What Major Point Was Thomas Paine Trying to Make Using the Evidence in This Passage?
Counselor: Robert A. Ferguson, George Edward Woodberry Professor in Law, Literature and Criticism, Columbia University, National Humanities Center Fellow.
Copyright National Humanities Heart, 2014
How did Thomas Paine'due south pamphlet Common Sense convince reluctant Americans to abandon the goal of reconciliation with Great britain and accept that separation from United kingdom — independence — was the only option for preserving their freedom?
Understanding
By January 1776, the American colonies were in open up rebellion against Britain. Their soldiers had captured Fort Ticonderoga, besieged Boston, fortified New York Urban center, and invaded Canada. Yet few dared voice what most knew was true — they were no longer fighting for their rights as British subjects. They weren't fighting for cocky-defence, or protection of their holding, or to force U.k. to the negotiating table. They were fighting for independence. Information technology took a hard jolt to move Americans from professed loyalty to alleged rebellion, and it came in large part from Thomas Paine's Common Sense. Not a dumbed-down rant for the masses, as oft described, Common Sense is a masterful piece of argument and rhetoric that proved the power of words.
Text
Thomas Paine, Mutual Sense, 1776 
[Find more than primary sources related to Mutual Sense in Making the Revolution from the National Humanities Center.]
Text Type
Literary nonfiction; persuasive essay. In the Text Analysis section, Tier 2 vocabulary words are defined in pop-ups, and Tier 3 words are explained in brackets.
Text Complexity
Grades 9-10 complication band.
For more than information on text complexity run across these resources from achievethecore.org.
Click hither for standards and skills for this lesson.
X
Common Core State Standards
- ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.6 (Determine an writer's point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an writer uses rhetoric to accelerate that betoken of view or purpose.)
Avant-garde Placement US History
- 3.ii (IB) (Republican forms of regime found expression in Thomas Paine'southward Mutual Sense.)
Avant-garde Placement English Language and Limerick
- Reading nonfiction
- Analyzing and identifying and author'southward use of rhetorical strategies
Teacher's Note
This lesson focuses on the sections fundamental to Paine'southward argument in Mutual Sense — Department 3 and the Appendix to the Tertiary Edition, published a calendar month after the first edition. We practise not recommend assigning the full essay (Sections I, II, and IV require advanced groundwork in British history that Paine's readers would accept known well). Yet, students should be led through an overview of the essay to understand how Paine congenital his arguments to a "cocky-evident" determination (See Background: Message, beneath.)
Lead students through an initial overview of the essay (see Groundwork). To brainstorm, they could skim the full text and read the pull-quotes (separated quotes in large bold text). What impression of Common Sense practice the quotes provide? What questions practise they prompt? And so guide students as they read (peradventure aloud) Section III of Common Sense and the Appendix to the Tertiary Edition (pp. x-19 and 25-29 in the full text provided with this lesson).
Proceed to the shut reading of three excerpts in the Text Analysis below. (Note that office of Excerpt #3 is a Common Core exemplar text.)
This lesson is divided into two parts, both accessible below. The instructor'south guide includes a groundwork notation, the text analysis with responses to the close reading questions, access to the interactive exercises, and a follow-up assignment. The student's version, an interactive worksheet that can exist e-mailed, contains all of the above except the responses to the close reading questions.
Teacher'due south Guide (continues below)
| Student Version (click to open)
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Instructor's Guide
Background
The man at right does not expect angry. To us, he projects the typical figure of a "Founding Begetter" — equanimous, aristocracy, and empowered. And to us his famous essays are brimful in powdered-wig prose. But the portrait and the prose belie the reality. Thomas Paine was a firebrand, and his most influential essay — Mutual Sense — was a fevered no-holds-barred call for independence. He is credited with turning the tide of public opinion at a crucial juncture, convincing many Americans that war for independence was the only option to accept, and they had to take it now, or else.
