"Simple Arguments, Plain Facts": Rethinking Thomas Paine's Common Sense

Peter C. Messer

Rutgers University

In January of 1776 Thomas Paine published a brief pamphlet offering "simple facts, plain arguments, and Common Sense" in order to illustrate the necessity of American independence (1). The response from the colonial reading public to the pamphlet was overwhelming. In three months Common Sense went through seven editions in Philadelphia alone and sold somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 copies throughout the colonies. It was reprinted in newspapers, read from pulpits and, in the words of John Marshall, "obtained every where friends to the doctrine of independence" (2). In the six months following its publication, Paine's pamphlet did more to convince Americans of the necessity and viability of independence than any other single publication in the years and months leading up to the Declaration of Independence. Common Sense simply had an appeal that no other pamphlet could match, creating a consensus in favor of independence among a diverse population that, over the course of war, would agree on little else (3). Historians have usually seen the popularity of Paine's pamphlet as a product of its direct language and forthright attack on monarchy which introduced its readers to new ways of thinking about politics, the economy, and class relations (4). In this paper, I want to re-consider this argument and suggest that for a considerable part of Paine's audience the significance of the pamphlet lay in its vindication of traditional, and even, conservative visions of America.

Modern historians have done an excellent job illustrating how Common Sense demystified imperial politics, making the debate over independence comprehensible to the middling and lower classes of colonial society as well as the educated elite, and promoted a new vision of constitutional republican government (5). Audience reactions to the pamphlet, judging from the way in which it was interpreted in newspapers, however, suggest that Paine's novel ideas about government, in particular, did not represent the only appealing aspect of the pamphlet. In fact, when read from the perspective of its eighteenth-century audience, Common Sense discouraged readers from seeing the struggle for independence as either novel, or, ultimately, even political. In other words, rather than embracing the pamphlet as a clear articulation of either their rights as Englishmen or the responsibilities of government, Paine's readers, with his implicit encouragement, used it to make independence appear consistent with their lives outside of the narrow bounds of political discourse. What struck many members of the colonial audience was not just how Common Sense spoke to them as newly empowered citizens, but as a people concerned with promoting religion, ensuring prosperity, and preserving the legitimate authority of families in general and fathers and husbands in particular. In these areas, where I argue Paine placed most of his emphasis, the pamphlet did not bring with it a revolutionary message of change, but rather a conservative message of restoring order and stability.

One striking element of the response to Common Sense was the emphasis readers placed on how the pamphlet made independence appear consistent with the colonists' established world views. David Ramsay, for example, recalled in his History of the American Revolution (1789) that Paine had deliberately crafted his argument in Common Sense to conform to his readers' expectations for themselves and their society:

With the view of operating on the sentiments of a religious people, scripture was pressed into his service, and the powers, and even the name of a king was rendered odious in the eyes of the numerous colonists who had read and studied the history of the Jews, as recorded in the Old testament . . . The absurdity of subjecting a great continent to a small island on the other side of the globe, was represented in such striking language, as to interest the honour and pride of the colonists in renouncing the government of Great-Britain. The necessity, the advantages, and practicability of independence, were forcibly demonstrated (6).

According to Ramsay, the persuasive power of Paine's pamphlet arose from his appeal to already existing sources of authority, in this case Scripture and questions of advantage and practicality, to legitimate his arguments for independence. Such an admission suggests that audiences did not respond to Common Sense as a challenge to the assumptions that they used to guide the development of their communities, but rather as an endorsement of them. The great virtue of the pamphlet, in other words, did not lie in its ability to unite the colonists behind a single revolutionary image of America, but rather in allowing them to see independence as a defense of their peculiar interests. In keeping with this idea, one contributor to the Connecticut Gazette, emphasized that the most remarkable aspect of Common Sense was its ability to forge an alliance among Americans without having to resolve their widely disparate views:

Your works, above all other political writing, have this peculiar virtue, they convert Tories, and like Noah's ark, prove a cover for different species of animals. The clean and the unclean; those that divide the hoof, and those that do not--like the radii of a circle, may meet in this common centre; and become one in the great cause of liberty (7).

The author clearly saw Paine's pamphlet as having the ability to alter individuals' feelings about independence, but the reference to its ability to "prove cover for different species of animals" implied that it had not asked its readers to reconsider their established identities. Thus, as with Ramsay, this author's view of Common Sense emphasized that its power lay not in radicalizing its readers but in speaking to them in terms understandable to all, both the "clean and the unclean," and drawing them into a common cause despite their differences.

Readers could accept Paine's call for independence without viewing it as an endorsement for radically recasting their society, in large part, because he situated his arguments in familiar historical contexts. Paine began his discussion of the need for American independence by emphasizing that government had a responsibility to promote the well-being of society: "security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us . . . is preferable to all others. " As an illustration of this principle, he offered an account of how governments emerged that read remarkably like the history of the colonies. He began by offering the case of "a small number of people settled in some sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest, they will represent the first peopling of any country, or of the world." The demands of settling this new country, he went on to argue, led the immigrants to form communities in order to "raise a tolerable dwelling in the wilderness" and overcome the dangers posed by "hunger," and Adisease" (8). He concluded that once the colonists have surmounted "the first difficulties of emigration" and they "begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other; and this remissness, will point out the necessity, of establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue" (9). In effect, Paine offered readers an introduction to his arguments that placed them firmly in the context of the origins of colonial society. As they debated independence, he implied, they were engaging in the same process that had guided the actions of their ancestors, a process dictated primarily by their established expectations of what constituted a viable community.

In order to allow his readers to make the connection between their colonial past and the revolutionary present, Paine offered two distinct explanations for the development of America: one founded on religious prophecy the other on the creation of stable economic and political institutions (10). As Jack Fruchtman has ably argued, Common Sense resembles an eighteenth-century sermon, in which Paine, in the tradition of Jeremiah, offered his audience divine instruction on how they could save themselves and their society." In discussing the inevitability of independence, for example, Paine urged his audience to think of their history of the colonies as an extension of divine prophecy, in which Americans took on the role of God's chosen people:

Even the distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and America, is a strong and natural proof, that the authority of the one, over the other, was never the design of Heaven. The time likewise at which it was peopled encreases the force of it. The reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety (12).

