, that I could do nothing with them”; Lawrence 1974: I, 112), but struggles hard to be allowed to perform his cures during this time

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  America and the Political Philosophy of Common Sense

  • Scott Philip Segrest(Author)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • University of Missouri

    (Publisher)

  3Witherspoon's “Plain Common Sense”

  The Western common sense tradition connects to American thought most directly in the form of Scottish Common Sense, and John Witherspoon was the key figure in making that philosophy a major force in American academia and in the minds of the many young men he sent out from Princeton to lead the country.1 More to the point for our purposes, Witherspoon constitutes a model—both of the American mind, in the way he thinks about practical matters, and of common sense philosophy in its active mode. He is representative of founding period thinking about human nature, social life, religion, law, rights and duties, which paralleled on all essential points the Scottish Common Sense understanding, and he applied this thinking directly in the political arena.

  The first great phase of American thought may be described without distortion as Scottish realist, in part because of the commanding position that tradition occupied so long in American academe, but more fundamentally because Scottish realism articulated what Americans unreflectively had so long taken for granted. As the founders gravitated to Locke's politics because he seemed to express in theory what they had known in practice, so they and their intellectual progeny gravitated to Scottish Common Sense because it confirmed their deepest intuitions about man, God, and the world, especially their ideas about conscience and what it requires of us. Witherspoon's writings, with their overtly Scottish character, provide a rare opportunity to observe in telescope but also systematically the American mind at work.

  Witherspoon is a model of active common sense philosophy in his application of it to circumstances of the American Revolution. No other American founder excepting Paine appealed so directly to common sense in confronting that crisis, and Paine, though more famously connected with the term, did not use it with anything like the philosophic awareness that Witherspoon did. In the person of Witherspoon as in no other American we can see a common sense philosopher as a political practitioner.

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