Common Sense appeared as a pamphlet for sale in Philadelphia on January 10, 1776, and, as we say today, it went viral. The first printing sold out in ii weeks and over 150,000 copies were sold throughout America and Europe. It is estimated that 1 fifth of Americans read the pamphlet or heard it read aloud in public. Full general Washington ordered it read to his troops. Within weeks, it seemed, reconciliation with United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland had gone from an honorable goal to a cowardly betrayal, while independence became the rallying cry of united Patriots. How did Paine reach this?
one. Timing.
Over a year elapsed between the outbreak of armed conflict and the Declaration of Independence. During these fifteen months, many bemoaned the reluctance of Americans to renounce their ties with U.k. despite the escalating warfare around them. "When we are no longer fascinated with the Idea of a speedy Reconciliation," wrote Benjamin Franklin in mid-1775, "we shall exert ourselves to some purpose. Till and then Things will be done past Halves."1 In add-on, there remained much discord amidst the colonies about their shared future. "Some timid minds are terrified at the word independence," wrote Elbridge Gerry in March 1776, referring to the colonial legislatures. "America has gone such lengths she cannot recede, and I am convinced a few weeks or months at furthest will convince her of the fact, but the fruit must have time to ripen in some of the other Colonies."2 In this environment, Common Sense appeared like a "meteor," wrote John Adams,3 and propelled many to support independence. Many noted information technology at the time with amazement.
"Erstwhile past the thought [of independence] would take struck me with horror. I now run into no alternative;… Can any virtuous and dauntless American hesitate 1 moment in the selection?"
The Pennsylvania Evening Postal service, 13 February 1776
"We were blind, merely on reading these enlightening works the scales have fallen from our optics…. The doctrine of Independence hath been in times past greatly disgustful; we abhorred the principle. Information technology is at present become our delightful theme and commands our purest affections. Nosotros revere the author and highly prize and admire his works."
The New-London [Connecticut] Gazette, 22 March 1776
2. Message.
What fabricated Common Sense so esteemed and "enlightening"? Some argue that Common Sense said nothing new, that information technology simply put the call-to-state of war in peppery street language that rallied the common people. Simply this trivializes Paine's achievement. He did have a new bulletin in Common Sense — an ultimatum. Give up reconciliation at present, or forever lose the chance for independence. If we fail to deed, nosotros're cocky-deceiving cowards condemning our children to tyranny and adulterous the world of a beacon of liberty. It is our calling to model self-actualized nationhood for the earth. "The cause of America is in a great measure out the cause of all mankind."
Paine divided Common Sense into four sections with deceptively mundane titles, mimicking the erudite political pamphlets of the twenty-four hours. But his essay did non offer the same-sometime-same-old treatise on British heritage and American rights. Here's what he says in Mutual Sense:
Introduction: The ideas I present here are so new that many people will reject them. Readers must clear their minds of long-held notions, apply mutual sense, and adopt the cause of America equally the "cause of all mankind." How we respond to tyranny today volition affair for all time.
Section One: The English language government you worship? It's a sham. Man may demand authorities to protect him from his flawed nature, merely that doesn't mean he must suffocate under fauna tyranny. But as yous would cut ties with abusive parents, you lot must break from Britain.
Section Ii: The monarchy you revere? It's non our protector; it'southward our enemy. It doesn't care about united states of america; information technology cares nearly Britain's wealth. Information technology has brought misery to people all over the globe. And the very thought of monarchy is absurd. Why should someone rule over us simply considering he (or she) is someone's child? So evil is monarchy past its very nature that God condemns it in the Bible.
Section Three: Our crisis today? It's folly to recollect we should maintain loyalty to a distant tyrant. It'southward self-demolition to pursue reconciliation. For the states, right here, right now, reconciliation means ruin. America must dissever from Britain. We can't go dorsum to the cozy days earlier the Stamp Human action. You lot know that's true; it's time to acknowledge it. For heaven's sake, we're already at war!
