Originally published 249 years ago (January 10, 1776), Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” galvanized the New World into decisive action against the forces of tyranny with a tour-de-force polemic against Great Britain. Armed with his most powerful weapons — his pen and intellect — Paine argued forcefully for a new form of government, one in which the citizens could govern themselves. Like seeds ripe for harvest, the writer’s words took root in the hearts and minds of the American people, who embraced his logic, scrapped the shackles of oppression, and created the greatest nation in the history of the world.
Echoing James Madison’s future sentiments about men and angels, Paine maintained that government is produced by humanity’s wickedness. “Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise,” he opined. “For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other law-giver….”
Government, Paine believed, was necessary. But, he warned, it was also habitually prone to corruption, expansion, and overweening control. Men (by God’s design) renounce fractions of their purely self-determined autonomy, the organic “freedom” they might otherwise enjoy in a state of nature, “to supply the defect of moral virtue” — that is, to garner protection against fellow flawed humans. However, they must remain wary that, in the name of protecting them from each other, the government does not become the greater threat.
British Tyranny
Having articulated his definition of government and demonstrated how it often devolves into a source of terror, Paine leveled his pen and its unforgiving blade at the heart of his target: England, his home country, he contended, was simply a monarchical and aristocratic tyranny, disguised by “some new Republican materials.”
“There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of Monarchy,” he blasted; “it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required. The state of a king shuts him from the World, yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly; wherefore the different parts, by unnaturally opposing and destroying each other, prove the whole character to be absurd and useless.”
Compounding that problem, he added, lines of monarchical succession resulted in haughty, presumptuous rulers. “Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent,” he wrote. “Selected from the rest of mankind, their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.”
Indeed, this reasoning might also apply to the leaders we refer to today as “career politicians.” Having spent years in the nation’s capital, are they not similarly “selected from the rest of mankind”? One can only imagine what Paine would think of the same aristocratic tendencies nearly two and a half centuries later.
Awakening a sleeping nation
In his day, the English writer rested his case regarding the purpose of government and the scandal of the British monarchy. Still, now, he faced his most challenging obstacle: conquering the colonists’ lingering sense of fealty to the Crown. He argued that emotional appeals to the “Motherland” fell short, for the maternal government had abused her children.
“But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame upon her conduct,” his mighty pen roared. “Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families; Wherefore, 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. This new World hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.”
His passion was like a bucket of cold water thrown into the faces of a docile people — a match to the floor of a dry, withered forest. The American Lion roared for millions to hear: the time had come to choose between self-government and tyranny, religious liberty and suppression. How long would his fellow patriots slumber?
Government of, by, and for the people
“Common Sense” may have been a polemic, but it was more than just a series of complaints; Paine also provided solutions. To conclude his work, the author prescribed a new truly Republican form of government in the New World. Notably missing from his proposal was the position of a king or sovereign.
“But where, say some, is the King of America? I’ll tell you, friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Great Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honours, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the Charter; let it be brought forth placed on the Divine Law, the Word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that 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.”
Paine’s timeless pro-freedom manifesto not only inspired the American Revolution but also continues to shape our Western world. May we take heart from his bold opposition to tyranny and redouble our efforts to prolong government of, by, and for the people.
“Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth,” Paine charged. Today, we can fulfill that duty by supporting our Founders’ constitutional remedy to federal tyranny and oppression. The Article V convention process (learn more here) empowers us to deliver a fatal blow to the perennial spirit of control, which Thomas Paine warned about, and secure self-governance for future generations. To join us in the modern-day crusade for the principles of “Common Sense,” sign the COS petition below!
