Once Again Lack of Pamphlets Ruins a Perfectly Good Revolution
Advisor: Robert A. Ferguson, George Edward Woodberry Professor in Police, Literature and Criticism, Columbia University, National Humanities Center Fellow.
Copyright National Humanities Middle, 2014
How did Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense convince reluctant Americans to abandon the goal of reconciliation with Great britain and have that separation from Great britain — independence — was the only 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 Urban center, and invaded Canada. Withal few dared voice what most knew was true — they were no longer fighting for their rights every bit British subjects. They weren't fighting for self-defense, or protection of their holding, or to strength Great britain to the negotiating table. They were fighting for independence. It took a hard jolt to move Americans from professed loyalty to alleged rebellion, and information technology came in large part from Thomas Paine'south Common Sense. Non a dumbed-downward rant for the masses, as often described, Common Sense is a masterful piece of statement and rhetoric that proved the power of words.
Text
Thomas Paine, Mutual Sense, 1776 
[Observe more than master sources related to Mutual Sense in Making the Revolution from the National Humanities Middle.]
Text Type
Literary nonfiction; persuasive essay. In the Text Analysis section, Tier 2 vocabulary words are defined in pop-ups, and Tier 3 words are explained in brackets.
Text Complexity
Grades 9-10 complexity band.
For more information on text complication see these resources from achievethecore.org.
Click here for standards and skills for this lesson.
X
Mutual Core State Standards
- ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.6 (Determine an writer'due south betoken of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an writer uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose.)
Advanced Placement The states History
- 3.two (IB) (Republican forms of government found expression in Thomas Paine's Common Sense.)
Advanced Placement English language Linguistic communication and Limerick
- Reading nonfiction
- Analyzing and identifying and author'southward apply of rhetorical strategies
Teacher'south Notation
This lesson focuses on the sections central to Paine'south argument in Mutual Sense — Section III and the Appendix to the Third Edition, published a calendar month subsequently the first edition. We exercise not recommend assigning the full essay (Sections I, Ii, and IV require advanced background in British history that Paine's readers would have known well). However, students should be led through an overview of the essay to understand how Paine built his arguments to a "cocky-evident" conclusion (Come across Background: Message, below.)
Atomic number 82 students through an initial overview of the essay (come 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 exercise the quotes provide? What questions practise they prompt? Then guide students equally they read (perhaps aloud) Department 3 of Common Sense and the Appendix to the Tertiary Edition (pp. 10-19 and 25-29 in the full text provided with this lesson).
Proceed to the close reading of three excerpts in the Text Analysis beneath. (Note that part of Excerpt #3 is a Mutual Core exemplar text.)
This lesson is divided into two parts, both accessible below. The teacher's guide includes a background annotation, the text assay with responses to the close reading questions, access to the interactive exercises, and a follow-upward assignment. The pupil's version, an interactive worksheet that can be east-mailed, contains all of the above except the responses to the close reading questions.
Instructor's Guide (continues below)
| Student Version (click to open up)
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Teacher's Guide
Groundwork
The human at correct does not look aroused. To us, he projects the typical effigy of a "Founding Father" — composed, aristocracy, and empowered. And to u.s.a. his famous essays are brimful in powdered-wig prose. Merely the portrait and the prose belie the reality. Thomas Paine was a firebrand, and his almost 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, disarming many Americans that war for independence was the only pick to take, and they had to take it now, or else.
Mutual Sense appeared as a pamphlet for sale in Philadelphia on Jan 10, 1776, and, as nosotros say today, information technology went viral. The first press sold out in 2 weeks and over 150,000 copies were sold throughout America and Europe. Information technology is estimated that one 5th of Americans read the pamphlet or heard it read aloud in public. General Washington ordered it read to his troops. Within weeks, it seemed, reconciliation with Britain had gone from an honorable goal to a cowardly betrayal, while independence became the rallying cry of united Patriots. How did Paine accomplish this?
i. Timing.
