Who Said the Late Success Have Turned the Scale and Now the Americans Are All Liberty Mad Again
Advisor: Robert A. Ferguson, George Edward Woodberry Professor in Law, Literature and Criticism, Columbia Academy, National Humanities Center Young man.
Copyright National Humanities Middle, 2014
How did Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense convince reluctant Americans to carelessness the goal of reconciliation with United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland and take that separation from Britain — independence — was the just option for preserving their liberty?
Understanding
By January 1776, the American colonies were in open rebellion confronting Britain. Their soldiers had captured Fort Ticonderoga, besieged Boston, fortified New York City, and invaded Canada. Yet few dared vocalism what nearly knew was truthful — they were no longer fighting for their rights equally British subjects. They weren't fighting for self-defence, or protection of their holding, or to force Britain to the negotiating table. They were fighting for independence. Information technology took a hard jolt to movement Americans from professed loyalty to declared rebellion, and it came in large part from Thomas Paine'south Mutual Sense. Not a dumbed-down rant for the masses, equally oft described, Mutual Sense is a masterful slice of argument and rhetoric that proved the ability of words.
Text
Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776 
[Observe more primary sources related to Common Sense in Making the Revolution from the National Humanities Center.]
Text Type
Literary nonfiction; persuasive essay. In the Text Analysis section, Tier 2 vocabulary words are defined in pop-ups, and Tier three words are explained in brackets.
Text Complexity
Grades ix-10 complication band.
For more than information on text complexity see these resources from achievethecore.org.
Click hither for standards and skills for this lesson.
X
Mutual Core State Standards
- ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.6 (Make up one's mind an author'south point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose.)
Advanced Placement US History
- iii.ii (IB) (Republican forms of government establish expression in Thomas Paine's Common Sense.)
Advanced Placement English Language and Composition
- Reading nonfiction
- Analyzing and identifying and writer'due south use of rhetorical strategies
Instructor's Note
This lesson focuses on the sections primal to Paine'southward statement in Common Sense — Department 3 and the Appendix to the Tertiary Edition, published a month later on the beginning edition. We do not recommend assigning the total essay (Sections I, Ii, and Four require advanced groundwork in British history that Paine's readers would take known well). However, students should be led through an overview of the essay to sympathise how Paine built his arguments to a "self-evident" conclusion (See Background: Message, below.)
Lead students through an initial overview of the essay (run across Background). To begin, they could skim the full text and read the pull-quotes (separated quotes in large assuming text). What impression of Common Sense practice the quotes provide? What questions do they prompt? So guide students as they read (perhaps aloud) Section III of Common Sense and the Appendix to the Third Edition (pp. ten-19 and 25-29 in the full text provided with this lesson).
Proceed to the close reading of three excerpts in the Text Analysis below. (Note that part of Excerpt #3 is a Common Cadre exemplar text.)
This lesson is divided into two parts, both attainable below. The teacher'south guide includes a background notation, the text analysis with responses to the close reading questions, admission to the interactive exercises, and a follow-upwardly consignment. The student's version, an interactive worksheet that can be eastward-mailed, contains all of the to a higher place except the responses to the shut reading questions.
Teacher'south Guide (continues below)
| Pupil Version (click to open)
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Teacher's Guide
Groundwork
The man at right does not look angry. To united states of america, he projects the typical effigy of a "Founding Begetter" — equanimous, elite, and empowered. And to us his famous essays are awash in powdered-wig prose. Only the portrait and the prose belie the reality. Thomas Paine was a firebrand, and his most influential essay — Common Sense — was a fevered no-holds-barred call for independence. He is credited with turning the tide of public opinion at a crucial juncture, convincing many Americans that war for independence was the only option to take, and they had to take it at present, or else.