If the colonists wished to honor the legacy of their ancestors, and follow the dictates of heaven, ultimately the only way their communities would remain viable, this passage argued, they had no choice to separate themselves from Great Britain. A similar rhetorical approach characterized Paine's treatment of monarchy, tapping into the Protestant origins of American culture as a means to attack the English constitution:

These portions of scripture are direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal construction. That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchical government is true, or the scripture is false. And a man hath good reason to believe that there is much of king-craft, as priest craft, in withholding the scripture from the public in Popish countries (13).

By arguing that the English constitution defied the teachings of the Bible, Paine took on the role of a prophet, warning his audience of the heretical implications of submission to the King and calling on them re-claim America for the peculiar destiny God intended for the continent. Paine's arguments, in other words, did more than desacralize monarchy or stoke the flames of anti-Catholicism, they defined independence as the logical extension of the divinely ordained mission that motivated the first settlement of the colonies. Judging from audience reaction to Paine's work, his appeal to prophecy as a validation of independence struck a responsive chord among a certain groups of readers. The appearance of Common Sense in 1776 struck some members of the reading public as an indication that its author spoke not only for himself but for a higher authority as well:

Had the Spirit of prophecy directed the birth of a publication, it could not have fallen upon a more fortunate period than the time in which Common Sense, made its appearance -- The minds of men are now swallowed up in attention to an object the most momentous and important, that ever yet employed the deliberations of a people . . . Common Sense, like a ray of revelation has come in seasonably to clear our doubts, and to fix our choice. (14)

The people, in this account, stood poised on the brink of independence and needed only assurance of the legitimacy of their cause, something that the pamphlet's timing, as much as its arguments, seemed to provide. A similar description of the effects of Common Sense appeared in the Connecticut Gazette; in this case the author equated the amazing transformative powers of the pamphlet with its prophetic qualities as much as its articulation of political rights and responsibilities:

If you know the author of COMMON SENSE, tell him he has done wonders and miracles, made TORIES WHIGS, and washed Blackmores white; his stile is plain and nervous; his facts are true; his reasoning just and conclusive. (15)

While the author referred to Paine's "stile," "facts," and "reasoning," the only illustration of the power of the these properties came in references to the "wonders and miracles" they worked on his readers. As a result, the audience was left with the impression not just of a well argued pamphlet, but one written with divine inspiration. Similar sentiments appeared in the reactions of another contributor to the same paper, who noted that before the publication of Common Sense "[we] were blind, but on reading these enlightening words the scales have fallen from our eyes; even deep-rooted prejudices take to themselves wings and flee away" (16). As with the previous example, the author described the effect of reading Common Sense as akin to a spiritual re-awakening, tying the legitimacy of its arguments to an implied connection to the divine rather than to the ideas of an individual. The appeal of the pamphlet, in other words, arose from the manner in which it spoke to readers as prophecy, implicitly connecting independence to the divine plan that some members of his audience, and Paine himself, identified as the guiding force behind the settlement of America. Colonists in New England had long argued that their settlements owed their existence to the religious ideals embraced by the first colonists. Thomas Prince in a history of New England written in The Christian History (1741), for example, had argued that God had kept:

hidden Part of the Earth [until] men inspir'd with a Zeal for Religion would go on to settle it. He disappoints the successive Endeavours of other who came hither only out of secular Views, till the Country comes to be given up and abandoned as not worthy the looking after by any trading Nation (17) .

While Prince avoided any political commentary on the design of heaven for the New World, he clearly articulated the vision of America's future tied to its divinely ordained role as a place of religious rebirth, at the expense of more secular concerns. Echoes of these ideas appeared in at least one recounting of the significance of Common Sense that appeared in the New York Journal. An individual in Connecticut, offered a description of the participants in a debate over independence "as it sets the characters of the friends and enemies to COMMON SENSE":

One of the gentlemen that acted a part with that spirit and dignity which the cause deserved, was a Clergyman; a native of America, a warm advocate for COMMON SENSE, a zealous friends to the rights of humanity, and firmly attached to the interest of his bleeding country; the other was a Trader; a paltry piddling Politician, of small significance, abstract from his fortune, and the oppressive influence he acquires by it, over his poor dependencies; being activated by selfish and mercenary views, he took Liberty's side apparently, for a while, and was promoted to the office of the a Committee-man, but his integrity and fidelity soon suspected, he was degraded, and no more public trust of confidence reposed in him which has soured his unhallowed temper, given such a sullen, morose aspect to his violent passions that he is ready to encounter every argument in favor of the common cause, with his fist and cudgel, or some murderous weapon of war, Russian-like (18).

The comparison to Prince is vague, but it still seems relevant. While the author identified the "friend of COMMON SENSE" with the cause of "the rights of humanity" and the interests of his country he was also depicted as a member of the Connecticut clergy. His opposite, on the other hand, was described as "a Trader" and "a piddling politician," clearly motivated only out of secular views concerning his own advantage. In other words, the opponents of independence appeared to be the same people whom Prince had suggested God had striven to exclude from the New World while its supporters embraced the Christian identity that he argued had defined the first settlers of the continent. As a result, this interpretation of Common Sense portrayed the process of revolution as an extension of the traditional Puritan view of America as a place reserved for the rebirth of the Christian religion and divorced from the secular concerns of the world.

Arguing that Common Sense encouraged some readers to think of independence as an extension of the religious motives of the first founders of New England does not suggest we abandon the notion of the pamphlet as a radical document, but its does qualify how we understand its radicalism. The skepticism that Paine's use of Scripture generated among both Whigs and Tories suggest that his religious doctrines had a distinctly subversive element to them. "Cato," the pen-name of Pennsylvania Loyalist William Smith, for example, decried Paine "as a perverter of scripture, and of the fundamental principles of mixt government," sentiments echoed by John Adams in his later reflections on the pamphlet (19). Moreover, many of the pamphlet's sympathetic readers appear to have found Paine's unorthodox ideas appealing precisely because they challenged those of the colonial religious elite (20). "Massachusettanis," for example, read Common Sense in a manner that suggested it embraced an attack on traditional ecclesiastical authority. As a way of bolstering the newly independent nation the author proposed that Americans establish a "periodical" edited by "a number of persons of genuine COMMON SENSE," which would publish "pieces calculated to lay open, in the plainest manner, the Gospel as contained in the word of God, without any regard to previously received opinions or systems. " While this account clearly embraced a more tolerant attitude toward religious questions, it also continued to emphasize that the primary advantage of independence lay in the opportunity it offered for the reform and improvement of Christianity:

The spirit that now so vigorously animates the United Colonies in their virtuous struggles, to obtain and secure, "peace, liberty and safety" for themselves and posterity, I look upon as much from God, as the descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost; and as introductory to something great and good to mankind. (21).