Over a year elapsed between the outbreak of armed disharmonize and the Declaration of Independence. During these 15 months, many bemoaned the reluctance of Americans to renounce their ties with Britain despite the escalating warfare effectually them. "When we are no longer fascinated with the Idea of a speedy Reconciliation," wrote Benjamin Franklin in mid-1775, "we shall exert ourselves to some purpose. Till and then Things will be done by Halves."1 In addition, there remained much discord amid the colonies about their shared futurity. "Some timid minds are terrified at the give-and-take 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, just the fruit must have time to ripen in some of the other Colonies."2 In this environment, Common Sense appeared like a "shooting star," wrote John Adams,three and propelled many to back up independence. Many noted it at the time with amazement.
"Old past the idea [of independence] would have struck me with horror. I now see no culling;… Can whatsoever virtuous and brave American hesitate 1 moment in the pick?"
The Pennsylvania Evening Post, xiii February 1776
"We were blind, simply 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. Nosotros revere the writer and highly prize and admire his works."
The New-London [Connecticut] Gazette, 22 March 1776
2. Message.
What made Mutual Sense then esteemed and "enlightening"? Some argue that Common Sense said nothing new, that it just put the call-to-war in fiery street language that rallied the mutual people. But this trivializes Paine's accomplishment. He did have a new message in Common Sense — an ultimatum. Give upwards reconciliation now, or forever lose the take a chance for independence. If we fail to human activity, we're self-deceiving cowards condemning our children to tyranny and adulterous the world of a beacon of liberty. Information technology is our calling to model cocky-actualized nationhood for the world. "The crusade of America is in a great measure the crusade of all mankind."
Paine divided Common Sense into four sections with deceptively mundane titles, mimicking the erudite political pamphlets of the mean solar day. Just his essay did non offer the same-erstwhile-same-former treatise on British heritage and American rights. Here's what he says in Common Sense:
Introduction: The ideas I nowadays hither are so new that many people volition reject them. Readers must articulate their minds of long-held notions, utilise common sense, and prefer the cause of America as the "cause of all mankind." How nosotros answer to tyranny today volition matter for all time.
Section Ane: The English authorities y'all worship? It's a sham. Man may demand government to protect him from his flawed nature, but that doesn't mean he must suffocate under brute tyranny. Just as you would cut ties with abusive parents, you must break from Britain.
Department Two: The monarchy you revere? Information technology'southward non our protector; information technology's our enemy. It doesn't care about us; it cares about Britain'south wealth. Information technology has brought misery to people all over the world. And the very thought of monarchy is absurd. Why should someone rule over us but because he (or she) is someone'south kid? Then evil is monarchy past its very nature that God condemns it in the Bible.
Section Three: Our crisis today? It's folly to think we should maintain loyalty to a distant tyrant. It's self-sabotage to pursue reconciliation. For us, right here, right at present, reconciliation means ruin. America must carve up from United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland. Nosotros can't go dorsum to the cozy days before the Postage stamp Act. You know that's true; it'southward time to admit information technology. For heaven'due south sake, we're already at war!
Section Four: Can we win this war? Absolutely! Ignore the naysayers who tremble at the thought of British might. Allow's build a Continental Navy as we accept built our Continental Army. Allow us declare independence. If we delay, it will be that much harder to win. I know the prospect is daunting, but the prospect of inaction is terrifying.
A month later, in his appendix to the third edition, Paine escalated his appeal to a utopian fervor. "We take it in our power to begin the world over over again," he insisted. "The birthday of a new world is at mitt."
3. Rhetoric.
"It is necessary to be assuming," wrote Paine years afterward on his rhetorical power. "Some people can exist reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into information technology. Say a bold thing that volition stagger them, and they volition begin to think."4 Keep this idea front and center as you study Common Sense.
As an experienced essayist and a recent English language immigrant with his own deep resentments against Britain, Paine was the right man at the correct time to galvanize public opinion. He "understood ameliorate than anyone else in America," explains literary scholar Robert Ferguson, "that 'mode and style of thinking' might dictate the hard shift from loyalty to rebellion."5 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 Great britain as an "open enemy," denouncing George Three as the "Royal Animal of England," and damning reconciliation as "truly farcical" and "a beguiling dream." To think otherwise, he charged, was "absurd," "unmanly," and "repugnant to reason." As 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 obviously pregnant must exist a damned rascal."vi Paine knew what he was doing: the pen was his weapon, and words his armament. He argued with ideas while convincing with raw emotion. "The point to retrieve," writes Ferguson, "is that Paine's natural and intended audience is the American mob…. He uses anger, the natural emotion of the mob, to let the most agile groups detect themselves in the general volition of a republican citizenry."7 What if Paine had written the Announcement of Independence with the aforementioned hard-driving rhetoric?