Section Four: Can we win this war? Admittedly! Ignore the naysayers who tremble at the idea of British might. Allow'south build a Continental Navy equally we take built our Continental Army. Allow us declare independence. If nosotros delay, it will be that much harder to win. I know the prospect is daunting, only the prospect of inaction is terrifying.
A month later, in his appendix to the third edition, Paine escalated his appeal to a utopian fervor. "We have information technology in our power to begin the world over over again," he insisted. "The birthday of a new world is at hand."
3. Rhetoric.
"It is necessary to exist bold," wrote Paine years after on his rhetorical power. "Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must exist shocked into it. Say a bold affair that volition stagger them, and they will begin to remember."4 Keep this idea front and center as y'all study Common Sense.
As an experienced essayist and a recent English language immigrant with his own deep resentments against Britain, Paine was the right man at the correct time to galvanize public opinion. He "understood better than anyone else in America," explains literary scholar Robert Ferguson, "that 'style and mode of thinking' might dictate the difficult shift from loyalty to rebellion."v Before Paine, the linguistic communication of political essays had been moderate. Educated men wrote civilly for publication and kept their fury for private letters and diaries. Then came Paine, cursing U.k. as an "open up enemy," denouncing George Three every bit the "Royal Animal of England," and damning reconciliation as "truly farcical" and "a fallacious dream." To think otherwise, he charged, was "absurd," "unmanly," and "repugnant to reason." As Virginian Landon Carter wrote in dismay, Paine implied that anyone who disagreed with him "is zip brusque of a coward and a sycophant [stooge/lackey], which in plain meaning must be a damned rascal."half-dozen Paine knew what he was doing: the pen was his weapon, and words his ammunition. He argued with ideas while convincing with raw emotion. "The point to remember," writes Ferguson, "is that Paine'south natural and intended audience is the American mob…. He uses anger, the natural emotion of the mob, to let the most active groups discover themselves in the full general will of a republican citizenry."7 What if Paine had written the Proclamation of Independence with the same hard-driving rhetoric?
AS JEFFERSON WROTE IT: Nosotros hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that amid these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, information technology is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such course, as to them shall seem most likely to upshot their Safety and Happiness.
IF PAINE HAD WRITTEN Information technology: NO man can deny, without abandoning his God-given ability to reason, that all men enter into existence as equals. No thing how lowly or regal their origins, they enter life with three God-given RIGHTS — the right to live, to right to live free, and the right to live happily (or, at the least, to pursue Happiness on earth). Who would cull existence on any other terms? So treasured are these rights that man created government to protect them. And so treasured are they that human being is duty-jump to destroy whatever government that crushes them — and start anew equally men worthy of the championship of FREE MEN. This is the plain truth, incommunicable to refute.
Text Analysis
Excerpt #1
Close Reading Questions
Imagine yourself sitting down to read Common Sense in January 1776. How does Paine introduce his reasoning to y'all?
He announces that his logic will be direct and downwardly to earth, using but "simple facts" and "plain arguments" to explain his position, unlike (he implies) the complex political pamphlets addressed to the educated aristocracy. His audience would understand "mutual sense" to suggest the moral sense of the yeoman farmer, whose independence and articulate-headedness made him a more reliable guardian of national virtue (like to Jefferson'southward agrarian ideal).
Why does he write "I offer zippo more" instead of "I offering y'all many reasons" or "I offering a detailed argument"?
"Nothing more" implies that Common Sense will be like shooting fish in a barrel to follow, presenting just what is necessary to brand his statement. (Paine considered titling his essay Plain Truth.)
How does Paine enquire you to prepare yourself for his "mutual sense" arguments?
Be willing to put aside pre-conceived notions, he says, and gauge his arguments on their own claim.
What does he imply by saying a off-white reader "will put on, or rather than he will non put off, the truthful grapheme of a human"?