Common Sense appeared every bit a pamphlet for sale in Philadelphia on Jan x, 1776, and, as nosotros say today, it went viral. The get-go printing sold out in two weeks and over 150,000 copies were sold throughout America and Europe. It is estimated that one fifth of Americans read the pamphlet or heard it read aloud in public. General Washington ordered it read to his troops. Within weeks, information technology seemed, reconciliation with Uk had gone from an honorable goal to a cowardly betrayal, while independence became the rallying cry of united Patriots. How did Paine achieve this?
1. Timing.
Over a twelvemonth elapsed betwixt the outbreak of armed conflict and the Proclamation of Independence. During these fifteen months, many bemoaned the reluctance of Americans to renounce their ties with Uk despite the escalating warfare effectually them. "When nosotros are no longer fascinated with the Idea of a speedy Reconciliation," wrote Benjamin Franklin in mid-1775, "nosotros shall exert ourselves to some purpose. Till and so Things volition be done by Halves."1 In improver, at that place remained much discord amongst the colonies well-nigh their shared future. "Some timid minds are terrified at the word independence," wrote Elbridge Gerry in March 1776, referring to the colonial legislatures. "America has gone such lengths she cannot recede, and I am convinced a few weeks or months at furthest will convince her of the fact, merely the fruit must have time to ripen in some of the other Colonies."two In this environment, Mutual Sense appeared like a "shooting star," wrote John Adams,3 and propelled many to support independence. Many noted information technology at the fourth dimension with amazement.
"Sometime past the thought [of independence] would take struck me with horror. I now see no alternative;… Can whatever virtuous and brave American hesitate i moment in the option?"
The Pennsylvania Evening Post, thirteen Feb 1776
"Nosotros were blind, only on reading these enlightening works the scales have fallen from our eyes…. The doctrine of Independence hath been in times past greatly disgustful; we abhorred the principle. Information technology is now become our delightful theme and commands our purest affections. We revere the author and highly prize and admire his works."
The New-London [Connecticut] Gazette, 22 March 1776
two. Message.
What made Mutual Sense so esteemed and "enlightening"? Some argue that Common Sense said zip new, that information technology simply put the call-to-war in fiery street language that rallied the common people. But this trivializes Paine's achievement. He did accept a new message in Mutual Sense — an ultimatum. Give up reconciliation now, or forever lose the risk for independence. If we fail to act, we're self-deceiving cowards condemning our children to tyranny and cheating the earth of a beacon of liberty. It is our calling to model self-actualized nationhood for the world. "The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind."
Paine divided Common Sense into four sections with deceptively mundane titles, mimicking the brainy political pamphlets of the twenty-four hour period. But his essay did not offering the aforementioned-onetime-same-onetime treatise on British heritage and American rights. Here's what he says in Common Sense:
Introduction: The ideas I present here are then new that many people volition reject them. Readers must articulate their minds of long-held notions, apply mutual sense, and adopt the cause of America as the "cause of all mankind." How we respond to tyranny today will matter for all time.
Section One: The English language regime yous worship? It's a sham. Human may need government to protect him from his flawed nature, simply that doesn't mean he must suffocate under animate being tyranny. Just equally yous would cutting ties with abusive parents, you must break from U.k..
Section Two: The monarchy yous revere? It'southward not our protector; it'south our enemy. It doesn't care about us; information technology cares nigh Britain'due south wealth. Information technology has brought misery to people all over the world. And the very idea of monarchy is cool. Why should someone rule over us merely considering he (or she) is someone's child? So evil is monarchy past its very nature that God condemns it in the Bible.
Section Three: Our crunch today? It's folly to remember nosotros should maintain loyalty to a distant tyrant. Information technology'southward self-sabotage to pursue reconciliation. For u.s., right here, right at present, reconciliation means ruin. America must separate from Britain. We can't get back to the cozy days earlier the Postage Act. Yous know that'due south true; it'due south time to admit information technology. For heaven's sake, we're already at war!
Section Four: Can we win this war? Admittedly! Ignore the naysayers who tremble at the thought of British might. Let's build a Continental Navy every bit we accept built our Continental Ground forces. Let us declare independence. If nosotros delay, it will exist that much harder to win. I know the prospect is daunting, but the prospect of inaction is terrifying.
