Who or What Did Common Sense Name as the Greatest Enemy to American Liberty?
Advisor: Robert A. Ferguson, George Edward Woodberry Professor in Constabulary, Literature and Criticism, Columbia University, National Humanities Eye Fellow.
Copyright National Humanities Center, 2014
How did Thomas Paine'southward pamphlet Common Sense convince reluctant Americans to abandon the goal of reconciliation with United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland and accept that separation from Britain — independence — was the only option for preserving their liberty?
Understanding
Past January 1776, the American colonies were in open up rebellion confronting Britain. Their soldiers had captured Fort Ticonderoga, besieged Boston, fortified New York Urban center, and invaded Canada. Nonetheless few dared phonation 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 United kingdom to the negotiating table. They were fighting for independence. It took a hard jolt to movement Americans from professed loyalty to declared rebellion, and it came in large function from Thomas Paine'south Common Sense. Not a dumbed-down rant for the masses, as often described, Common Sense is a masterful slice of argument and rhetoric that proved the power of words.
Text
Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776 
[Find more primary sources related to Common Sense in Making the Revolution from the National Humanities Heart.]
Text Blazon
Literary nonfiction; persuasive essay. In the Text Analysis section, Tier 2 vocabulary words are defined in pop-ups, and Tier three words are explained in brackets.
Text Complexity
Grades 9-ten complexity ring.
For more than information on text complication see these resource from achievethecore.org.
Click hither for standards and skills for this lesson.
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Common Cadre Country Standards
- ELA-Literacy.RI.nine-10.6 (Determine an writer's point of view or purpose in a text and clarify how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose.)
Advanced Placement US History
- three.two (IB) (Republican forms of authorities found expression in Thomas Paine's Common Sense.)
Avant-garde Placement English Language and Limerick
- Reading nonfiction
- Analyzing and identifying and author's use of rhetorical strategies
Teacher's Note
This lesson focuses on the sections key to Paine'due south statement in Common Sense — Section III and the Appendix to the 3rd Edition, published a month after the commencement edition. Nosotros do non recommend assigning the full essay (Sections I, II, and IV require avant-garde background in British history that Paine'south readers would take known well). However, students should be led through an overview of the essay to understand how Paine built his arguments to a "cocky-evident" determination (Run into Background: Bulletin, below.)
Lead students through an initial overview of the essay (come across Background). To begin, they could skim the full text and read the pull-quotes (separated quotes in big assuming text). What impression of Mutual Sense do the quotes provide? What questions do they prompt? Then guide students as they read (possibly aloud) Section Three of Common Sense and the Appendix to the Tertiary Edition (pp. 10-19 and 25-29 in the full text provided with this lesson).
Proceed to the shut reading of 3 excerpts in the Text Assay below. (Annotation that part of Extract #three is a Common Core exemplar text.)
This lesson is divided into ii parts, both accessible beneath. The teacher'south guide includes a background note, the text analysis with responses to the shut reading questions, admission to the interactive exercises, and a follow-up assignment. The educatee'south version, an interactive worksheet that can be e-mailed, contains all of the above except the responses to the close reading questions.
Teacher's Guide (continues below)
| Student Version (click to open)
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Instructor'southward Guide
Background
The human being at correct does not expect angry. To us, he projects the typical effigy 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 confute the reality. Thomas Paine was a firebrand, and his almost 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, disarming many Americans that state of war for independence was the only option to have, 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 kickoff press sold out in 2 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 Great 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 Uk despite the escalating warfare effectually 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 and so Things will be washed past Halves."1 In add-on, at that place remained much discord among the colonies most their shared hereafter. "Some timid minds are terrified at the discussion 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, simply the fruit must have time to ripen in some of the other Colonies."2 In this environment, Common Sense appeared similar a "shooting star," wrote John Adams,three and propelled many to support independence. Many noted it at the time with amazement.
"Sometime past the idea [of independence] would accept struck me with horror. I at present see no alternative;… Can any virtuous and brave American hesitate i moment in the choice?"
The Pennsylvania Evening Postal service, 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 angel. Nosotros revere the author and highly prize and admire his works."
