SOURCE: "Thomas Paine's Theories of Rhetoric," in Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, Vol. 28, 1933, pp. 307-39.

In the following essay, Clark presents Paine as a literary "craftsman" who abided by a set of guidelines for effective writing, including clarity, boldness, wit, and appeal to feeling. Clark also suggests that Paine's view of language originated in his views of religion and nature.

Woodrow Wilson, Twenty-eighth President of the United States, on Common Sense:

One such [pamphlet] took precedence of all others, whether for boldness or for power, the extraordinary pamphlet which Thomas Paine, but the other day come out of England as if upon mere adventure, gave to the world as Common Sense. It came from the press in Philadelphia early in January, 1776, the year the Congress uttered its Declaration of Independence, and no writing ever more instantly swung men to its humor. It was...