AS JEFFERSON WROTE IT: We hold these truths to exist self-axiomatic, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with sure unalienable Rights, that amid 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 any Grade of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Correct of the People to modify or to abolish it, and to institute new Regime, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, every bit to them shall seem most probable to effect their Rubber and Happiness.
IF PAINE HAD WRITTEN IT: NO human being 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 right to live gratis, and the right to live happily (or, at the least, to pursue Happiness on world). Who would cull existence on any other terms? Then treasured are these rights that man created regime to protect them. So treasured are they that man is duty-leap to destroy any authorities that crushes them — and start anew as men worthy of the title of FREE MEN. This is the plain truth, incommunicable to refute.
Text Analysis
Excerpt #one
Close Reading Questions
Imagine yourself sitting down to read Mutual Sense in January 1776. How does Paine introduce his reasoning to you?
He announces that his logic will be direct and down to globe, using simply "elementary facts" and "plain arguments" to explain his position, unlike (he implies) the complex political pamphlets addressed to the educated elite. His audience would empathise "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 (like to Jefferson's agrarian platonic).
Why does he write "I offer null more than" instead of "I offer you lot many reasons" or "I offer a detailed argument"?
"Nothing more than" implies that Mutual Sense volition be easy to follow, presenting only what is necessary to make his statement. (Paine considered titling his essay Plain Truth.)
How does Paine ask you to prepare yourself for his "common sense" arguments?
Be willing to put bated pre-conceived notions, he says, and estimate his arguments on their own claim.
What does he imply past saying a fair reader "will put on, or rather than he volition not put off, the truthful character of a man"?
He implies that any reader who would refuse to consider his arguments is bigoted. With the "on"–"off" contrast, he suggests that you, the private reader, are open-minded and thus a beau man of honor willing to consider a new signal of view.
In the following pages I offer nothing more than than unproblematic facts, plain arguments, and common sense: and take no other preliminaries to settle with the reader than that he volition divest [rid] himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer [permit] his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves: that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously overstate his views across the present 24-hour interval.
PARAGRAPH 55
This paragraph begins with i of the virtually famous hyperboles in American writing. A hyperbole is an overstatement or exaggeration to emphasize a point. What are the two examples of hyperbole in this paragraph?
1. "the sunday never shined on a crusade of greater worth"
two. "posterity… will be more or less affected, even to the stop of time"
With the hyperboles, how does Paine atomic number 82 you to view the "cause" 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 about worthy of worthy causes, affecting the future at present and forever. The American cause can lead mankind toward aware cocky-determination, driving forward the progress of civilization. Paine says this direct in his introduction: "The cause of America is in a great measure the crusade of all mankind." We're not merely talking taxes and representation, people.
What tone does Paine add with the phrases "The sunday never shined" and "even to the finish of time"?
A biblical and prophetic tone. The sun shining down on man endeavors suggests divine endorsement of the American crusade — a crusade that volition bring low-cal and freedom ("salvation") to the world. Resisting the cause, Paine implies, would be resisting divine will.
Let's consider Paine as a wordsmith. How does he employ repetition to add impact to the first office of the paragraph?
He includes two repetitive sets:
i. "'Tis non" to begin sentences 2 and 3 [anaphora]
2. the phrases "of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom" and "of a day, a year, or an age" [prepositions with multiple objects].
Read the section aloud to hear the insistent rhythm that elevates Paine's prose to a rousing telephone call to activeness (his goal in writing Common Sense).
Paine ends this paragraph with an analogy: What we do now is like etching initials into the bark of a young oak tree. What does he hateful with the analogy?
