Common Sense (pamphlet) - Impact

Impact

There were at least two reasons why Paine's brief pamphlet is believed to be "the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era". First, while the average colonist was more educated than their European counterpart, European and colonial elites agreed that common people had no place in government or political debates. By aiming for a popular audience, and writing in a straightforward and simple way, Paine made political ideas tangible for a common audience. This brought average colonists into political debate, creating a whole new political language. Illiterate colonists could hear Common Sense read at public gatherings, thus bringing even the illiterate into this new political world. Paine's new style of political writing avoided using complex Latin phrases, instead opting for a more direct, concise style that helped make the information accessible to all. Thus, Paine's "incendiary" words were heard even by those common folk who had never learned to read. The second reason involves the way the vast majority of people felt about the idea of independence from British rule. Except for a few radical thinkers, the people of the colonies were "on the fence" about independence. Individuals were in conflict with themselves. There were those who were leaning toward reconciliation with the king. George Trevelyan in his History of the American Revolution had this to say about Paine's pamphlet:

It would be difficult to name any human composition which has had an effect at once so instant, so extended and so lasting It was pirated, parodied and imitated, and translated into the language of every country where the new republic had well-wishers. It worked nothing short of miracles and turned Tories into Whigs.

There were those in high places who, while in agreement with Paine's sentiments, voiced criticism of his method. John Adams, who would succeed George Washington to become the new nation's second president, in his Thoughts on Government wrote that Paine's ideal sketched in Common Sense was "so democratical, without any restraint or even an attempt at any equilibrium or counter poise, that it must produce confusion and every evil work". In spite of the formidable influence of Adams, most people praised Paine's brief work. The editors of The Thomas Paine Reader, Michael Foot and Isaac Kramnick, in their introduction to Common Sense wrote:

Published anonymously, Common Sense appeared on Philadelphia streets in January 1776. It was an instant success, and copies of the pamphlet were soon available in all the thirteen colonies. Paine's was an unequivocal call for independence, and many Americans wavering between reconciliation with and independence from Britain were won over to separation by Paine's powerful polemic against monarchy, in general, and the British, in particular.

The impact of Paine's thin little pamphlet upon the general call for independence, upon the other Founding Fathers and their construction of the Declaration of Independence, and upon the common folk, many of whom would soon join General Washington to fight the British military, was quickly spread and deeply felt. The moving words of Common Sense knocked colonists down off the fence and into the fight for independence.