Thomas Paine Common Sense English II

On January 10, 1776, while the Second Continental Congress was deliberating on the future of the "united colonies," a 46-page pamphlet was put out for sale. Simply titled Common Sense, it became a publishing phenomenon, a best-seller in its time. The first printing sold out in two weeks and over 150,000 copies were sold throughout America and Europe. Written by Thomas Paine, an unknown Englishman who had emigrated only fifteen months earlier, it burst upon the scene like a meteor—a "disastrous meteor," wrote John Adams, who felt Paine's inflammatory call for independence would undermine the deliberative work of the Continental Congress. While Paine's basic message—abandon the goal of reconciliation and declare independence—was not new, he went much further. Reject British heritage, condemn monarchy, embrace democracy, enlighten the world. This doesn't sound very revolutionary to us, but it was. "We have it in our power," insisted Paine, "to begin the world all over again."

Published in 1776, Common Sense challenged the authority of the British government and the royal monarchy. The plain language that Paine used spoke to the common people of America and was the first work to openly ask for independence from Great Britain.

Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. . . . Time makes more converts than reason.

As a long and violent abuse of power, is generally the Means of calling the right of it in question (and in Matters too which might never have been thought of, had not the Sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry) and as the King of England hath undertaken in his OWN RIGHT, to support the Parliament in what he calls THEIRS, and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpation of either.

Using Biblical quotes which Protestants understood.

The document played a major part in uniting colonists before the Revolutionary War for freedom from the British. Common Sense also led to the Declaration of Independence later that year.

Common Sense presented two main points: A) Independence from England, and B) the creation of a democratic republic.

Because of its treasonous content, Paine wrote Common Sense anonymously. The clearly defined reasoning in his writing led colonists to unite in the patriotic cause of freedom.

Paine pointed out that there was no sense for an island to rule a continent. He reminded the colonists that America was not a British nation, but a nation composed of many different people, of varied influences.

A) He also posed a moral question, asking, "If Britain was the true 'mother' country, would a mother burden her children, and treat them badly?" B) A more practical and less emotional topic was that the distance between the two nations prevented timely correspondence of governing petitions and issues. The charge was that Britain did not consider the best interests of the colonies that represented it. C) Being a part of Britain would also involve America in unnecessary wars. This would prevent the colonists from foreign trade. D) Paine pointed out that colonists were oppressed and persecuted under British rule.

Thomas Paine's pamphlet supposedly sold 500,000 copies in its first year of circulation. Because Paine was intent in pointing out an alternative to British rule, he donated any royalties from Common Sense to George Washington's Continental Army. He intended to assist the oppressed colonists and a fair and worthwhile cause, the American Revolutionary War.

To the American colonists, Paine's straightforward and simply-written expressions made political ideas real to the people. He targeted the deeply felt sentiments of the colonists, presenting reasons for breaking free in a manner that they understood. Common Sense made the war for freedom an individual choice, which could be attained in a united manner by the colonists.

DEISM: The belief that God has created the universe but remains apart from it and permits his creation to administer itself through natural laws. In the first months of 1776, the Colonists still wanted to negotiate with the British to resolve the main problems. Many of the colonists felt that the King and the Queen of England were appointed by God and to challenge their authority would be a violation of Godly principles. Paine openly refused this idea, basing much of his logic on the idea that government should be based on natural law. He explained that the people must fight against the unfair and unjust ways of King George III and the British Parliament. He talked about government being a "necessary evil," which could be made better through having elections often. He didn't think that government should control people who did not have a voice in what was being done--that this was natural law, and "common sense."

The British who lived in England had many rights. They had a say in the laws Parliament was making. The Colonists, though, had no rights or any say in what laws Parliament made. They were being taxed by a country without having any say or voting power. Common Sense made the colonists think and after they thought they became more ready to fight for their independence.

1776. Paine stressed the logic of America's independence, emphasizing the defects of Britain's monarchy and the economic costs of participating in Britain's repeated European wars. Reconciliation with Britain, Paine wrote, would constitute "madness and folly." "Common Sense" avoided abstract philosophy, favoring instead the ordinary language of artisans and biblical examples to support Paine's arguments. The "plain truth" (Paine's original title for the tract) he espoused found a broad readership; around 100,000 copies circulated in 1776 alone, and the pamphlet stirred politicians and ordinary citizens to embrace American independence.

Paine's major impact came not from being inspirational, but from being angry. "The point to remember," writes literary historian Robert Ferguson, "is that Paine's natural and intended audience is the American mob. . . . He uses anger, the natural emotion of the mob, to let the most active groups find themselves in the general will of a republican citizenry."1 Before Paine, adds Ferguson, the rhetoric of published discourse had been moderate; educated men wrote civilly for publication and kept their fury for private letters and diaries. Then came Paine, calling Britain an "open enemy," denouncing George III as "Royal Brute of England," and mocking the prospect of reconciliation as "truly farcical" and "a fallacious dream." To think otherwise, he charges, is "repugnant to reason." Here we examine Common Sense and the independent spirit it spurred among the "common people," the contempt it received from Loyalists, and the anxiety it caused Patriot leaders.

Only two years after he arrived in the colonies from Britain, Thomas Paine—a former corsetmaker, school master, and tax officer—expressed America's pent-up rage against the mother country in Common Sense, the most influential pamphlet of the Revolutionary period. Paine challenged Americans' longheld pride in Britain and urged them to see what was already the case—they were separate, self-governing, and capable of defeating Britain in war. He presented his argument in four sections. (1) The English constitution you worship? It's a sham. (2) The monarchy you revere as an institution? It doesn't care about you; it cares about Britain's wealth, and a series of "crowned ruffians" has laid the world "in blood and ashes." (3) America today? It is folly to think that it can remain subject to a distant tyrant, and it is self-sabotage to keep pursuing reconciliation, which would surely lead to the "ruin of the continent." (4) Can we win this war? Absolutely, so get going! If we delay it, it will be that much harder to achieve.

On one hand, he seems to be a great American Patriot. The thoughts and ideas visited in Common Sense are the kind of fodder that I was taught from a very young age. On the other, he seems to be a master of propaganda. Common Sense tends to decide for the reader what is the only way for America to go. He went so far as to state at the beginning of the section "Of the present ability of America, with some miscellaneous reflexions" that it was inevitable that America separate with England without any argument otherwise. The act of naming the pamphlet Common Sense was in itself a propaganda-type move.

http://freakonomics.com/2011/09/01/were-colonial-americans-more-literate-than-americans-today/