COMMON SENSE

Thomas Paine

“These are the times that try men’s souls,” begins Thomas Paine’s first Crisis paper, the impassioned pamphlet that helped ignite the American Revolution. Published in Philadelphia in January of 1776, Common Sense sold 150,000 copies almost immediately. A powerful piece of propaganda, it attacked the idea of a hereditary monarchy, dismissed the chance for reconciliation with England, and outlined the economic benefits of independence while espousing equality of rights among citizens. Paine fanned a flame that was already burning, but many historians argue that his work unified dissenting voices and persuaded patriots that the American Revolution was not only necessary, but an epochal step in world history.

Thomas Paine alienated his British countrymen by championing the American and French Revolutions. In fact, he ended up alienating the Americans and French, too – but not before publishing passionate and influential writings that still stir hearts and minds. His pamphlet COMMON SENSE (1776) provided a concise, plain-language rationale for America’s break with the mother country.

Paine favours a representative democracy wherein there is frequent turn-over, and where the common interests of the people are consulted and catered to. Finally, he argues for the rule and sovereignty of law against the arbitrary and absurd rule of kings and men. He contrasts this with the British model, in which government seems only to serve the interests of the King and the aristocracy. Taxation, as a primary example, allows hereditary rulers, who are inherently removed from the interests of the industrious people they govern, to live off their subjects without contributing anything of substance to the society or the polis. Paine insists that the province of government is not to regulate the lives of the citizens; instead, it must create and protect an arena where free competition in the marketplace will allow people to pursue their own best interests. With a minimum of government, civil society, Paine believes, can administer itself. In one of his most clever lines, Paine says that if an American government can only see to the protection of its own economy and exports, it will flourish “and will always have a market while eating is the custom of Europe”.

The impetus for “Common Sense” is the current of thought that suggested reconciliation with Britain is preferable to independence. In an American public sphere anxious about its relationship to Britain, Paine provides encouragement to debate and discussion with all the subtlety of a street-corner millenarian. Citing the inevitability of a split between the colonies and Britain, and emphasizing that the legacy of America is at stake in the choices of the present moment, Paine calls the drive to independence “the cause of all mankind”. In persuasive and urgent, nearly prophetic language, Paine makes a case for the political, economic, and historical implications of American independence.