A calendar month later, in his appendix to the tertiary edition, Paine escalated his entreatment to a utopian fervor. "We accept it in our ability to begin the world over again," he insisted. "The birthday of a new earth is at hand."
3. Rhetoric.
"It is necessary to exist bold," wrote Paine years after on his rhetorical power. "Some people tin can be reasoned into sense, and others must exist shocked into it. Say a bold thing that will stagger them, and they will begin to think."four Keep this idea front and center as you written report Mutual Sense.
As an experienced essayist and a contempo English immigrant with his own deep resentments against Britain, Paine was the right human being at the right time to galvanize public opinion. He "understood better than anyone else in America," explains literary scholar Robert Ferguson, "that 'manner and manner of thinking' might dictate the difficult shift from loyalty to rebellion."five Before Paine, the language of political essays had been moderate. Educated men wrote civilly for publication and kept their fury for private messages and diaries. Then came Paine, cursing Britain as an "open enemy," denouncing George III equally the "Royal Brute of England," and damning reconciliation every bit "truly farcical" and "a fallacious dream." To retrieve otherwise, he charged, was "cool," "unmanly," and "repugnant to reason." Equally Virginian Landon Carter wrote in dismay, Paine implied that anyone who disagreed with him "is nothing short of a coward and a sycophant [stooge/lackey], which in plain meaning must be a damned rascal."half-dozen Paine knew what he was doing: the pen was his weapon, and words his ammunition. He argued with ideas while convincing with raw emotion. "The indicate to call up," writes Ferguson, "is that Paine's natural and intended audience is the American mob…. He uses acrimony, the natural emotion of the mob, to let the nigh active groups find themselves in the general will of a republican citizenry."7 What if Paine had written the Declaration of Independence with the aforementioned hard-driving rhetoric?
AS JEFFERSON WROTE IT: We concord these truths to be cocky-axiomatic, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed past their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted amidst Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever whatsoever Course of Government becomes destructive of these ends, information technology is the Correct of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to constitute new Regime, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such grade, as to them shall seem well-nigh likely to outcome their Safety and Happiness.
IF PAINE HAD WRITTEN It: NO homo can deny, without abandoning his God-given ability to reason, that all men enter into existence as equals. No matter how lowly or majestic their origins, they enter life with 3 God-given RIGHTS — the right to alive, to correct to alive free, and the right to alive happily (or, at the least, to pursue Happiness on earth). Who would choose existence on any other terms? And then treasured are these rights that man created authorities to protect them. So treasured are they that man is duty-jump to destroy any regime that crushes them — and get-go anew as men worthy of the title of FREE MEN. This is the evidently truth, impossible to refute.
Text Analysis
Excerpt #i
Shut Reading Questions
Imagine yourself sitting downward to read Common Sense in January 1776. How does Paine innovate his reasoning to you?
He announces that his logic will exist direct and down to earth, using simply "simple facts" and "patently arguments" to explain his position, unlike (he implies) the complex political pamphlets addressed to the educated elite. His audience would understand "common sense" to suggest the moral sense of the yeoman farmer, whose independence and clear-headedness made him a more reliable guardian of national virtue (similar to Jefferson's agrarian ideal).
Why does he write "I offer aught more than" instead of "I offer you many reasons" or "I offer a detailed argument"?
"Zip more than" implies that Common Sense will be easy to follow, presenting simply what is necessary to brand his argument. (Paine considered titling his essay Plain Truth.)
How does Paine ask yous to set up yourself for his "common sense" arguments?
Exist willing to put aside pre-conceived notions, he says, and approximate his arguments on their own merits.
What does he imply past proverb a fair reader "volition put on, or rather than he volition non put off, the true character of a man"?
He implies that any reader who would refuse to consider his arguments is narrow-minded. With the "on"–"off" contrast, he suggests that you, the individual reader, are open-minded and thus a fellow human being of honor willing to consider a new point of view.
