Tag: Thomas Paine

In Praise of Common Sense

On By Chris MackowskiIn 1776, Civilian, Continental Leadership, Politics1 Comment
Thomas Paine

It’s hard to overemphasize how important Common Sense was as a tool of persuasion.

Sure, we all know about it. “The idea that Common Sense played a pivotal role in moving the nascent revolutionary movement toward independence is universally acknowledged today,” says historian Jett B. Conner.[1]

Yet I’ve found that, beyond its generally accepted place in American history, most people don’t quite “get” Common Sense. Reading the document today—like anything written 250 years ago—poses a challenge for modern readers. The language doesn’t catch for us the way it did for readers of its time. We aren’t living in the same political context they were. We marinade in a much different, much more immersive media environment. These factors all remove us from the visceral impact Common Sense had.

In the early days of my teaching career, I taught public relations classes. I had been a PR professional prior to that, enticed to the academy, but I wanted my classes to be grounded in the professional standards established by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). They had criteria for academic programs that wanted PRSA certification. My university didn’t qualify because we didn’t have a specific major in PR at the time, but I nonetheless used their standards as the model for my classes. One of the standards at the time advocated teaching the history of PR.

Several PR milestones sprang from the political arena: Andrew Jackson’s first use of a press secretary in the White House; Teddy Roosevelt’s bully pulpit; the WWI-era Creel Commission; FDR’s fireside chats; the WWII-era Office of War Information, etc.

Common Sense made the list as the most significant piece of American writing to that point—a track specifically aimed at public persuasion. And boy, did it succeed! “Common Sense was the most radical and important pamphlet written in the American Revolution and one of the most brilliant ever written in the English language,” assesses historian Gordon Wood.[2]

Prior to Common Sense’s publication in January 1776, John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania in 1767–8 held the record as the most influential piece of public writing. Published in 19 of the 23 major newspapers in the colonies—as well as appearing in England and France—the letters opposed Parliament’s Townsend Acts, which imposed tariffs. Dickinson, a lawyer rather than a farmer, became one of the most famous men in America because of his twelve letters, which did much to unify the colonies in common cause against British taxation.

“Farmer’s Letters captured the spirit of the moment and Americans’ imaginations like nothing before,” says Dickinson biographer Jane E. Calvertt, “selling more copies than any other pamphlet to date. The response was immediate and resounding, going far beyond anything Dickinson could have anticipated.”[3]

Thomas Paine’s Common Sense eclipsed Dickinson exponentially—some 100 times larger, according to historian John Ferling.[4]

Timing helped. Bloodshed on Lexington Green, at the North Bridge in Concord, and all along the road back to Boston added urgency to public discussions. Closure of the port of Boston and the October firebombing of Falmouth, Maine—and the foreboding message it suggested to other colonies—heightened tensions even more. England was no longer some abstract entity across the ocean, but an intrusive force ready to impose its will through violence if necessary. “It was successful because it came precisely the time when people were ready for its message,” says historian Alfred F. Young.[5]

“The suppressed rage that animated Paine’s writing in Common Sense was another important factor in its success,” contends historian Scott Liell, who said “Paine felt, and made his readers feel, ‘wounds of deadly hate.’”[6]

Through 1775, the Continental Congress remained undecided on a course of action, with factions pushing for independence and others pushing for rapprochement. Therefore, news from Philadelphia did little to provide clear guidance for public sentiment.

“[T]he idea of independence was familiar, even among the common people,” John Adams later pointed out.[7] The idea just hadn’t yet crystallized.

Common Sense—first published on January 10, 1776, as a 46-page pamphlet—became that crystal.

“[T]here is something absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island,” Paine wrote. Paine made such sentiments seem like statements of the obvious. Of course a continent shouldn’t be ruled by an island. Of course one honest man was worth more to society and in the sight of God than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived. Of course.

That was the genius of Paine’s writing.

