Thomas Paine
It is difficult to think of the founding of the United States without calling to mind Thomas Paine. Paine's "Common Sense" and "Age of Reason" have become not only part of American history, but part of classic American literature.
In "Common Sense," Paine wrote, "The new republican materials, in the persons of the commons, on whose virtue depends the freedom of England" (Paine pg). Paine is perhaps the least revered and celebrated of all the founding fathers, but, perhaps, one of the most patriotic and influential.
Thomas Paine was born January 29, 1737 in Thetford, Norfolk, England. His mother was Anglican, his father was Quaker. The family was poor, and Paine had only a brief education before going to work for his father, and went to sea at age nineteen. Later, he had various jobs, and eventually became an excise officer, collecting taxes from smugglers (Encarta pg). In 1772, he was dismissed for "publishing a document calling for an increase in wages as a means of reducing corruption in government service" (Encarta pg). While in London in 1774, Paine met Benjamin Franklin, a representative of the American colonies. Franklin advised Paine to go to America (Encarta pg).
With letters of introduction from Franklin, Paine landed in Philadelphia in 1774. He soon became an editor for the Pennsylvania Magazine. He also published writings, including poetry, anonymously. One such article was "African Slavery in America," condemning the practice of slavery (Encarta pg). Paine's most famous work, his fifty page pamphlet called "Common Sense," was published January 10, 1776.
Paine criticized the monarchy as an institution, claiming Great Britain was exploiting the American colonies, and that 'common sense' prescribed the colonies should become independent...
Throughout the duration of the war, Paine was responsible for publishing a series of propaganda pieces which were published in the Crisis. In these, he often addressed the British Crown and warned of the Americans' united spirit: "In all the wars which you have formerly been concerned in you had only armies to contend with; in this case, you have both an army and a country to combat with,"
Paine's decision to write of high philosophical and political issues in common speech, and of used "graphic metaphors and his simple sentence structure [to] reflect a language understood at the time by common Americans," (Moss & Wilson, ed) has much the same purpose as a translation of the Bible from Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic into Latin, which is to say the need to initiate common people into profound truths. Paine
In the second chapter of Common Sense, Paine wrote: "Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness Positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices." Also, Paine's philosophy was also unusually critical, compared with the singers of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, in its uncompromising embrace of a non-theologically-based state order, a state based upon
The Sons of Liberty, a clandestine network of individuals dedicated to the freedom of enterprise and the fairness of government that the British Crown once stood as the protector of, have caused enough damage with their secretive acts to both the Crown and the forces here that oppose it. Would it not be better to move their actions from the shadows they have been forced into do to the label
Paine v. Chalmers Maintaining historical perspective is a difficult task nearly two-hundred and fifty years after the event but a reading of Thomas Paine's Common Sense (Paine, 1997) and the contradictory pamphlet, Plaint Truth (Chalmers, 2010), prepared by British loyalist, James Chalmers, offers readers an excellent glance at the situation in colonial America in the beginning days of the Revolution. As evidenced by the rhetoric in both volumes, lines were being
Thomas Jefferson Personal Profile contirbutions to the founding of the nation Religious Freedom Declaration of Independence OPINION OF SLAVERY AND RACE RELTIONS Thomas Jefferson has undoubtedly made significant contributions to the founding of the United States. Regarded as one of America's most predominant political figures, Jefferson has been lauded for several milestones during his career. Jefferson is perhaps most well-known as the author of the Declaration of Independence and as the staunchest supporter of the
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