Just nine months after the battles of Lexington and Concord, Paine was assuring Americans that “we have it in our power to begin the world over again” and serve as a model for world citizenship, commerce, and peace. The power of his ideas coupled with the accessibility of his writing account in part for the success and influence of Common Sense. Paine’s literary style bridged the gap between the political elite of the era and the colonial everyman. Arriving in Philadelphia in 1774 with a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin, Paine began a career in journalism as editor of The Philadelphia Magazine.

Paine best remembered for writing Common Senseīorn to a Quaker father and Anglican mother in Thetford, England, Paine worked variously as a corset-maker, excise-tax collector, seaman, and shopkeeper before departing for the colonies. Paine’s “hints” for organizing an independent government include reverence for a written charter that would emphasize individual liberty, including the free exercise of religion. Alongside his justification for the colonists’ separation from England, Paine suggests that the rule of law should replace the rule of king. Thomas Paine (1737–1809), pamphleteer and revolutionary, is best remembered as the author of Common Sense (1776), an enormously popular and highly influential 47-page pamphlet that resonated across the land with its critique of King George III and hereditary succession and its call for American independence.

(Painting by Laurent Dabos via National Portrait Gallery, public domain)

Thomas paine common sense 1776