To read it today, one wouldn’t appreciate how accessible it was to common folks or realize how often people read it aloud in taverns and inns so that even people who could not read could hear its ideas and engage in discussions. A reader today wouldn’t grasp just how hungry readers of 1776 were for Common Sense’s ideas.

“In weighing the influence of a tract, the active role of the reader is often underappreciated,” Young points out.

Reading is an act of volition. A person had to buy the pamphlet; one shilling was cheap as pamphlets went but costly to a common carpenter who might make three shillings a day or to a shoemaker had made even less and out of the question for a common laborer who earned one-eighth of a shilling a day. Or a person had to borrow the pamphlet, seeking out an owner, or respond to someone’s blandishments to read it. When it was read aloud, as it was in taverns and other public places, a person had to make a decision to come to listen or to stay and hear it out.[8]

In other words, readers had to actively want to read it—and they sometimes went to great lengths and expense to do so.

Common Sense sold somewhere around 125,000 copies within its first three months and, within its first six months, went through thirty-five printings—an astounding success considering the population of the American colonies totaled just under 3 million people.[9] A translation appeared for Pennsylvania’s German communities, and editions appeared in England and France.

Sales figures probably only scratch the surface of the pamphlet’s total circulation. “As its reputation and popularity spread,” says historian Scott Liell, “individual copies were read and re-read to countless assembled groups in public houses, churches, army camps, and private parlors throughout the colonies.”[10]

“Its effects were sudden and extensive upon the American mind,” pronounced Philadelphia physician Dr. Benjamin Rush, a friend of Paine’s who had suggested the title. Suddenly, the pearl-clutching in Congress became open, vigorous, public debate. (See Kevin Pawlak’s January 9, 2026 post for more info on the public reactions.) “The controversy about independent was carried into the news papers . . .” Rush recalled. “It was carried on at the same time in all the principal cities in our country.”[11] Indeed, in was in early February 1776 in a New York City bookshop—on his way from Boston to Philadelphia—that Adams first found Common Sense. (Adams would have his own complicated history with the pamphlet, which I’ll explore in a future blog post.)

To this day, Common Sense has never been out of print. It exists today as an icon, a relic, a foundational text we’ve all heard of. We accept its primacy as fact. But few people actually read it, and fewer successfully tune in to its urgency and immediacy. In commemoration of its 250th birthday, I invite you to take a closer look at a document you certainly know and think you know, and see what new sense you may be able to draw from it. (Read it here!)

[1] Jett B. Conner, John Adams vs. Thomas Paine: Rival Plans for the Early Republic (Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2018).

[2] Gordon Wood, “Thomas Paine, America’s First Public Intellectual,” Revolutionary Characters (New York: Penguin, 2006), 209.

[3] Jane E. Calvert, Penman of the Founding: A Biography of John Dickinson (London: Oxford University Press, 2024), 184.

[4] Ferling, 143.

[5] Aldred F. Young, “The Celebration and Damnation of Thomas Paine,” Liberty Tree: Ordinary People and the American Revolution (New York: New York University Press, 2003), 271.

[6] Scott Liell, 46 Pages: Thomas Paine, Common Sense, and the Turning Point to Independence (Philadelphia: Running Press, 2003), 20.

[7] “From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 21 May 1807,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-5186.

[8] Young, 271.

[9] Young says, “Scholars have generally accepted a circulation of 100,000 to 150,000 copies (although none of them make clear how they reached their conclusions).” Liberty Tree, 270.

[10] Liell, 16.

[11] Benjamin Rush, The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush, George W. Corner, ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948), 114, 115.

