Thomas Paine and Common Sense: after Common Sense

Paine found himself carried forward by the immense wave of his book’s popularity into the heart of New World society. If Common Sense isolated the fears and the angers of the average colonist and focused them into a strategy for the future, its impact was tenfold for the men who would face charges of treason as the American founding fathers. Common Sense would lead directly to the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, and among the United Colonies’ elite now in favor of separation from Britain Paine was both a celebrity and a sage.

General Charles Lee wrote George Washington to ask, “Have you seen the pamphlet Common Sense? I never saw such a masterly irresistible performance. It will, if I mistake not, in concurrence with the transcendent folly and wickedness of the Ministry, give the coup-de-grace to Great Britain. In short, I own myself convinced, by the arguments, of the necessity of separation.” Washington in turn reported that “the sound doctrine and unanswerable reasoning contained in the pamphlet Common Sense will not leave members [of Congress] at a loss to decide upon the propriety of separation… . [It is] working a wonderful change in the minds of many men,” while John Adams called the pamphlet “a tolerable summary of the arguments which I had been repeating again and again in Congress for nine months,” and passed on the rumor that the author’s “name is Paine, a gentleman about two years from England—a man who, General [Charles] Lee says, has genius in his eyes.” Adams would later write Thomas Jefferson that “every post and every day rolls upon us independence like a torrent… . History is to ascribe the American Revolution to Thomas Paine,” while Jefferson commented that “no writer has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of style, in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple and unassuming language.”

(Thomas Paine: Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Birth of Modern Nations by Craig Nelson (New York: Viking, 2006; hardcover, page 93. Ellipsis and notes in original. See below for a better example of Adams’ view on Paine.)

It seems more difficult to understate the impact of Common Sense than it is to overstate it. I think Charles Lee highlights an important point that Britain’s actions would continue to inflame the colonists’ push for independence. Paine’s masterstroke was in pointing out the colonists’ trust was ill-placed, arguing that the relationship between Britain and the colonies needed to be reframed. Paine tapped directly into the Lockean idea of the distinction between society and government (even though Paine claimed he never read Locke) and insisted that government should be limited to its artificial constructs and limits. Paine obviously struck a chord with the colonists (and others) when telling Britain it’s not us, it’s you.

What about Paine’s life after Common Sense? I’m going to keep this short (for me) but there are a few highlights and points I want to cover. One thing to keep in mind with the pamphlet is that there were no copyright laws in the colonies until 1790. While loosely following English common law, a book or pamphlet was considered property, but the benefit was viewed as the owner of the printing press. Despite being a best-selling author, Paine received little monetary benefit from his writing. He often stated that he wanted profits from his tracts to be funneled to causes he supported.

While serving as an aide-de-camp to Nathanael Greene, Paine watched the fall of Fort Washington and fled with Greene’s men from Cornwallis. He began writing the series The American Crisis during the black days of the retreat, the first of the series providing some of Paine’s most memorable lines:

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 their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value.

Washington had the work read aloud to his troops. The series was a combination of straightforward reports of the state of affairs while reminding people what was at stake. It intended to revitalize confidence and reinforce the will to fight—fortunately for the nascent nation it was wildly successful. In the second “Crisis” entry, Paine used the phrase “the United States of America” for the first time.

In 1781 Paine went to France as part of a delegation to shore up support for the American cause. The financial crisis in America coincided with his own penury so Paine appealed to George Washington for personal help. Washington enlisted Gouverneur Morris and Robert Livingston to develop a secret agreement with Paine to write newspaper columns supporting American interests. Eventually Paine received additional compensation (particularly from the states of New York and Pennsylvania) for his work during the early years of the revolution.

