Which of These Points Did Paine Make in the Passages You Read? Check All of the Boxes That Apply.
Counselor: Robert A. Ferguson, George Edward Woodberry Professor in Law, Literature and Criticism, Columbia Academy, National Humanities Middle Fellow.
Copyright National Humanities Center, 2014
How did Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense convince reluctant Americans to abandon the goal of reconciliation with Britain and take that separation from United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland — independence — was the only choice for preserving their liberty?
Understanding
By January 1776, the American colonies were in open rebellion against Britain. Their soldiers had captured Fort Ticonderoga, besieged Boston, fortified New York City, and invaded Canada. Yet few dared voice what virtually knew was true — they were no longer fighting for their rights as British subjects. They weren't fighting for self-defense, or protection of their property, or to force Britain to the negotiating table. They were fighting for independence. Information technology took a difficult jolt to move Americans from professed loyalty to alleged rebellion, and it came in large role from Thomas Paine's Mutual Sense. Not a dumbed-downwardly bluster for the masses, equally often described, Common Sense is a masterful piece of argument and rhetoric that proved the ability of words.
Text
Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776 
[Find 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 Assay section, Tier 2 vocabulary words are defined in popular-ups, and Tier iii words are explained in brackets.
Text Complication
Grades ix-10 complexity band.
For more than information on text complexity see these resources from achievethecore.org.
Click here for standards and skills for this lesson.
X
Common Cadre State Standards
- ELA-Literacy.RI.9-ten.6 (Determine an writer'due south indicate 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.2 (IB) (Republican forms of government found expression in Thomas Paine'due south Common Sense.)
Advanced Placement English Linguistic communication and Composition
- Reading nonfiction
- Analyzing and identifying and author's use of rhetorical strategies
Teacher'southward Note
This lesson focuses on the sections central to Paine's argument in Common Sense — Department Three and the Appendix to the Third Edition, published a month later the get-go edition. We do not recommend assigning the full essay (Sections I, II, and Iv require advanced groundwork in British history that Paine'southward 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 "self-axiomatic" determination (Come across Groundwork: Message, below.)
Lead students through an initial overview of the essay (see Background). To begin, they could skim the total text and read the pull-quotes (separated quotes in large assuming text). What impression of Mutual Sense do the quotes provide? What questions exercise they prompt? Then guide students every bit they read (perhaps aloud) Section III of Common Sense and the Appendix to the Third Edition (pp. ten-xix and 25-29 in the full text provided with this lesson).
Keep to the close reading of three excerpts in the Text Assay below. (Notation that part of Extract #3 is a Common Core exemplar text.)
This lesson is divided into two parts, both attainable below. The teacher's guide includes a background note, the text analysis with responses to the shut reading questions, access to the interactive exercises, and a follow-upwardly assignment. The pupil'southward version, an interactive worksheet that can be e-mailed, contains all of the above except the responses to the close reading questions.
Instructor's Guide (continues below)
| Student Version (click to open)
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Instructor'due south Guide
Background
The man at correct does not expect angry. To united states, he projects the typical effigy of a "Founding Father" — composed, elite, and empowered. And to united states of america his famous essays are awash in powdered-wig prose. But the portrait and the prose belie the reality. Thomas Paine was a firebrand, and his most influential essay — Mutual 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 state of war for independence was the only pick to take, and they had to take information technology at present, or else.
Common Sense appeared as a pamphlet for auction in Philadelphia on January 10, 1776, and, every bit nosotros say today, information technology went viral. The beginning press sold out in ii 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. Inside weeks, it seemed, reconciliation with Uk had gone from an honorable goal to a cowardly expose, while independence became the rallying cry of united Patriots. How did Paine achieve this?
1. Timing.
Over a year elapsed between the outbreak of armed disharmonize and the Declaration of Independence. During these fifteen months, many bemoaned the reluctance of Americans to renounce their ties with U.k. despite the escalating warfare around them. "When we 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 so Things will be done by Halves."1 In addition, in that location remained much discord amidst the colonies about their shared futurity. "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, but the fruit must have fourth dimension to ripen in some of the other Colonies."two In this environment, Mutual Sense appeared like a "falling star," wrote John Adams,3 and propelled many to back up independence. Many noted it at the time with amazement.
"Sometime past the idea [of independence] would have struck me with horror. I now see no alternative;… Can any virtuous and brave American hesitate ane moment in the choice?"
