Common Sense is a
pamphlet written by
Thomas Paine. It was first published anonymously on January 10, 1776, during the
American Revolution.
Common Sense, signed "Written by an Englishman", became an immediate success. In relation to the population of the Colonies at that time, it had the largest sale and circulation of any book in American history.
Common Sense presented the American colonists with a powerful argument for independence from
British rule at a time when the question of independence was still undecided. Paine wrote and reasoned in a style that common people understood; forgoing the philosophy and Latin references used by
Enlightenment era writers, Paine structured
Common Sense like a
sermon and relied on
Biblical references to make his case to the people. Historian
Gordon S. Wood described
Common Sense as, "the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era".
Publication history
Thomas Paine began work on
Common Sense in late 1775 under the working title of
Plain Truth. With the help of
Benjamin Rush, who suggested the title
Common Sense and helped edit and publish, Paine developed his ideas into a forty-eight page pamphlet. Paine published
Common Sense anonymously because of its treasonous content. Printed and sold by R. Bell, Third Street, Philadelphia, it sold as many as 120,000 copies in the first three months, 500,000 in the first year, and went through twenty-five editions in the first year alone. Paine donated his royalties from
Common Sense to
George Washington's
Continental Army, saying:
Sections
Four sections are noted on the title page, which quotes
James Thomson's poem "Liberty" (1735-36):
I. Of the Origin and Design of Government in general, with concise Remarks on the English Constitution.
Paine begins this section by making a distinction between
society and
government. Paine then goes on to consider the relationship between government and society in a state of "natural liberty". Paine tells a story of a few isolated people living in nature without government. The people find it easier to live together rather than apart and thereby create a society. As the society grows problems arise, so all the people meet to make regulations to mitigate the problems. As the society continues to grow government becomes necessary to enforce the regulations, which over time, turn into laws. Soon there are so many people that they cannot all be gathered in one place to make the laws, so they begin holding elections. This, Paine argues, is the best balance between government and society. Having created this model of what the balance should be, Paine goes on to consider the
Constitution of the United Kingdom.
Paine finds two tyrannies in the English constitution; monarchical and aristocratic tyranny, in the king and peers, who rule by heredity and contribute nothing to the people. Paine goes on to criticize the English constitution by examining the relationship between the
king, the
peers, and the
commons.
II. Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession.
In the second section Paine considers
monarchy first from a biblical perspective, then from a historical perspective. He begins by arguing that all men are equal at creation and therefore the distinction between kings and subjects is a false one. Several
Bible verses are posed to support this claim. Paine then examines some of the problems that kings and monarchies have caused in the past and concludes:
In this section, Paine also attacks one type of "mixed state" the
constitutional monarchy promoted by
John Locke in which the powers of government are separated between a Parliament or Congress that makes the laws, and a monarch who executes them. The constitutional monarchy, according to Locke, would limit the powers of the king sufficiently to ensure that the realm would remain lawful rather than easily become tyrannical. According to Paine, however, such limits are insufficient. In the mixed state, power will tend to concentrate into the hands of the monarch, permitting him eventually to transcend any limitations placed upon him. Paine questions why the supporters of the mixed state, since they concede that the power of the monarch is dangerous, wish to include a monarch in their scheme of government in the first place.
III. Thoughts on the present State of American Affairs.
Constitution of the United States as proposed by Thomas Paine in Common Sense
In the third section Paine examines the hostilities between
England and the
American colonies and argues that best course of action is independence. Paine proposes a
Continental Charter (or
Charter of the United Colonies) that would be an American
Magna Carta. Paine writes that a Continental Charter "should come from some intermediate body between the Congress and the people" and outlines a Continental Conference that could draft a Continental Charter.
[Paine, Common Sense, 96-97.] Each colony would hold elections for five representatives; these five would be accompanied by two members of the colonies assembly, for a total of seven representatives from each colony in the Continental Conference. The Continental Conference would then meet and draft a Continental Charter that would secure “freedom and property to all men, and… the free exercise of religion.”
The Continental Charter would also outline a new national government, which Paine thought would take the form of a Congress.
Thomas Paine suggested that a Congress may be created in the following way, each colony should be divided in districts; each district would "send a proper number of delegates to Congress".
Paine thought that each state should send at least 30 delegates to Congress, and that the total number of delegates in Congress should be at least 390. The Congress would meet annually, and elect a President. Each colony would be put into a lottery; the President would be elected, by the whole Congress, from the delegation of the colony that was selected in the lottery. After a colony was selected it would be removed from subsequent lotteries until all of the colonies had been selected, at which point the lottery would start anew. Electing a President or passing a law would require
3/
5 of the Congress.
IV. Of the present Ability of America, with some miscellaneous Reflections.
The fourth section of the pamphlet includes Paine's 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.
Paine's arguments against British rule
- It was absurd 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 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.
- Britain ruled the colonies for its own benefit, and did not consider the best interests of the colonists in governing them.
See also