Paine wrote Part One of the Rights of Man in response to Edmund Burke’s criticisms of the French Revolution. The two men had become friends but the 1789 French revolution ended that. Paine could not restrain his journalistic, confrontational style and attacked Burke as much as his arguments. Paine also focused on the nobility (“no-ability”) for suppressing human rights, liberty, and equality. After Part Two, Paine was found guilty in Britain of seditious libel. In Common Sense, Paine had called for American independence but did not call for the direct overthrow of the British crown (although he did have plenty to say about the stupidity of such governance). Now Paine was calling on a world revolution for people to claim their natural rights. Even though he could not speak French, Paine was elected to the National Convention. As the French Revolution continued to turn on itself, he was arrested at the end of 1793 and remained in prison for over ten months.

Paine had managed to turn over the first part of The Age of Reason to friends before he was arrested and it was published in 1794. Paine believed in a natural religion that permeated everything on earth and did not need any type of intervention. This meant to him organized religion was wrong. When Paine was released from prison, it must have been like he had returned to a completely different world. Robespierre and St. Just were gone and the revolution continued to destroy its own and others. Paine continued The Age of Reason with Part Two, providing commentary on much of the Bible, declaring it not holy. Part One did not reject the existence of God, just that he existed differently than religion prescribed. In a sense, his view on government parallels his view of the church, where both are instituted to as a result of man’s evil nature. Paine’s last pamphlet, Agrarian Justice, was in a sense his own refutation to parts of the Rights of Man as he looked at social justice while reconsidering the role and purpose of violence in revolution.

His funeral had only a few attendees and his burial place was barely marked. An advocate of his tried to have Britain rebury Paine in a dedicated monument but the state understandably passed on the opportunity. After the advocate's death, Paine’s remains went missing. Paine’s legacy proves difficult to nail down in a consistent manner since he was both wildly adored and reviled during his life, even though he unswervingly advocated for political and social change. While his writing was in a style that everyone could understand, relying on common sense in place of antique references, he could also be combative, sarcastic, and dismissive. He turned on friends for slights or differences, real and perceived. Even when writing during dark days for him and his adopted countries he tried to impart grounds for hope based on his view of the rightness of his cause. His advocacy had no governor—he remained full throttle in his idealism, which rankled many writers and politicians of the day.

I’ll end with John Adams’ comments on The Age of Reason (in an 1805 letter to Benjamin Waterhouse) since it captures much of the antagonism against Paine as well as paying backhanded compliments:

I am willing you should call this the Age of Frivolity, as you do, and would not object if you had named it the Age of Folly, Vice, Frenzy, Brutality, Daemons, Bonaparte, Tom Paine, or the Age of the Burning Brand from the Bottomless Pit, or anything but the Age of Reason. I know not whether any man in the world has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for the last thirty years than Tom Paine. There can be no severer satyr on the age. For such a mongrel between pit and puppy, begotten by a wild boar on a bitch wolf, never before in any age of the world was suffered by the poltronnery of mankind, to run through such a career of mischief. Call it then the Age of Paine.

Related posts on Thomas Paine and Common Sense:

• Setting the Stage
• What is it about that pamphlet?

Common Sense and Thomas Paine: what is it about that pamphlet?

At his print shop here, Robert Bell published the first edition of Thomas Paine’s revolutionary pamphlet in January 1776. Arguing for a republican form of government under a written constitution, it played a key role in rallying American support for independence.
Picture source at The Historical Marker Database

We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
Common Sense, Appendix

In the previous post I looked at some of the events between Britain and its American colonies leading up to the publication of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. The question I focused on is how so many of the American colonists went from a willing submission to Britain in 1763 (Ben Franklin’s words) to a declaration of independence in 1776. Writers reflecting the American spirit of the years leading up to 1776 highlight a hope for reconciliation after their grievances were addressed. Revolution was not inevitable.