The Pennsylvania Evening Post, xiii Feb 1776
"Nosotros were blind, but on reading these enlightening works the scales have fallen from our eyes…. The doctrine of Independence hath been in times by profoundly disgustful; we abhorred the principle. It 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
2. Bulletin.
What fabricated Common Sense then esteemed and "enlightening"? Some argue that Common Sense said aught new, that it simply put the call-to-war in peppery street language that rallied the common people. But this trivializes Paine'due south accomplishment. He did accept a new message in Common Sense — an ultimatum. Requite up reconciliation now, or forever lose the chance for independence. If nosotros neglect to act, we're self-deceiving cowards condemning our children to tyranny and cheating the world of a beacon of freedom. It is our calling to model self-actualized nationhood for the earth. "The crusade of America is in a great mensurate the cause of all flesh."
Paine divided Common Sense into four sections with deceptively mundane titles, mimicking the erudite political pamphlets of the day. But his essay did not offer the aforementioned-sometime-aforementioned-old treatise on British heritage and American rights. Here's what he says in Mutual Sense:
Introduction: The ideas I nowadays hither are then new that many people will reject them. Readers must clear their minds of long-held notions, apply common sense, and adopt the cause of America equally the "cause of all mankind." How we respond to tyranny today will thing for all fourth dimension.
Section One: The English language government you worship? Information technology's a sham. Man may need regime to protect him from his flawed nature, but that doesn't mean he must suffocate under brute tyranny. But every bit you would cut ties with abusive parents, you must break from U.k..
Department Two: The monarchy you revere? It'south not our protector; it'south our enemy. Information technology doesn't care about united states of america; it cares most U.k.'s wealth. It has brought misery to people all over the globe. And the very idea of monarchy is cool. Why should someone rule over united states just because 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 crisis today? Information technology's folly to think we should maintain loyalty to a distant tyrant. Information technology's cocky-sabotage to pursue reconciliation. For us, correct here, right now, reconciliation means ruin. America must carve up from Britain. We can't go dorsum to the cozy days before the Stamp Act. You know that'southward truthful; information technology'southward fourth dimension to admit information technology. For heaven's sake, we're already at state of war!
Department 4: Can we win this war? Absolutely! Ignore the naysayers who tremble at the thought of British might. Let's build a Continental Navy as we have built our Continental Army. Allow us declare independence. If we filibuster, it will be that much harder to win. I know the prospect is daunting, but the prospect of inaction is terrifying.
A month afterward, in his appendix to the 3rd edition, Paine escalated his appeal to a utopian fervor. "We accept it in our ability to begin the world over once more," he insisted. "The altogether of a new world is at manus."
3. Rhetoric.
"It is necessary to be bold," wrote Paine years subsequently his rhetorical power. "Some people tin can exist reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it. Say a bold thing that volition stagger them, and they will begin to retrieve."iv Go on this thought forepart and center as you study Mutual Sense.
As an experienced essayist and a recent English language immigrant with his own deep resentments against United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland, Paine was the correct human at the right time to galvanize public opinion. He "understood meliorate 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 linguistic communication of political essays had been moderate. Educated men wrote civilly for publication and kept their fury for private letters and diaries. Then came Paine, cursing Britain as an "open enemy," denouncing George III every bit the "Royal Fauna of England," and damning reconciliation equally "truly farcical" and "a fallacious dream." To remember 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 meaning must be a damned rascal."6 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 remember," writes Ferguson, "is that Paine'south natural and intended audience is the American mob…. He uses anger, the natural emotion of the mob, to permit the near active groups find themselves in the general will of a republican denizens."vii What if Paine had written the Declaration of Independence with the same hard-driving rhetoric?
AS JEFFERSON WROTE It: We hold these truths to exist self-evident, 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 among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Grade of Authorities becomes destructive of these ends, information technology is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such class, as to them shall seem most likely to issue their Safe and Happiness.
IF PAINE HAD WRITTEN IT: NO man can deny, without abandoning his God-given ability to reason, that all men enter into existence as equals. No thing how lowly or majestic their origins, they enter life with three God-given RIGHTS — the right to live, to right to live free, and the right to live happily (or, at the to the lowest degree, to pursue Happiness on world). Who would cull beingness on any other terms? And then treasured are these rights that man created government to protect them. So treasured are they that man is duty-spring to destroy any authorities that crushes them — and kickoff anew as men worthy of the championship of FREE MEN. This is the plain truth, impossible to refute.