He implies that any reader who would refuse to consider his arguments is bigoted. With the "on"–"off" contrast, he suggests that y'all, the individual reader, are open up-minded and thus a fellow man of honor willing to consider a new point of view.
In the post-obit pages I offering nothing more than uncomplicated facts, plain arguments, and mutual sense: and accept no other preliminaries to settle with the reader than that he will divest [rid] himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer [permit] his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves: that he volition put on, or rather that he will not put off, the truthful character of a human being, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present twenty-four hours.
PARAGRAPH 55
This paragraph begins with one of the well-nigh famous hyperboles in American writing. A hyperbole is an overstatement or exaggeration to emphasize a point. What are the two examples of hyperbole in this paragraph?
1. "the sunday never shined on a cause of greater worth"
ii. "posterity… will be more than or less affected, even to the end of fourth dimension"
With the hyperboles, how does Paine lead you to view the "cause" of American independence?
View it, he says, from an overarching global perspective, non the narrow perspective of American colonists in the late 1700s. The hyperboles are ultimates — the most worthy of worthy causes, affecting the time to come now and forever. The American cause can atomic number 82 mankind toward enlightened cocky-determination, driving forwards the progress of culture. Paine says this straight in his introduction: "The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind." We're not but talking taxes and representation, people.
What tone does Paine add with the phrases "The sun never shined" and "even to the terminate of time"?
A biblical and prophetic tone. The sun shining down on human endeavors suggests divine endorsement of the American crusade — a cause that will bring light and liberty ("salvation") to the earth. Resisting the cause, Paine implies, would be resisting divine will.
Allow'due south consider Paine as a wordsmith. How does he use repetition to add bear upon to the showtime part of the paragraph?
He includes 2 repetitive sets:
one. "'Tis not" to brainstorm sentences ii and 3 [anaphora]
two. the phrases "of a city, a state, a province, or a kingdom" and "of a 24-hour interval, a year, or an age" [prepositions with multiple objects].
Read the section aloud to hear the insistent rhythm that elevates Paine's prose to a rousing phone call to action (his goal in writing Common Sense).
Paine ends this paragraph with an analogy: What we do now is like carving initials into the bark of a young oak tree. What does he mean with the illustration?
A. This is the time to create a new nation. Our smallest efforts now volition lead to enormous benefits in the futurity.
B. This is the time to unite for independence. Discord among us now will escalate into future crises that could ruin the young nation.
Reply: B.
The lord's day never shined on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the thing of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent – of at least 1 eighth part of the habitable world. 'Tis not the business organization of a day, a yr, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest and will be more or less affected, even to the finish of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed time of continental [colonies'] union, religion and honor. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pivot on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound volition enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in total grown characters.
PARAGRAPH 58
Paine includes multiple repetitions in this paragraph. What give-and-take repetition exercise yous observe?
The adjective "new" in a "new expanse" and a "new method." [anaphora]
What sound repetitions do you notice?
Alliteration: argument/arms/area/arisen
plans/proposals/prior/April
Consonance: politics/struck
methursdayod/thinking/hathursday
thousandatter/argument/argrands
Read the sentences aloud. What impact does the repetition add to Paine'southward delivery?
A stirring oratorical rhythm is achieved, like that of a solemn voice communication or sermon meant to convey the truth and gravity of an statement.
Paine compares the attempts to reconcile with Uk after the Boxing of Lexington and Concur to an old almanac. What does he mean?
He means the idea of reconciliation is now preposterous and that no rational person could back up information technology. No one would use last year'due south almanac to make plans for the current twelvemonth! Also, every bit an almanac ceases to exist useful at a specific moment (midnight of Dec 31), Paine implies that reconciliation ceased to be a valid goal at the moment of the commencement shot on April 19, 1775. (Paine often alludes to aspects of colonial life, similar almanacs, that would resonate with all readers. They include references to farming, tree cutting, hunting, state ownership, slavery, biblical scripture, family unit and neighbour bonds, maturation, and the parent-child relationship; run into "The Metaphor of Youth" below.)
