Thomas Paine’s Common Sense | A250 Mini Documentary
In early 1776, as the Revolutionary War intensified across North America, the American cause stood at a crossroads. Fighting had erupted at Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill, British warships patrolled colonial waters, and a massive invasion force was preparing to crush the rebellion. Yet many colonists still hesitated to break with Britain until Thomas Paine’s Common Sense delivered a bold, uncompromising case for independence and republican self-government.
The pamphlet became an instant bestseller, spreading through taverns, homes, and the Continental Army and helping turn public opinion toward independence. Its powerful case for natural rights and a government of citizens influenced Congress and helped pave the way for the Declaration of Independence in July 1776.
0:05 In early
0:06 1776, war raged across North America.
0:10 Patriots had fought and died at the battles in Lexington and Concord,
0:15 and then at Bunker Hill.
0:18 Battles were fought in Virginia
0:20 and the port of Norfolk lay in ashes.
0:24 British warships prowled American waters,
0:27 and a massive fleet carrying 32,000 redcoats and Hessian mercenaries
0:32 were being prepared to stamp out the rebellion in the American colonies.
0:38 General George Washington and his Continental Army
0:41 squared off against the British in Boston.
0:44 Yet the colonists were not ready to make a final rupture
0:48 with the British and form their own
0:51 separate country.
0:54 All that was about to change in January 1776.
0:58 A recent immigrant from England had arrived in Philadelphia
1:01 about a year before.
1:03 He had failed in various jobs
1:05 and was trying his hand as a journalist and propagandist.
1:10 He wrote an essay attacking the inconsistency of slavery
1:14 and freedom in America.
1:16 Revolutionary physician Benjamin Rush read the essay and met its author.
1:21 Rush suggested that the writer Thomas Paine
1:25 composed an essay supporting the controversial idea of independence.
1:31 He agreed and started writing.
1:35 Paine wrote in a plain and
1:37 clear style that appeal to a mass audience.
1:41 But the 46 page pamphlet he wrote was provocative and forceful in its language.
1:47 Paine planned to titled the pamphlet Plain Truth,
1:50 but rush suggested he change it to common sense.
1:54 Paine pulled no punches when he ridiculed
1:57 hereditary monarchy and aristocracy.
2:00 He called them the two ancient tyrannies
2:03 because they created an unequal and oppressive society.
2:08 They created artificial distinctions between kings and subjects
2:12 and exalted a few people above the rest.
2:17 Cain specifically attacked King George the Third as a royal brute
2:21 and believed Americans should separate from Britain.
2:25 Reconciliation was just a fallacious dream.
2:28 By 1776, the King and Parliament ignored all their petitions
2:34 and pleas to end the oppressive rule, and British
2:37 troops were killing Americans.
2:42 Paine thought that the colonists
2:43 should declare independence and adopt republican self-government.
2:48 He envisioned a representative national congress elected by the people.
2:53 The government would be established along enlightenment
2:56 natural law principles to protect the natural rights of the people,
3:01 including a life, liberty, property, and religious liberty.
3:06 As he wrote, he wanted to begin the world anew
3:10 with the free government of citizens,
3:13 not subjects of a king.
3:16 Common sense was an immediate bestseller.
3:19 25 editions were quickly published,
3:22 and it sold 150,000 copies
3:26 in a population of only 2.5 million people.
3:30 Copies were shared, and it was read aloud in taverns and in the army.
3:35 As the idea of independence spread like wildfire.
3:39 One Connecticut man captured its effect perfectly.
3:43 You have declared the sentiments of millions, he wrote.
3:46 We were blind.
3:48 But on reading these enlightening words,
3:51 the scales have fall from our eyes.
3:54 George Washington praised it for its sound, reasoning,
3:57 and thought it would influence Congress to consider the question of separation.
4:03 Washington was correct.
4:06 Common sense pushed the movement for independence
4:08 from rapidly forward in the Second Continental Congress.
4:12 Over the spring, congressional delegates were significantly divided
4:17 over the question and debated it fiercely.
4:21 By July 2nd, Congress adopted Richard Henry Lee’s resolution
4:25 that the colonies were free and independent states,
4:30 and that all a little connection between them and Great Britain is
4:35 and ought to be totally dissolved.
4:39 On July 4th, 1776, Congress
4:42 adopted the Declaration of Independence that asserted,
4:46 we hold these truths to be self-evident,
4:49 that all men are created equal, that they are endowed
4:54 by their creator with certain inalienable rights.
