Common Sense and Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine was born in England to a poor Quaker father and an Anglican mother and left school to work as a corset maker with his father. Later in 1774 he emigrated to the colonies and got a job editing the Pennsylvania Magazine. As tension aroused between England and the colonies, he concluded that the revolt should be aimed not against taxation but for independence. He wrote his comments in a fifty-page pamphlet called Common sense. It was very popular in the colonies and a possible 500,000 copies were sold. It persuaded public opinion of the case for independence from Britain.

This document is mainly about why America should separate from Great Britain. Paine believed that America would have flourished as mush more if no European power had gotten involved. They helped protect Great Britain without considering that all Britain want was power, not attachment. Enemies of theirs had no problem with America for any other reasons accept that Britain was in charge. Some said that Britain was the power country, even though Europe was. "The phrase parent or mother country hath been jesuitically adopted by the king and it parasites, with a low, papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds". People fled from Europe because it was not a good mother. They believed that it was their duty to mankind to renounce the alliance with Great Britain because when ever GB gets into an argument or war with a European country, America is pulled into it. This made it hard to gain friendship with other countries. "Tis the true interest of America to steer blear of European contentions". Also whenever there is a war in Europe, the American trade is hurt again because of its connection with Britain. The people in the once peaceful Boston had no other choice other than to beg and starve and they had no hope of redemption. The violence was unsurpassable. They wanted to fully separate so that he next generation would not have to suffer. In order to even help the country, it took many months just to send a letter to Britain and usually longer for it to return. The Americans believed that "If they cannot conquer us, they cannot govern us". The king of America was the law and the crown is demolished and scattered among the people whose right it is. They wanted to form their own government and own constitution.