Text Analysis
Excerpt #1
Close Reading Questions
Imagine yourself sitting downwardly to read Common Sense in January 1776. How does Paine innovate his reasoning to you?
He announces that his logic will exist direct and downward to earth, using only "simple facts" and "plain arguments" to explicate 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 nada more" instead of "I offer you many reasons" or "I offer a detailed statement"?
"Nothing more" implies that Mutual Sense will be easy to follow, presenting only what is necessary to brand his argument. (Paine considered titling his essay Plain Truth.)
How does Paine inquire you to prepare yourself for his "common sense" arguments?
Be willing to put aside pre-conceived notions, he says, and guess his arguments on their own merits.
What does he imply past saying a off-white reader "will put on, or rather than he will not put off, the truthful character of a homo"?
He implies that whatsoever reader who would decline to consider his arguments is narrow-minded. With the "on"–"off" contrast, he suggests that y'all, the individual reader, are open-minded and thus a fellow man of honor willing to consider a new point of view.
In the following pages I offering nothing more than unproblematic 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 [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 enlarge his views across the present twenty-four hour period.
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 signal. What are the 2 examples of hyperbole in this paragraph?
one. "the sun never shined on a cause of greater worth"
2. "posterity… will exist more than or less affected, fifty-fifty to the stop of time"
With the hyperboles, how does Paine lead 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 virtually worthy of worthy causes, affecting the future now and forever. The American cause can lead flesh toward enlightened self-decision, driving frontward the progress of civilisation. Paine says this straight in his introduction: "The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind." We're non just talking taxes and representation, people.
What tone does Paine add together with the phrases "The sun never shined" and "even to the end of time"?
A biblical and prophetic tone. The dominicus shining down on man endeavors suggests divine endorsement of the American crusade — a cause that will bring light 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 use repetition to add together impact to the outset part of the paragraph?
He includes two repetitive sets:
i. "'Tis non" to brainstorm sentences 2 and 3 [anaphora]
2. the phrases "of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom" and "of a 24-hour interval, a twelvemonth, or an historic period" [prepositions with multiple objects].
Read the section aloud to hear the insistent rhythm that elevates Paine's prose to a rousing call to activity (his goal in writing Mutual 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 mean with the analogy?
A. This is the time to create a new nation. Our smallest efforts now will lead to enormous benefits in the futurity.
B. This is the time to unite for independence. Discord amidst us now will escalate into futurity crises that could ruin the immature nation.
Reply: B.
The sunday never shined on a crusade of greater worth. 'Tis not the affair of a urban center, a state, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent – of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe. 'Tis not the concern of a day, a yr, or an historic period; posterity are virtually involved in the contest and volition exist more than or less afflicted, even to the end of time, past the proceedings at present. Now is the seed time of continental [colonies'] spousal relationship, faith and accolade. The to the lowest degree fracture at present will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a immature oak; the wound will overstate with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters.
PARAGRAPH 58
Paine includes multiple repetitions in this paragraph. What discussion repetition exercise yous find?
The describing word "new" in a "new expanse" and a "new method." [anaphora]
What sound repetitions exercise y'all find?
Alliteration: argument/arms/area/arisen
plans/proposals/prior/April
Consonance: politics/struck
method/thinking/hath
matter/argument/arthous
Read the sentences aloud. What impact does the repetition add to Paine's commitment?
A stirring oratorical rhythm is accomplished, like that of a solemn speech 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 Boxing of Lexington and Concord to an old annual. What does he hateful?
He ways the idea of reconciliation is now preposterous and that no rational person could support it. No 1 would utilize concluding year'due south annual to make plans for the current twelvemonth! Also, as an almanac ceases to be useful at a specific moment (midnight of December 31), Paine implies that reconciliation ceased to exist a valid goal at the moment of the starting time shot on April 19, 1775. (Paine often alludes to aspects of colonial life, like almanacs, that would resonate with all readers. They include references to farming, tree cutting, hunting, land ownership, slavery, biblical scripture, family unit and neighbour bonds, maturation, and the parent-kid human relationship; see "The Metaphor of Youth" below.)
