Common Sense (pamphlet)

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Common Sense by Thomas Paine

Common Sense was a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine. It was first published anonymously on January 10, 1776, during the American Revolution. Paine wrote it with editorial feedback from Benjamin Rush, who came up with the title. The document denounced British rule and, through its immense popularity, contributed to stimulating the American Revolution. The second edition was published soon thereafter. A third edition, with an accounting of the worth of the British navy, an expanded appendix, and a response to criticism by the Quakers, was published on February 14, 1776.

Paine donated the copyright for Common Sense to the states, and as one biographer noted, Paine made nothing from the estimated 150,000 to 600,000 copies that were eventually printed (various sources disagree on the number of printed copies in Paine's lifetime). In fact, he had to pay for the first printing himself.

Paine's Arguments against British rule

• It was ridiculous for an island to rule a continent.
• America was not a "British nation"; it was composed of influences and peoples from all of Europe,
• Even if Britain was the "mother country" of America, that made her actions all the more horrendous, for no mother would harm her children so brutally.
• Being a part of Britain would drag America into unnecessary European wars, and keep it from the international commerce at which America excelled.
• The distance between the two nations made the governing the colonies from England unwieldy. If some wrong were to be petitioned to Parliament, it would take a year before the colonies received a response.
• The New World was discovered shortly after the Reformation. The Puritans believed that God wanted to give them a safe haven from the persecution of British rule.
• Britain ruled the colonies for its own benefit, and did not consider the best interests of the colonists in governing them.

Less-quoted sections of the pamphlet include Paine's over-optimistic view of America's military potential at the time of the Revolution. For example, he spends pages describing how colonial shipyards, by using the large amounts of lumber available in the country, could quickly create a navy that could rival the Royal Navy.

Proposed constitution

Constitution of the United States as proposed by Thomas Paine in Common Sense

In the essay, Thomas Paine proposes a constitution of the United States as well as a method to be used for the purpose of drafting a Continental Charter (or Charter of the United Colonies) that would be an American Magna Carta. Paine also advised the American colonists with "simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense," that "Everything that is right or natural pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of natural cries, 'TIS TIME TO PART". The diagram on the left provides a visual representation of the proposed system, which featured a combination of elections through ballot voting and allotment in order to select the president as well as the passing of laws with no less than 3/5 of the Congress:

Quotations

• "There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required."
• "Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins." (Opening Line)
• "I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense . . ."
• "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."
• "Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil."
• "Time makes more converts than reason." (the Introduction)
• "Every thing that is right or natural pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, 'tis time to part."
• "But where says some is the king of America? I'll tell you friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the royal brute of Britain. ... so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king."
• "O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her--Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind."
• ". . . have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest purest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom from the event of a few months."
• "That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations, is as shocking as it is true; but when those who are concerned in the government of a country make it their study to sow discord, and cultivate prejudices among Nations, it becomes the more unpardonable."
• "Wherefore, since nothing but blows will do, for God's sake, let us come to a final separation."
• "Small islands not capable of protecting themselves are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is something very absurd in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island."

Even though Paine, like many of the Deistic Founding Fathers, was exceptionally hostile towards organized religion as a political and moral force, Common Sense used many Biblical references to support its assertions, playing to the strong influence of personal religion in Colonial America. His views on organized religion would be later clarified in his pamphlet The Age of Reason.

Further reading

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Common Sense

• Scott Liell, 46 Pages: Tom Paine, Common Sense, and the Turning Point to American Independence, Running Press, April, 2003, hardcover, 160 pages, ISBN 0-7624-1507-X; trade paperback, March, 2004, 176 pages, ISBN 0-7624-1813-3.
• Moncure David Conway, The Life of Thomas Paine

See also

The Age of Reason, also written by Thomas Paine.

External links

Book text

• At ushistory.org .
• Project Gutenberg: #147 & #3755
• Common Sense in mp3 audio at Americana Phonic

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