Past referring the matter from argument to arms, a new surface area for politics is struck; a new method of thinking hath arisen. All plans, proposals, etc., prior to the nineteenth of April, i.e., to the commencement of hostilities [Lexington and Concord], are like the almanacs of the last yr which, though proper [accurate] then, are superseded and useless at present. Whatever was avant-garde by the advocates on either side of the question and then, terminated in 1 and the aforementioned point, viz. [that is], a union with Bully U.k.. The only difference between the parties was the method of effecting it — the one proposing force, the other friendship; but it hath so far happened that the first hath failed and the second hath withdrawn her influence.
PARAGRAPH 59
Paine compares the goal of reconciliation to an "agreeable dream [that has] passed away and left us as we were." Why doesn't he aim harsher criticism here at the goal of reconciling with United kingdom?
With this paragraph, Paine begins his argument against reconciliation and does non want to insult or alienate his readers at the starting time. Anybody tin can hope, he implies: there's nothing wrong with that, but nosotros have to move on if a hope proves fruitless.
With this in heed, what tone does he atomic number 82 the reader to wait: contemptuous, impatient, hopeful, reasonable, impassioned, angry?
Reasonable. The two sentences resemble the opening of a legal argument that promises a balanced appraisal of two options on the ground of known bear witness ("principles of nature") and honest ordinary reasoning ("mutual sense").
How does his tone prepare the resistant reader?
Paine means to deflect challenges of bias or extremism by inviting readers to give him a hearing. "If I'm being off-white in my writing, you can effort to be off-white in your listening."
While Paine promises a fair appraisal, look how he describes the two options in the terminal sentence.
Option ane: "if separated" from Uk
Option 2: "if dependent on Britain"
Why didn't he utilize the usual terms for the two options — "independence" and "reconciliation"?
First, INDEPENDENCE and RECONCILIATION sound like equally plausible options, but Paine wants to convince you that independence is the just acceptable option. If and so, and then why did he cull SEPARATION instead of INDEPENDENCE? By January 1776, INDEPENDENCE carried the desperate connotations of war and treason. It was an irrevocable decision with unknown consequences. In dissimilarity, SEPARATION seems less desperate, and even positive. In human evolution, separation from one'southward parents is the natural and long-sought footstep to full adulthood. That'south the self-image Paine wants to foster in his readers. Are we adults or children? [See the activity beneath, "The Metaphor of Youth".]
In this vein, Paine chose DEPENDENCE instead of RECONCILIATION for Pick 2 (staying with Britain). RECONCILIATION suggests the at-home and rational agreement of two grownups, but Paine wants you lot to view reconciliation as the defeatist pick of spineless subjects who could never take care of themselves. In other words, DEPENDENCE.
[Note: Paine does phone call the ii options "independence" and "reconciliation" elsewhere in Common Sense, but he meant to avoid them here.]
As much hath been said of the advantages of reconciliation, which, like an amusing dream, hath passed abroad and left united states of america as nosotros were, it is merely right that we should examine the reverse [opposing] side of the argument and ask into some of the many material injuries which these colonies sustain, and e'er will sustain, by being connected with and dependent on Great Britain. To examine that connexion and dependence, on the principles of nature and common sense, to see what nosotros have to trust to [look] if separated, and what we are to expect if dependent.
PARAGRAPH 60
Action: The Metaphor of Youth
Study Paine's metaphors that compare the colonies' readiness for independence to a kid's maturation into adulthood.
Here Paine rebuts the first argument for reconciliation—that America has thrived as a British colony and would fail on her ain. How does he dismiss this argument?
He slams it down hard. "NOTHING can exist more FALLACIOUS," he yells. The argument is beyond misdirected or short-sighted, he insists; it'southward a fatal error in reasoning. So much for calm and reasoned contend. Only Paine is non having a temper tantrum in print. His technique was to argue with ideas while convincing with emotion.