250th Anniversary of the Release of Common Sense

On By Kevin PawlakIn 1776, America 250, Civilian, Personalities3 Comments

Virginian Landon Carter was vocal about the latest pamphlet sweeping through the American colonies in 1776. In several diary entries from the first four months of that momentous year, he commented on Common Sense, written anonymously “by an Englishman.” Carter described its contents in February as “rascally and nonsensical as possible, for it was only a sophisticated attempt to throw all men out of principles.” By April, as he continued to criticize the work, he reached a conclusion about its author: “I begin now more and more to see that the pamphlet called Common Sense, supporting independency, is written by a member of the Congress …” Carter could not have been further from the truth.

“An Englishman” was, in fact, an apt description for the author of Common Sense, first advertised to the American public on January 9, 1776, and first released on January 10. Thomas Paine was an Englishman—born there and, by most measures, matured there as a failure. He failed at his corset-making business. Teaching, collecting taxes, privateering, and working as a grocer—none of these occupations suited him either. He married twice (his first wife died in childbirth), and his second marriage collapsed. Amid this string of failures, Paine found success with the written word, which caught Benjamin Franklin’s attention in England in 1774. With little left for him in England, Paine embarked for America, arriving later that year. There, he scraped by as a writer, publishing essays in Philadelphia newspapers.

Continue reading “250th Anniversary of the Release of Common Sense” →

On This Date: An America 250th Anniversary

On By Daniel WelchIn Uncategorized1 Comment

The 27-year-old from Thetford, Norfolk, England native had a long journey before he even sailed across the Atlantic Ocean for the colonies. Although receiving an education until age 13, and an apprenticeship with his father until age 19, both uncommon among his peers, Thomas Paine started his professional career as a privateer. It did not suit him for long, he returned to Britain in 1759. Paine then became a staymaker, and within several years, opened his own store in Sandwich, Kent. By the end of the same year, Paine had married.

Read more: On This Date: An America 250th Anniversary

Life seemed to be set for the young couple, but tragedy after tragedy ultimately led Paine to the American colonies. Paine’s shop ran into financial challenges not long after his nuptials, and although offset by the joy of pregnancy, a relocation to a new town may have been too much on Mary. She went into early labor, and both mother and child tragically died during the delivery. A series of moves, career changes, and troubles dotted the next dozen years.

A supernumerary, Excise Officer, staymaker, schoolteacher, were all ahead of time. Charges of fraud and dismissal were as well. By the age of 31, in 1768, Paine’s next professional endeavor took him to Lewes in Sussex. Over the ensuing years in Lewes, a town with a long history of opposition to the monarchy and republican sentiments, Paine became a member of the Court Leet and parish vestry, worked as a tobacconist and grocer, and married for the second the time.

Thomas Paine

By 1772, Paine wrote his first political piece. His time in his home country was now on the clock. By the spring of 1774, following his political priorities and ideologies, Paine had all but abandoned his post as an excise officer and was essentially fired. He next separated from his second wife, Elizabeth, and moved to London. It was while in London that Paine met Benjamin Franklin who suggested he emigrate to Philadelphia. Paine did exactly that.

His journey through life was turbulent, even more so during the first half of the 1770s, just like his voyage across the Atlantic on his to Philadelphia in the Pennsylvania colony. The water supplies aboard the ship were dreadful, and typhoid raged across the decks of the vessel. Paine was barely alive by the time the ship reached Philadelphia. He was so ill he was unable to leave the docked boat under his own power, Benjamin Franklin sending his personal physician to the ship and have him carried off. Yet, on this date, November 30, 250 years ago, Thomas Paine had arrived to the American colonies. After six weeks of recovery his new journey, a journey shared by all those that were to be swept up in the American Revolution, began.

Less than two years after landing in Philadelphia, Paine published his work Common Sense. Coupled with a series of works entitled The Crises, Paine, “ignited a nation to help the failing cause of the Revolution.”

Prisoner of Washington and Napoleon: A Brief Sketch of Charles O’Hara

On By Kevin PawlakIn British LeadershipLeave a comment

If not for his connections to some of the most famous commanders and events of 18th-century military history, British general Charles O’Hara might only get a passing mention in many history books. He still hardly gets more than that.