Cue the publication of Common Sense in January 1776. All sorts of claims on its influence can and have been made. Did Common Sense singlehandedly change American colonists’ view toward a break with Britain? Did Paine simply give voice to feelings that colonists already felt? Or was it just a coincidence in timing with other events that led to the drive for independence? My own feelings, for what it’s worth (and so you know my take while you read this post), is somewhere in the middle of that triangulation. One indisputable fact was its popularity—fifty-six editions within a year of publication. The numbers vary but somewhere between two hundred thousand and half a million pamphlets sold (there were less than three million colonists at the time), reflecting a physical distribution and philosophical diffusion that is nothing short of astounding. It has been turned into a mythic achievement, picking up baggage and appropriation as the years go by.

But what’s in the pamphlet? It’s not very long, easily readable in two hours or less. I’m going to outline some of the main points and look at a few aspects I find compelling for its argument. As always, feel free to add your comments on the work—I’m always interested to see how a work strikes other readers.

There are many online sources available to read the pamphlet. I’m going to mention the print version at Project Gutenberg and the YouTube version synchronizing text and audio (courtesy of Librivox.com). The Wikipedia entry has a nice summary of the sections.
I’ll include Professor Joanne B. Freeman’s series of lectures on the American Revolution since I really enjoyed them. The most relevant video is Lecture 10, although it’s worth noting the lectures around it are important if you are interested in the pamphlet.

There are four sections in most publications of the pamphlet :

• Of the Origin and Design of Government in General
• Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession
• Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs
• Of the Present Ability of American, with Some Miscellaneous Reflections

The opening lines differentiate society and government as well as spelling out why they are necessary:

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. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first 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; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. WHEREFORE, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows, that whatever FORM thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others. …

Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. freedom and security. And however our eyes may be dazzled with show, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and of reason will say, it is right.

There are many arguments and suppositions following from this distinction but these are necessary points for everything that follows. Government is intended to be a check on human evils while society provides mutual assistance. Government could be said to be a necessary evil and should limit its role accordingly. Paine also draws an idea of government from what he sees in nature—simple is better. Simplicity limits disorder and makes repair easier.

In the second section Paine argues against monarchy in any form, even a “mixed state” where Parliament is supposed to be a check on the monarch. If a check is needed, then you concede that monarchy is dangerous. Hereditary succession does not guarantee the best leaders, nor does it save a country from civil wars. “In short, monarchy and succession have laid (not this or that kingdom only) but the world in blood and ashes.”

In the third section Paine looks at the struggles between Britain and the American colonies. After summarizing many of the reasons and excuses given why the colonies should remain together, Paine proceeds to counter them, calling Britain an “open enemy.” One thing Paine doesn’t do is list grievances—he simply notes that injustices exist. He focuses on commerce and argues an independent America will do well in the world markets. Paine then proposes what he thinks the independent government should look like.

In the final section Paine evaluates the chances of military success and finds them favorable. Later editions of Common Sense contain an appendix where Paine looks at the damages that will accrue from reconciliation with Britain and exhorts his fellow Quakers not to be passive in the face of oppression. Paine expands the call from just members of his own religion to all Americans and declares that citizens have the natural right to replace their government.

In the introductory essay of the Penguin edition, Isaac Kramnic opines that Paine’s rage appealed to readers more than the “common sense” presented, which means he struck a nerve. The anger is veiled at times while seething from the page at other points. Also helping with its appeal is simple and direct language, something that most people of the time could easily follow. It rambles at times and gets bogged down occasionally but Common Sense presents hope and enthusiasm for independence, resembling a sermon exhorting men to action. The pamphlet addresses the prevailing arguments against independence and highlights not just the possibility but the necessity of it. Paine confronts the fears of the colonists and casts the actions he calls forth as noble actions.

Today it’s difficult to fathom how audacious Paine’s call for independence was in January 1776 and the risk that he took in writing it (as well as Benjamin Rush’s role in editing and publishing it). Paine wanted a loose-knit group of colonies to take on the world’s greatest power, potentially destroying everything they had gained to date. Paine’s message that independence wasn’t just possible but also necessary and right cast what had been a radical message into mainstream terms. The appeal to a higher cause addressed not just the political link with Britain but emotional ties, too. Paine went beyond tinkering with the system and having grievances redressed—his argument was that fairness wasn’t possible under the current arrangement so the whole thing should be scrapped.

