(1) The English constitution you worship? It's a sham. He presented his argument in four sections. Paine challenged Americans' longheld pride in Britain and urged them to see what was already the case-they were separate, self-governing, and capable of defeating Britain in war. Only two years after he arrived in the colonies from Britain, Thomas Paine-a former corsetmaker, school master, and tax officer-expressed America's pent-up rage against the mother country in Common Sense, the most influential pamphlet of the Revolutionary period. Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776, selections.

Then came Paine, calling Britain an 'open enemy,' denouncing George III as 'Royal Brute of England,' and mocking the prospect of reconciliation as 'truly farcical' and 'a fallacious dream.' To think otherwise, he charges, is 'repugnant to reason.' Here we examine Common Sense and the independent spirit it spurred among the 'common people,' the contempt it received from Loyalists, and the anxiety it caused Patriot leaders. 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.' 1 Before Paine, adds Ferguson, the rhetoric of published discourse had been moderate educated men wrote civilly for publication and kept their fury for private letters and diaries. 'The point to remember,' writes literary historian Robert Ferguson, 'is that Paine's natural and intended audience is the American mob. . . . Yet Paine's major impact came not from being inspirational, but from being angry. 'We have it in our power,' insisted Paine, 'to begin the world all over again.' This doesn't sound very revolutionary to us, but it was.

Reject British heritage, condemn monarchy, embrace democracy, enlighten the world. While Paine's basic message-abandon the goal of reconciliation and declare independence-was not new, he went much further. Written by Thomas Paine, an unknown Englishman who had emigrated only fifteen months earlier, it burst upon the scene like a meteor-a 'disastrous meteor,' wrote John Adams, who felt Paine's inflammatory call for independence would undermine the deliberative work of the Continental Congress. The first printing sold out in two weeks and over 150,000 copies were sold throughout America and Europe. Simply titled Common Sense, it became a publishing phenomenon, a best-seller in its time. On January 10, 1776, while the Second Continental Congress was deliberating on the future of the 'united colonies,' a 46-page pamphlet was put out for sale.

Author of the pamphlet common sense