Common Sense (1776): Thomas Paine's Pamphlet for Independence

Common Sense is a political pamphlet by Thomas Paine, first published in Philadelphia on 10 January 1776, that called on the thirteen American colonies to declare independence from Great Britain. Written in plain, forceful language for ordinary readers, it attacked the very idea of monarchy at a time when most colonists still hoped for reconciliation with King George III. It became one of the most widely read works of the 18th century and helped move public opinion towards the Declaration of Independence six months later.

Background

By the end of 1775 the colonies were already at war with Britain. Fighting had begun at the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April, and the costly Battle of Bunker Hill followed in June. Yet the Continental Congress still described its aim as defending colonial rights within the British Empire. Many Americans blamed the king’s ministers and Parliament, not George III himself.

That position was becoming harder to hold. In August 1775 the king proclaimed the colonies to be in open rebellion, and in a speech to Parliament in October he spoke of the rebellion as aimed at independence. On 1 January 1776 the town of Norfolk, Virginia, was largely destroyed during fighting between British and Patriot forces.

Thomas Paine was a newcomer to America. Born in Thetford, England, in 1737, he had worked as a corset-maker, a teacher and an excise officer before he was dismissed from the excise service. He arrived in Philadelphia on 30 November 1774 with a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin and found work editing the Pennsylvania Magazine. The physician Benjamin Rush encouraged him to write a pamphlet on independence and is said to have suggested the title Common Sense.

Publication

The pamphlet appeared on 10 January 1776, printed by Robert Bell of Philadelphia. It ran to just under 50 pages and was published anonymously, its title page saying only that it was “Written by an Englishman”. Openly calling for independence and denouncing the king could have exposed the author to a charge of treason.

Paine soon quarrelled with Bell over the profits, and an enlarged edition with an appendix was published by the brothers William and Thomas Bradford in February 1776. Printers in other colonies issued their own editions, and newspapers reprinted long extracts. Around 25 editions appeared in 1776 alone, including printings in Britain and translations in Europe.

The enlarged edition also answered critics. Paine added an appendix replying to the king’s speech, which had reached Philadelphia on the same day the pamphlet first went on sale, and an address to the Quakers of Pennsylvania, many of whom opposed the war on religious grounds and had publicly urged loyalty to the Crown. These additions show how quickly the pamphlet became the centre of a running public argument rather than a single statement.

It is striking that the most influential case for American independence came from a man who had lived in the colonies for barely fourteen months. Paine’s outsider position may have helped: he had no local reputation to protect, no ties to colonial factions, and a recent, bitter experience of the British system of taxation and patronage from his years as an excise officer.

Main arguments

Paine began by separating society from government. Society, he wrote, is produced by our wants and is a blessing, while government is at best “a necessary evil”, needed only because people are not perfectly virtuous. The best government is therefore the simplest one, close to the people it serves.

He then attacked monarchy and hereditary succession. Kings, he argued, had usually begun as successful warlords, and handing power from father to son made no sense because wisdom is not inherited. He described William the Conqueror’s claim to the English throne in deliberately scornful terms and mocked the idea that the British constitution was a model of balance.

The heart of the pamphlet dealt with America’s situation. Paine insisted that reconciliation was impossible after the bloodshed of 1775. He argued that it was absurd for a continent to be ruled by an island across an ocean, that ties to Britain dragged America into European wars, and that independence would open American trade to the whole world. He claimed the colonies had the resources, including timber for a navy, to defend themselves.

Finally, he sketched a plan for a republic: annually elected colonial assemblies, a continental congress with a rotating president, and a written charter protecting freedom and property. In the appendix he wrote one of his most quoted lines: “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”

Reception and influence

The pamphlet’s success was immediate. Paine claimed 120,000 copies were sold within three months, and figures of 100,000 to 150,000 or more in the first year are often cited. Some historians regard those numbers as exaggerated, but because copies were shared, read aloud in taverns and reprinted in newspapers, its audience was far larger than its sales. Proportionally, few printed works in American history have reached so many readers.

Leading Patriots took note. In a letter of January 1776 George Washington praised the “sound doctrine and unanswerable reasoning” of the pamphlet and said it would leave few people in doubt about separation. John Adams welcomed its case for independence but disliked its plan of government, which he thought too democratic; in April 1776 he set out his own ideas in Thoughts on Government.

Loyalists answered with pamphlets of their own. James Chalmers of Maryland published Plain Truth, and the Anglican clergyman William Smith wrote a series of newspaper letters under the name “Cato”. Neither matched Paine’s reach. During the spring several colonies instructed their delegates to support independence, and on 2 July 1776 Congress voted for it.

Timeline

• 1774, 30 November: Thomas Paine arrives in Philadelphia from England.
• 1775, 23 August: George III proclaims the American colonies in rebellion.
• 1776, 10 January: Common Sense is published anonymously by Robert Bell.
• 1776, February: An enlarged edition with an appendix is issued by William and Thomas Bradford.
• 1776, April: John Adams publishes Thoughts on Government, partly in response to Paine.
• 1776, 2 July: The Continental Congress votes for independence.
• 1776, 4 July: Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence.
• 1776, 19 December: Paine publishes the first number of The American Crisis.

Legacy

Paine went on to serve the Revolution as a writer and official. His American Crisis essays, the first of which appeared in December 1776, were written to sustain morale during the hardest months of the war, the period of Washington’s crossing of the Delaware. He later defended the French Revolution in Rights of Man (1791–1792) and criticised organised religion in The Age of Reason (1794–1807). The latter work cost him much of his popularity in America, and he died in relative obscurity in New York on 8 June 1809.

Common Sense itself remains a landmark of political writing. Its style was new: instead of the Latin quotations and legal arguments common in pamphlets of the time, Paine used everyday language, biblical references familiar to his readers and short, punchy sentences. Historians such as Eric Foner have shown how it brought ideas of republicanism and popular sovereignty to artisans, farmers and soldiers as well as to the educated elite.

Why it matters

Common Sense changed the terms of the American debate. Before January 1776 independence was a radical idea discussed in private; within months it had become the open goal of the Revolution. By attacking monarchy itself and promising a new kind of republic, Paine helped turn a colonial rebellion into a struggle for a new nation.