Thomas Paine's Common Sense
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Thomas Paine's political declaration in his tract Common Sense struck a chord with the Americans of his time. The book was so popular that it went through fifty-six editions in the first year. The book was published anonymously in 1776, and the sentiments expressed in this work by Paine helped direct the energies of the rebels and point the way to American independence from England. What Paine did in this small book was to enunciate important principles of individual human rights and the specific right of the people to challenge unjust laws and an unjust government. If this message found a willing audience, it was because the people of the Americas were ready to hear this message rather than because the message itself broke through some reserve or presented something totally new. What Paine did was to gather together many of the intellectual currents of his time, specifically those describing the importance of and effects of natural law and its consequences for government and the relationship of the people to their government. He also presented these ideas in a way that appealed to the self-interest of the people of the Americas and that thus helped them decide what action they should take to implement these ideas in order better to provide for their economic future. Vernon L. Parrington (1954) takes note of the power of Common Sense and sees its great popularity as flowing "from its direct and skillful appeal to material interests" (p. 335). Paine was joining in a d
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nds to clear up the muddle that various writers have made of the issue of government, and in the first paragraph he outlines the issue in terms of how he views society, government, and the relationship between the two. He does this with a balanced comparison stating the nature of one against the nature of the other, contrasting the two and their effects. Society he sees as positive and government as negative. In striking terms he illustrates the idea that government derives from the people in response to perceived needs, leading to the tenet that government must respond to the needs of the people or be abolished. He describes government as evidence of lost innocence--in the state of nature, government is not needed, but as man perceives the dangers surrounding him in society, government becomes the means to afford protection and to stave off the perceived threats in the world.
Rather than merely discussing the concepts behind natural law and the derivation of the idea of government, Paine illustrates the issue with a concrete example. He asks that the reader envision "a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest, they will then represent the first peopling of any country,
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Approximate Word count = 1618
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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