Paine follows his utter rejection of the argument with an illustration. Complete the analogy: America staying with U.k. would be like a child _______.
"America staying with Britain would be similar a kid remaining dependent on its parents forever and never growing upwards." And who would desire that, Paine implies? By writing "first twenty years of our lives" instead of, say, "first 5 years," Paine alludes to the general consensus that a xx-year-old is an developed.
Paine goes one step further in the last sentence. What does he say about America's "childhood" as a British colony?
He "answers roundly" (with conviction) that the colonies' growth was actually hampered by being function of a European empire. They would have been more salubrious and successful "adults," he insists, if they had non been the "children" of the British empire. This was a radical premise in 1776, merely one that buttressed Paine'southward argument for independence
I have heard it asserted by some that as America hath flourished nether her former connection with Nifty Britain, that the aforementioned connectedness is necessary towards her future happiness, and will always have the aforementioned consequence. Cipher tin can be more than fallacious than this kind of statement. We may too assert that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat, or that the beginning 20 years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next 20. Merely fifty-fifty this is admitting more than is true; for I answer roundly that America would have flourished as much, and probably much more, had no European ability had anything to practice with her.
PARAGRAPH 61
Excerpt #ii
Close Reading Questions
Here Paine challenges his opponents to bring "reconciliation to the touchstone of nature." What does he mean? (A "touchstone" is a test of the quality or genuineness of something. From ancient times the purity of gilded or silvery was tested with a "touchstone" of basalt stone.)
Test the chances of reconciliation confronting what you know about people's reactions in like crises throughout history, not confronting your own hopes and fears during this particular crisis. In other words, use common sense.
At the start of this paragraph Paine mildly faults the supporters of reconciliation as unrealistic optimists "still hoping for the best." By the end of the paragraph, however, they are cowards willing to "shake hands with the murderers." How did he construct the paragraph to accomplish this transition?
He poses two challenges to the supporters of reconciliation. If they can honestly answer each challenge, he asserts, and still support reconciliation, and then they are selfish cowards bringing ruin to America.
Paraphrase the first challenge (sentences two–v).
"Enquire yourself if you tin can remain loyal to a nation that has brought war and suffering to you. If y'all say you can, you're fooling yourself and condemning us to a worse life nether U.k. than we endure now."
Paraphrase the second claiming (sentences 6–11).
"Have you been the victim of British violence? If y'all haven't, then you yet owe compassion to those who have. And if y'all have, yet however support reconciliation, so you have abased your conscience."
With what phrase does Paine condemn those who would nonetheless promise for reconciliation fifty-fifty if they were victims of British violence?
They are men who "tin nonetheless shake easily with the murderers," i.e., men who have betrayed their fellow Americans and thus get as evil equally the British invaders. There is no dash in this condemnation, and thus no way for the reader to avert its implications.
Notation how Paine weaves impassioned questions through the paragraph: "Are you merely deceiving yourselves?" "Have y'all lost a parent or a child past their easily?" How do these questions intensify his challenges?
Addressed to "you" direct and not a faceless "he or they," the questions deliver an in-your-face challenge that allows no escape. Here'south my question to you: Reply information technology! or your silence will reveal your cowardice.
Rewrite sentences #4 and #xi to modify the second-person "you" to the 3rd-person "he/she/they." How does the modify weaken Paine's challenges?
The reader is off the hook. Since the challenges are deflected from "you," the reader, to the third-person "other," no immediate personal reply is demanded. The reader can blithely read on and avoid the aim of Paine's questions.
Worksheet: The Question as a Rhetorical Device
Apply this worksheet to examine Paine's use of questions as persuasive devices throughout Mutual Sense, specifically the rhetorical question and the hypophora (questions with implied or stated answers, used for rhetorical touch on).
