Advisor: Robert A. Ferguson, George Edward Woodberry Professor in Law, Literature and Criticism, Columbia University, National Humanities Center Fellow.
Copyright National Humanities Center, 2014

How did Thomas Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense convince reluctant Americans to abandon the goal of reconciliation with Britain and accept that separation from Britain — independence — was the only option for preserving their liberty?

Understanding

By January 1776, the American colonies were in open rebellion against Britain. Their soldiers had captured Fort Ticonderoga, besieged Boston, fortified New York City, and invaded Canada. Yet few dared voice what most knew was true — they were no longer fighting for their rights as British subjects. They weren’t fighting for self-defense, or protection of their property, or to force Britain to the negotiating table. They were fighting for independence. It took a hard jolt to move Americans from professed loyalty to declared rebellion, and it came in large part from Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. Not a dumbed-down rant for the masses, as often described, Common Sense is a masterful piece of argument and rhetoric that proved the power of words.

Teacher’s Note

This lesson focuses on the sections central to Paine’s argument in Common Sense — Section III and the Appendix to the Third Edition, published a month after the first edition. We do not recommend assigning the full essay (Sections I, II, and IV require advanced background in British history that Paine’s readers would have known well). However, students should be led through an overview of the essay to understand how Paine built his arguments to a “self-evident” conclusion (See Background: Message, below.)

Activity: From Resistance to Revolution
Compare Paine’s message and rhetoric in 1776 with that of a moderate Patriot in 1768.

Lead students through an initial overview of the essay (see Background). To begin, they could skim the full text and read the pull-quotes (separated quotes in large bold text). What impression of Common Sense do the quotes provide? What questions do they prompt? Then guide students as they read (perhaps aloud) Section III of Common Sense and the Appendix to the Third Edition (pp. 10-19 and 25-29 in the full text provided with this lesson).

Proceed to the close reading of three excerpts in the Text Analysis below. (Note that part of Excerpt #3 is a Common Core exemplar text.)

This lesson is divided into two parts, both accessible below. The teacher’s guide includes a background note, the text analysis with responses to the close reading questions, access to the interactive exercises, and a follow-up assignment. The student’s version, an interactive worksheet that can be e-mailed, contains all of the above except the responses to the close reading questions.

Background

The man at right does not look angry. To us, he projects the typical figure of a “Founding Father” — composed, elite, and empowered. And to us his famous essays are awash in powdered-wig prose. But the portrait and the prose belie the reality. Thomas Paine was a firebrand, and his most influential essay — Common Sense — was a fevered no-holds-barred call for independence. He is credited with turning the tide of public opinion at a crucial juncture, convincing many Americans that war for independence was the only option to take, and they had to take it now, or else.

Common Sense appeared as a pamphlet for sale in Philadelphia on January 10, 1776, and, as we say today, it went viral. The first printing sold out in two weeks and over 150,000 copies were sold throughout America and Europe. It is estimated that one fifth of Americans read the pamphlet or heard it read aloud in public. General Washington ordered it read to his troops. Within weeks, it seemed, reconciliation with Britain had gone from an honorable goal to a cowardly betrayal, while independence became the rallying cry of united Patriots. How did Paine achieve this?

1. Timing.

Over a year elapsed between the outbreak of armed conflict and the Declaration of Independence. During these fifteen months, many bemoaned the reluctance of Americans to renounce their ties with Britain despite the escalating warfare around them. “When we are no longer fascinated with the Idea of a speedy Reconciliation,” wrote Benjamin Franklin in mid-1775, “we shall exert ourselves to some purpose. Till then Things will be done by Halves.”¹ In addition, there remained much discord among the colonies about their shared future. “Some timid minds are terrified at the word independence,” wrote Elbridge Gerry in March 1776, referring to the colonial legislatures. “America has gone such lengths she cannot recede, and I am convinced a few weeks or months at furthest will convince her of the fact, but the fruit must have time to ripen in some of the other Colonies.”² In this environment, Common Sense appeared like a “meteor,” wrote John Adams,³ and propelled many to support independence. Many noted it at the time with amazement.

“Sometime past the idea [of independence] would have struck me with horror. I now see no alternative;… Can any virtuous and brave American hesitate one moment in the choice?”