Thus despite its radical implications, this interpretation of the ideas of Common Sense simultaneously re-enforced a vision of America remarkable for its distance from a radically new vision of society defined by modern liberal ideas about economics or politics. The driving force behind independence remained a much older view of the New World as a place reserved for religious reform and rebirth; while this call did come from a new voice, it did not suggest a revision of this Christian ideal, but rather a re-affirmation of it.

A further indication of the degree to which readers could interpret Common Sense as a defense of a America as a place defined by its religious destiny appears in attacks on the pamphlet for conflating the responsibilities of religion and government. In an article published in the Providence Gazette and Country Journal, "Rationalis," indicted Paine's pamphlet for attempting to draw a connection between governments and religion. This author offered the sixtieth of "Cato's Letters" to illustrate that "there is no government on earth that owes its formation or beginning to the immediate revelation of God, or can derive its existence from any such revelation;" he concluded "that monarchy (especially a limited done such as that of England) is not inconsistent with holy scriptures, as set forth in said pamphlet, but that it is as pleasing to the Almighty, if agreeable to the people, as any other form of government, even the author's beloved republic" (22). In contrast to "Massachusettanis," and even Paine, "Rationalis" sought to remove questions of divine sanction and approval from the debate over independence. In this account divine prophecy had no role in determining the legitimacy of the type of government a people created, on the contrary, it suggested that the people, not the divine, had the ultimate power to determine the shape of their society and political institutions. While some supporters of independence undoubtedly shared these sentiments their appearance in opposition to Common Sense highlights the degree to which the pamphlet did not necessarily encourage its readers to view society in largely modern or secular terms. On the contrary, the appearance of these concerns in an attack on Common Sense acknowledges that audiences may well have interpreted it as a defense of a traditional theist vision of America (23).

As Ramsay's description of Paine's audience implied, it included not only those likely to be inspired by his appeals to the religious mission of the colonies, but also those concerned with more pragmatic issues such as political stability and economic prosperity. For these readers, the story of American history through the middle of the eighteenth century was one of the gradual establishment of stable economic and political institutions, themes that appeared consistently in Common Sense (24). Paine portrayed the colonies as largely prosperous societies that had reached their present state through their own hard work and the benefits that nature had provided them in the New World:

America would have flourished as much, and probably much more, had no European power had any thing to do with her. The commerce, by which she hath enriched herself are the necessaries of life, and will always have a market while eating is the custom of Europe. (25)

The prosperity the colonists enjoyed, in other words, depended primarily on their ability to produce and market the products of the continent on which they lived, something their dependence on Great Britain was likely to hinder rather than help:

any submission to, or dependence on Great Britain, tends directly to involve this continent in European wars and quarrels; and sets us at variance with nations, who would otherwise seek our friendship, and against whom, we have neither anger nor complaint. As Europe is our market for trade, we ought to form no partial connection with any part of it. (26)

As long as the colonists saw their society as a product of successfully unlocking the potential of the North America, Paine argued, their interests demanded a reconsideration of their relationship with England. Thus in asserting their independence from Great Britain, these accounts implied, Americans were simply continuing the process of economic expansion and improvement that had defined their previous history.

Ultimately, when placed in the context of Paine's discussion of the implications of independence for the stability of the colonies, the pragmatic arguments he outlined in defense of independence appear as a vindication of the established economic and political order. While Paine's arguments certainly implied that independence would expand the economic opportunities of all Americans, he avoided framing his arguments in a way that hinted at the need to reform existing commercial networks or redistribute property (27). According to the pamphleteer, "the most powerful of arguments [in opposition to reconciliation] is that nothing but independence, i.e. a continental form of government, can keep the peace of the continent and preserve it inviolate from civil wars@ (28). As an example of the dangers of civil war and internal chaos likely to be encountered by Americans, Paine raised the specter of the lower orders of society rebelling against their betters:

it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance. If we omit it now, some Massanello may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge (29).

The greatest risk of not acting rapidly in favor of independence, Paine's arguments clearly implied, lay in the disruptive effects it would have on the economic and political order of the colonies. The motivation for revolution that he identified in these sections, in other words, arose out of a desire to defend the economic and political systems that colonists had established over the preceding years of settlement, not to radically alter them.

Judging from the reactions to Common Sense's pragmatic arguments had considerable appeal to its readers. Significantly, audiences tended to sublimate the questions Paine raised over the shape of government and the role of citizens within it to the practical concerns of interest and order. "A Common Man, " for example, argued that the issues which concerned Americans had less to do with a specific plan of government than, as Paine had suggested in his opening paragraphs, its ability to protect the persons and property of individuals:

It is no matter, with me, whether I live under an Emporer, a Pope, a Bashaw, a King of England, or a Republic, provided that I can be convinced by irrefutable arguments that such or such a state contained the greatest quantity of happiness for the people at large, and for individuals in particular; . . . State the advantages of an Independence--the benefits to be derived from a new mode of government, how it will affect individuals; the additional happiness and freedom it will produce, particularized in a number of plain, clear instances (30).

A similar attitude appeared even among the opponents of independence some of whom, though expressing clear suspicions of republican government, appeared more concerned with the degree to which it would suit their pragmatic needs than its theoretical possibilities. As one contributor to the Pennsylvania Packet suggested, his ultimate decision on whether or not to embrace Paine's arguments hinged on whether or not:

I am to enjoy a greater liberty of conscience, more natural freedom, to possess more largely the means of acquiring a comfortable subsistence, and not to have the expenses of a government call on me for taxes overproportioned to the additional benefits to be derived from the change--if these can be cleared up to my satisfaction--here's my hand and here's my heart (31).

In both of these excerpts the author's emphasis did not lie in either a suspicion or acceptance of Paine's ideas about forms of government or the shape of the English constitution, but the degree to which independence would promote the happiness and prospects of individual Americans. While such an interpretation of the pamphlet does not preclude other more radical readings of Common Sense, it does suggest that some members of the reading public approached it primarily to obtain insight into the advantages and practicality of independence, not its revolutionary potential.