Men of passive tempers [temperaments] await somewhat lightly over the offenses of Britain and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out, "Come, come, we shall exist friends again for all this." But examine the passions and feelings of mankind. Bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature then tell me whether you can time to come love, honor, and faithfully serve the ability that hath carried burn and sword into your country? If you cannot exercise all these, and so are you only deceiving yourselves and by your filibuster bringing ruin upon posterity? Your future connection with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honor, will exist forced and unnatural, and beingness formed but on the plan of present convenience, will in a picayune time fall into a relapse more than wretched than the first. But if you say you lot can still pass the violations over [ignore or underrate them], then I inquire, Hath your business firm been burnt? Hath your holding been destroyed earlier your face? Are your wife and children destitute of [without] a bed to lie on or staff of life to live on? Take you lost a parent or a child by their easily and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you lot have not, then are you not a gauge of those who accept. But if you take, and tin even so shake hands with the murderers, and then are you unworthy the name of hubby, father, friend, or lover, and, any may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward and the spirit of a sycophant.
PARAGRAPH 77
Excerpt #iii
Shut Reading Questions
At this point, Paine pleads with his readers to write the constitution for their independent nation without delay. What danger do they risk, he warns, if they exit this crucial task to a later day?
A colonial leader could grasp dictatorial ability by taking advantage of the postwar disorder likely to event if the colonies have no constitution set up to implement. Even if Britain tried to regain control of the colonies, it could be likewise belatedly to wrest command back from a powerful dictator. "Ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny," Paine warns, "by keeping vacant the seat of regime."
What historical testify does Paine offer to illustrate the danger?
He states that "some Massanello may time to come arise" and grasp power, alluding to the short-lived people'southward defection led by the commoner Thomas Aniello (Masaniello) in 1647 against Spanish command of Naples (Italy). The Spanish ruler granted a few rights, but Masaniello was soon murdered, catastrophe the insurgence and its short-lived gains for the people.
Every bit his plea escalates in intensity, Paine exclaims "Ye that oppose independence now, ye know not what ye practice." To what climactic moment in the New Testament does he allude?
While suffering on the cantankerous before his death, Jesus calls out, "Father, forgive them; for they know non what they do" (Luke 23: 34); that is, his crucifiers exercise not know they are killing the Son of God. With this compelling allusion (which most readers would instantly recognize), Paine warns that opposing independence is as calamitous a decision for Americans as killing Jesus was for his executioners and for mankind.
Paine heightens his apocalyptic tone every bit he appeals to "ye that love mankind" to take a mission of salvation (alluding to Christ'south mission of salvation). What must the lovers of mankind achieve in order to salvage mankind?
They must institute the "complimentary and independent States of America" as the sole preserve of human being freedom in the globe. A drastic avoiding, "freedom" has been "hunted" and "expelled" throughout the world, and it is America'due south mission to protect and nurture her. America's victory volition be mankind's victory, not just the feat of thirteen small colonies in a distant corner of the earth.
Annotation: "A government of our own is our natural right" asserts Paine at the get-go of this extract. Six months later Thomas Jefferson asserted the same right in the opening of the Announcement of Independence. This Enlightenment ideal anchored revolutionary initiatives in America and Europe for decades.
A government of our own is our natural right, and when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he volition become convinced that it is infinitely wiser and safer to grade a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have information technology in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to fourth dimension and chance. If we omit information technology at present, some Massanello* may hereafter ascend who, laying hold of pop disquietudes [grievances], may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, finally sweep away the liberties of the continent similar a deluge. Should the authorities of America return again into the hands of Britain, the tottering situation of things volition be a temptation for some desperate charlatan to try his fortune; and in such a instance, what relief can United kingdom give? Ere [before] she could hear the news, the fatal business organization might be done, and ourselves suffering like the wretched Britons nether the oppression of the Conqueror [William the Conquistador in 1066]. Ye that oppose independence now, ye know not what ye practise. Ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny by keeping vacant the seat of government….