The Pennsylvania Evening Post, 13 February 1776

“We were blind, but on reading these enlightening works the scales have fallen from our eyes…. The doctrine of Independence hath been in times past greatly disgustful; we abhorred the principle. It is now become our delightful theme and commands our purest affections. We revere the author and highly prize and admire his works.”

The New-London [Connecticut] Gazette, 22 March 1776

2. Message.

What made Common Sense so esteemed and “enlightening”? Some argue that Common Sense said nothing new, that it simply put the call-to-war in fiery street language that rallied the common people. But this trivializes Paine’s accomplishment. He did have a new message in Common Sense — an ultimatum. Give up reconciliation now, or forever lose the chance for independence. If we fail to act, we’re self-deceiving cowards condemning our children to tyranny and cheating the world of a beacon of liberty. It is our calling to model self-actualized nationhood for the world. “The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.”

Paine divided Common Sense into four sections with deceptively mundane titles, mimicking the erudite political pamphlets of the day. But his essay did not offer the same-old-same-old treatise on British heritage and American rights. Here’s what he says in Common Sense:

Introduction: The ideas I present here are so new that many people will reject them. Readers must clear their minds of long-held notions, apply common sense, and adopt the cause of America as the “cause of all mankind.” How we respond to tyranny today will matter for all time.

Section One: The English government you worship? It’s a sham. Man may need government to protect him from his flawed nature, but that doesn’t mean he must suffocate under brute tyranny. Just as you would cut ties with abusive parents, you must break from Britain.

Section Two: The monarchy you revere? It’s not our protector; it’s our enemy. It doesn’t care about us; it cares about Britain’s wealth. It has brought misery to people all over the world. And the very idea of monarchy is absurd. Why should someone rule over us simply because he (or she) is someone’s child? So evil is monarchy by its very nature that God condemns it in the Bible.

Section Three: Our crisis today? It’s folly to think we should maintain loyalty to a distant tyrant. It’s self-sabotage to pursue reconciliation. For us, right here, right now, reconciliation means ruin. America must separate from Britain. We can’t go back to the cozy days before the Stamp Act. You know that’s true; it’s time to admit it. For heaven’s sake, we’re already at war!

Section Four: Can we win this war? Absolutely! Ignore the naysayers who tremble at the thought of British might. Let’s build a Continental Navy as we have built our Continental Army. Let us declare independence. If we delay, it will be that much harder to win. I know the prospect is daunting, but the prospect of inaction is terrifying.

A month later, in his appendix to the third edition, Paine escalated his appeal to a utopian fervor. “We have it in our power to begin the world over again,” he insisted. “The birthday of a new world is at hand.”

3. Rhetoric.

“It is necessary to be bold,” wrote Paine years later on his rhetorical power. “Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it. Say a bold thing that will stagger them, and they will begin to think.”⁴ Keep this idea front and center as you study Common Sense.

As an experienced essayist and a recent English immigrant with his own deep resentments against Britain, Paine was the right man at the right time to galvanize public opinion. He “understood better than anyone else in America,” explains literary scholar Robert Ferguson, “that ‘style and manner of thinking’ might dictate the difficult shift from loyalty to rebellion.”⁵ Before Paine, the language of political essays had been moderate. Educated men wrote civilly for publication and kept their fury for private letters and diaries. Then came Paine, cursing Britain as an “open enemy,” denouncing George III as the “Royal Brute of England,” and damning reconciliation as “truly farcical” and “a fallacious dream.” To think otherwise, he charged, was “absurd,” “unmanly,” and “repugnant to reason.” As Virginian Landon Carter wrote in dismay, Paine implied that anyone who disagreed with him “is nothing short of a coward and a sycophant [stooge/lackey], which in plain meaning must be a damned rascal.”⁶ Paine knew what he was doing: the pen was his weapon, and words his ammunition. He argued with ideas while convincing with raw emotion. “The point to remember,” writes Ferguson, “is that Paine’s natural and intended audience is the American mob…. He uses anger, the natural emotion of the mob, to let the most active groups find themselves in the general will of a republican citizenry.”⁷ What if Paine had written the Declaration of Independence with the same hard-driving rhetoric?

AS JEFFERSON WROTE IT: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

IF PAINE HAD WRITTEN IT: NO man can deny, without abandoning his God-given ability to reason, that all men enter into existence as equals. No matter how lowly or majestic their origins, they enter life with three God-given RIGHTS — the right to live, to right to live free, and the right to live happily (or, at the least, to pursue Happiness on earth). Who would choose existence on any other terms? So treasured are these rights that man created government to protect them. So treasured are they that man is duty-bound to destroy any government that crushes them — and start anew as men worthy of the title of FREE MEN. This is the plain truth, impossible to refute.