Having addressed audiences with two very different understandings of America's history and its future, one predicated on preserving it as a place of religious rebirth, and another as a community seeking economic prosperity and political order, Paine had to unite these audiences behind a common understanding of independence. Traditionally, historians have pointed to either Paine's liberal economic notions or ideas of republican government as the means through which he accomplished this goal (32). Such interpretations, however, overemphasize the role of these issues both in Paine's pamphlet and in the audience reaction to it. For all of his praise of commerce, Paine did not appear to offer it as the ideal around which Americans should structure their independent nation (33). While he certainly acknowledged that commerce had benefitted the colonies, Paine also warned readers that it could undermine the foundations of society as well as bolster them:

Commerce diminishes the spirit both of patriotism and military defense. And history sufficiently informs us, that the bravest achievements were always accomplished in the non-age of a nation. With the increase of commerce, England hath lost its spirit. The City of London, notwithstanding its numbers, submits to continued insults with the patience of a coward. The more men have to lose, the less willing are they to venture. The rich are in general slaves to fear, and submit to courtly power with the trembling duplicity of a Spaniel (34) .

The economic networks that the colonists were establishing, in other words, could potentially work against the long-term interest of the nation just as easily as they could advance them. At least some members of Paine's audience would certainly have found his warnings about the adverse effects of commerce appealing, or at least a noteworthy element of his argument.

One contributor to the Connecticut Gazette warned his readers that in declaring their independence they must endeavor "not to forfeit that kind protection of Heaven, which has been so conspicuous in our deliverances the year past," and proceeded to warn them of the dangers of commerce:

A commerce most certainly enriches a country, but at the same time it is the very nursery of luxuary and vice: All history both sacred and profane are evidence of the truth of this; while manufactures and agriculture busy the inhabitants of any country, they are the best preservatives of the morals of the people (35).

Regardless of Paine's intent in offering his warnings about the corrupting effects of trade on English merchants, the sentiments of this author suggest that at least some readers would have interpreted them as an indictment of the institution in general. In other words, rather than uniting morally and pragmatically minded colonists behind a liberal economic vision of society Common Sense, at best, preserved existing divisions among them over the role of commerce in America, and, at worst, exacerbated them.

A further indication of the degree to which the liberal ethos authors have identified in Common Sense did not serve as the essential unifying appeal of Paine's pamphlet appears in the opposition's tendency to frame their arguments in similar terms:

To the influence of her excellent constitution we are indebted for that peace and prosperity which we have formerly enjoyed; and will continue to enjoy in full protection of our rights, under the gentle rule of the Crown of England, we must go on progressively in that boundless career (of which there is no other instance in history) until the seat of empire shall be transferred from Britain to America (36) .

The arguments of this author reveal an attitude toward the role of commerce in society very similar to the favorable attitude expressed by Paine in Common Sense, yet in this case they led the author to oppose independence. All of which is not to diminish the importance of this argument to some supporters of independence but to suggest that the idea of "free trade" and economic prosperity alone, as articulated in Paine's pamphlet, would not necessarily have encouraged Americans to conclude they must rebel against British authority.

Paine's attack on monarchy and call for the establishment of a republican government in America, at first glance, offers a more likely explanation for the unifying powers of the pamphlet. The opponents of independence certainly identified this element of Paine's argument as a major source of their concerns about the practicality of independence. One contributor to the Pennsylvania Ledger, for example, mocked the notion "that when these Colonies have shaken off the British yoke they will calmly set down with one heart and one voice to form themselves into a great Republic," noting that "conspiracy" and "temptation" will subvert a republic as quickly as a monarchy (37). "Rationalis" echoed these same sentiments, informing his readers that "[t]he Republican Spirit is indeed at Bottom as ambitious as the Monarchical, " and thus, ultimately, no better a guarantor of the interests of society (38).

Neither Paine, nor his sympathizers, however, addressed the concerns of these authors about republican government head-on, preferring instead to attack what they saw as the limitations of the English constitution. In responding to an attack on Common Sense by "Cato," "Cassandra," for example, stressed the limitations of the British system of government, and not the benefits of republicanism, as the justification for independence: "should any Parliament give up, renounce and forever quit claim to the right of making laws to bind us in any case whatsoever; yet in can constitutionally stipulate for no longer than one sitting" (39). When these authors turned their attentions to discussing republican government in America they separated those questions from the larger issue of independence. When Paine offered his proposals for the "Continental Charter" of American government, he played down the significance of the details of the document, leaving those concerns for another time and place; presumably after the colonists had awakened to the necessity of independence:

I offer the following hints; at the same time modestly affirming, that I have no other opinion of them myself, that they may be the means of giving rise to something better. Could the straggling thoughts of individuals be collected, they would frequently form the materials for wise and able men to improve into useful matter (40).

Paine not only limited his proposed ideas to mere hints about how government should be structured, but ultimately deferred to wiser and more able men to create the new nation's constitution. That he adopted this rhetorical strategy despite having strong views on what form of government an independent America should have suggests he did not want to conflate those ideas with the desirability of independence in general (41).

Many of Paine's readers adopted a similar attitude toward the relationship between the form of government an independent America would embrace and question of separating from Great Britain. "Essex," writing in the New York Journal, for example, re-created the distinction Paine had established between the reasons for rebellion and specific questions surrounding the shape of government:

In your famous pamphlet Common Sense, by which I am convinced of the necessity of Independency, to which I was before adverse, you have given liberty to every individual to contribute materials for that great building, the grand Charter of American Liberty. I shall therefore venture to lay before you and the public, a few hints, as they may occur to my mind (42).

"Essex," in this case, turned his attention to crafting a constitution for an independent America having already become convinced of the need to break away from Great Britain. Furthermore, in laying before "the public, a few hints" he apparently acknowledged that multiple perspectives on the form of the nation's great charter would inevitably emerge. While, like Paine, he clearly had his preferences, they did not become openly identified with the cause of independence itself, but rather appeared as a different set of concerns. Similarly, "An Independent Whig" noted that he would have viewed the arguments contained in Common Sense with considerable skepticism as a result of Paine's plan of government "had he not introduced them with saying 'as an opening into that business (the forming a plan [of government]) I offer the following hints=@ (43). For this author his perception that Paine considered the specific form of the American republic separate from the question of independence added greatly to the credibility of his pamphlet's arguments. Thus, despite their common commitment to a republican society, neither Paine nor his audience turned to this ideal to unite the colonists against Great Britain and persuade them to declare their independence. In fact, both author and audience appear to have actively sought to separate the question of independence from any specific vision of republican government.

