Common Sense

256 Pages·2004·1.061 MB·English

by  Thomas Paine, Edward Larkin

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COMMON SENSE
OR, FEIGN’D INNOCENCE DETECTED
COMMON SENSE
AN APOLOGY FOR THE LIFE OF
SHAMELA
MEMOIRSOFMODERNPHILOSOPHERS 1
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COMMON SENSE
Thomas Paine
edited by Edward Larkin
broadview editions
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Rev©ie20w04 CEdowpayrd Larkin
All rights reserved.The use of any part of this publication reproduced,transmitted in any form
or by any means,electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,or otherwise,or stored in a
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National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Paine,Thomas,1737–1809
Common sense / Thomas Paine ;edited by Edward Larkin.
(Broadview editions)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1-55111-571-9
1.United States—Politics and government—1775-1783. 2.Political science.
3.Monarchy. I.Larkin,Edward,1968- II.Title. III.Series.
E211.P1455 2004 973.3’11 C2004-900721-1
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Contents
Acknowledgements • 6
Introduction • 7
Works Cited • 35
Thomas Paine:A Brief Chronology • 37
A Note on the Texts • 41
Common Sense • 43
Appendix A: Antecedents to Common Sense
1.[John Adams],“A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law,”
Boston Gazette (1765) • 99
2.[John Dickinson],Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania
(1767) • 116
3.Thomas Jefferson,A Summary View of the Rights of British
America (1774) • 133
Appendix B:Responses to Common Sense
1.[Charles Inglis],The True Interest of America Impartially Stated
(1776) • 151
2.Candidus [James Chalmers],Plain Truth (1776) • 158
3.Selections from “Cato’s Letters”[William Smith] and
“The Forester”[Thomas Paine],Pennsylvania Gazette
(1776) • 170
4.[John Adams],Thoughts on Government (1776) • 207
Appendix C:Political Documents
1.The Declaration of Independence (1776) • 217
2.The Constitution of Pennsylvania (1776) • 222
Appendix D:Paine’s American Crisis (1776) • 241
Suggestions for Further Reading • 251
LETTERSWRITTENINFRANCE 5
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Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the various people who helped make this project pos-
sible.I first presented the outline to this volume to the FLEA (Fall
Line Early Americanists) group in Richmond and then I asked them
to read my Introduction.They approached both tasks with the wel-
come combination of insight and collegiality that has characterized
this rag-tag bunch since its inception.I am also grateful for the care-
ful readings offered by several of my colleagues at the University of
Richmond. In particular I must single out Doug Winiarski,Tom
Allen,and John Marx,each of whom read the manuscript with great
attention and offered thoughtful suggestions.I have been fortunate to
benefit from their generosity and acumen.Thanks also go to my
research assistant, Christy Buckland, who tracked down and helped
digitize many of the materials included in this volume. Finally, I
would have been hard-pressed to get this project done in anything
like a timely fashion had it not been for the research semester pro-
vided by the University of Richmond.
6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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Introduction
When Robert Bell,a successful and widely respected Philadelphia
printer,issued Common Sense on January 9,1776 he took a consid-
erable risk.In the eighteenth century,printers were held liable for
publishing offensive matter,be it treasonous,indecent,or blasphe-
mous. And there was little question that Common Sense, which
directly contested the authority of British colonialism in America,
left Bell open to a charge of treason.Although only a few close
associates knew of his political inclinations,Bell favored indepen-
dence. So, when his friends Benjamin Rush and Benjamin
Franklin, among the city’s best known citizens and most widely
respected intellectual figures,approached him with the manuscript
of Common Sense, he was inclined to print it and risk the conse-
quences to his business and his person.The gamble paid off.Com-
mon Sense was the equivalent of a modern-day international best-
seller. It caused an immediate sensation in Philadelphia, and was
shortly reprinted in cities up and down the eastern seaboard.It was
published in France,Germany,and even in England (where it went
through five editions in London as well as appearing in Edinburgh
and Newcastle).1 By deciding to publish Common Sense Bell gave
the independence movement a new revolutionary voice. He also
launched the career of a man who would turn out to be one of the
most prolific and persuasive writers of the late eighteenth century:
Thomas Paine.
A number of Paine’s contemporaries across the colonies com-
mented on the remarkable influence Common Sense had on the
mood of the colonists.Within weeks of the publication of the pam-
phlet George Washington wrote to a good friend that he felt sure
that “the sound Doctrine,and unanswerable reasoning containd (in
the pamphlet) Common Sense,”would persuade most colonists of
the “Propriety of a Seperation”(3:228).Two and a half months later
he would write again to the same friend to confirm the pamphlet’s
impact in his home colony:“by private Letters which I have lately
received from Virginia,I find common sense is working a powerful
change there in the Minds of many Men”(4:11).More than any
other event or text,Common Sense served as the key catalyst pro-
pelling the colonists to independence.Another prominent Virginia
1 Keane,108-110.
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political figure,Edmund Randolph,captured this sense of its wide
influence when he credited Common Sense with altering the tide of
opinion about the viability of independence:“the public sentiment
which a few weeks before had shuddered at the tremendous obsta-
cles, with which independence was environed, overleaped every
barrier”(306-307).So compelling was Common Sense’s argument,it
not only propelled the independence and democracy movements
in the United States,but also inspired revolutionaries in Europe to
seek similar transformations in their home countries. During the
early stages of the Revolution in France, for example, Paine was
made an honorary citizen so that he could be elected to the
National Convention,where he also was named to the committee
charged with writing a new democratic constitution.
In the American colonies, however, the barriers to indepen-
dence Randolph referred to were considerable. If Common Sense
persuaded many to endorse the idea of radical change,it also pro-
voked many to defend reconciliation with Great Britain.With its