I was surprised to see humor surface now and again in the work. The following passage sounds like something from Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

England, since the conquest, hath known some few good monarchs, but groaned beneath a much larger number of bad ones; yet no man in his senses can say that their claim under William the Conqueror is a very honourable one. A French bastard landing with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original. It certainly hath no divinity in it.
(From Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession )

Paine peremptorily cuts short any arguments against his views in Common Sense by declaring his views as self-evident truths and labeling contrary opinions unnatural, childish, and farcical. That wouldn’t keep John Adams from calling Common Sense “a poor, ignorant, malicious, short-sighted, crapulous mass.” Thomas Jefferson wasn’t that fond of it, either. Given Paine's message and the sales of the pamphlet, though, I think it safe to say that Common Sense helped re-frame the way colonists assessed their relationship with Britain.

Happy Fourth of July!


Related posts on Thomas Paine and Common Sense:

• Setting the stage
• After Common Sense

Common Sense and Thomas Paine—setting the stage

Picture source at Wikipedia

For the Fourth of July I thought I would do something different. The obvious choice would be to look at the Declaration of Independence or its philosophical history and background, but I wanted to re-read Common Sense and look at on one of America’s most problematic founding fathers, Thomas Paine.

I plan on three posts—this post will focus mostly on events leading up to its writing and publication, setting the stage, if you will. Part of the post will follow Isaac Kramnic’s 1976 essay that serves as an introduction to the Penguin Books edition (last reprinted in 1986) while other parts track my own wanderings. I do not claim to present all sides to arguments but would like to provide a starting point for anyone not familiar with the pamphlet. The other two posts will look at the pamphlet and Paine’s troubled life after its publication.

These are very much stream of consciousness posts since I have had little free time of late, so I apologize in advance for their lengthy rambling and inability to focus on as much as I would like. Because of the scope of this post there will necessarily be sweeping generalizations. I mention a few books about this period that I have enjoyed reading…if you have any you recommend please feel free to add them in the comments. The same request goes for any major event or change you feel I have left out—even at this length I deliberately omitted a few but tried to keep the general flow intact. OK, caveats are out of the way.

On February 13, 1765, Benjamin Franklin appeared before the British House of Commons to answer questions regarding the colonists resistance to the Stamp Act. Franklin’s answers are considered to have helped persuade Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act in March, but I want to focus on his answers regarding the deteriorating attitude in British America towards Great Britain:

Q. What was the temper of America towards Great Britain before the year 1763?

—A. The best in the world. They submitted willingly to the government of the crown, and paid, in all their courts, obedience to acts of parliament. Numerous as the people are in the several old provinces, they cost you nothing in forts, citadels, garrisons or armies, to keep them in subjection. They were governed by this country at the expence only of a little pen, ink, and paper. They were led by a thread. They had not only a respect, but an affection for Great Britain, for its laws, its customs and manners, and even a fondness for its fashions, that greatly increased the commerce. Natives of Britain were always treated with particular regard; to be an Old-England man was, of itself, a character of some respect, and gave a kind of rank among us.

Q. And what is their temper now?

—A. O, very much altered.

Even though the relationship was altering, how do we get from willing submission to revolution in just over a decade? Franklin may be overstating the case, although many of his contemporaries agreed with his assessment. More importantly are some of the structural changes that had been taking place over the past century.

