Editing Thomas Paine (section)

===''Common Sense'' (1776)===
{{Main|Common Sense}}
Paine has a claim to the title ''The Father of the American Revolution'',<ref>K. M. Kostyal. ''Funding Fathers: The Fight for Freedom and the Birth of American Liberty'' (2014) ch. 2</ref><ref>David Braff, "Forgotten Founding Father: The Impact of Thomas Paine," in Joyce Chumbley, ed., ''Thomas Paine: In Search of the Common Good'' (2009).</ref> which rests on his pamphlets, especially ''Common Sense,'' which crystallized sentiment for independence in 1776. It was published in [[Philadelphia]] on January 10, 1776, and signed anonymously "by an Englishman". It was an immediate success, with Paine estimating it sold 100,000 copies in three months to the two million residents of the 13 colonies. During the course of the American Revolution, one biographer estimated a total of about 500,000 copies were sold, including unauthorized editions.<ref name=Hitchens>{{Cite book
 | title = Thomas Paine's Rights of Man
 | author = Hitchens, Christopher
 | year = 2008
 | publisher = Grove Press
 | page = 37
 | isbn = 978-0802143839
}}</ref><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia
 | title = Paine, Thomas
 | last = Oliphant
 | first = John
 | encyclopedia = Encyclopedia of the American Revolution: Library of Military History
 | url-access = subscription
 | via = Gale Virtual Library
 | url = http://find.galegroup.com/gvrl/infomark.do?&contentSet=EBKS&type=retrieve&tabID=T001&prodId=GVRL&docId=CX3454901190&source=gale&userGroupName=rich30969&version=1.0
 | access-date = April 10, 2007
 | date =
 | archive-date = May 27, 2021
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210527174915/https://galeapps.gale.com/apps/auth?userGroupName=rich30969&origURL=https%3A%2F%2Fgo.gale.com%2Fps%2Finfomark.do%3Fsource%3Dgale%26userGroupName%3Drich30969%26prodId%3DGVRL%26tabID%3DT001%26action%3Dinterpret%26docId%3DCX3454901190%26type%3Dretrieve%26contentSet%3DEBKS%26version%3D1.0&prodId=GVRL
 | url-status = live
 }}</ref> However, some historians dispute these numbers.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Raphael |first=Ray |date=2013-03-20 |title=Thomas Paine's Inflated Numbers |url=https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/03/thomas-paines-inflated-numbers/ |access-date=2024-03-13 |website=Journal of the American Revolution |language=en-US}}</ref> Paine's original title for the pamphlet was ''Plain Truth'', but Paine's friend, pro-independence advocate [[Benjamin Rush]], suggested ''Common Sense'' instead.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qh4UAwAAQBAJ&q=%22common+sense%22+originally+titled+%22Plain+Truth%22&pg=PA310|title=History of Philadelphia|last=Scharf|first=T.|publisher=Рипол Классик|isbn=978-5883517104|page=310|language=en|access-date=October 29, 2020|archive-date=February 4, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210204234959/https://books.google.com/books?id=Qh4UAwAAQBAJ&q=%22common+sense%22+originally+titled+%22Plain+Truth%22&pg=PA310|url-status=live}}</ref> Finding a printer who was daring enough to commit his print shop to the printing of ''Common Sense'' was not easy. At the advice of Rush, Paine commissioned [[Robert Bell (publisher)|Robert Bell]] to print his work.<ref>[[#rush2019|Butterfield (ed.), 2019]], Vol II, p. 1008</ref><ref>[[#conway1892a|Conway & Cobbett, 1892]], Vol I, p. 68</ref>

The pamphlet came into circulation in January 1776,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ferguson|first=Robert A.|date=July 2000|title=The Commonalities of Common Sense|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2674263|journal=The William and Mary Quarterly|volume=57|issue=3|pages=465–504|doi=10.2307/2674263|jstor=2674263|access-date=September 21, 2021|archive-date=October 17, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211017194641/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2674263|url-status=live}}</ref> after the Revolution had started. It was passed around and often read aloud in taverns, contributing significantly to spreading the idea of republicanism, bolstering enthusiasm for separation from Britain, and encouraging recruitment for the [[Continental Army]]. Paine provided a new and convincing argument for independence by advocating a complete break with history. ''Common Sense'' is oriented to the future in a way that compels the reader to make an immediate choice. It offers a solution for Americans disgusted with and alarmed at the threat of tyranny.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=The Commonalities of Common Sense|author=Robert A. Ferguson|journal= [[William and Mary Quarterly]]|volume=57|issue=3|pages=465–504|date=July 2000|doi=10.2307/2674263|jstor=2674263}}</ref>