An explanation for the willingness of Paine and his readers to separate the question of independence from that of forming a republican society may well lie in the manner in which colonists shaped their views on the subject to legitimate their existing, and disparate, world views. Authors such as "Essex," and "Independent Whig," for example, offered a vision of republican government that portrayed its primary responsibility as the preservation of economic and political stability. "Essex," for example, reminded his readers that "[w]ithout justice strictly adhered to, America cannot prosper: In this view, let the debts due from the continent to individuals in Britain &c. with theirs to us be considered and paid, after peace with them first obtained" (44). Thus, his earlier warning that republican government required that "whatever appears to be for the good of the whole, must be submitted too by every part" clearly implied a commitment to honoring debts to creditors both in England and America. Similarly, the "Independent Whig" balanced his call for a more open political system with the need to preserve the foundations of economic order in the colonies. He argued that "[n]o man of Common Sense can reasonably object to . . . demolishing the crown and scattering it among the people whose right it is, " and re-drawing lines of representation so that they were "equal in the highest degree possible," and included any man "capable of contributing to the safety of the state, and a resident of sufficient property to connect him with the community" in the government. At the same time, however, he stressed that as "every Colony has had its Governor, Council and House of Representatives; would it not therefore be eligible to retain this form, that all confusion in deeds, records, &C. may be avoided" (45). Regardless of what form of government the new nation established, he clearly implied, it must effectively preserve the good order of the nation's property and the means through which it was conveyed.

Another interpretation of what a republican government would mean for an independent America appeared in the writings of "Massachusettanis." The contributor to The Independent Chronicle (Boston) called upon the colonists to exercise the "COMMON SENSE, for which Americans are distinguished" to re-evaluate their political and religious institutions:

Examine with candor, my brethren, and you will find a great deal of contemptible, but superstitiously-rubbish, both in church and state, which has been swept on us, from heathenism and popery, by the great net of time. It now high time to examine the net, 'cull out the good fishes cast the bad away.'

If we act as Providence now most points out we should act, we shall gave the honour of 'fellow workers with God;' and America will soon become Glory of all lands' for the equity of its civil government, 'the joy of the whole earth' for the purity and practice of religion of Jesus Christ" (46).

Thus while "Essex" and the "Independent Whig" had equated a new republican government with preserving the colonies's established economic, "Massachusettanis," used it to validate his vision of America as a Christian utopia. His call for a change in government also reflected a belief that independence offered political outsiders the opportunity to radically remake government, an interpretation unlikely to be embraced by either "Essex" or the "Independent Whig (47). In other words, while the Americans might have shared a commitment to republican government, the different meanings they attached to this idea suggest that, on its own, it probably could not provide the foundation the colonists unified stand in favor of independence.

If the radical new visions of government and economics that scholars have identified in Common Sense did not entirely explain the persuasive power and appeal of the pamphlet what did? Paine's opponent "Rationalis," oddly, offers us a glimpse into how Paine persuaded his audience to unite in opposition to Great Britain. This author, despite his concerns over the political ideas contained in Common Sense, finally conceded that "if it be essential then for the safety of this country to declare independence, I would willingly embrace the necessity" (48). While "Rationalis" found the appeals to independence framed in the public language of politics unconvincing, he admitted that similar argument grounded in appeals to private concerns of physical security would prove persuasive. Ultimately, an analysis of both Common Sense and reactions to it suggests that a significant element of its persuasive power arose from Paine's ability to shift the debate outside of the discourse of politics that "Rationalis" found so unpersuasive. In calling on his readers to take action Paine addressed them not primarily in their public roles as the guardians of "the morals of a nation," and "of the public liberty," but in their private capacity as men, husbands, and fathers (49). In the process, he defined the struggle for independence not simply as a struggle for the rights of citizens, but as an assertion, on the part of American men, of their paternal authority over society, and a defense of this institution.

The idea that images of men as fathers and husbands could serve to unite Americans is not a new one. Historians have discussed not only the role of a perceived crisis in families as part of the undercurrent of anxiety in the years prior to the Revolution, but also the power of gender identities in creating a national identity in the years following independence (50). In the context of Common Sense Winthrop Jordan has discussed the influence that the pamphlet had in enabling Americans to symbolically kill the paternal king and replace his paternal authority with a more democratic system of power relations (51). This brief discussion will focus on the way in which Paine framed his argument as a call for American men to renounce England's claim to parental authority over the colonies and assert their own role as the fathers and husbands of their communities. Thus, rather than suggesting, as Jordan does, that the Revolution was in some way an assault on traditional paternal authority I will argue, that from the perspective of Common Sense, it represented a vindication of it as a defining element in American society (52).

Paine began to shift the readers attention away from questions surrounding the legitimate exercise of political power soon after he concluded his attack on the legitimacy of monarchy and the English constitution. As he discussed the implications of his previous arguments, Paine carefully avoided asking his readers to think about what followed in the context of their identity within the empire, or even in terms of their rights as citizens, preferring instead to address them simply as men:

In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments and Common Sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and feelings to determine for themselves; that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day (53).

From this point on, Paine set about defining the question of independence not just as it affected Americans as citizens of a state but as either the actual or implied heads of households and the responsibility this placed on them. He equated refusing to accept the logic of independence with "unmanly" and "childish" traits that would forever deny the colonists their rightful roles as the leaders of either their families, or, by extension, their communities (54) As Paine explained it, reluctance to accept independence was the equivalent of accepting that "the first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty," confining Americans to a perpetual state of adolescence (55). Embracing the opportunity offered by independence, on the other hand, represented the colonists' acceptance of their identities as parents concerned about the future of their children and their communities:

As parents we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity . . . In order to discover the line of our duty rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and fix our station a few years father into life; that eminence will present a prospect, which a few years and prejudices conceal from our sight (56).

Paine did more than frame the question of independence as a part of the natural maturation of the colonists into "men, " he also stressed that failure to support independence compromised the institution of paternal authority itself. At one level this challenge appeared in the colonists' acceptance of the unnatural and illegitimate claims of filial obligation put forward by Great Britain. Equating the authority of the empire with that of the family, Paine argued, represented a distortion and of the ideals which that institution embraced:

Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families, "heretofore the assertion, if true turns to her reproach; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so, and the phrase parent or mother country hath been jesuitically adopted by the king and his parasites, with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds. Europe and not England is the parent country of America (57).