In the following pages I offer nil more than than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense: and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader than that he will divest [rid] himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer [allow] his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves: that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the truthful character of a man, and generously overstate his views beyond the present day.
PARAGRAPH 55
This paragraph begins with one of the most famous hyperboles in American writing. A hyperbole is an overstatement or exaggeration to emphasize a indicate. What are the two examples of hyperbole in this paragraph?
ane. "the lord's day never shined on a cause of greater worth"
ii. "posterity… will be more than or less affected, fifty-fifty to the stop of time"
With the hyperboles, how does Paine lead you to view the "crusade" of American independence?
View it, he says, from an overarching global perspective, not the narrow perspective of American colonists in the late 1700s. The hyperboles are ultimates — the most worthy of worthy causes, affecting the future now and forever. The American cause can lead mankind toward enlightened cocky-decision, driving forward the progress of civilization. Paine says this directly in his introduction: "The cause of America is in a great mensurate the cause of all mankind." Nosotros're non just talking taxes and representation, people.
What tone does Paine add with the phrases "The sun never shined" and "even to the end of time"?
A biblical and prophetic tone. The sunday shining down on human endeavors suggests divine endorsement of the American cause — a cause that volition bring low-cal and liberty ("conservancy") to the globe. Resisting the cause, Paine implies, would be resisting divine will.
Permit'south consider Paine as a wordsmith. How does he utilize repetition to add touch on to the beginning role of the paragraph?
He includes 2 repetitive sets:
1. "'Tis not" to brainstorm sentences 2 and three [anaphora]
2. the phrases "of a metropolis, a country, a province, or a kingdom" and "of a solar day, a year, or an historic period" [prepositions with multiple objects].
Read the section aloud to hear the insistent rhythm that elevates Paine'due south prose to a rousing phone call to action (his goal in writing Common Sense).
Paine ends this paragraph with an analogy: What we do now is like carving initials into the bark of a young oak tree. What does he mean with the analogy?
A. This is the time to create a new nation. Our smallest efforts at present will lead to enormous benefits in the futurity.
B. This is the time to unite for independence. Discord among united states of america now will escalate into future crises that could ruin the immature nation.
Reply: B.
The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the affair of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, merely of a continent – of at least one eighth role of the habitable globe. 'Tis not the business organization of a mean solar day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the competition and will be more than or less affected, even to the end of fourth dimension, past the proceedings now. At present is the seed time of continental [colonies'] union, faith and laurels. The least fracture now will be like a proper noun engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a immature oak; the wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters.
PARAGRAPH 58
Paine includes multiple repetitions in this paragraph. What word repetition do you find?
The describing word "new" in a "new area" and a "new method." [anaphora]
What audio repetitions exercise you find?
Alliteration: argument/arms/area/arisen
plans/proposals/prior/April
Consonance: politics/struck
method/thinking/hathursday
matter/argument/armdue south
Read the sentences aloud. What bear on does the repetition add to Paine's delivery?
A stirring oratorical rhythm is achieved, similar that of a solemn speech or sermon meant to convey the truth and gravity of an argument.
Paine compares the attempts to reconcile with Britain after the Battle of Lexington and Concur to an quondam almanac. What does he hateful?
He ways the idea of reconciliation is now preposterous and that no rational person could support information technology. No 1 would use final yr's almanac to make plans for the current twelvemonth! Besides, equally an annual ceases to exist useful at a specific moment (midnight of December 31), Paine implies that reconciliation ceased to exist a valid goal at the moment of the commencement shot on April xix, 1775. (Paine ofttimes alludes to aspects of colonial life, like almanacs, that would resonate with all readers. They include references to farming, tree cutting, hunting, country ownership, slavery, biblical scripture, family and neighbour bonds, maturation, and the parent-kid human relationship; see "The Metaphor of Youth" beneath.)