Charles O’Hara

Charles O’Hara came into this world unceremoniously as the illegitimate son of James O’Hara, a British baron. The younger O’Hara cut his teeth in military matters at the young age of 12 in the 3rd Dragoons before receiving an officer’s appointment in the Coldstream Guards. He served in an officer’s capacity in Germany, Portugal (with Charles Lee), and Africa. O’Hara was strict but liked by the men who served under him.

O’Hara’s years of military service brought him to North America in July 1778. Lieutenant General Henry Clinton appointed him to command the troops at Sandy Hook, New Jersey, to protect New York City because of his engineering skills and a recommendation from Admiral Richard Howe. Two years later, O’Hara wound up under the command of Lord Charles Cornwallis in the Southern theater. He performed ably there, leading the pursuit of Cornwallis’ army toward the Dan River in early 1781 and leading the British counterattack at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. O’Hara led from the front and received two wounds to show for it. His nephew died during the battle.

At Yorktown, O’Hara drew the duty of surrendering Cornwallis’ army to General George Washington and Comte de Rochambeau. As the surrendering British columns approached the Allied lines, O’Hara asked to see Rochambeau. Whether this was a slight against Washington or not is unclear, but Rochambeau referred him to Washington. O’Hara apologized to Washington and explained why Cornwalls was not in attendance. Then, O’Hara handed Cornwallis’ sword to Washington, who refused it and passed O’Hara along to Benjamin Lincoln. O’Hara handed the sword to Lincoln. He looked it over, held it for a brief moment, and returned it to O’Hara. The surrender of the British army then began.

After dining with Washington following the surrender proceedings at Yorktown, O’Hara became Washington’s prisoner until receiving his exchange on February 9, 1782. He returned to England with Cornwallis’ praise and a promotion to major general. Back home in England, O’Hara fell into hard financial times from a gambling debt and ran away from them to mainland Europe. In stepped his old friend and commander Charles Cornwallis, who helped O’Hara offset the debts.

O’Hara received another promotion in 1792 to lieutenant general and lieutenant governor of Gibraltar, a post he long desired. There, misfortune found him once more when he faced the young Napoleon Bonaparte on the battlefield of Toulon. On November 23, 1793, the defeated O’Hara surrendered to Napoleon.

Labeled an insurrectionist, O’Hara found himself in prison in Luxembourg. During his nearly two years there, he befriended American Thomas Paine until his exchange in August 1795. Ironically, the man exchanged for him was the Comte de Rochambeau. He once again took the post of Governor of Gibraltar, where he died in 1802 from the effects of his war wounds suffered two decades earlier. 

Despite taking part in one of the most famous events of the Revolutionary War, O’Hara has faded into general obscurity even though he bears the distinction of being the only person to surrender to both Washington and Napoleon. 

He is featured regularly on the screen in The Patriot, but most people likely do not even know the character’s name or backstory. There is plenty more to be told in his story.

“…but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” 

On By erwpostIn 1776, Emerging Revolutionary War, Memory, Revolutionary WarLeave a comment

Thomas Paine wrote the line used as the title for this post in his pamphlet titled “American Crisis” in 1776. Most people recognize the opening lines that Paine penned in that same essay.

“These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

However, on this Memorial Day, while reading through his essay, I was struck by the line I used for the title. Furthermore, by the far too numerous men who served in the militia and Continental service that lay in unknown or unmarked graves throughout the eastern United States. To them that gave the ultimate sacrifice in pursuit of the principles they held most dear, we remember on this day. To them and the thousands that came after and paid with their lives so others can have “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” we also remember today on this Memorial Day.

One of the main objectives of Emerging Revolutionary War is to visit the sites attributed to the American Revolutionary War era and to provoke interest and expand learning on the people, places, and history. That includes remembering those that lay in these unmarked graves “known only to God.”

Photos courtesy of Dan Welch.