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The 47-page pamphlet took colonial America by storm in 1776 and made critical arguments for declaring independence from England.
In Common Sense, Thomas Paine argues for American independence. His argument begins with more general, theoretical reflections about government and religion, then progresses onto the specifics of the colonial situation. Paine begins by distinguishing between government and society.
Common Sense made a clear case for independence and directly attacked the political, economic, and ideological obstacles to achieving it. Paine relentlessly insisted that British rule was responsible for nearly every problem in colonial society and that the 1770s crisis could only be resolved by colonial independence.
Common sense will tell us, that the power which hath endeavoured to subdue us, is of all others, the most improper to defend us. Conquest may be effected under the pretence of friendship; and ourselves, after a long and brave resistance, be at last cheated into slavery.
Only two years after he arrived in the colonies from Britain, Thomas Paine—a former corsetmaker, school master, and tax officer—expressed America's pent-up rage against the mother country in Common Sense, the most influential pamphlet of the Revolutionary period.
Thomas Paine was a writer and philosopher whose pamphlets "Common Sense," "The Age of Reason" and "Rights of Man" supported the Revolutionary War and other causes.
IN the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense: and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off ...
Paine's brilliant arguments were straightforward. He argued for two main points: (1) independence from England and (2) the creation of a democratic republic. Paine avoided flowery prose.
Paine made this argument in his pamphlet Common Sense, which first appeared in January, 1776, and immediately became popular and widely read. Paine's ideas played a central role in rallying public opinion and were an important precursor to the Declaration of Independence, which was written six months later.
by Thomas Paine. Published in 1776, Common Sense challenged the authority of the British government and the royal monarchy. The plain language that Paine used spoke to the common people of America and was the first work to openly ask for independence from Great Britain.