The New-London [Connecticut] Gazette, 22 March 1776
2. Bulletin.
What fabricated Mutual Sense and so esteemed and "enlightening"? Some contend that Common Sense said nothing new, that it only put the call-to-war in fiery street language that rallied the common people. But this trivializes Paine's achievement. He did have a new message in Common Sense — an ultimatum. Give up reconciliation at present, or forever lose the chance for independence. If we fail to act, we're cocky-deceiving cowards condemning our children to tyranny and adulterous the world of a buoy of liberty. It is our calling to model self-actualized nationhood for the earth. "The crusade of America is in a corking measure the cause of all mankind."
Paine divided Common Sense into iv sections with deceptively mundane titles, mimicking the erudite political pamphlets of the day. But his essay did not offer the same-quondam-aforementioned-sometime treatise on British heritage and American rights. Hither'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, utilise common sense, and adopt the cause of America as the "cause of all mankind." How we respond to tyranny today volition matter for all fourth dimension.
Department One: The English authorities y'all worship? It's a sham. Man may need government to protect him from his flawed nature, but that doesn't mean he must suffocate nether brute tyranny. Just as you would cut ties with abusive parents, you must break from Great britain.
Section Two: The monarchy you revere? It's non our protector; it's our enemy. It doesn't care about us; it cares most Britain's wealth. It has brought misery to people all over the world. And the very thought of monarchy is absurd. Why should someone rule over u.s.a. just because he (or she) is someone's kid? So evil is monarchy by its very nature that God condemns it in the Bible.
Section Three: Our crunch 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 ways ruin. America must divide from Britain. We can't go back to the cozy days before the Postage Act. You know that's true; it'south time to admit it. For sky's sake, nosotros're already at war!
Section Iv: Can we win this war? Admittedly! Ignore the naysayers who tremble at the thought of British might. Let'southward build a Continental Navy as nosotros take built our Continental Regular army. Permit united states of america declare independence. If we delay, information technology 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 information technology in our power to begin the world over over again," he insisted. "The birthday of a new globe is at mitt."
3. Rhetoric.
"It is necessary to be bold," wrote Paine years later on his rhetorical power. "Some people can exist reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it. Say a bold thing that will stagger them, and they will begin to recollect."4 Proceed this idea front and heart as yous study Common Sense.
Every bit an experienced essayist and a recent English language immigrant with his own deep resentments against Britain, Paine was the right man at the right time to galvanize public stance. He "understood ameliorate than anyone else in America," explains literary scholar Robert Ferguson, "that 'mode and manner of thinking' might dictate the difficult shift from loyalty to rebellion."5 Earlier Paine, the language of political essays had been moderate. Educated men wrote civilly for publication and kept their fury for individual letters and diaries. Then came Paine, cursing Britain as an "open up enemy," denouncing George 3 as the "Royal Animal of England," and damning reconciliation as "truly farcical" and "a fallacious dream." To call back otherwise, he charged, was "cool," "unmanly," and "repugnant to reason." As Virginian Landon Carter wrote in dismay, Paine implied that anyone who disagreed with him "is cipher curt of a coward and a sycophant [stooge/lackey], which in manifestly meaning must exist 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 allow the almost active groups detect themselves in the general volition of a republican citizenry."vii What if Paine had written the Declaration of Independence with the aforementioned hard-driving rhetoric?
Every bit JEFFERSON WROTE IT: Nosotros hold these truths to be cocky-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with sure unalienable Rights, that amid these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their but powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Course of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to plant new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem near probable to issue their Safe and Happiness.
IF PAINE HAD WRITTEN Information technology: NO homo can deny, without abandoning his God-given power to reason, that all men enter into being as equals. No matter how lowly or purple their origins, they enter life with three God-given RIGHTS — the correct to live, to correct to live costless, and the correct to live happily (or, at the to the lowest degree, to pursue Happiness on world). Who would choose existence on whatsoever other terms? So treasured are these rights that man created government to protect them. And so treasured are they that human is duty-leap to destroy any government that crushes them — and commencement anew equally men worthy of the title of FREE MEN. This is the patently truth, impossible to refute.
Text Assay
Extract #ane
Close Reading Questions
Imagine yourself sitting downwards to read Common Sense in January 1776. How does Paine introduce his reasoning to you?
He announces that his logic volition be directly 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 empathize "mutual sense" to advise 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 platonic).
Why does he write "I offer null more than" instead of "I offer you lot 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 statement. (Paine considered titling his essay Plain Truth.)
How does Paine inquire you to fix yourself for his "common sense" arguments?