By referring the matter from argument to arms, a new expanse 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 outset of hostilities [Lexington and Concord], are similar the almanacs of the concluding twelvemonth which, though proper [accurate] and then, are superseded and useless at present. Any was advanced by the advocates on either side of the question and so, terminated in i and the same point, viz. [that is], a marriage with Corking Uk. The only difference betwixt the parties was the method of effecting it — the one proposing force, the other friendship; but information technology hath so far happened that the first hath failed and the 2nd hath withdrawn her influence.
PARAGRAPH 59
Paine compares the goal of reconciliation to an "agreeable dream [that has] passed away and left us 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 confronting reconciliation and does not want to insult or alienate his readers at the offset. Everyone can hope, he implies: there's zip incorrect with that, but we take to move on if a hope proves fruitless.
With this in listen, what tone does he lead the reader to expect: cynical, impatient, hopeful, reasonable, impassioned, angry?
Reasonable. The ii sentences resemble the opening of a legal statement that promises a balanced appraisal of 2 options on the basis of known evidence ("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 requite him a hearing. "If I'm being fair in my writing, you tin can effort to exist fair in your listening."
While Paine promises a fair appraisal, await how he describes the two options in the final judgement.
Option 1: "if separated" from Uk
Selection 2: "if dependent on Britain"
Why didn't he utilise the usual terms for the two options — "independence" and "reconciliation"?
Outset, INDEPENDENCE and RECONCILIATION audio like equally plausible options, but Paine wants to convince you that independence is the but adequate pick. If so, then why did he choose SEPARATION instead of INDEPENDENCE? By January 1776, INDEPENDENCE carried the drastic connotations of state of war and treason. It was an irrevocable decision with unknown consequences. In contrast, SEPARATION seems less desperate, and fifty-fifty positive. In human development, separation from one's parents is the natural and long-sought step to full adulthood. That'south the cocky-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 2 (staying with United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland). RECONCILIATION suggests the calm and rational agreement of 2 grownups, merely Paine wants you to view reconciliation as the defeatist option 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 Mutual Sense, just he meant to avoid them hither.]
As much hath been said of the advantages of reconciliation, which, similar an agreeable dream, hath passed away and left u.s.a. as nosotros were, information technology is but right that we should examine the contrary [opposing] side of the argument and inquire into some of the many material injuries which these colonies sustain, and e'er will sustain, by being connected with and dependent on Great Britain. To examine that connection and dependence, on the principles of nature and mutual sense, to run into what we have to trust to [expect] if separated, and what we are to expect if dependent.
PARAGRAPH sixty
Activity: The Metaphor of Youth
Study Paine's metaphors that compare the colonies' readiness for independence to a child'southward maturation into machismo.
Here Paine rebuts the starting time argument for reconciliation—that America has thrived as a British colony and would fail on her ain. How does he dismiss this argument?
He slams it down hard. "NOTHING tin be more FALLACIOUS," he yells. The argument is beyond misdirected or curt-sighted, he insists; information technology's a fatal mistake in reasoning. So much for calm and reasoned debate. Only Paine is non having a temper tantrum in print. His technique was to argue with ideas while convincing with emotion.
Paine follows his utter rejection of the statement with an illustration. Complete the analogy: America staying with Uk would be similar a child _______.
"America staying with Britain would exist like a kid remaining dependent on its parents forever and never growing upward." And who would want that, Paine implies? By writing "commencement twenty years of our lives" instead of, say, "first v years," Paine alludes to the general consensus that a 20-year-one-time is an developed.
Paine goes one pace further in the final sentence. What does he say about America's "childhood" as a British colony?
He "answers roundly" (with confidence) that the colonies' growth was actually hampered by being part of a European empire. They would have been more healthy and successful "adults," he insists, if they had not been the "children" of the British empire. This was a radical premise in 1776, just one that buttressed Paine'due south argument for independence
I accept heard it asserted past some that as America hath flourished nether her former connection with Great britain, that the same connection is necessary towards her futurity happiness, and will ever accept the same issue. Nothing can exist more fallacious than this kind of argument. We may as well assert that considering a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat, or that the kickoff 20 years of our lives is to become a precedent for the adjacent twenty. But even this is albeit more than is true; for I respond roundly that America would have flourished as much, and probably much more, had no European power had anything to do with her.
PARAGRAPH 61
Extract #two
Close 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 aureate or silverish was tested with a "touchstone" of basalt stone.)
Exam the chances of reconciliation against what you know about people's reactions in similar crises throughout history, non against your own hopes and fears during this particular crisis. In other words, use common sense.
