Tom Paine’s Common Sense Speaks to us Today
Tom Paine published Common Sense in January, 1776, when the American colonies were in crisis, as the American nation is today. Paine’s little pamphlet, reprinted in newspapers and read aloud in coffee houses, helped jumpstart the revolution. Common Sense is reputed to have been read—or heard—by a higher percentage of the American population than any publication before or since. Whatever the real numbers, it played a key role in persuading the majority of British colonists in America that their best interests lay not with loyalty to the King, but with forming a new country of their own.
How Tom Paine became involved in the American Revolution is a story in its own right. Benjamin Franklin, during his time in London met Paine, an Englishman, and recognized Paine’s superior skills as a pamphleteer and a persuasive propagandist.
Shortly thereafter, Paine emigrated to America, arriving in December, 1774 with a letter of introduction from Franklin. He contacted typhus on the voyage and almost died. During Paine’s first year in the colonies, in 1775, Americans fought several battles with British troops and suffered considerable casualties. A sense of rage began to grow, but was permeated by wide-spread public confusion about what to do. A complete break from Great Britain was not generally accepted.
Benjamin Rush suggested to his close friend Franklin that Paine write a pamphlet to capitalize on the anger of the American colonists, but to direct it at independence. Rush financed an initial printing of 120,000 copies and then 400,000 more before the year’s end. Excerpts were reprinted in newspapers and read aloud in coffee houses and taverns across the colonies.
Paine’s tactics were straightforward. He wrote in simple but bold language. He laid out clearly the constraints and second-class status placed on the American colonies by the British constitution. He described in blunt terms the punitive actions and decrees of King George and the undemocratic nature of a hereditary monarch. And then he described what might be possible under a new system of self-government, which he described as “The Free and Independent States of America.”
Paine did not shy away from the consequences of the latter choice; he said outright that Americans would have to fight for their freedom. But his pamphlet, coming on the heels of tax levies and new military threats from King George in the beginning of the year 1776, was compelling. It helped to create a groundswell that emboldened the authors and signers of the Declaration of Independence later that year. Future president John Adams said "Without the pen of the author of Common Sense , the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain."
Today, we face new threats to our democracy—from abroad and at home, from demagogues as well as an uninformed electorate. They are aimed at deepening divisions among Americans and undermining their confidence in the US democracy and its institutions.
Instead of coffee houses and taverns, we have social media that sort us into subgroups and serve to reinforce perceived differences. This publication, Common Sense for the Eastern Shore , is motivated by the spirit of Tom Paine to be honest about the issues that face us and to offer practical solutions that will benefit everyone.
The following are links to the original text of Paine’s works and websites with short discussions of Thomas Paine’s life and influence.
Biography.com: https://www.biography.com/people/thomas-paine-9431951
Thomas Paine Society: https://www.thomaspainesociety.org/bio
Complete text of Common Sense by Thomas Paine: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/147/147-h/147-h.ht
Complete Works of Thomas Paine at Gutenberg Project read online or download: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31270
Common Sense for the Eastern Shore