Be willing to put bated pre-conceived notions, he says, and judge his arguments on their own claim.
What does he imply by saying a fair reader "will put on, or rather than he volition not put off, the true grapheme of a man"?
He implies that any reader who would turn down 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.
In the following pages I offer nothing more than than unproblematic facts, plain arguments, and mutual sense: and take no other preliminaries to settle with the reader than that he will divest [rid] himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer [permit] his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves: that he will put on, or rather that he will non put off, the true character of a man, and generously overstate his views across the present 24-hour interval.
PARAGRAPH 55
This paragraph begins with i of the nigh famous hyperboles in American writing. A hyperbole is an overstatement or exaggeration to emphasize a point. What are the two examples of hyperbole in this paragraph?
i. "the lord's day never shined on a cause of greater worth"
2. "posterity… will be more than or less affected, even to the end of fourth dimension"
With the hyperboles, how does Paine lead you to view the "crusade" of American independence?
View it, he says, from an overarching global perspective, not the narrow perspective of American colonists in the belatedly 1700s. The hyperboles are ultimates — the most worthy of worthy causes, affecting the time to come now and forever. The American cause tin pb mankind toward enlightened self-determination, driving forward the progress of civilisation. Paine says this directly in his introduction: "The cause of America is in a great measure out the cause of all mankind." Nosotros're not just talking taxes and representation, people.
What tone does Paine add together with the phrases "The lord's day never shined" and "even to the terminate of time"?
A biblical and prophetic tone. The lord's day shining downward on homo endeavors suggests divine endorsement of the American cause — a crusade that will bring low-cal and freedom ("conservancy") to the earth. Resisting the cause, Paine implies, would be resisting divine will.
Let'south consider Paine every bit a wordsmith. How does he utilise repetition to add impact to the first part of the paragraph?
He includes two repetitive sets:
1. "'Tis non" to begin sentences two and 3 [anaphora]
2. the phrases "of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom" and "of a twenty-four hour period, a year, or an age" [prepositions with multiple objects].
Read the section aloud to hear the insistent rhythm that elevates Paine'southward prose to a rousing phone call to action (his goal in writing Common Sense).
Paine ends this paragraph with an analogy: What we practice now is like carving initials into the bark of a immature oak tree. What does he mean with the analogy?
A. This is the time to create a new nation. Our smallest efforts now will pb to enormous benefits in the future.
B. This is the time to unite for independence. Discord amid us at present will escalate into hereafter crises that could ruin the young nation.
Answer: B.
The dominicus never shined on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the thing of a metropolis, a land, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent – of at to the lowest degree one eighth part of the habitable globe. 'Tis not the business organisation of a day, a yr, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the competition and will be more or less afflicted, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed time of continental [colonies'] union, faith and award. The least fracture at present will be like a proper noun engraved with the point of a pivot on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in total grown characters.
PARAGRAPH 58
Paine includes multiple repetitions in this paragraph. What discussion repetition practice you find?
The adjective "new" in a "new surface area" and a "new method." [anaphora]
What sound repetitions do you discover?
Alliteration: argument/arms/area/arisen
plans/proposals/prior/April
Consonance: politics/struck
method/thinking/hath
matter/arguone thousandent/argrands
Read the sentences aloud. What impact does the repetition add to Paine'due south delivery?
A stirring oratorical rhythm is achieved, like that of a solemn speech or sermon meant to convey the truth and gravity of an argument.
Paine compares the attempts to reconcile with United kingdom subsequently the Battle of Lexington and Concur to an old almanac. What does he mean?
He ways the idea of reconciliation is at present preposterous and that no rational person could support it. No one would use last yr's annual to brand plans for the current year! Likewise, as an almanac ceases to be useful at a specific moment (midnight of December 31), Paine implies that reconciliation ceased to be a valid goal at the moment of the first shot on Apr nineteen, 1775. (Paine often alludes to aspects of colonial life, like almanacs, that would resonate with all readers. They include references to farming, tree cutting, hunting, country buying, slavery, biblical scripture, family and neighbor bonds, maturation, and the parent-child human relationship; encounter "The Metaphor of Youth" below.)
