{"id":91,"date":"2026-08-31T17:08:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T17:08:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-1776\/?page_id=91"},"modified":"2026-09-05T17:15:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T17:15:21","slug":"tom-paine","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-1776\/course-syllabus\/tom-paine\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Paine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Biographical context<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"Paine\"<\/a>

1876 painting from lost original by George Romney (1792) and engraving by William Sharp (1793)<\/p><\/div>\n

Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was born in England and died in the United States.  He was a brilliant man, but spent most of his life struggling with obscurity and failure, essentially bouncing from job to job until his late thirties.  When he became famous in 1776 as the author of the revolution’s most incendiary pamphlet, Common Sense, <\/em>he had only been living in the American colonies (in Philadelphia) for less than two years.  The pamphlet, published in January 1776 (Bell edition) and reprinted and expanded in February (Bradford edition), created a sensation and became a best seller.  Despite his relatively poor means as an itinerant editor, Paine donated the proceeds of Common Sense<\/em> to the Continental Army.  He later served in the revolutionary war, continued writing (most famously in his new pamphlet series, American Crisis<\/em>), and was involved in Pennsylvania and American politics for years –though not without controversy.  Paine was a confrontational figure and also sometimes an erratic one.  He left the United States in 1787 and spent several years in France and England during the period of the French Revolution.  He wrote Rights of Man <\/em>(1791) and Age of Reason <\/em>(1794), important but controversial treatises on the revolution and organized religion, and spent time in prison for his political views.  Eventually, Paine returned to the United States with the help of Thomas Jefferson, but he ultimately died in obscurity in New York.  It took later generations of American radicals, such as Moncure Conway<\/a> (Dickinson College Class of 1849) to help restore Paine’s place in the American pantheon of revolutionary figures.<\/p>\n

Common Sense (Bell \/ Bradford editions, 1776)<\/h2>\n
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Cover page, Bell edition, January 1776<\/p><\/div>\n

NECESSARY EVIL. <\/strong>“Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively<\/em> by uniting our affections, the latter negatively<\/em> by restraining our vices…. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil.”<\/p>\n

SIMPLICITY.  <\/strong>“I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered; and the easier repaired when disordered…”<\/p>\n

BIBLE LESSONS. <\/strong>“Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens paid divine honors to their deceased kings, and the christian world hath improved on the plan by doing the same to their living ones. How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!”<\/p>\n

“FRENCH BASTARD.” <\/strong>“England, since the conquest, hath known some few good monarchs, but groaned beneath a much larger number of bad ones; yet no man in his senses can say that their claim under William the Conqueror is a very honorable one. A French bastard landing with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original.\u2014It certainly hath no divinity in it.”<\/p>\n

ENGLISH HISTORY.<\/strong> “Thirty kings and two minors have reigned in that distracted kingdom since the conquest, in which time there have been (including the Revolution) no less than eight civil wars and nineteen rebellions. Wherefore instead of making for peace, it makes against it, and destroys the very foundation it seems to stand on.”<\/p>\n

“ASS FOR A LION.”<\/strong> “One of the strongest natural<\/em> proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

A CONTINENT.  <\/strong>“The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. \u2019Tis not the affair of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent\u2014of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe. \u2019Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters.”<\/p>\n

GROWING UP. <\/strong>“I have heard it asserted by some, that as America hath flourished under her former connexion with Great-Britain, that the same connexion is necessary towards her future happiness, and will always have the same effect. Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of argument. We may as well assert that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat, or that the first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty.” <\/p>\n

COMMERCE.  <\/strong>“Our plan is commerce, and that, well attended to, will secure us the peace and friendship of all Europe; because, it is the interest of all Europe to have America a free port<\/em>. Her trade will always be a protection, and her barrenness of gold and silver secure her from invaders.”<\/p>\n

COWARDS. <\/strong>“But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, Hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and still can shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy of the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.”<\/p>\n

CONTINENTS AND ISLANDS. <\/strong>“[T]here is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island. In no instance hath nature made the satellite larger than its primary planet, and as England and America, with respect to each other, reverses the common order of nature, it is evident they belong to different systems: England to Europe, America to itself.”<\/p>\n

NO PLAN LAID DOWN. <\/strong>“If there is any true cause of fear respecting independance, it is because no plan is yet laid down. Men do not see their way out\u2014Wherefore, as an opening into that business, I offer the following hints; at the same time modestly affirming, that I have no other opinion of them myself, than that they may be the means of giving rise to something better. Could the straggling thoughts of individuals be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise and able men to improve into useful matter.”<\/p>\n

“IN AMERICA THE LAW IS KING.”<\/strong> “But where says some is the King of America? I\u2019ll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king<\/span>.”<\/p>\n

“OUR NATURAL RIGHT.” <\/strong>“A government of our own is our natural right: And when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance.”<\/p>\n

HABITS. <\/strong>“Youth is the seed time of good habits, as well in nations as in individuals. It might be difficult, if not impossible, to form the Continent into one government half a century hence.”<\/p>\n

EXPEDIENCE AND RIGHT. <\/strong>“Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions. Expedience and right are different things.”<\/p>\n

 Appendix (Bradford edition, 1776)<\/h2>\n

BELT IS TOO LOOSE. <\/strong>“Notwithstanding our wisdom, there is a visible feebleness in some of our proceedings which gives encouragement to dissensions. The Continental Belt is too loosely buckled. And if something is not done in time, it will be too late to do any thing, and we shall fall into a state, in which, neither Reconciliation<\/em> nor Independance<\/em> will be practicable.”<\/p>\n

BEGIN THE WORLD OVER AGAIN. <\/strong>“We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom from the event of a few months.”<\/p>\n

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POLITICAL CONTEXT:  Colonial Crisis<\/a><\/h2>\n

\u201cMost immediately, the American Revolution resulted directly from attempts to reform the British Empire after the Seven Years\u2019 War.\u201d \u2014American Yawp, Chap. 5: III<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Colonial Crisis:  A Timeline of Documents<\/strong><\/p>\n