A. This is the time to create a new nation. Our smallest efforts now will lead to enormous benefits in the hereafter.
B. This is the time to unite for independence. Discord among united states of america now volition escalate into future crises that could ruin the young nation.
Answer: B.
The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the matter of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent – of at to the lowest degree ane eighth part of the habitable globe. 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the competition and will be more or less affected, even to the cease of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed time of continental [colonies'] union, faith and honor. The to the lowest degree fracture now will exist like a proper noun engraved with the bespeak 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.
PARAGRAPH 58
Paine includes multiple repetitions in this paragraph. What give-and-take repetition do you lot notice?
The describing word "new" in a "new area" and a "new method." [anaphora]
What sound repetitions do y'all detect?
Alliteration: argument/arms/area/arisen
plans/proposals/prior/April
Consonance: politics/struck
method/thursdayinking/hath
one thousandatter/argument/arms
Read the sentences aloud. What impact does the repetition add together to Paine'due south delivery?
A stirring oratorical rhythm is achieved, like that of a solemn spoken communication or sermon meant to convey the truth and gravity of an argument.
Paine compares the attempts to reconcile with United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland after the Battle of Lexington and Concord to an old almanac. What does he mean?
He ways the idea of reconciliation is now preposterous and that no rational person could back up it. No one would use last twelvemonth's almanac to make plans for the current year! Also, every bit an almanac ceases to exist useful at a specific moment (midnight of December 31), Paine implies that reconciliation ceased to be a valid goal at the moment of the starting time shot on April 19, 1775. (Paine often alludes to aspects of colonial life, similar almanacs, that would resonate with all readers. They include references to farming, tree cutting, hunting, land buying, slavery, biblical scripture, family and neighbour bonds, maturation, and the parent-child relationship; come across "The Metaphor of Youth" below.)
By referring the affair from statement to arms, a new 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 Concord], are similar the almanacs of the concluding year which, though proper [authentic] and then, are superseded and useless now. Whatever was advanced past the advocates on either side of the question then, terminated in i and the aforementioned bespeak, viz. [that is], a wedlock with U.k.. The only difference between the parties was the method of effecting information technology — the ane proposing force, the other friendship; merely it hath so far happened that the first hath failed and the 2d hath withdrawn her influence.
PARAGRAPH 59
Paine compares the goal of reconciliation to an "agreeable dream [that has] passed away and left u.s.a. every bit nosotros were." Why doesn't he aim harsher criticism here at the goal of reconciling with United kingdom?
With this paragraph, Paine begins his argument against reconciliation and does non want to insult or alienate his readers at the outset. Everyone tin hope, he implies: there'southward nothing incorrect with that, but nosotros have to move on if a hope proves fruitless.
With this in mind, what tone does he pb the reader to expect: cynical, impatient, hopeful, reasonable, impassioned, aroused?
Reasonable. The 2 sentences resemble the opening of a legal statement that promises a counterbalanced appraisal of 2 options on the basis of known show ("principles of nature") and honest ordinary reasoning ("common sense").
How does his tone prepare the resistant reader?
Paine means to deflect challenges of bias or extremism by inviting readers to give him a hearing. "If I'm existence fair in my writing, you tin try to be fair in your listening."
While Paine promises a fair appraisement, look how he describes the two options in the last judgement.
Choice one: "if separated" from U.k.
Selection ii: "if dependent on Britain"
Why didn't he use the usual terms for the two options — "independence" and "reconciliation"?
Commencement, INDEPENDENCE and RECONCILIATION audio similar equally plausible options, but Paine wants to convince you that independence is the only acceptable option. If so, so why did he choose SEPARATION instead of INDEPENDENCE? By January 1776, INDEPENDENCE carried the desperate connotations of war and treason. It was an irrevocable decision with unknown consequences. In contrast, SEPARATION seems less drastic, and even positive. In human evolution, separation from one'south parents is the natural and long-sought step to total adulthood. That's the self-image Paine wants to foster in his readers. Are we adults or children? [See the activity beneath, "The Metaphor of Youth".]
In this vein, Paine chose DEPENDENCE instead of RECONCILIATION for Option ii (staying with Britain). RECONCILIATION suggests the calm and rational understanding of 2 grownups, merely Paine wants you to view reconciliation equally the defeatist selection of spineless subjects who could never take care of themselves. In other words, DEPENDENCE.