By referring the matter from argument to artillery, a new surface area for politics is struck; a new method of thinking hath arisen. All plans, proposals, etc., prior to the nineteenth of Apr, i.e., to the start of hostilities [Lexington and Concur], are like the almanacs of the concluding year which, though proper [accurate] then, are superseded and useless at present. Whatever was advanced by the advocates on either side of the question so, terminated in 1 and the same bespeak, viz. [that is], a spousal relationship with United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland. The only difference betwixt the parties was the method of effecting information technology — the one proposing force, the other friendship; simply it hath so far happened that the first hath failed and the second hath withdrawn her influence.
PARAGRAPH 59
Paine compares the goal of reconciliation to an "agreeable dream [that has] passed away and left us as we were." Why doesn't he aim harsher criticism here at the goal of reconciling with United kingdom?
With this paragraph, Paine begins his argument against reconciliation and does not want to insult or alienate his readers at the commencement. Everyone can promise, he implies: in that location's nada wrong with that, but we have to move on if a hope proves fruitless.
With this in heed, what tone does he lead the reader to expect: cynical, impatient, hopeful, reasonable, impassioned, angry?
Reasonable. The two sentences resemble the opening of a legal argument that promises a balanced appraisal of two options on the basis of known evidence ("principles of nature") and honest ordinary reasoning ("common sense").
How does his tone prepare the resistant reader?
Paine means to deflect challenges of bias or extremism by inviting readers to give him a hearing. "If I'm being fair in my writing, you can attempt to be fair in your listening."
While Paine promises a fair appraisal, await how he describes the two options in the concluding sentence.
Option ane: "if separated" from United kingdom
Option 2: "if dependent on Britain"
Why didn't he apply the usual terms for the ii options — "independence" and "reconciliation"?
First, INDEPENDENCE and RECONCILIATION audio like equally plausible options, but Paine wants to convince you that independence is the simply acceptable option. If and so, then why did he choose SEPARATION instead of INDEPENDENCE? By January 1776, INDEPENDENCE carried the drastic connotations of war and treason. It was an irrevocable conclusion with unknown consequences. In contrast, SEPARATION seems less drastic, and even positive. In human being evolution, separation from one'due south parents is the natural and long-sought step to full adulthood. That'south the self-image Paine wants to foster in his readers. Are we adults or children? [See the activity beneath, "The Metaphor of Youth".]
In this vein, Paine chose DEPENDENCE instead of RECONCILIATION for Option two (staying with Britain). RECONCILIATION suggests the calm and rational agreement of two grownups, but Paine wants you to view reconciliation every bit the defeatist choice of spineless subjects who could never take care of themselves. In other words, DEPENDENCE.
[Annotation: Paine does phone call the ii options "independence" and "reconciliation" elsewhere in Common Sense, but he meant to avoid them here.]
Equally much hath been said of the advantages of reconciliation, which, like an agreeable dream, hath passed away and left united states as we were, information technology is simply right that we should examine the opposite [opposing] side of the argument and inquire into some of the many cloth injuries which these colonies sustain, and always will sustain, by being connected with and dependent on Swell United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland. To examine that connection and dependence, on the principles of nature and common sense, to meet what nosotros have to trust to [await] if separated, and what we are to expect if dependent.
PARAGRAPH 60
Action: The Metaphor of Youth
Report Paine'due south metaphors that compare the colonies' readiness for independence to a kid's maturation into machismo.
Here Paine rebuts the first argument for reconciliation—that America has thrived as a British colony and would fail on her ain. How does he dismiss this argument?
He slams information technology downward hard. "NOTHING can exist more Beguiling," he yells. The statement is beyond misdirected or short-sighted, he insists; information technology'south a fatal error in reasoning. And then much for calm and reasoned argue. 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. Consummate the analogy: America staying with Great britain would be similar 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 xx years of our lives" instead of, say, "showtime five years," Paine alludes to the general consensus that a twenty-yr-old is an developed.
Paine goes 1 step further in the last sentence. What does he say well-nigh America's "childhood" as a British colony?
He "answers roundly" (with conviction) that the colonies' growth was really hampered by being function of a European empire. They would take been more than 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 1 that buttressed Paine's statement for independence
I have heard it asserted past some that as America hath flourished under her old connexion with U.k., that the aforementioned connection is necessary towards her future happiness, and will always have the same effect. Nothing tin be more fallacious than this kind of statement. We may also affirm that considering a child has thrived upon milk, that information technology is never to accept meat, or that the first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the adjacent twenty. But fifty-fifty this is admitting more than than is truthful; for I reply roundly that America would have flourished equally much, and probably much more than, had no European power had annihilation to do with her.