At the beginning of this paragraph Paine mildly faults the supporters of reconciliation as unrealistic optimists "nonetheless hoping for the best." Past the end of the paragraph, withal, they are cowards willing to "milkshake easily with the murderers." How did he construct the paragraph to accomplish this transition?
He poses 2 challenges to the supporters of reconciliation. If they can honestly answer each claiming, he asserts, and yet support reconciliation, so they are selfish cowards bringing ruin to America.
Paraphrase the first challenge (sentences 2–5).
"Ask yourself if you can remain loyal to a nation that has brought war and suffering to you. If you say you can, you're fooling yourself and condemning usa to a worse life under Britain than we suffer at present."
Paraphrase the second challenge (sentences half-dozen–11).
"Accept you been the victim of British violence? If you haven't, so you withal owe compassion to those who take. And if y'all have, yet withal back up reconciliation, then you accept abandoned your conscience."
With what phrase does Paine condemn those who would withal hope for reconciliation even if they were victims of British violence?
They are men who "can nonetheless shake hands with the murderers," i.e., men who take betrayed their fellow Americans and thus go as evil as the British invaders. There is no nuance in this condemnation, and thus no way for the reader to avert its implications.
Note how Paine weaves impassioned questions through the paragraph: "Are you lot only deceiving yourselves?" "Take you lost a parent or a kid by their hands?" How exercise these questions intensify his challenges?
Addressed to "you" direct and not a faceless "he or they," the questions deliver an in-your-face claiming that allows no escape. Hither'south my question to y'all: Answer it! or your silence will reveal your cowardice.
Rewrite sentences #4 and #11 to change the second-person "you" to the third-person "he/she/they." How does the change weaken Paine'south challenges?
The reader is off the hook. Since the challenges are deflected from "you," the reader, to the 3rd-person "other," no immediate personal respond is demanded. The reader can blithely read on and avoid the aim of Paine's questions.
Worksheet: The Question as a Rhetorical Device
Apply this worksheet to examine Paine'south use of questions as persuasive devices throughout Common 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 United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland and, however hoping for the best, are apt to phone call out, "Come, come, nosotros 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 yous can hereafter love, honor, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your state? If yous cannot do all these, then are y'all simply deceiving yourselves and by your delay bringing ruin upon posterity? Your hereafter connection with Britain, whom you can neither beloved nor award, volition exist forced and unnatural, and being formed just on the plan of present convenience, volition in a footling time fall into a relapse more wretched than the first. Just if you lot say you lot can even so pass the violations over [ignore or underrate them], and so I ask, Hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of [without] a bed to lie on or staff of life to live on? Take you lost a parent or a child by their easily and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If yous have not, then are you lot not a judge of those who accept. Merely if you have, and can nonetheless shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy the proper name of husband, begetter, friend, or lover, and, whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the middle of a coward and the spirit of a sycophant.
PARAGRAPH 77
Excerpt #iii
Close Reading Questions
At this bespeak, Paine pleads with his readers to write the constitution for their independent nation without delay. What danger do they risk, he warns, if they leave this crucial task to a later twenty-four hour period?
A colonial leader could grasp dictatorial power past taking advantage of the postwar disorder likely to issue if the colonies have no constitution ready to implement. Even if Great britain tried to regain control of the colonies, it could be as well late to wrest control dorsum 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 offering to illustrate the danger?
He states that "some Massanello may hereafter ascend" and grasp ability, alluding to the short-lived people's revolt led past the commoner Thomas Aniello (Masaniello) in 1647 against Spanish control of Naples (Italian republic). The Castilian ruler granted a few rights, but Masaniello was soon murdered, ending the insurgence and its short-lived gains for the people.
As his plea escalates in intensity, Paine exclaims "Ye that oppose independence now, ye know not what ye do." To what climactic moment in the New Testament does he allude?
While suffering on the cross earlier his death, Jesus calls out, "Father, 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 virtually 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 mankind.
Paine heightens his apocalyptic tone as he appeals to "ye that beloved mankind" to accept a mission of salvation (alluding to Christ's mission of conservancy). What must the lovers of mankind achieve in society to save mankind?
They must establish the "free and independent States of America" equally the sole preserve of homo freedom in the globe. 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 be mankind'due south victory, non just the feat of thirteen pocket-size colonies in a distant corner of the globe.
