Common Sense by Thomas Paine

Common Sense by Thomas Paine

Common Sense is the timeless classic that inspired the Thirteen Colonies to fight for and declare their independence from Great Britain in the summer of 1776. Written by famed political theorist Thomas Paine, this pamphlet boldly challenged the authority of the British government and the royal monarchy to rule over the American colonists.

By using plain language and a reasoned style, Paine chose to forego the philosophical and Latin references made popular by the Enlightenment era writers. As a result, Paine united average citizens and political leaders behind the central idea of independence and transformed the tenor of the colonists' argument against the British. As the best-selling American title of all time, Common Sense has been eloquently described by historian Gordon S. Wood as the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era.

Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was an English-American political activist, philosopher, and revolutionary. As one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, he authored the most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution and inspired the colonists to declare independence from Great Britain in 1776. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era rhetoric of transnational human rights and the separation of church and state. He has been called a corset-maker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination.

Thomas Paine (1737-1809), a pamphleteer, revolutionary, radical, liberal, intellectual, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, was a pamphleteer, revolutionary, radical, liberal, intellectual, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He went to America on Benjamin Franklin's recommendation, just in time to advocate the American Revolution with his strong and widely read tract, Common Sense. Later in life, he had a significant impact on the French Revolution. He wrote Rights of Man as a primer on Enlightenment ideals. In 1792, despite his incapacity to communicate in French, he was elected to the French National Assembly.

He was seen as a Girondist ally, but the Montagnards, particularly Robespierre, were growing dissatisfied with him. In December 1793, he was captured and imprisoned in Paris; he was released in 1794. His work The Age of Reason, which championed deism and criticized Christian ideas, made him famous. While in France, he also published Agrarian Justice, a pamphlet that analyzed the origins of property and proposed a proposal similar to a guaranteed minimum income.

He stayed in France until 1802, when he accepted an offer from Thomas Jefferson, the newly elected president of the United States.