[Notation: Paine does call the two options "independence" and "reconciliation" elsewhere in Common Sense, only he meant to avoid them hither.]
As much hath been said of the advantages of reconciliation, which, similar an amusing dream, hath passed away and left us every bit nosotros were, it is but right that nosotros should examine the contrary [opposing] side of the argument and inquire into some of the many fabric injuries which these colonies sustain, and always volition sustain, past being connected with and dependent on Bang-up Britain. To examine that connection and dependence, on the principles of nature and common sense, to see what we have to trust to [await] if separated, and what we are to wait if dependent.
PARAGRAPH lx
Activeness: The Metaphor of Youth
Report Paine'southward metaphors that compare the colonies' readiness for independence to a kid's maturation into adulthood.
Here Paine rebuts the start argument for reconciliation—that America has thrived as a British colony and would fail on her own. How does he dismiss this argument?
He slams information technology downwardly hard. "Zero can be more Beguiling," he yells. The statement is across misdirected or short-sighted, he insists; it's a fatal mistake in reasoning. So much for calm and reasoned contend. Only Paine is not having a atmosphere tantrum in print. His technique was to argue with ideas while convincing with emotion.
Paine follows his utter rejection of the argument with an illustration. Consummate the analogy: America staying with Britain would be like a kid _______.
"America staying with Britain would be like a child remaining dependent on its parents forever and never growing upward." And who would want that, Paine implies? By writing "outset twenty years of our lives" instead of, say, "showtime 5 years," Paine alludes to the general consensus that a twenty-year-one-time is an adult.
Paine goes one step further in the last sentence. What does he say about America's "childhood" every bit a British colony?
He "answers roundly" (with conviction) that the colonies' growth was actually hampered past beingness part of a European empire. They would take been more good for you and successful "adults," he insists, if they had non been the "children" of the British empire. This was a radical premise in 1776, but i that buttressed Paine'due south argument for independence
I have heard it asserted by some that as America hath flourished nether her old connection with Uk, that the same connection is necessary towards her future happiness, and will e'er have the same event. Nothing tin be more fallacious than this kind of argument. Nosotros may every bit well assert that because a kid has thrived upon milk, that it is never to accept meat, or that the get-go twenty years of our lives is to go a precedent for the next twenty. But even this is admitting more than than is true; for I respond roundly that America would have flourished equally much, and probably much more than, had no European power had anything to practise with her.
PARAGRAPH 61
Excerpt #2
Shut Reading Questions
Here Paine challenges his opponents to bring "reconciliation to the touchstone of nature." What does he mean? (A "touchstone" is a examination of the quality or genuineness of something. From ancient times the purity of gold or silverish was tested with a "touchstone" of basalt stone.)
Test the chances of reconciliation against what you know about people's reactions in similar crises throughout history, not against your own hopes and fears during this particular crisis. In other words, use common sense.
At the start of this paragraph Paine mildly faults the supporters of reconciliation as unrealistic optimists "all the same hoping for the best." By the end of the paragraph, nonetheless, they are cowards willing to "shake hands with the murderers." How did he construct the paragraph to accomplish this transition?
He poses ii challenges to the supporters of reconciliation. If they can honestly answer each challenge, he asserts, and still support reconciliation, and then they are selfish cowards bringing ruin to America.
Paraphrase the first claiming (sentences 2–5).
"Enquire yourself if yous can remain loyal to a nation that has brought war and suffering to you. If y'all say yous can, you're fooling yourself and condemning u.s.a. to a worse life nether Britain than we suffer now."
Paraphrase the 2d claiming (sentences half dozen–11).
"Have yous been the victim of British violence? If you haven't, and then you still owe compassion to those who have. And if you take, even so even so support reconciliation, then y'all have abased 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 still shake hands with the murderers," i.e., men who have betrayed their fellow Americans and thus become as evil every bit the British invaders. In that location is no nuance in this condemnation, and thus no way for the reader to avoid its implications.
