"Common Sense" in the Colonies

Taking a look at Thomas Paine's pamphlet from 1776.

Have you ever actually read Common Sense, Addressed to the Inhabitants of America by Thomas Paine? It is a bit long and wordy, especially for something that was a “pamphlet”. It certainly is bigger than what most people today would consider a pamphlet. (The Dover Thrift Edition that I have is 58 pages long.)

I came back around through to Thomas Paine recently in my quest to differentiate what is being taught in middle and high school history and what other events in the American Revolution are skipped over. As previously mentioned, I only discovered the Clinton-Sullivan Campaign quite recently, and it made me wonder what other parts of the war did I not learn about in school? What other parts of the war could resources be built? What other parts of the war might an inquiry-minded curriculum need resources for, that might not currently exist for middle and high schoolers?

So, I started from the very beginning.

While I knew I would be underwhelmed by the paragraphs within the textbooks around tea and the East India Company, I knew I had to keep moving. I could spend eternity in the economics of the mid- to late-1700s.

And thus, I found myself at Thomas Paine.

PERHAPS the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.¹

This is where the Introduction of Common Sense begins, with a statement that has often proven itself correct. This is a second printing of Common Sense that was published on 14 February 1776. This is the beginning of the document that would make a massive difference in the move toward declaring independence in 1776.

He starts right in after the introduction, discussing the differences between government and society, declaring that “[s]ociety is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness”. ²

Absolute governments (tho’ the disgrace of human nature) have this advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springs, know likewise the remedy, and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures. But the constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together without being about to discover in which part the fault lies, some will say in one and some in another, and every political physician will advise different medicine.³

From here, Thomas Paine goes into the subject of the monarchy. He describes the different levels of person in the government and parliament, and how the nobility and the king have no need, really, to respect the commoner. The House of Commons has some checks on the King, but the King also has checks on them. He then questions: “… but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth enquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or misery to mankind.” ⁴

He goes of into a lot of biblical storytelling at this point, and how the Bible says that the only true ruler is God. It also continues into some anti-Catholic rhetoric as well, comparing the Pope to a king. Given the time period it is written, and the place, this makes sense. Catholicism will become much more popular as immigration increases, especially the Irish and the Italians. The religious language here is a bit tough to read, but is also very typical of the time period. It is only after this several-page sermon that he then goes on into the actual events of the 1770s and the conflict between America and Britain.

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, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his fews beyond the present day. ⁵

It seems that many people were convinced by Thomas Paine’s arguments, that he put forward here. While he does appear to try to put down “just the facts”, so to speak. He does clearly have an agenda. At it comes out at various points, like here:

“We have boasted the protection of Great-Britain, without considering, that her motive was interest not attachment; that she did not protect us from our enemies on our account, but from her enemies on her own account, from those who had no quarrel with us on any other account, and who will always be our enemies on the same account. Let Britain wave her pretensions to the continent, or the continent throw off the dependance, and we should be at peace with France and Spain were they at war with Britain. The miseries of Hanover last war ought to warn us against connexions.⁶

It is, when you look at it further, reminiscent of politics today. Common Sense tends to read a lot like Stephen Colbert and John Oliver’s television shows. (Though, with significantly less humor.) Perhaps a better comparison would be Rachel Maddow. There is a lot of commentary buried in the text, even with Thomas Paine’s assertion that he just wants to lay out the facts.

All of this is to say: The full text of Common Sense, while not necessary to read in full for an eighth grader, should definitely be more at the forefront of teaching the American Revolution than the one sentence that I have found in most textbooks.

1. Thomas Paine, Common Sense / Addressed to the Inhabitants of America (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications Inc, 1997), 1. (Originally published by William and Thomas Bradford, Philadelphia, 14 Feb 1776.)

2. Paine, 3.

3. Paine, 5.

4. Paine, 8-9.

5. Paine, 17.

6. Paine, 19.
Note from footnote in text: “[The German electorate of Hanover was invaded by the French during the Seven Years’ War (1756-63).]” (19)