By referring the matter from argument to artillery, a new surface area for politics is struck; a new method of thinking hath arisen. All plans, proposals, etc., prior to the nineteenth of April, i.e., to the commencement of hostilities [Lexington and Agree], are like the almanacs of the terminal year which, though proper [accurate] then, are superseded and useless now. Whatever was advanced by the advocates on either side of the question and so, terminated in ane and the same point, viz. [that is], a union with Great Britain. The just divergence between the parties was the method of effecting it — the ane proposing force, the other friendship; merely it hath and so far happened that the start hath failed and the second hath withdrawn her influence.
PARAGRAPH 59
Paine compares the goal of reconciliation to an "amusing dream [that has] passed away and left united states as we were." Why doesn't he aim harsher criticism here at the goal of reconciling with Britain?
With this paragraph, Paine begins his argument against reconciliation and does not want to insult or alienate his readers at the outset. Everyone tin can hope, he implies: there's cipher incorrect with that, but we accept to motion on if a hope proves fruitless.
With this in mind, what tone does he atomic number 82 the reader to wait: cynical, impatient, hopeful, reasonable, impassioned, angry?
Reasonable. The two sentences resemble the opening of a legal argument that promises a counterbalanced appraisal of two options on the ground of known evidence ("principles of nature") and honest ordinary reasoning ("common sense").
How does his tone prepare the resistant reader?
Paine ways to deflect challenges of bias or extremism by inviting readers to give him a hearing. "If I'grand existence fair in my writing, you can attempt to be off-white in your listening."
While Paine promises a fair appraisal, look how he describes the two options in the terminal sentence.
Option 1: "if separated" from Great britain
Option 2: "if dependent on Britain"
Why didn't he utilize the usual terms for the ii options — "independence" and "reconciliation"?
First, INDEPENDENCE and RECONCILIATION sound like equally plausible options, just Paine wants to convince you lot that independence is the only acceptable pick. If so, then why did he choose SEPARATION instead of INDEPENDENCE? By January 1776, INDEPENDENCE carried the desperate connotations of war and treason. It was an irrevocable conclusion with unknown consequences. In contrast, SEPARATION seems less desperate, and even positive. In man development, separation from 1's parents is the natural and long-sought step to full machismo. That's the self-image Paine wants to foster in his readers. Are we adults or children? [See the activity below, "The Metaphor of Youth".]
In this vein, Paine chose DEPENDENCE instead of RECONCILIATION for Option two (staying with Britain). RECONCILIATION suggests the calm and rational agreement of two grownups, but Paine wants you to view reconciliation as the defeatist selection of spineless subjects who could never take care of themselves. In other words, DEPENDENCE.
[Note: Paine does call the two options "independence" and "reconciliation" elsewhere in Common Sense, but he meant to avoid them here.]
Every bit much hath been said of the advantages of reconciliation, which, similar an agreeable dream, hath passed away and left united states of america equally nosotros were, information technology is but right that we should examine the contrary [opposing] side of the statement and inquire into some of the many material injuries which these colonies sustain, and always volition sustain, by being continued with and dependent on Great United kingdom. To examine that connexion and dependence, on the principles of nature and common sense, to see what we accept to trust to [expect] if separated, and what we are to wait if dependent.
PARAGRAPH 60
Activeness: The Metaphor of Youth
Study Paine'south metaphors that compare the colonies' readiness for independence to a kid's maturation into adulthood.
Hither Paine rebuts the start statement for reconciliation—that America has thrived equally a British colony and would fail on her own. How does he dismiss this argument?
He slams information technology down difficult. "Nothing can be more Fallacious," he yells. The argument is beyond misdirected or short-sighted, he insists; it'south a fatal error in reasoning. So much for calm and reasoned debate. But Paine is not having a temper tantrum in print. His technique was to argue with ideas while disarming with emotion.
Paine follows his utter rejection of the argument with an analogy. Complete the analogy: America staying with Britain would be like a child _______.