Text Analysis

Excerpt #1

Close Reading Questions

Imagine yourself sitting down to read Common Sense in January 1776. How does Paine introduce his reasoning to you?
He announces that his logic will be direct and down to earth, using only “simple facts” and “plain arguments” to explain his position, unlike (he implies) the complex political pamphlets addressed to the educated elite. His audience would understand “common sense” to suggest the moral sense of the yeoman farmer, whose independence and clear-headedness made him a more reliable guardian of national virtue (similar to Jefferson’s agrarian ideal).

Why does he write “I offer nothing more” instead of “I offer you many reasons” or “I offer a detailed argument”?
“Nothing more” implies that Common Sense will be easy to follow, presenting only what is necessary to make his argument. (Paine considered titling his essay Plain Truth.)

How does Paine ask you to prepare yourself for his “common sense” arguments?
Be willing to put aside pre-conceived notions, he says, and judge his arguments on their own merits.

What does he imply by saying a fair reader “will put on, or rather than he will not put off, the true character of a man”?
He implies that any reader who would refuse to consider his arguments is narrow-minded. With the “on”–”off” contrast, he suggests that you, the individual reader, are open-minded and thus a fellow man of honor willing to consider a new point of view.

Activity: The Common Sense of Common Sense
Examine Paine’s “common sense” reasoning in his arguments for complete independence.

Activity: The Metaphor of Youth
Study Paine’s metaphors that compare the colonies’ readiness for independence to a child’s maturation into adulthood.

Here Paine rebuts the first argument for reconciliation—that America has thrived as a British colony and would fail on her own. How does he dismiss this argument?
He slams it down hard. “NOTHING can be more FALLACIOUS,” he yells. The argument is beyond misdirected or short-sighted, he insists; it’s a fatal error in reasoning. So much for calm and reasoned debate. But Paine is not having a temper tantrum in print. His technique was to argue with ideas while convincing with emotion.

Paine follows his utter rejection of the argument with an analogy. Complete the analogy: America staying with Britain would be like a child _______.
“America staying with Britain would be like a child remaining dependent on its parents forever and never growing up.” And who would want that, Paine implies? By writing “first twenty years of our lives” instead of, say, “first five years,” Paine alludes to the general consensus that a twenty-year-old is an adult.

Paine goes one step further in the last sentence. What does he say about America’s “childhood” as a British colony?
He “answers roundly” (with conviction) that the colonies’ growth was actually hampered by being part of a European empire. They would have been more healthy and successful “adults,” he insists, if they had not been the “children” of the British empire. This was a radical premise in 1776, but one that buttressed Paine’s argument for independence

Excerpt #2

Close Reading Questions

Here Paine challenges his opponents to bring “reconciliation to the touchstone of nature.” What does he mean? (A “touchstone” is a test of the quality or genuineness of something. From ancient times the purity of gold or silver was tested with a “touchstone” of basalt stone.)
Test the chances of reconciliation against what you know about people’s reactions in similar crises throughout history, not against your own hopes and fears during this particular crisis. In other words, use common sense.

At the start of this paragraph Paine mildly faults the supporters of reconciliation as unrealistic optimists “still hoping for the best.” By the end of the paragraph, however, they are cowards willing to “shake hands with the murderers.” How did he construct the paragraph to accomplish this transition?
He poses two challenges to the supporters of reconciliation. If they can honestly answer each challenge, he asserts, and still support reconciliation, then they are selfish cowards bringing ruin to America.

Paraphrase the first challenge (sentences 2–5).
“Ask yourself if you can remain loyal to a nation that has brought war and suffering to you. If you say you can, you’re fooling yourself and condemning us to a worse life under Britain than we suffer now.”

Paraphrase the second challenge (sentences 6–11).
“Have you been the victim of British violence? If you haven’t, then you still owe compassion to those who have. And if you have, yet still support reconciliation, then you have abandoned your conscience.”

With what phrase does Paine condemn those who would still hope for reconciliation even if they were victims of British violence?
They are men who “can still shake hands with the murderers,” i.e., men who have betrayed their fellow Americans and thus become as evil as the British invaders. There is no nuance in this condemnation, and thus no way for the reader to avoid its implications.

