Common Sense

Common Sense was first published as a pamphlet in 1776, anonymously, by Thomas Paine. It is a very persuasive, passionate, and well reasoned argument for creating a completely new kind of government in the new world written in a style I find very appealing. He starts out with a look at the origins of government, moves on to monarchy and hereditary succession, then goes into the state of America, and ends with a plea to seize the opportunities of the moment and "begin the world over again."(120).

The first part of the book is a brief look at society, government and the English constitution. Here he states that security is "the true design and end of government."(1) He also puts out the principle of choosing the lesser of two evils. He Then explores the English constitution and finds it fatally flawed by virtue of its being unbalanced in favor of the monarchy. This is where he questions the right of kings to rule and leads into the next section where he examines the right of kings to rule, and concludes that they have no such right. He draws many of his arguments from the bible and historical sources to say that no one man or family has the right to rule all men. He goes into great detail about a story about early Israelis in which the god they worship repeatedly forbade the rule of kings. He uses logical arguments to show that if England thought it should rule America, than by rights it should be France ruling England because the current line of rulers were descended from the Norman invaders from France.

Next, Thomas Paine goes into his "Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs."(81). Here he asserts the need for America to break from the rule of England and establish itself as a trading power in its own right. It is also here that he displays the common American imperialistic attitude when he asserts that his god gave the Europeans the American land for sanctuary from persecution. He spends the next several pages on the arguments for why America needed to break from Britain, arguments that ranged from the inevitability of Britain's authority ending to the extreme disadvantages to being associated with England when she is at war with others. Finally, he asserts the virtues of the republic form of government. He points out how the republics of Europe, Holland and Switzerland, are both peaceful countries. Then he proposes a plan for districting the colonies and drawing up a Continental charter.

The