"America staying with Britain would be like a child remaining dependent on its parents forever and never growing up." And who would want that, Paine implies? By writing "get-go twenty years of our lives" instead of, say, "first 5 years," Paine alludes to the general consensus that a twenty-year-old is an adult.
Paine goes i step further in the last sentence. What does he say about America's "childhood" equally a British colony?
He "answers roundly" (with conviction) that the colonies' growth was actually hampered past being part of a European empire. They would have been more than salubrious and successful "adults," he insists, if they had not been the "children" of the British empire. This was a radical premise in 1776, simply 1 that buttressed Paine's argument for independence
I have heard it asserted by some that as America hath flourished nether her erstwhile connectedness with Great Britain, that the same connection is necessary towards her futurity happiness, and will ever have the same consequence. Nothing can be more beguiling than this kind of statement. We may likewise assert that because a kid 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 side by side twenty. Just even this is albeit more than is true; for I reply roundly that America would have flourished as much, and probably much more, had no European ability had annihilation to exercise with her.
PARAGRAPH 61
Excerpt #two
Shut Reading Questions
Here Paine challenges his opponents to bring "reconciliation to the touchstone of nature." What does he hateful? (A "touchstone" is a test of the quality or genuineness of something. From aboriginal times the purity of gold or silverish was tested with a "touchstone" of basalt rock.)
Test the chances of reconciliation against what you know nearly people'southward reactions in similar crises throughout history, not against your own hopes and fears during this particular crisis. In other words, employ common sense.
At the start of this paragraph Paine mildly faults the supporters of reconciliation equally unrealistic optimists "still hoping for the best." By the terminate of the paragraph, notwithstanding, they are cowards willing to "shake hands with the murderers." How did he construct the paragraph to reach this transition?
He poses two challenges to the supporters of reconciliation. If they can honestly reply each challenge, he asserts, and still back up reconciliation, then they are selfish cowards bringing ruin to America.
Paraphrase the first claiming (sentences ii–5).
"Ask yourself if you can remain loyal to a nation that has brought state of war and suffering to yous. If you say you tin can, you're fooling yourself and condemning us to a worse life under Britain than we endure now."
Paraphrase the 2d challenge (sentences six–xi).
"Have you been the victim of British violence? If you haven't, then you notwithstanding owe compassion to those who have. And if you have, yet yet back up reconciliation, so you have abandoned your conscience."
With what phrase does Paine condemn those who would still hope for reconciliation even if they were victims of British violence?
They are men who "can however milkshake hands with the murderers," i.eastward., men who have betrayed their fellow Americans and thus go as evil as the British invaders. At that place is no nuance in this condemnation, and thus no mode for the reader to avoid its implications.
Note how Paine weaves impassioned questions through the paragraph: "Are you lot merely deceiving yourselves?" "Take you lot lost a parent or a kid by their easily?" How practise these questions intensify his challenges?
Addressed to "you lot" direct and non a faceless "he or they," the questions deliver an in-your-face claiming that allows no escape. Hither'due south my question to you: Reply it! or your silence will reveal your cowardice.
Rewrite sentences #4 and #11 to modify the second-person "you" to the third-person "he/she/they." How does the change weaken Paine's challenges?
The reader is off the claw. Since the challenges are deflected from "yous," the reader, to the third-person "other," no immediate personal reply is demanded. The reader can blithely read on and avoid the aim of Paine'due south questions.
Worksheet: The Question every bit a Rhetorical Device
Use this worksheet to examine Paine's use of questions as persuasive devices throughout Mutual Sense, specifically the rhetorical question and the hypophora (questions with implied or stated answers, used for rhetorical impact).
