Historical Context About The Author: Born on January 29, 1737 in England to an impoverished Quaker family. Had many different jobs including a corset maker, merchant seaman, a school teacher, even a job as tax collector. With the advise and help from Benjamin Franklin, Pain Immigrated to the American Colonies in Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

AMERICA HAS GROWN UP. Some assert that America has flourished because of her connection to Great Britain. “Nothing can be more fallacious than is kind of argument. We may as well assert, that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat….” America is too big to be ruled by an island. “It is repugnant to reason, to the universal order of things, to all examples from the former ages, to suppose that is continent can longer remain subject to any external power.” “There is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.”

America will constantly be at war with Britain’s enemies and will never be at peace. “We have boasted the protection of Great Britain, without considering, that her motive was interest not attachment; that she did not protect us from our enemies on our account, but from her enemies on her own account, from those who had no quarrel with us on any other account, and who will always be our enemies on the same account. Let Britain wave her pretensions to the continent, or the continent throw off the dependence, and we should be a peace with France and Spain were they at war with Britain.” “France and Spain never were, nor perhaps ever will be our enemies as Americans, but as our being the subjects of Great Britain.

Main Points of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense The colonies were founded by people from many different nations, not just Britain. “Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every Part of Europe.” England is not run by France even though the king is a descendant from France. In America the law is king. “For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.”  “A government of own is our natural right.”

Main Points of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense America can prosper without Britain. –“I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation to show, a single advantage that this continent can reap, by being connected with Great Britain.” –“Our corn will fetch its price in any market in Europe, and our imported goods must be paid for by them where we will…. It is the true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions, whish she never can do, while by her dependence on Britain, she is made the make-weight in the scale of British politics.” –“…whenever a war breaks out between England and any foreign power, the trade of America goes to ruin, because of her connection with Britain.” There is no going back after blood has been spilt. Any attempts to work with Great Britain before the “nineteenth of April, i.e., to the commencement of hostilities, are…useless now…” “The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, ‘tis time to part.”