Common Sense
By Thomas Paine
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Thomas Paine
English-born Thomas Paine left behind hearth and home for adventures on the high seas at nineteen. Upon returning to shore, he became a tax officer, and it was this job that inspired him to write The Case of the Officers of Excise in 1772. Paine then immigrated to Philadelphia, and in 1776 he published Common Sense, a defense of American independence from England. After returning to Europe, Paine wrote his famous Rights of Man as a response to criticism of the French Revolution. He was subsequently labeled as an outlaw, leading him to flee to France where he joined the National Convention. However, in 1793 Paine was imprisoned, and during this time he wrote the first part of The Age of Reason, an anti-church text which would go on to be his most famous work. After his release, Paine returned to America where he passed away in 1809.
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Common Sense - Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
Common Sense
First digital edition 2016 by Anna Ruggieri
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION.
OF THE ORIGIN AND DESIGN OF GOVERNMENT IN GENERAL, WITH CONCISE REMARKS ON THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION.
OF MONARCHY AND HEREDITARY SUCCESSION.
THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF AMERICAN AFFAIRS.
OF THE PRESENT ABILITY OF AMERICA, WITH SOME MISCELLANEOUS REFLEXIONS.
APPENDIX.
INTRODUCTION.
Perhapsthe sentiments contained in the following pages, are notyetsufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thingwrong, gives it a superficial appearance of beingright, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.
As a long and violent abuse of power, is generally the Means of calling the right of it in question (and in Matters too which might never have been thought of, had not the Sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry) and as the King of England hath undertaken in hisown Right, to support the Parliament in what he callsTheirs, and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject theusurpation of either.
In the following sheets, the author hath studiously avoided every thing which is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof. The wise, and the worthy, need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious, or unfriendly, will cease of themselves unless too much pains are bestowed upon their conversion.
The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested. The laying a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censure, is the
AUTHOR
P.S. The Publication of this newEdition hath been delayed, with a View of taking notice (had it been necessary) of any Attempt to refute the Doctrine of Independance: As no Answer hath yet appeared, it is now presumed that none will, the Time needful for getting such a Performance readyfor the Public being considerably past.
Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is theDoctrine itself, not theMan. Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any Party,and under no sort of Influence public or private, but the influence of reason and principle.
Philadelphia, February 14, 1776
OF THE ORIGIN AND DESIGN OF GOVERNMENT IN GENERAL,WITH CONCISE REMARKS ON THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION.
Somewriters have so confounded society with government, as toleave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are notonly different, but have different origins. Society is produced byour wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotesourhappinesspositivelyby uniting our affections, thelatternegativelyby restraining our vices. The one encouragesintercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron,the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in itsbest state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state anintolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the samemiseriesby a government, which we might expect in a countrywithoutgovernment, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that wefurnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, isthe badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on theruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses ofconscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would needno other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds itnecessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish meansfor the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by thesame prudence which in every other case advises him out of twoevils to choose the least.Wherefore, security being the true designand end of government, it unanswerably follows thatwhateverformthereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, withthe least expence and greatest benefit, is preferableto allothers.
In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end ofgovernment, let us suppose a small number of persons settled insome sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest, theywill then represent the first peopling of any country, or of theworld. In this state of natural liberty, society will be theirfirst thought. A thousand motives will excite them thereto, thestrength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and his mind sounfitted for perpetual solitude, that he issoon obliged to seekassistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires thesame. Four or five united would be able to raise a tolerabledwelling in the midst of a wilderness, butoneman might labour outof the common period of life without accomplishing any thing; whenhe had felled his timber he could not remove it, nor erect it afterit was removed; hunger in the mean time would urge him from hiswork, and every different want call him adifferent way. Disease,nay even misfortune would be death, for though neither might bemortal, yet either would disable him from living, and reduce him toa state in which he might rather be said to perish than to die.
Thus necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form ournewly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessings ofwhich, would supersede, and render the obligations of law andgovernment unnecessary while they remained perfectly just to eachother; but as nothing but heaven is impregnable to vice, it willunavoidably happen, that inproportion as they surmount the firstdifficulties of emigration, which bound them