Notation how Paine weaves impassioned questions through the paragraph: "Are you but deceiving yourselves?" "Have you lost a parent or a kid by their hands?" How practise these questions intensify his challenges?
Addressed to "you" directly and non a faceless "he or they," the questions evangelize an in-your-face claiming that allows no escape. Hither's my question to you: Answer it! or your silence will reveal your cowardice.
Rewrite sentences #iv and #11 to change the second-person "you" to the tertiary-person "he/she/they." How does the alter weaken Paine's challenges?
The reader is off the hook. Since the challenges are deflected from "you," the reader, to the third-person "other," no immediate personal answer is demanded. The reader can blithely read on and avoid the aim of Paine'south questions.
Worksheet: The Question as a Rhetorical Device
Use this worksheet to examine Paine'due south use of questions every bit persuasive devices throughout Common Sense, specifically the rhetorical question and the hypophora (questions with implied or stated answers, used for rhetorical touch on).
Men of passive tempers [temperaments] wait somewhat lightly over the offenses of Uk and, yet hoping for the best, are apt to call out, "Come up, come, we shall exist friends again for all this." Just examine the passions and feelings of mankind. Bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature and then tell me whether you tin time to come love, honor, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If y'all cannot do all these, then are yous only deceiving yourselves and by your delay bringing ruin upon posterity? Your futurity connection with Uk, whom you can neither honey nor honour, volition be forced and unnatural, and being formed but on the plan of present convenience, will in a little time autumn into a relapse more wretched than the get-go. But if you say yous tin can still laissez passer the violations over [ignore or underrate them], then I ask, Hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed earlier your face up? Are your married woman and children destitute of [without] a bed to lie on or bread to live on? Take y'all lost a parent or a child by their easily and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you lot accept not, so are y'all not a judge of those who take. But if you have, and tin still shake hands with the murderers, and so are you unworthy the proper name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and, whatever may be 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 practice they take chances, he warns, if they leave this crucial task to a later day?
A colonial leader could grasp dictatorial power by taking reward of the postwar disorder likely to consequence if the colonies have no constitution ready to implement. Even if U.k. tried to regain control of the colonies, information technology could be as well late to wrest command back from a powerful dictator. "Ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny," Paine warns, "by keeping vacant the seat of government."
What historical evidence does Paine offer to illustrate the danger?
He states that "some Massanello may future arise" and grasp ability, alluding to the brusque-lived people's revolt led by the commoner Thomas Aniello (Masaniello) in 1647 against Spanish command of Naples (Italian republic). The Spanish ruler granted a few rights, simply Masaniello was soon murdered, ending the uprising and its short-lived gains for the people.
As his plea escalates in intensity, Paine exclaims "Ye that oppose independence now, ye know non what ye do." To what climactic moment in the New Attestation does he allude?
While suffering on the cross earlier his death, Jesus calls out, "Begetter, forgive them; for they know non 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 calamitous a determination for Americans as killing Jesus was for his executioners and for flesh.
Paine heightens his apocalyptic tone every bit he appeals to "ye that love mankind" to take a mission of salvation (alluding to Christ'due south mission of conservancy). What must the lovers of mankind achieve in club to relieve mankind?
They must establish the "free and contained States of America" equally the sole preserve of human freedom in the world. A desperate fugitive, "freedom" has been "hunted" and "expelled" throughout the world, and it is America's mission to protect and nurture her. America's victory will exist mankind'due south victory, non just the feat of thirteen small colonies in a afar corner of the world.
NOTE: "A authorities of our own is our natural right" asserts Paine at the beginning of this excerpt. Half-dozen months later Thomas Jefferson asserted the aforementioned right in the opening of the Declaration of Independence. This Enlightenment ideal anchored revolutionary initiatives in America and Europe for decades.
A government of our ain is our natural right, and when a homo seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced that it is infinitely wiser and safer to class a constitution of our ain in a cool deliberate manner, while we take it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance. If we omit information technology at present, some Massanello* may hereafter arise who, laying agree of pop disquietudes [grievances], may collect together the drastic and the discontented, and past assuming to themselves the powers of government, finally sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge. Should the authorities of America render again into the hands of United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland, the tottering situation of things will be a temptation for some desperate adventurer to try his fortune; and in such a example, what relief can Britain give? Ere [before] she could hear the news, the fatal business might be done, and ourselves suffering similar the wretched Britons under the oppression of the Conqueror [William the Conqueror in 1066]. Ye that oppose independence at present, ye know non what ye exercise. Ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny by keeping vacant the seat of authorities….