Men of passive tempers [temperaments] look somewhat lightly over the offenses of Uk and, still hoping for the best, are apt to phone call out, "Come up, come, we shall be friends again for all this." But examine the passions and feelings of mankind. Bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature and then tell me whether you can hereafter love, honour, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried burn and sword into your state? If y'all cannot do all these, so are y'all only deceiving yourselves and by your delay bringing ruin upon posterity? Your future connection with Uk, whom you tin can neither love nor honor, will exist forced and unnatural, and being formed only on the plan of present convenience, will in a picayune time fall into a relapse more wretched than the first. But if you say y'all can nonetheless pass the violations over [ignore or underrate them], and then I ask, Hath your house been burnt? Hath your belongings been destroyed earlier your face? Are your wife and children destitute of [without] a bed to lie on or breadstuff to live on? Accept yous lost a parent or a child by their hands and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If yous have not, then are you non a judge of those who have. Only if you have, and can withal shake easily with the murderers, then are you unworthy the name of hubby, father, friend, or lover, and, whatever may exist your rank or title in life, you take the heart of a coward and the spirit of a sycophant.
PARAGRAPH 77
Excerpt #3
Shut Reading Questions
At this point, Paine pleads with his readers to write the constitution for their independent nation without filibuster. What danger do they risk, he warns, if they leave this crucial job to a later 24-hour interval?
A colonial leader could grasp dictatorial power past taking advantage of the postwar disorder likely to result if the colonies take no constitution prepare to implement. Even if Great britain tried to regain control of the colonies, it could be also late to wrest control back from a powerful dictator. "Ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny," Paine warns, "by keeping vacant the seat of regime."
What historical evidence does Paine offer to illustrate the danger?
He states that "some Massanello may futurity arise" and grasp power, alluding to the short-lived people'due south revolt led by the commoner Thomas Aniello (Masaniello) in 1647 confronting Spanish command of Naples (Italian republic). The Castilian ruler granted a few rights, simply Masaniello was soon murdered, ending the uprising and its short-lived gains for the people.
Every bit his plea escalates in intensity, Paine exclaims "Ye that oppose independence now, ye know non what ye practise." To what climactic moment in the New Attestation does he insinuate?
While suffering on the cross before his expiry, Jesus calls out, "Begetter, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23: 34); that is, his crucifiers do not know they are killing the Son of God. With this compelling allusion (which most readers would instantly recognize), Paine warns that opposing independence is as baleful a decision for Americans as killing Jesus was for his executioners and for flesh.
Paine heightens his apocalyptic tone as he appeals to "ye that beloved mankind" to accept a mission of conservancy (alluding to Christ'due south mission of salvation). What must the lovers of mankind achieve in order to save mankind?
They must constitute the "free and independent States of America" equally the sole preserve of human freedom in the world. A desperate avoiding, "liberty" has been "hunted" and "expelled" throughout the world, and it is America's mission to protect and nurture her. America's victory will be mankind'due south victory, non just the feat of xiii small colonies in a distant corner of the world.
NOTE: "A government of our own is our natural right" asserts Paine at the beginning of this extract. Six months later Thomas Jefferson asserted the aforementioned correct in the opening of the Declaration of Independence. This Enlightenment ideal anchored revolutionary initiatives in America and Europe for decades.
A government of our own is our natural right, and when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human being affairs, he volition become convinced that it is infinitely wiser and safer to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate mode, while we take information technology in our power, than to trust such an interesting result to time and gamble. If we omit it now, some Massanello* may hereafter arise who, laying hold of pop disquietudes [grievances], may collect together the drastic and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, finally sweep away the liberties of the continent similar a drench. Should the government of America return once more into the hands of Britain, the tottering situation of things volition exist a temptation for some drastic adventurer to endeavor his fortune; and in such a case, what relief can United kingdom give? Ere [earlier] she could hear the news, the fatal business might be done, and ourselves suffering like the wretched Britons nether the oppression of the Conquistador [William the Conqueror in 1066]. Ye that oppose independence at present, ye know non what ye do. Ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny past keeping vacant the seat of authorities….