broad dissemination and controversial arguments, Common Sense
became the subject of lively debate and elicited numerous respons-
es in the newspapers and in pamphlet form. For the first half of
1776, leading up to the Declaration of Independence, Common
Sense set the tone for much of the discussion over the future of the
relationship between Great Britain and its colonies in North Amer-
ica.Most importantly,Paine’s pamphlet signaled a major shift in the
discourse surrounding the colonies’decade-old conflict with Great
Britain.1If,as Washington and Randolph’s accounts suggest,before
its publication few spoke publicly of independence as a viable or
even desirable alternative to membership in the awe-inspiring
British empire, after its publication independence became an
attractive option to many of the colonial leaders (most of whom
spent considerable time in Philadelphia,the seat of the Continen-
tal Congress).As a result of its influential role in the Revolution,
Common Sense has attracted the attention of a wide array of schol-
ars of the period.One of the questions that has puzzled scholars of
1 Although the conflict took the shape of a series of disagreements over
taxation and other regulations on the part of the English government
(most famously The Stamp Act and The Townsend Duties),these individ-
ual cases were all symptomatic of a larger breakdown in the relationship
between the colonies and the imperial center.Moreover,to the colonists
the series of disputes coming in close succession could have felt more like
one prolonged conflict.
8 INTRODUCTION
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the Revolution is the seeming incongruity of Paine’s identity with
the success of his pamphlet:how was it that a relatively uneducat-
ed recent immigrant to the colonies (only a year removed from
England)1came to author this major American manifesto? In order
to answer this question satisfactorily we must first revisit Paine’s
career prior to authoring Common Sense, but we must also rethink
our assumptions about the differences and similarities between
England and America in the late eighteenth century.
The remarkable and unprecedented success of Common Sense
also raises a number of important questions about the colonies and
the forces (cultural,political,social,and economic) that contributed
to the decision to separate from England.What,for example,does
its broad appeal tell us about the mindset of American colonists on
the eve of the Revolution? Its popularity suggests that it tapped
into a general, but inchoate, feeling among colonial Americans.
That is,rather than imagine that Americans were simply swayed by
Paine’s arguments in favor of independence, it seems more likely
that many were already on the same path,but simply hadn’t con-
sciously come to terms with the idea of severing ties with England.
Paine gave words to their feelings of alienation and betrayal, and
thus pushed them toward the conclusion that separation was nec-
essary.Nonetheless,we must inquire into what exactly made this
pamphlet so appealing to readers. How did its rhetoric work to
capture their imaginations and push them further along the path
towards independence? This is a question not only about the state
of mind of Paine’s audience,but about the role of public opinion
and debate,the function of the press,and the shape of political cul-
ture in the colonies.Common Sense arrived at a moment when the
printed word was gaining a crucial influence and reshaping social
and political relations on both sides of the Atlantic.So,put another
way,the question would be what were the conditions in the print
and political culture of Philadelphia, and the rest of the North
American colonies,that made it possible for this pamphlet to suc-
ceed so spectacularly? Just as importantly, how did Paine’s words
work to persuade a people to revolt against a nation of which they
were proud to be a part and that was also a world power that they
understood to be far superior militarily and economically to them?
1 Paine had a limited formal education.His parents sent him to grammar
school from age seven through age twelve.At twelve his parents decided
that he would be apprenticed to his father in the staymaking (making
whalebone corsets) profession,so he could no longer attend school.
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This introduction will take up these questions in an effort to
demonstrate that if we are to understand Common Senseand its suc-
cess we must first understand the world that produced it before we
explore how Paine’s pamphlet sought to alter that world. Put
another way,in the process of coming to terms with how and why
Common Sensecame to play such an important part in the Revolu-
tion,we will also begin to discern the cultural and political changes
that made the Revolution possible. The edition that follows
attempts to reconstruct, albeit in limited form, the context in
which Paine’s pamphlet appeared and,in the process,to recapture
the energy and passion of the disputes over the future of the British
colonies in North America.I have selected a number of important
publications from the period just preceding and immediately fol-
lowing the publication of Common Sense so that we can see how
Paine takes some of the ideas that were circulating in the colonies
at the time and refashions them to promote his ideal vision of
democracy to a popular audience.The responses to Common Sense
also help us to see exactly how serious a controversy this was and
how difficult the choice was for the colonists.I end with the first
number from Paine’s series The American Crisis to illustrate how
Paine continued to work in the style and voice he had inaugurat-
ed with Common Sense.
Common Senseis worth such extended attention not only because
it represented a turning point in the Revolution,but also because it
launched the career of the most persistent,eloquent,energetic and
most widely read proponent of democracy and popular rule in the
eighteenth century. As Walt Whitman would say 100 years later,“I
dare not say how much of what our Union is owning and enjoying
today—its independence—its ardent belief in,and substantial prac-
tice of radical human rights—and the severance of its government
from all ecclesiastical and superstitious dominion—I dare not say
how much of all this is owing to Thomas Paine,but I am inclined
to think a good portion of it decidedly is”(822).
The accidental career of a pamphleteer
Paine arrived in Philadelphia in November 1774,when he was 37
years old.He carried with him a letter of introduction from Ben-
jamin Franklin,whom he had met in London some months earli-
er.With practically no money in his pocket,his recommendation
from Franklin easily constituted his most valuable possession (and
it would prove to be quite valuable indeed).Paine,who had failed
10 INTRODUCTION