Common Sense

As noted by Garrison Keillor on The Writer's Almanac on NPR this morning, "It was on this day in 1776 that an anonymous pamphlet was published, 46 pages long, in Philadelphia, a pamphlet called Common Sense. It explained why the American colonies should declare independence from Great Britain. It was easy to understand, it was popular, and it rallied a lot of people for the revolutionary cause who had not been involved before they read it.

     Everyone wanted to figure out who the author was. Many people thought it was Benjamin Franklin, or John Adams. But in fact, it was Thomas Paine, who had been born and raised in England, and had come to America only about a year before. He had lost his job in England, his marriage had fallen apart, he wanted a new life.

     But he looked around him, became convinced that the colonies needed total independence from Britain, and wrote about it in the paper — so he lost that job too. He spent several months traveling around Pennsylvania, going to taverns and talking to ordinary people about American independence. 

      Inspired by these conversations, he wrote down an argument for independence. He was thinking of calling it Plain Truth, but a friend suggested he change it to Common Sense. He wrote in a very plain style, trying to write as if it were a sermon, something anybody could understand. He said, "As it is my design to make those that can scarcely read understand, I shall therefore avoid every literary ornament and put it in language as plain as the alphabet."

     Common Sense sold 500,000 copies in its first year after publication, which is quite something, considering that there were only about two and a half million people living in all of the 13 colonies at that time. Thomas Paine donated all the royalties to George Washington's Continental Army.

     He wrote, "Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil.""

     A very good friend of mine is true patriot and an outstanding high school American government and history teacher.  He assigns Common Sense at a required reading in his class and describes Paine as a "superstar."