O ye that dear mankind! Ye that cartel oppose not merely the tyranny only the tyrant, stand along! Every spot of the onetime world is overrun with oppression. Liberty hath been hunted circular the globe. Asia and Africa take long expelled her.—Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the avoiding, and prepare in time an asylum for flesh.
* Thomas Anello, otherwise Massanello, a fisherman of Naples, who after spiriting up his countrymen in the public market place against the oppression of the Spaniards, to whom the identify was then discipline, prompted them to revolt, and in the space of a day become King. [footnote in Paine]
PARAGRAPHS 104, 107
Follow-Upward Assignment
- Write a how-to essay on persuasive writing using Common Sense as the focus text and this statement by Thomas Paine as the core idea: "Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it. Say a bold thing that volition stagger them, and they will brainstorm to think." –Letter to Elihu Palmer, 21 February 1802.
- Write an essay to summarize and evaluate Common Sense using one of the quotations below as the organizing concept. Utilise the metaphor in the quotation as a rhetorical device throughout the essay. (Paragraph numbers refer to the total text of Common Sense with this lesson.)
Quotation Para. Metaphor "The lord's day never shined on a cause of greater worth." 58 light, newness, glory "The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries
"'TIS Fourth dimension TO Role."73 massacre, suffering "Reconciliation is now a beguiling dream." 79 illusion, vain hope "It is now in the interest of America to provide for herself." 144 adulthood, cocky-reliance "Independence is the only BOND that tin tie and continue us together." 163 tying cord, unity for survival - See colonists' and newspapers' responses to Mutual Sense in the main source collection Making the Revolution (Section: Common Sense?) to examine how Paine turned public stance in 1776. Note the disquisitional pieces by John Adams, Hannah Griffitts, and others. What can be learned about Paine's effectiveness by studying his critics?
Vocabulary Pop-ups
[including 18th-c. connotations]
- posterity : all time to come generations of flesh
- superseded : replaced something old or no longer useful
- precedent : an action or policy that serves as an example or rule for the future
- touchstone : equally a metaphor, a examination of the quality or genuineness of something. (in the by, the purity of gold or silver was tested with a "toughstone" of basalt stone.)
- relapse : a return to a previous worse condition afterward a menses of improvement
- sycophant : someone who acts submissively to another in power in order to proceeds reward; yes-man, flatterer, bootlicker
- precariousness : uncertainty, instability; dependence on chance circumstances or unknown conditions
- deluge : a cataclysmic flood
1. Benjamin Franklin, letter of the alphabet to Silas Deane, 27 August 1775. Full text in Founders Online (National Archives).↩
2. Elbridge Gerry, alphabetic character to James Warren, 26 March 1776.↩
3. John Adams, autobiography, role i, "John Adams," through 1776, canvass 23 of 53 [electronic edition]. Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive. Massachusetts Historical Society. www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.↩
4. Thomas Paine, letter to Elihu Palmer, 21 February 1802; cited in Henry Hayden Clark, "Thomas Paine's Theories of Rhetoric," Wisconsin University of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, 28 (1933), 317.↩
v. Robert A. Ferguson, "The Commonalities of Common Sense," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d. Series, 57:iii (July 2000), 483.↩
half dozen. Landon Carter, diary entry, 20 February 1776, recounting content of letter written that day to George Washington. Total entry in Founders Online (National Archives).↩
7. Robert A. Ferguson, The American Enlightenment, 1750-1820 (Harvard University Press, 1994; paper ed., 1997), 113.↩
*For a helpful discussion of Paine's response to the "horrid cruelties" of the British in Republic of india, meet J.Yard. Opal, "Common Sense and Imperial Atrocity: How Thomas Paine Saw Due south Asia in Northward America," Common-Place, July 2009.
Images courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Library.
- Portrait of Thomas Paine by John Henry Bufford (1810-1870), engraving past Bufford'southward Lithography, ca. 1850. Tape ID 268504.
- Title page (cover) of Common Sense, 1776. Record ID 2052092.
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Source: https://americainclass.org/thomas-paine-common-sense-1776/
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