Paine's attack on monarchy in ''Common Sense'' was essentially an attack on King [[George III]]. Whereas colonial resentments were originally directed primarily against the king's ministers and Parliament, Paine laid the responsibility firmly at the king's door. ''Common Sense'' was the most widely read pamphlet of the American Revolution. It was a clarion call for unity against the corrupt British court, so as to realize America's providential role in providing an asylum for liberty. Written in a direct and lively style, it denounced the decaying despotisms of Europe and pilloried hereditary monarchy as an absurdity. At a time when many still hoped for reconciliation with Britain, ''Common Sense'' demonstrated to many the inevitability of separation.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|title=Thomas Paine|author=Philp, Mark|author-link=Mark Philp|editor=Edward N. Zalta|editor-link=Edward N. Zalta|encyclopedia=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]] (Winter 2013 Edition)|url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paine|date=2013|access-date=January 24, 2015|archive-date=January 28, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150128132034/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paine/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Paine was not on the whole expressing original ideas in ''Common Sense'', but rather employing rhetoric as a means to arouse resentment of the Crown. To achieve these ends, he pioneered a style of political writing suited to the democratic society he envisioned, with ''Common Sense'' serving as a primary example. Part of Paine's work was to render complex ideas intelligible to average readers of the day, with clear, concise writing unlike the formal, learned style favored by many of Paine's contemporaries.<ref>Merrill Jensen, ''The Founding of a Nation: A History of the American Revolution, 1763–1776'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), 668.</ref> Scholars have put forward various explanations to account for its success, including the historic moment, Paine's easy-to-understand style, his democratic ethos, and his use of psychology and ideology.<ref>David C. Hoffman, "Paine and Prejudice: Rhetorical Leadership through Perceptual Framing in Common Sense." ''Rhetoric and Public Affairs'', Fall 2006, Vol. 9, Issue 3, pp. 373–410.<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed --></ref>

''Common Sense'' was immensely popular in disseminating to a very wide audience ideas that were already in common use among the elite who comprised Congress and the leadership cadre of the emerging nation, who rarely cited Paine's arguments in their public calls for independence.<ref>Pauline Maier, ''American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence'' (New York: Knopf, 1997), 90–91.</ref> The pamphlet probably had little direct influence on the [[Second Continental Congress|Continental Congress']] decision to issue a [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]], since that body was more concerned with how declaring independence would affect the war effort.<ref>Jack N. Rakove, ''The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress'' (New York: Knopf, 1979), 89.</ref> One distinctive idea in ''Common Sense'' is Paine's beliefs regarding the peaceful nature of republics; his views were an early and strong conception of what scholars would come to call the [[democratic peace theory]].<ref>Jack S. Levy, William R. Thompson, ''Causes of War'' (John Wiley & Sons, 2011).</ref>

[[Loyalist (American Revolution)|Loyalists]] vigorously attacked ''Common Sense''; one attack, titled ''Plain Truth'' (1776), by Marylander [[James Chalmers (loyalist)|James Chalmers]], said Paine was a political quack<ref>{{Cite web
 | title = James Chalmers and Plain Truth A Loyalist Answers Thomas Paine
 | last = New
 | first = M. Christopher
 | publisher = Archiving Early America
 | url = http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/fall96/loyalists.html
 | access-date = October 3, 2007
 | archive-date = September 28, 2007
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070928003809/http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/fall96/loyalists.html
 | url-status = live
 }}</ref> and warned that without monarchy, the government would "degenerate into democracy".<ref name="Jensen669">Jensen, ''Founding of a Nation'', 669.</ref> Even some American revolutionaries objected to ''Common Sense''; late in life [[John Adams]] called it a "crapulous mass". Adams disagreed with the type of radical democracy promoted by Paine (that men who did not own property should still be allowed to vote and hold public office) and published ''[[Thoughts on Government]]'' in 1776 to advocate a more conservative approach to republicanism.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.masshist.org/publications/adams-papers/index.php/view/PJA04dg2|title=Adams Papers Digital Edition – Massachusetts Historical Society|website=www.masshist.org|access-date=December 5, 2018|archive-date=December 5, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181205150155/http://www.masshist.org/publications/adams-papers/index.php/view/PJA04dg2|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Sophia Rosenfeld]] argues that Paine was highly innovative in his use of the commonplace notion of "common sense". He synthesized various philosophical and political uses of the term in a way that permanently impacted American political thought. He used two ideas from [[Scottish Common Sense Realism]]: that ordinary people can indeed make sound judgments on major political issues, and that there exists a body of popular wisdom that is readily apparent to anyone. Paine also used a notion of "common sense" favored by [[philosophe]]s in the Continental Enlightenment. They held that common sense could refute the claims of traditional institutions. Thus, Paine used "common sense" as a weapon to de-legitimize the monarchy and overturn prevailing conventional wisdom. Rosenfeld concludes that the phenomenal appeal of his pamphlet resulted from his synthesis of popular and elite elements in the independence movement.<ref>{{cite journal|author1-link=Sophia Rosenfeld|jstor=40212021|title=Tom Paine's Common Sense and Ours|journal=The William and Mary Quarterly|volume=65|issue=4|pages=633–668|last1=Rosenfeld|first1=Sophia|year=2008}}</ref>

According to historian [[Robert Middlekauff]], ''Common Sense'' became immensely popular mainly because Paine appealed to widespread convictions. Monarchy, he said, was preposterous and it had a heathenish origin. It was an institution of the devil. Paine pointed to the [[Old Testament]], where almost all kings had seduced the Israelites to worship idols instead of God. Paine also denounced aristocracy, which together with monarchy were "two ancient tyrannies." They violated the laws of nature, human reason, and the "universal order of things," which began with God. That was, Middlekauff says, exactly what most Americans wanted to hear. He calls the Revolutionary generation "the children of the twice-born".<ref>[[Robert Middlekauff]] (2005). ''The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789'', Revised and Expanded Edition, Oxford University Press, New York; {{ISBN|978-0195315882}}, pp. 30–53.</ref> because in their childhood they had experienced the [[Great Awakening]], which, for the first time, had tied Americans together, transcending denominational and ethnic boundaries and giving them a sense of patriotism.<ref>Robert Middlekauff, ''The Glorious Cause'', pp. 4–5, 324–326. {{ISBN|978-0195315882}}</ref><ref>Cf. Clifton E. Olmstead (1960), ''History of Religion in the United States'', Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, p. 178.{{ISBN?}}</ref>