England's claim to parenthood revealed either the ultimate sign of the unjustness of their decision to make war on the colonies, or an attempt on their part to subvert the very meaning of the term. Paine also challenged British rule by suggesting that the King, in particular, had abandoned his role as father and thus had perverted the ideal of paternal authority. Paine attacked George III for failing not only as a monarch but as a parent, describing him as "the pretended . . . FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE [who] can unfeelingly hear of their slaughter, and composedly sleep with their blood upon his soul" (58). The actions of the King, in other words, brought the idea of a father's responsibility to his family and community into contempt. Implicitly, Paine's argument suggested that if American men wanted to retain the legitimacy of their authority over their families and communities they needed to reject their pretended father in England and accept the role themselves.

Paine also spoke to American men explicitly as fathers and husbands as a way of spurring them into support for independence. Failure to act in a expeditious manner in

opposition to Great Britain, he stressed, would ensure that the present generations would be "remembered by future generations with detestation," compromising the traditional authority of parents over their children. In the mean time, the children would have ample examples of resisting parental authority, as the colonists, inevitably, acted toward their supposed parent

country as would "a youth, who is in nearly out of his time; they will care very little for

her (59). The actions of the British army in the colonies represented another, more immediate,

threat to the role of American men as husbands and fathers. Paine stressed that the ultimate

justification for independence arose not from the political questions surrounding British imperial policy, but their attacks on the private persons of the colonists:

Besides, the taking up arms, merely to enforce a pecuniary law, seems unwarrantable by the divine law, and repugnant to human feelings, as the taking up of arms to enforce obedience thereto. The object, on either side, cloth not justify the means; for the lives of men are too valuable to be cast away on such trifles. It is the violence which is done and threatened to our persons; the destruction of our property by an armed force; the invasion of our country by fire and sword, which conscientiously qualifies the use of arms (60).

Earlier in his pamphlet, Paine had repeatedly stressed that responding to these attacks on the persons and property of Americans represented the only acceptable response available to

them as men, as fathers, and husbands:

hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent, or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and still can shake hands with the murderers, then are you not unworthy the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever rank in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.

This is not inflaming or exaggerating matters, but trying them by those feelings and affections which nature justifies, and without which, we should be incapable of discharging the social duties of life, or enjoying the felicities of it. I mean not to exhibit horror for the purpose of provoking revenge, but to

awaken us from fatal and unmanly slumbers, that we may pursue discriminately some fixed object (61).

Failure to awaken from their "unmanly slumbers, " Paine stressed, meant that the present generation had renounced their responsibilities as fathers, husbands, lovers and friends, undermining the very fabric of American society. As a result, if the men of the colonies hoped to preserve their authority and their identity as the heads of household and the community they had no choice but to embrace independence: "Wherefore, since nothing but blows will do, for God's sake, let us come to a final separation, and not lave the next generation to be cutting throats, under the violated unmeaning names of parent and child" (62).

The degree to which Paine's challenges to Americans to take on the role of men and parents resonated among his audience is difficult to judge. One thing, however, is relatively clear, his opponents actively sought to discourage the colonists from thinking in these terms. "Seek Truth," for example, chastised the author of Common Sense for framing his arguments in a manner that removed the question of independence from the realm of reasoned public debate:

That mankind should differ in sentiments is of infinite importance to society, but that they should support that difference, with the virulence of anger is a misfortune of the deepest dye: When passion once possesses the mind, it becomes blind to reason, and throws the whole system of things into confusion; the subject becomes lost in the dispute, and instead of sober argument they substitute intolerable abuse. (63)

"Cato" repeated many of these same concerns, warning readers that any Paine's tendency to offer "railing for reason, invectives for arguments, and to urge people into hasty resolutions by inflamed passions rather than sober reason . . . insults his country in distress, " and revealed him as "a fellow worker with his enemies to hasten its ruin (64). While not mentioning Paine's equation of the struggle for independence with an assertion and defense of paternal authority, the criticisms of "Cato" and "Seek Truth" of his attempts to stir up the passions of his audience reveal a reluctance to look on the imperial crisis in these terms. The fact that appeals, such as Paine's, to the sentiments of his readers were not unprecedented in early modern moral philosophy, suggests that it was the effect such arguments would have on readers as much as an affront to the intrusion of inappropriate forms of debate into the question of independence that produced these responses (65). Thus the desire of "Seek Truth" and "Cato to shift the debate away from the emotional questions surrounding the legitimacy of paternal authority in the colonies suggest their concern with the potential resonance that these arguments may have found among the colonists.

Paine appears to have realized the persuasive power of his appeal to the colonists as men and its potential to unite them in opposition to Great Britain. When confronted with "Cato's" charges that he had distorted the debate by removing it from the public discourse of politics, Paine responded by holding up "Cato" as a model of the "unmanly" sympathies he described in Common Sense:

All of the havoc and unnatural war; the destruction of thousands; the burning and depopulating of towns and cities, the ruin and separation of friends and families, are just sufficient to extort from Cato, this one callus confession. But the cold and creeping solid of Cato is a stranger to the manly powers of sympathetic sorrow (66).

Paine went on to use "Cato's" reference the disagreements between the colonies and Great Britain "to the quarrels of lovers" to further call into question the credentials of his opponent:

What comparison is there between the soft murmurs of an heart mourning in secret, and the loud horrors of war--between the silent fears of pensive sorrow, and the rivers of wasted blood--between the sweet strife of affection, and the biter strife of death--between the curable calamities of pettish lovers, and the sad sight of a thousand slain. "Get the behind me," Cato, for thou hast not the feelings of a man (67).

In both quotations, as he had done in Common Sense, Paine explained "Cato's" resistance to the doctrine of independence as an indication of his deficiencies as a man. In the process he continued to deflect his audience's attention away from their public roles as citizens of the empire and return their gaze to their private concerns as husband and fathers. Evidently Paine, in contrast to his opponents, felt comfortable with this "privatization" of the debate over independence, suggesting he saw it as a valuable way to unite the disparate elements of American society he addressed in his pamphlet.