Jack P. Greene presented a paper at the Symposium on the American Revolution (March 1971) hosted by the Institute of Early American History and Culture. The papers presented there have been gathered in Essays on the American Revolution, editors Stephen G. Kurtz and James H. Hutson (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1973). Greene’s paper is well worth reading in whole (and can be found online here. Greene looks at two interrelated questions that are raised by Franklin’s remaks:

[F]irst, whether the relationship between Britain and the colonies actually was so satisfactory prior to 1763, and second, if the existing imperial system worked as well for Britain as Franklin contended, why the British government would ever undertake—much less persist in—measures that would in any way impair such an obviously beneficial arrangement. (33)

Greene’s essay highlights a few of the paradoxes of the American Revolution, such as the emergence of “acknowledged local political and social elites.” Complementary to this was development of the requisites for self-government, both in institutions and competency. In addition, the increase in size and wealth of the colonies meant that by the time Franklin spoke Britain was probably more reliant on the American colonies than vice versa. Greene lists other structural changes, such as the belief that the British system was superior, something frittered away during the decade between Franklin’s examination and conflict. There were also implicit operating assumptions in the parent/colony relationship that changed dramatically during this period. One of these components, which leads directly to Common Sense, is “the assumption that the imperial government would not interfere with the capacity of the colonists as individuals to maintain their personal autonomy.” (59)

The abandonment of Robert Walpole’s accommodation policy in favor of stricter controls backfired on Britain, corroding the relationship between parties. Even with all these structural changes, though, revolution was not inevitable. Many complex changes began to come into play, including the generalizations listed below (adding to the many paradoxes):

• The effort from Britain to fight the Seven Years’ War increased the colonists’ sense of self-importance while their own successful contribution raised their self-esteem.
• The war produced an increase in British patriotism among the colonists but also raised their expectations of an increased role in their own governance.
• Many British rulers took an opposite approach, wishing to restore the relationship to one of colonist dependence.
• The removal of a direct French and Spanish threat lessened an erstwhile need for reliance on Britain, while Parliament perceived the removal of enemies as an opportunity to pursue their desired colonial reforms (fostered in part by the colonists’ behavior during the war). The presence of many troops after the war was finished gave them a heavy-handed means to do so.
• George Grenville’s term as Prime Minister managed to provoke opposition and strengthen colonist resolve against Britain (primarily with the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, and changes in navigation regulation).

This confluence of events happening so close together around 1763 marks a change in the colonists’ perception of their relationship with Britain—while there wasn’t a concerted plan to destroy or cripple the colonies, changes to the balance of power between the two (stated and unstated) coupled with incompetence and domineering acts from above fed this change. Back to Greene’s point, many of these events ended up with the results they did because of many underlying transformations during the preceding century.

After demonstrations by colonists, intimidation of Crown representatives, and destruction of British government property following the acts (especially the Stamp Act), Grenville was replaced by Rockingham. While intended to pacify the colonists, the change also reinforced the idea in the colonists’ minds that militancy could have an effect. Rockingham’s belief in constitutional rights for the colonists caused enough internal dissent that he was replaced and the new cabinet pursued a hard-line against the colonists. Reaction in the colonies was loud and angry. As Kramnick put it in his introduction, “Pamphlets and petitions came rapidly from colonial presses.” (15) The most remarkable (to me) from all of this outpouring was John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies. His letters deserve their own post. While his letters lay out a high-minded argument against actions taken by Chancellor of the Exchequer Townshend, he ominously states “the English history affords frequent examples of resistance by force” (Letter III).

Tensions escalated (and I’m skipping a lot here, including the Boston Massacre), including Britain sending more troops to Boston in 1768, almost guaranteeing there would be more armed conflict. While there to protect British officials carrying out Parliamentary legislation, the troops were inflammatory proof to many of the colonists that Britain sought to impose tyranny on the colonists. Well, proof positive to some colonists, like Samuel Adams. In addition to Loyalists to the crown (and at this point I *have* to recommend Maya Jasanoff’s book Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World, something I need to add to the list of deserved posts—see this link for the first chapter) there were many colonists that viewed Adams actions negatively, wishing for reconciliation. While an uneasy calm lasted from 1770 to 1773, the Boston Tea Party accelerated conflict. To be more precise, the British reaction to the Boston Tea Party (including what colonists called the Intolerable Acts) accelerated conflict. But irritation and anger are a far cry from revolution.