O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose non only the tyranny merely the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted circular the world. Asia and Africa have long expelled her.—Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her alarm to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.
* Thomas Anello, otherwise Massanello, a fisherman of Naples, who after spiriting up his countrymen in the public market place confronting the oppression of the Spaniards, to whom the place was so subject, prompted them to revolt, and in the space of a mean solar day get King. [footnote in Paine]
PARAGRAPHS 104, 107
Follow-Up Assignment
- Write a how-to essay on persuasive writing using Mutual Sense every bit the focus text and this statement past Thomas Paine equally the core idea: "Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it. Say a assuming matter that will stagger them, and they volition begin to think." –Letter of the alphabet to Elihu Palmer, 21 February 1802.
- Write an essay to summarize and evaluate Common Sense using i of the quotations below as the organizing concept. Apply the metaphor in the quotation equally a rhetorical device throughout the essay. (Paragraph numbers refer to the total text of Mutual Sense with this lesson.)
Quotation Para. Metaphor "The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth." 58 calorie-free, newness, glory "The claret of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries
"'TIS TIME TO Part."73 massacre, suffering "Reconciliation is now a fallacious dream." 79 illusion, vain hope "It is now in the interest of America to provide for herself." 144 adulthood, self-reliance "Independence is the only BOND that tin tie and continue the states together." 163 tying cord, unity for survival - Meet colonists' and newspapers' responses to Common Sense in the primary source collection Making the Revolution (Section: Common Sense?) to examine how Paine turned public stance in 1776. Note the critical pieces past John Adams, Hannah Griffitts, and others. What can be learned about Paine's effectiveness by studying his critics?
Vocabulary Pop-ups
[including 18th-c. connotations]
- posterity : all hereafter generations of mankind
- superseded : replaced something quondam or no longer useful
- precedent : an action or policy that serves as an example or rule for the future
- touchstone : every bit a metaphor, a examination of the quality or genuineness of something. (in the by, the purity of gold or silver was tested with a "toughstone" of basalt stone.)
- relapse : a render to a previous worse status after a period of comeback
- sycophant : someone who acts submissively to another in ability in gild to gain advantage; yeah-homo, flatterer, bootlicker
- precariousness : uncertainty, instability; dependence on chance circumstances or unknown conditions
- deluge : a cataclysmic alluvion
1. Benjamin Franklin, letter to Silas Deane, 27 August 1775. Full text in Founders Online (National Athenaeum).↩
2. Elbridge Gerry, letter to James Warren, 26 March 1776.↩
3. John Adams, autobiography, part 1, "John Adams," through 1776, sheet 23 of 53 [electronic edition]. Adams Family unit Papers: An Electronic Archive. Massachusetts Historical Society. www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.↩
four. Thomas Paine, alphabetic character to Elihu Palmer, 21 February 1802; cited in Henry Hayden Clark, "Thomas Paine'due south Theories of Rhetoric," Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, 28 (1933), 317.↩
5. Robert A. Ferguson, "The Commonalities of Mutual Sense," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d. Series, 57:3 (July 2000), 483.↩
6. Landon Carter, diary entry, twenty Feb 1776, recounting content of letter written that 24-hour interval to George Washington. Full entry in Founders Online (National Archives).↩
seven. Robert A. Ferguson, The American Enlightenment, 1750-1820 (Harvard Academy Printing, 1994; paper ed., 1997), 113.↩
*For a helpful discussion of Paine's response to the "horrid cruelties" of the British in India, see J.M. Opal, "Mutual Sense and Majestic Atrocity: How Thomas Paine Saw South Asia in North America," Common-Place, July 2009.
Images courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Library.
- Portrait of Thomas Paine by John Henry Bufford (1810-1870), engraving by Bufford'southward Lithography, ca. 1850. Tape ID 268504.
- Title folio (cover) of Mutual Sense, 1776. Record ID 2052092.
Source: https://americainclass.org/thomas-paine-common-sense-1776/
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