Note how Paine weaves impassioned questions through the paragraph: “Are you only deceiving yourselves?” “Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands?” How do these questions intensify his challenges?
Addressed to “you” directly and not a faceless “he or they,” the questions deliver an in-your-face challenge that allows no escape. Here’s my question to you: Answer it! or your silence will reveal your cowardice.

Rewrite sentences #4 and #11 to change the second-person “you” to the third-person “he/she/they.” How does the change weaken Paine’s challenges?
The reader is off the hook. Since the challenges are deflected from “you,” the reader, to the third-person “other,” no immediate personal reply is demanded. The reader can blithely read on and avoid the aim of Paine’s questions.

Worksheet: The Question as a Rhetorical Device
Use this worksheet to examine Paine’s use of questions as persuasive devices throughout Common Sense, specifically the rhetorical question and the hypophora (questions with implied or stated answers, used for rhetorical impact).

Excerpt #3

Follow-Up Assignment

1. Write a how-to essay on persuasive writing using Common Sense as the focus text and this statement by Thomas Paine as the core idea: “Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it. Say a bold thing that will stagger them, and they will begin to think.” –Letter to Elihu Palmer, 21 February 1802.
2. Write an essay to summarize and evaluate Common Sense using one of the quotations below as the organizing concept. Use the metaphor in the quotation as a rhetorical device throughout the essay. (Paragraph numbers refer to the full text of Common Sense with this lesson.)
   

   Quotation	Para.	Metaphor
   “The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth.”	58	light, newness, glory
   “The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries “‘TIS TIME TO PART.”	73	massacre, suffering
   “Reconciliation is now a fallacious dream.”	79	illusion, vain hope
   “It is now in the interest of America to provide for herself.”	144	adulthood, self-reliance
   “Independence is the only BOND that can tie and keep us together.”	163	tying cord, unity for survival

3. See colonists’ and newspapers’ responses to Common Sense in the primary source collection Making the Revolution (Section: Common Sense?) to examine how Paine turned public opinion in 1776. Note the critical pieces by John Adams, Hannah Griffitts, and others. What can be learned about Paine’s effectiveness by studying his critics?

Vocabulary Pop-ups

[including 18th-c. connotations]

• posterity: all future generations of mankind
• superseded: replaced something old or no longer useful
• precedent: an action or policy that serves as an example or rule for the future
• touchstone: as a metaphor, a test of the quality or genuineness of something. (in the past, the purity of gold or silver was tested with a “toughstone” of basalt stone.)
• relapse: a return to a previous worse condition after a period of improvement
• sycophant: someone who acts submissively to another in power in order to gain advantage; yes-man, flatterer, bootlicker
• precariousness: uncertainty, instability; dependence on chance circumstances or unknown conditions
• deluge: a cataclysmic flood

<sup>1. Benjamin Franklin, letter to Silas Deane, 27 August 1775. Full text in Founders Online (National Archives).↩
2. Elbridge Gerry, letter to James Warren, 26 March 1776.↩
3. John Adams, autobiography, part 1, “John Adams,” through 1776, sheet 23 of 53 [electronic edition]. Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive. Massachusetts Historical Society. www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.↩
4. Thomas Paine, letter to Elihu Palmer, 21 February 1802; cited in Henry Hayden Clark, “Thomas Paine’s Theories of Rhetoric,” Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, 28 (1933), 317.↩
5. Robert A. Ferguson, “The Commonalities of Common Sense,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d. Series, 57:3 (July 2000), 483.↩
6. Landon Carter, diary entry, 20 February 1776, recounting content of letter written that day to George Washington. Full entry in Founders Online (National Archives).↩
7. Robert A. Ferguson, The American Enlightenment, 1750-1820 (Harvard University Press, 1994; paper ed., 1997), 113.↩</sup>

*For a helpful discussion of Paine’s response to the “horrid cruelties” of the British in India, see J.M. Opal, “Common Sense and Imperial Atrocity: How Thomas Paine Saw South Asia in North America,” Common-Place, July 2009.

Images courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Library.

• Portrait of Thomas Paine by John Henry Bufford (1810-1870), engraving by Bufford’s Lithography, ca. 1850. Record ID 268504.
• Title page (cover) of Common Sense, 1776. Record ID 2052092.