O ye that beloved mankind! Ye that dare oppose non only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand along! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia and Africa accept long expelled her.—Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her alert to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for flesh.
* Thomas Anello, otherwise Massanello, a fisherman of Naples, who later on spiriting upwards his countrymen in the public marketplace against the oppression of the Spaniards, to whom the identify was then subject, prompted them to revolt, and in the space of a twenty-four hour period get Rex. [footnote in Paine]
PARAGRAPHS 104, 107
Follow-Upwards Assignment
- Write a how-to essay on persuasive writing using Common Sense equally the focus text and this statement past Thomas Paine as the core idea: "Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must exist shocked into it. Say a bold thing that will stagger them, and they volition begin to think." –Letter to Elihu Palmer, 21 February 1802.
- Write an essay to summarize and evaluate Common Sense using i of the quotations below as the organizing concept. Use the metaphor in the quotation as a rhetorical device throughout the essay. (Paragraph numbers refer to the full text of Common Sense with this lesson.)
Quotation Para. Metaphor "The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth." 58 light, newness, glory "The blood of the slain, the weeping phonation of nature cries
"'TIS TIME TO PART."73 massacre, suffering "Reconciliation is now a fallacious dream." 79 illusion, vain promise "It is now in the interest of America to provide for herself." 144 adulthood, self-reliance "Independence is the only BOND that can necktie and keep us together." 163 tying cord, unity for survival - See colonists' and newspapers' responses to Common Sense in the primary source drove Making the Revolution (Department: Common Sense?) to examine how Paine turned public opinion in 1776. Note the critical pieces past John Adams, Hannah Griffitts, and others. What can be learned most Paine's effectiveness by studying his critics?
Vocabulary Pop-ups
[including 18th-c. connotations]
- posterity : all hereafter generations of mankind
- superseded : replaced something old or no longer useful
- precedent : an activity or policy that serves as an case or rule for the future
- touchstone : as a metaphor, a test of the quality or genuineness of something. (in the past, the purity of gold or silver was tested with a "toughstone" of basalt rock.)
- relapse : a render to a previous worse status after a period of improvement
- sycophant : someone who acts submissively to another in power in order to gain reward; aye-man, flatterer, bootlicker
- precariousness : uncertainty, instability; dependence on chance circumstances or unknown conditions
- drench : a cataclysmic flood
1. Benjamin Franklin, alphabetic character to Silas Deane, 27 August 1775. Full text in Founders Online (National Archives).↩
2. Elbridge Gerry, alphabetic character to James Warren, 26 March 1776.↩
three. John Adams, autobiography, part one, "John Adams," through 1776, canvass 23 of 53 [electronic edition]. Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive. Massachusetts Historical Lodge. world wide web.masshist.org/digitaladams/.↩
4. Thomas Paine, letter to Elihu Palmer, 21 Feb 1802; cited in Henry Hayden Clark, "Thomas Paine'south 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.↩
6. Landon Carter, diary entry, 20 February 1776, recounting content of letter of the alphabet written that day to George Washington. Total entry in Founders Online (National Archives).↩
seven. Robert A. Ferguson, The American Enlightenment, 1750-1820 (Harvard University Press, 1994; paper ed., 1997), 113.↩
*For a helpful discussion of Paine'southward response to the "horrid cruelties" of the British in India, come across J.Chiliad. Opal, "Common Sense and Imperial Atrocity: How Thomas Paine Saw South asia in Due north America," Common-Identify, July 2009.
Images courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Library.
- Portrait of Thomas Paine by John Henry Bufford (1810-1870), engraving by Bufford'south Lithography, ca. 1850. Record ID 268504.
- Championship page (embrace) of Common Sense, 1776. Tape ID 2052092.
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Source: https://americainclass.org/thomas-paine-common-sense-1776/
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