In addition to the two accomplishments listed at the entry for the First Continental Congress held in September/October 1774 is the important procedural (and symbolic) action of coming together as a united political body representing the interests of the colonies. From George Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow (New York: The Penguin Press, 2010, hardcover):

The First Continental Congress balked at the still-radical idea of independence, and George Washington expressed the predominant mood when he declared flatly, “I am well satisfied, as I can be of my existence, that no such thing is desired by any thinking many in all North America; on the contrary, that it is the ardent wish of the warmest advocates for liberty that peace and tranquility, upon constitutional grounds, may be restored and the horrors of civil discord prevented.” The delegates clung to the pleasing fiction that a benevolent George III was geing undermined by treacherous ministers, and they implored the king as their “loving father” to rouse himself and rescue his colonial subjects. (173-4)

While Washington may have overstated the colonial attitude of not wanting independence, he probably wasn’t far off the mark, even as late as the Fall of 1774. Britain saw a deeper split developing between radicals seeking American freedoms, if not outright independence, and Parliamentary hardliners wanting to punish the intransigence of the colonists. There were many somewhere between the two camps, Edmund Burke providing some of the most eloquent pleas for conciliation. 1775 saw open armed conflict between the colonies and Britain with the Battles of Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill. Prime Minister Frederick North declared that this was no longer a rebellion by colonists but an open war, obliging Britain to employ every expedient to reassert control. The Second Continental Congress convened after warfare had started, but the focus was on reconciliation and redress, not independence, although the Congress took charge of the war effort out of necessity. John Adams noted at an “elegant supper” marking the opening of the meeting many representatives and their friends toasted “the union of Britain and the colonies on a constitutional foundation.” The Olive Branch Petition was drafted to help in the reconciliation process but was rejected by Britain (due in no small part to John Adams).

King George III declared before the opening of Parliament (October 26, 1775) that the colonies were in open revolt. He also made the declaration that “The rebellious war…is manifestly carried on for the purpose of establishing an independent empire,” a charge that may have surprised many Americans, even some of those openly fighting the British.

It is in this murky atmosphere, as conflicts increased and frustrations grew, that Thomas Paine began writing Common Sense (under the working title of Plain Truth). Keep in mind that Paine had only been in the colonies for fourteen months before he wrote Common Sense. At the end of 1778 Paine looked back on the atmosphere in the colonies when he arrived in The American Crisis, Philadelphia, Nov.21, 1778:

I happened to come to America a few months before the breaking out of hostilities. I found the disposition of the people such, that they might have been led by a thread and governed by a reed. Their suspicion was quick and penetrating, but their attachment to Britain was obstinate, and it was at that time a kind of treason to speak against it. They disliked the ministry, but they esteemed the nation. Their idea of grievance operated without resentment, and their single object was reconciliation. Bad as I believed the ministry to be, I never conceived them capable of a measure so rash and wicked as the commencing of hostilities; much less did I imagine the nation would encourage it. I viewed the dispute as a kind of law-suit, in which I supposed the parties would find a way either to decide or settle it. I had no thoughts of independence or of arms. The world could not then have persuaded me that I should be either a soldier or an author. If I had any talents for either, they were buried in me, and might ever have continued so, had not the necessity of the times dragged and driven them into action. I had formed my plan of life, and conceiving myself happy, wished every body else so. But when the country, into which I had just set my foot, was set on fire about my ears, it was time to stir. It was time for every man to stir. Those who had been long settled had something to defend; those who had just come had something to pursue; and the call and the concern was equal and universal. For in a country where all men were once adventurers, the difference of a few years in their arrival could make none in their right. [emphasis mine]

Lexington and Concord changed his view. More on the pamphlet in the next post.


Related posts on Thomas Paine and Common Sense:

• What is it about that pamphlet?
• After Common Sense