NOTE: "A government of our own is our natural right" asserts Paine at the beginning of this excerpt. Six months later Thomas Jefferson asserted the same right in the opening of the Annunciation of Independence. This Enlightenment ideal anchored revolutionary initiatives in America and Europe for decades.
A government of our own is our natural correct, and when a human being seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced that it is infinitely wiser and safer to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate fashion, while nosotros have information technology in our ability, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance. If we omit it at present, some Massanello* may time to come arise who, laying agree of popular disquietudes [grievances], may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, finally sweep away the liberties of the continent similar a deluge. Should the government of America render again into the hands of U.k., the tottering situation of things will be a temptation for some desperate adventurer to endeavor his fortune; and in such a example, what relief can U.k. give? Ere [before] she could hear the news, the fatal business might exist done, and ourselves suffering like the wretched Britons under the oppression of the Conquistador [William the Conqueror in 1066]. Ye that oppose independence at present, ye know not what ye do. Ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny by keeping vacant the seat of authorities….
O ye that love flesh! Ye that dare oppose not simply the tyranny simply the tyrant, stand along! Every spot of the old globe is overrun with oppression. Liberty hath been hunted circular the world. Asia and Africa have long expelled her.—Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her alert to depart. O! receive the avoiding, and set in time an aviary for mankind.
* Thomas Anello, otherwise Massanello, a fisherman of Naples, who after spiriting up his countrymen in the public marketplace against the oppression of the Spaniards, to whom the place was and so subject area, prompted them to revolt, and in the space of a day get King. [footnote in Paine]
PARAGRAPHS 104, 107
Follow-Upwards Consignment
- Write a how-to essay on persuasive writing using Common Sense every bit the focus text and this statement by Thomas Paine as the core idea: "Some people tin can exist reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it. Say a bold matter that will stagger them, and they will begin to retrieve." –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. 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 sunday never shined on a crusade of greater worth." 58 calorie-free, newness, glory "The blood of the slain, the weeping vox of nature cries
"'TIS TIME TO PART."73 massacre, suffering "Reconciliation is now a fallacious dream." 79 illusion, vain hope "Information technology is now in the interest of America to provide for herself." 144 adulthood, self-reliance "Independence is the just BOND that can tie and keep us together." 163 tying cord, unity for survival - Run into colonists' and newspapers' responses to Mutual Sense in the primary source collection Making the Revolution (Department: Common Sense?) to examine how Paine turned public opinion in 1776. Note the critical pieces by John Adams, Hannah Griffitts, and others. What can be learned nearly Paine's effectiveness by studying his critics?
Vocabulary Pop-ups
[including 18th-c. connotations]
- posterity : all time to come generations of mankind
- superseded : replaced something sometime or no longer useful
- precedent : an action or policy that serves as an case or dominion for the hereafter
- touchstone : as a metaphor, a test 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 after a menstruation of comeback
- sycophant : someone who acts submissively to another in power in guild to gain reward; yeah-man, flatterer, bootlicker
- precariousness : dubiety, instability; dependence on chance circumstances or unknown weather
- deluge : a cataclysmic flood
one. Benjamin Franklin, letter to Silas Deane, 27 August 1775. Full text in Founders Online (National Archives).↩
2. Elbridge Gerry, letter to James Warren, 26 March 1776.↩
3. John Adams, autobiography, function 1, "John Adams," through 1776, sheet 23 of 53 [electronic edition]. Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive. Massachusetts Historical Lodge. 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 Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, 28 (1933), 317.↩
5. Robert A. Ferguson, "The Commonalities of Common Sense," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d. Series, 57:3 (July 2000), 483.↩
6. Landon Carter, diary entry, twenty Feb 1776, recounting content of letter of the alphabet written that twenty-four hours to George Washington. Total entry in Founders Online (National Archives).↩
7. Robert A. Ferguson, The American Enlightenment, 1750-1820 (Harvard University Printing, 1994; paper ed., 1997), 113.↩
*For a helpful discussion of Paine's response to the "horrid cruelties" of the British in India, run across J.1000. Opal, "Common Sense and Imperial Atrocity: How Thomas Paine Saw South asia in North 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 by Bufford'south Lithography, ca. 1850. Tape ID 268504.
- Title page (embrace) of Common Sense, 1776. Tape ID 2052092.
Source: https://americainclass.org/thomas-paine-common-sense-1776/
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