PARAGRAPH 61
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 gilded or silvery was tested with a "touchstone" of basalt stone.)
Test the chances of reconciliation confronting what you know near people'due south reactions in like crises throughout history, not against your ain hopes and fears during this particular crisis. In other words, employ common sense.
At the start of this paragraph Paine mildly faults the supporters of reconciliation every bit unrealistic optimists "still hoping for the best." By the cease of the paragraph, however, they are cowards willing to "milkshake 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 tin can honestly answer each challenge, he asserts, and yet support reconciliation, and so they are selfish cowards bringing ruin to America.
Paraphrase the outset challenge (sentences 2–5).
"Enquire yourself if you can remain loyal to a nation that has brought state of war and suffering to y'all. If y'all say y'all can, you're fooling yourself and condemning us to a worse life nether Britain than we suffer now."
Paraphrase the second challenge (sentences six–11).
"Have you been the victim of British violence? If you haven't, then you lot all the same owe pity to those who accept. And if you take, yet all the same 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.due east., men who accept betrayed their swain Americans and thus get as evil equally 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 yous only deceiving yourselves?" "Have you lot lost a parent or a kid by their easily?" How do these questions intensify his challenges?
Addressed to "y'all" directly and non a faceless "he or they," the questions deliver an in-your-face claiming that allows no escape. Hither's my question to you lot: 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 alter weaken Paine'due south challenges?
The reader is off the hook. Since the challenges are deflected from "you," the reader, to the third-person "other," no firsthand personal reply is demanded. The reader tin can blithely read on and avoid the aim of Paine'south questions.
Worksheet: The Question every bit a Rhetorical Device
Utilise this worksheet to examine Paine's use of questions every bit persuasive devices throughout Common Sense, specifically the rhetorical question and the hypophora (questions with implied or stated answers, used for rhetorical impact).
Men of passive tempers [temperaments] await somewhat lightly over the offenses of Britain and, nonetheless hoping for the best, are apt to call out, "Come, come up, we shall be friends again for all this." Just examine the passions and feelings of mankind. Bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature so tell me whether yous can hereafter love, honor, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If y'all cannot do all these, and so are you just deceiving yourselves and by your filibuster bringing ruin upon posterity? Your future connection with Britain, whom yous tin neither dearest nor laurels, volition exist forced and unnatural, and beingness formed only on the programme of nowadays convenience, will in a fiddling time autumn into a relapse more wretched than the first. But if you say you lot tin can still laissez passer the violations over [ignore or underrate them], then I ask, Hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed earlier your confront? Are your wife and children destitute of [without] a bed to lie on or bread to alive on? Accept you lost a parent or a child by their easily and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you take not, then are you not a judge of those who accept. Only if y'all have, and can still milkshake hands with the murderers, and then are you lot unworthy the proper name of husband, male parent, friend, or lover, and, any may be your rank or title in life, y'all have the heart of a coward and the spirit of a sycophant.
PARAGRAPH 77
Excerpt #3
Close Reading Questions
At this point, Paine pleads with his readers to write the constitution for their contained nation without delay. What danger practise they gamble, he warns, if they leave this crucial chore to a subsequently day?
A colonial leader could grasp dictatorial ability past taking advantage of the postwar disorder likely to result if the colonies accept no constitution ready to implement. Fifty-fifty if Uk tried to regain control of the colonies, it could be likewise late to wrest command back from a powerful dictator. "Ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny," Paine warns, "by keeping vacant the seat of government."
What historical testify does Paine offer to illustrate the danger?
He states that "some Massanello may hereafter arise" and grasp power, alluding to the brusk-lived people's revolt led past the commoner Thomas Aniello (Masaniello) in 1647 against Spanish control of Naples (Italy). The Spanish ruler granted a few rights, merely Masaniello was soon murdered, catastrophe the uprising and its short-lived gains for the people.
As his plea escalates in intensity, Paine exclaims "Ye that oppose independence now, ye know not what ye do." To what climactic moment in the New Testament does he allude?
While suffering on the cross before his decease, Jesus calls out, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23: 34); that is, his crucifiers do non know they are killing the Son of God. With this compelling allusion (which well-nigh readers would instantly recognize), Paine warns that opposing independence is as calamitous a conclusion for Americans equally killing Jesus was for his executioners and for flesh.