For the most part, Paine's audience appears to have agreed with his interpretation of the meaning of challenge that Britain posed to the colonies and the opportunities it offered them. Readers embraced Paine's portrayal of the King as a corrupt parent whose actions brought paternal authority itself into contempt:

Forbid it all the feelings of humanity! Forbid it the guardian genius of America! Forbid it, oh my countryman! and instantly bid an eternal adieu to those wretches who profane the endeared name of parent, by applying it to themselves, while at the same time the lusts of power and revenge induce them to trample on all Obligations, human and divine (68)

When speaking of specific reasons for independence other Americans emphasized those sentiments and feelings that Paine had equated with their responsibilities as men, fathers and husbands. Taking as an example two petitions sent to provincial assemblies in favor of independence from New York and Massachusetts we find a restatement of Paine's conflation of the public and private issues surrounding independence. A petition sent by the "General Committee of Mechanics" to the Provincial Congress of New York calling for independence, for example, argued that the King's and Parliament's treatment of the colonies revealed a sinister plan to destroy their social fabric in order to implement their political innovations:

When we see that one whole year is not enough to satisfy the rage of a cruel Ministry, in burning our towns, seizing our vessels, and murdering our precious sons of liberty; making weeping widows for the loss of those who were dearer to them than life, and helpless orphans to bemoan the death of an affectionate father: but who are still carrying on the same bloody pursuit, and for no other reason than this, that we will not become their slaves, and be taxed by them without our consent (69).

A petition from Malden, Massachusetts embraced even more explicitly Paine's appeal to the passions of Americans and their justifiable outrage at the King's abandonment of his paternal responsibilities to the colonies:

This plan was brought to a crisis, upon the ever memorable nineteenth day of April. We remember the fatal day! the expiring groans of our murdered countrymen yet vibrate in our ears! and we now behold the flames of their peaceful dwellings ascending to heaven! we hear their blood crying to us from the ground for vengeance! charging us, as we value the peace of the names, to have no further connection with a King who can unfeelingly hear of the slaughter of his subjects, and composedly sleep with their blood upon his soul (70).

As with Paine, and the petitioners from New York, the arguments put forward by the citizens of Malden equated defending the political rights of the colonies with the necessary defense of the private realm of the family from invasion on the part of their unnatural royal father. The private arguments offered by Paine, in other words, appear to have spoken directly to the feelings and concerns of his audience in a way that his vision of economic and politics, on their own, did not. While these concerns may well have had an appeal to various groups of readers, framing them in the context of an appeal to the colonists identities as husbands and fathers encouraged Americans to look past their different visions of society and unite in favor of independence.

Recognizing that a fundamental element of the appeal of Common Sense emerged from the manner in which it spoke to readers in the conservative and traditional language of paternal responsibility asks us to reconsider the legacies both of the pamphlet and the Revolution. While such an interpretation should not be seen as denying the possibility that groups of readers attached radical meanings to the pamphlet, it does suggest that it reveals another, more conservative side of the struggle for independence. The manner in which Paine phrased his pamphlet encouraged many of readers to view the conflict with Great Britain not as an endorsement for changing or revising colonial society, but for re-affirming its most basic elements. While Common Sense may have also have offered new ideas about the role of commerce in society or the nature of government, the manner in which they were presented, and ultimately read, imply that they did not possess the power to unite the colonists. The pamphlet simply acknowledged the presence of too many alternative visions of what they implied, and down-played the significance of these arguments too much, to make a case that they represented its primary appeal, or its only significant legacy. Ultimately, I have argued, we need to appreciate the degree to which Common Sense set a very conservative tone for the struggle for independence. The pamphlet began by encouraging colonists to view the contest with Great Britain as a defense of their existing world views, whether defined in primarily religious or secular terms, and concluded by deflecting their attention away from divisive political and economic issues in favor of questions of legitimate paternal authority upon which they could more easily agree. Common Sense, thus, stands out for the manner in which it framed the Revolution as a struggle to preserve, rather than alter, the fundamental assumptions that had guided the development of the New World.

Endnotes

1. Thomas Paine, Common Sense, in Paine: Collected Writings, Eric Foner, ed. (New York, 1995), 20.

2. John Keane, Tom Paine: A Political Life (Boston, 1995), 109-112; A. Owen Aldridge, Thomas Paine's American Ideology (Newark, 1984), 46-47; Jack Fruchtman Jr, Thomas Paine: Apostle of Freedom (New York, 1994), 62- 63. John Marshall, The Life of George Washington. Commander in Chief of the American Forces. During the War Which Established the Independence of His Countrv and First President of the United States, vol. 2 (Philadelphia, 1805), 401.

3. Keane, Tom Paine, 111, 129; Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionarv Philadelphia (New York, 1976), 99.

4. For a discussion of the contributions of Common Sense to the formation of constitutional and republican government in the United States see Gregory Claeys, Thomas Paine: Social and Political Thought (Boston:, 1989); A. Owen Aldridge, Thomas Paine's American Ideology; Jack P. Greene, "Paine, America, and the 'Modernization' of Political Consciousness," Political Science Ouarterly 93:1 (Spring 1978): 72-93; Jack Fruchtman, Jr., Thomas Paine and the Religion of Nature (Baltimore, 1993). Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary Philadelphia, provides perhaps the best example of how Paine's rhetoric served to underpin the growth of a radical artisan class in Philadelphia, a conclusion that Claeys disputes. David M. Fitzsimons , "Tom Paine's New World Order: Idealistic Internationalism in the Ideology of Early American Foreign Relations," Diplomatic History 18:4 (Fall 1995): 569-582, offers a discussion of how Common Sense introduced a liberal vision of foreign policy based on the economic expansion of the United States. Molly Anne Rothenberg, "Parasiting America: The Radical Function of Heterogeneity in Thomas Paine's Early Writings," Eighteenth-Centurv Studies 25:3 (Spring 1992): 331-351, offers an interesting interpretation of Common Sense that suggests Paine's acceptance of faction reveals his acceptance of a liberal visions of society as composed of individuals with diverse interests competing for power.

5. Claeys, Thomas Paine, 52; Wood, 101; Fruchtman, Thomas Paine and the Religion of Nature, 4; Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America, 79-81; Fruchtman, Apostle of Freedom, 69.

6. David Ramsay, The History of the American Revolution, 1:315.

7. Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer, March 22, 1776.

8. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., Paine: Collected Writings, 7.

9. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., Paine: Collected Writings, 8.

10. Gordon S. Wood has described this split as between morally and legally minded Americans, which he suggests underpinned disputes between "Calvinist and Liberal, and ultimately Antifederalist and Federalist. " Gordon S. Wood, Creation of the American Republic. 1776-1787 (Williamsburg, 1969), 428429.

11. Fruchtman, Thomas Paine and the Religion of Nature, ix-x.

12. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., 25.

13. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., 15.

14. Boston Gazette, April 29, 1776.

15. Letter from Maryland, Providence Gazette and Country Journal, March 2 1776.

16. Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer, March 22, 1776,

17. Thomas Prince, The Christian History: Containing Accounts of the Propagation and Revival of Religion in England, Scotland and America 8 (April 23, 1743): 59-60; 61.

18. New York Journal, April 11, 1776.

19. Pennsylvania Packet and the General Advertiser, April 1, 1776; Aldridge, Thomas Paine's American Ideology, 103.

20. Aldridge, Thomas Paine's American Ideology, 105-106.

21. "Massachusettanis," The Independent Chronicle (Boston), June 6, 1776.

22. "Rationalis," Providence Gazette and Country Journal, March 23, 1776.

23. For an interesting discussion of the theistic implications of Common Sense see R.C. De Prospo, "Paine and Sieyes" Thought 65:257 (June 90): 190-202,

24. For examples of this vision of the history of the colonies consult the following works: Robert Beverley, History and Present State of Virginia (1705; reprint, edited with an Introduction by Louis B. Wright, Chapel Hill, 1947); William Stith, The History of the First Discovery and Settlement of Virginia (1747; reprint, edited with an introduction by Darret Rutman, New York and London, 1969); James Adair, History of the American Indians (1775; reprint, edited with a preface and introduction by Samuel Cole Williams, Johnson City, 1930); Edmund Burke, An Account of the European Settlements in America in Six Parts (1758; reprint, New York, 1970); Samuel Smith, The History of The Colony of Nova-Caesaria. or New-Jersey (1765; reprint, with an appendix, biographical sketch, index, and an introduction by Kenneth W. Richards, Trenton, 1891; reprint, Spartansburg, 1975).

25. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., Paine: Collected Writings, 22.

26. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., Paine: Collected Writings, 24.

27. Fruchtman, Thomas Paine and the Religion of Nature, 122, 125.

28. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., Paine: Collected Writings, 31.

29. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., Paine: Collected Writings, 35.

30. "A Common Man," Pennsylvania Ledger, March 30, 1776,

31. Postscript to the Pennsylvania Packet, April 29, 1776,

32. Aldridge, Thomas Paine's American Ideology, 24, 283; Bernard Bailyn, Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, revised ed. (Cambridge, 1991), 265; Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America, xiii-xvi; Greene, "Paine, America, and the 'Modernization' of Political Consciousness," 92; Keane, Tom Paine, 121.

33. Claeys, Thomas Paine, 46-49.

34. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., Paine: Collected Writings, 42.

35. Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer, Jan. 19, 1776

36. "Hamden," excerpt from the Virginia Gazette published in the Pennsylvania Ledger, May 18, 1776

37. "Civis," Pennsylvania Ledger, April 6, 1776.

38. "Rationalis," excerpt from the Pennsylvania Gazette, published in the Providence Gazette and Country Journal, March 23, 1776.

39. "Cassandra," Pennsylvania Packet, April 29, 1776.

40. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., Paine: Collected Writings, 36.

41. Owen Aldridge has suggested that Paine saw Common Sense primarily as a defense of the principle of independence and not as a call for a specific type of government, though he clearly held strong views on the subject. Aldridge, Thomas Paine's American Ideology, 202.

42. "Essex," New York Journal, March 7, 1776,.

43. "Independent Whig," New York Journal, Feb. 29, 1776.

44. Essex, "To the Author of Common Sense" No. V, New York Journal, April 4, 1776.

45. "Indpenendent Whig," New York Journal, Feb. 29, 1776

46. "Massachusettanis," The Independent Chronicle (Boston), May 2, 1776.

47. Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America, xvii, xx.

48. "Rationalis," extract from the Pennsvlvania Gazette, published in the Providence Gazette and Country Journal, March 23, 1776.

49. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., Paine: Collected Writings, 48.

50. For an example of a discussion of the anxieties felt surrounding the family in the years leading up to independence see Robert Gross, The Minute Men and Their World (New York and Boston, 1976). An example of the ability of asserting a male identity as the foundation of a national community in the early republic see Carol Smith-Rosenberg, "Dis-Covering the Subject of the Great Constitutional Discussion, 1786-1789," Journal of American History, 79:3 (December, 1992): 841-873; Lawrence J. Friedman, Inventors of the Promised Land (New York, 1975).

51. Winthrop D. Jordan, "Familial Politics: Thomas Paine and the Killing of the King, 1776," Journal of American History 60:2 (September 1973): 294-308.

52. Jordan concludes his very interesting article by suggesting that Paine "preformed a vital service to Americans--but a momentary one: the sons of the Revolution soon lapsed into acclaiming their staunchest leader as the Father of His Country." Jordan, "Familial Politics," 308. The implication of this comment seems to be that in renouncing royal authority Americans embraced a vision of society as more-or-less equal sons. As I will discuss, my reading of Common Sense suggests that the pamphlet encouraged Americans not to challenge the paternal authority as embodied in the King, but rather to defend it from the challenges it faced from George III. Thus, it is not at all surprising that after the war the citizens of the new republican quickly and eagerly found a replacement for the King in George Washington.

53. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., Paine: Collected Writings, 20.

54. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., Paine: Collected Writings, 21, 28, 32.

55. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., Paine: Collected Writings, 20

56. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., Paine: Collected Writings, 25.

57. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., Paine: Collected Writings, 23.

58. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., Paine: Collected Writings, 29.

59. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., Paine: Collected Writings, 21, 31.

60. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., Paine: Collected Writings, 52.

61. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., Paine: Collected Writings, 26-27.

62. Paine, Common Sense, in Foner, ea., Paine: Collected Writings, 27.

63. "Seek Truth," Pennsylvania Packet, April 22, 1776.

64. "Cato", Pennsylvania Packet, April 29, 1776.

65. Aldridge, Thomas Paine's American Ideology, 62.

66. [Paine] "The Forester," Pennsylvania Packet. April 15, 1776.

67. [Paine] "The Forester," Pennsylvania Packet. April 15, 1776.

68. "A Friend of Common Sense," Connecticut Gazette, April 5, 1776.

69. The Petition of the General Committee of Mechanics to the New York Provincial Congress, published in the Pennsylvania Ledger, June 15, 1776.

70. Petition for instructing delegates on independence from Malden, Massachusetts, printed in the Independent Chronicle (Boston), June 6, 1776.