Paine heightens his apocalyptic tone as he appeals to "ye that love flesh" to accept a mission of salvation (alluding to Christ'due south mission of salvation). What must the lovers of mankind achieve in order to save flesh?
They must establish the "free and contained States of America" every bit the sole preserve of human being freedom in the earth. A desperate fugitive, "liberty" has been "hunted" and "expelled" throughout the world, and it is America's mission to protect and nurture her. America'south victory will be mankind's victory, not just the feat of thirteen small-scale colonies in a distant corner of the world.
Note: "A government of our ain is our natural right" asserts Paine at the outset of this excerpt. Half dozen months afterwards Thomas Jefferson asserted the aforementioned right in the opening of the Announcement of Independence. This Enlightenment platonic anchored revolutionary initiatives in America and Europe for decades.
A government of our own is our natural correct, and when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will go convinced that information technology is infinitely wiser and safer to grade a constitution of our own in a absurd deliberate manner, while we accept it in our ability, than to trust such an interesting event to fourth dimension and chance. If nosotros omit it at present, some Massanello* may time to come arise who, laying concord of popular disquietudes [grievances], may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by bold to themselves the powers of government, finally sweep away the liberties of the continent like a drench. Should the authorities of America return again into the easily of U.k., the tottering situation of things will be a temptation for some desperate adventurer to try his fortune; and in such a example, what relief can Britain requite? Ere [before] she could hear the news, the fatal concern might be done, and ourselves suffering like the wretched Britons nether the oppression of the Conqueror [William the Conqueror in 1066]. Ye that oppose independence now, ye know not what ye practise. Ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny past keeping vacant the seat of government….
O ye that beloved mankind! Ye that cartel oppose not only the tyranny only the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted circular the globe. Asia and Africa take long expelled her.—Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the avoiding, and prepare in fourth dimension an asylum for flesh.
* Thomas Anello, otherwise Massanello, a fisherman of Naples, who after spiriting up his countrymen in the public marketplace against the oppression of the Spaniards, to whom the place was then subject field, prompted them to revolt, and in the space of a day get King. [footnote in Paine]
PARAGRAPHS 104, 107
Follow-Upwardly Assignment
- Write a how-to essay on persuasive writing using Mutual 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 volition stagger them, and they will begin to think." –Letter to Elihu Palmer, 21 February 1802.
- 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 every bit a rhetorical device throughout the essay. (Paragraph numbers refer to the full text of Mutual Sense with this lesson.)
Quotation Para. Metaphor "The dominicus never shined on a cause of greater worth." 58 lite, newness, celebrity "The claret of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries
"'TIS Fourth dimension 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 united states together." 163 tying string, unity for survival - See colonists' and newspapers' responses to Mutual 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 flesh
- 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 argent was tested with a "toughstone" of basalt stone.)
- relapse : a return to a previous worse condition after a menstruum of comeback
- sycophant : someone who acts submissively to another in ability in order to gain advantage; yes-man, flatterer, bootlicker
- precariousness : uncertainty, instability; dependence on adventure circumstances or unknown conditions
- drench : a cataclysmic flood
one. Benjamin Franklin, letter to Silas Deane, 27 August 1775. Total text in Founders Online (National Archives).↩
2. Elbridge Gerry, letter to James Warren, 26 March 1776.↩
3. John Adams, autobiography, function 1, "John Adams," through 1776, sheet 23 of 53 [electronic edition]. Adams Family unit Papers: An Electronic Archive. Massachusetts Historical Society. www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.↩
4. Thomas Paine, alphabetic character to Elihu Palmer, 21 Feb 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, xx February 1776, recounting content of letter written that twenty-four hours to George Washington. Full entry in Founders Online (National Archives).↩
vii. Robert A. Ferguson, The American Enlightenment, 1750-1820 (Harvard University Press, 1994; paper ed., 1997), 113.↩
*For a helpful discussion of Paine's response to the "horrid cruelties" of the British in Bharat, see J.Thou. Opal, "Mutual Sense and Imperial Barbarism: 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 past Bufford's Lithography, ca. 1850. Tape ID 268504.
- Title page (cover) of Common Sense, 1776. Record ID 2052092.
Source: https://americainclass.org/thomas-paine-common-sense-1776/
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