Common Sense & The Rights of Man

by Thomas Paine, Tony Benn (Editor)

"These are the times that try men's souls" is the immortal line from Common Sense, the document that inspired The Declaration of Independence. The Rights of Man established the platform for many of today's key political debates. Thus, we have two indispensable classics of the American Revolution, world literature & political history.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Classics, History, Nonfiction, Essays, American

294 pages, paper

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Thomas Paine was an English-American political activist, author, political theorist and revolutionary. As the author of two highly influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, he inspired the Patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era rhetoric of transnational human rights. He has been called "a corset maker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination".

Born in Thetford, England, in the county of Norfolk, Paine emigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 with the help of Benjamin Franklin, arriving just in time to participate in the American Revolution. His principal contributions were the powerful, widely read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), the all-time best-selling American book that advocated colonial America's independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and The American Crisis (1776–83), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series. Common Sense was so influential that John Adams said, "Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain."

Paine lived in France for most of the 1790s, becoming deeply involved in the French Revolution. He wrote the Rights of Man (1791), in part a defence of the French Revolution against its critics. His attacks on British writer Edmund Burke led to a trial and conviction in absentia in 1792 for the crime of seditious libel. In 1792, despite not being able to speak French, he was elected to the French National Convention. The Girondists regarded him as an ally. Consequently, the Montagnards, especially Robespierre, regarded him as an enemy.

In December 1793, he was arrested and imprisoned in Paris, then released in 1794. He became notorious because of his pamphlet The Age of Reason (1793–94), in which he advocated deism, promoted reason and freethinking, and argued against institutionalized religion in general and Christian doctrine in particular. He also wrote the pamphlet Agrarian Justice (1795), discussing the origins of property, and introduced the concept of a guaranteed minimum income. In 1802, he returned to America where he died on June 8, 1809. Only six people attended his funeral as he had been ostracized for his ridicule of Christianity.

Reviews

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

“It is by distortedly exulting some men that others are distortedly debased.”

Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man is to the disposition of freedom and liberty what Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species is to the evolution and natural selection of life. Yes, it is imperfect, but it put forth a coalesced set of principles that, quite literally, changed the world.

“...though man may be kept ignorant, he cannot be made ignorant. The mind, in discovering truth, acts in the same manner as it acts through the eye in discovering objects; when once any object has been seen, it is impossible to put the mind back to the same condition it was in before it saw it.”

Taken in the context of his time, Paine was a radical. He was an advocate of representative republics in an age of kings. Paine championed both the American and the French revolutions and was an outspoken opponent of monarchy, theocracy and slavery.

In my opinion, Thomas Paine is the embodiment of eighteenth century enlightenment. He was, at once, a political theorist, a philosopher, an activist, and a revolutionary. The fact that he is often little more than a footnote in the high school textbooks of American history is a travesty and a shameful embarrassment.

“My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.”

__________________________________

“A pamphlet called ‘Commonsense’ makes a great noise. One of the vilest things that ever was published to the world. Full of false representations, lies, calumny, and treason, whose principles are to subvert all Kingly Governments and erect an Independent Republic.” ~Nicholas Cresswell

One could argue that without Thomas Paine’s Common Sense of January 1776, there would be no American Declaration of Independence of July 1776. True there was discontent and animosity between England and Colonial America, but, prior to Paine’s polemic, the prevailing sentiment was weighted toward reconciliation, not rebellion.

“Have you read the pamphlet Common Sense?’ I never saw such a masterful performance... In short, I own myself convinced, by the arguments, of the necessity of separation.” ~General Charles Lee

Paine himself was originally a British loyalist, but the battles of Lexington and Concord* (April 1775) changed his mind.

“No man was a warmer wisher for reconciliation than myself, before the fatal nineteenth of April 1775, but the moment the event of that day was made known, I rejected the hardened, sullen tempered Pharaoh of England for ever; and disdain the wretch, that with the pretended title of FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE can unfeelingly hear of their slaughter, and composedly sleep with their blood upon his soul.” (pg 48)

Say what you will, Paine was a masterful wordsmith. The simple eloquence and ethical reasoning of Common Sense (which, by the way, he published anonymously) helped transform the collective conscience of the colonies. If ever there was required reading of early American history, this is it.

“Of Common Sense it can be said, without any risk of cliché, that it was a catalyst that altered the course of history.” ~Christopher Hitchens

*NOTE: The Battles of Lexington and Concord were considered a major military victory for King George III and his soldiers. Many colonial minutemen were killed, making it clear that any behavior that was deemed contrary to the King’s interest would not be tolerated.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas Paine takes time out from championing a equal society to stick a middle finger up at Edmund Burke. Frequently.

[James F · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read Howard Fast's Citizen Tom Paine for a challenge a couple months back, I decided for the banned book challenge to read some of Paine's own writings, especially The Rights of Man which was not only banned but nearly got Paine hanged in England. As I said in my review of the novel, Paine is my favorite among the "founding fathers"; he was one of the few leading figures of the Revolution who was from a working class background, and unlike most of them remained a revolutionary throughout his life, supporting the French Revolution and arguing for revolutions in England and throughout Europe. Today, when the radical right tries to rewrite history to present the American "founding fathers" as if they were politically conservative Christian fundamentalists, there is no better antidote than to read Thomas Paine.

Peter Linebaugh Presents Thomas Paine: Common Sense, Rights of Man and Agrarian Justice 314 pages

This book contains three works of Paine with an introduction and notes by Linebaugh; this is part of a series of "So-and-so Presents" which publishes classic works of political theory
with introductions by well-known modern political writers and even political figures (some other books in the series include Hugo Chavez on Simon Bolivar, Jean-
Bertrand Aristide on Toussaint L'Ouverture, Slavoj Žižek on Trotsky, on Mao, and on Robespierre, and Tariq Ali on Castro). I will review the three works separately:

Thomas Paine, Common Sense [1776]

This is probably one of the all-time best sellers, considered in proportion to the population when it was published; it sold more than 100,000 copies in a little over a year. It argued the case for independence of the colonies, taking up the theoretical arguments for allegiance to the crown, and showing that practically speaking once the British had tried to suppress the colonies by military force and the colonists had taken up arms against them, any reconciliation was basically impossible. It had a great effect on public opinion, and is still interesting for understanding the American Revolution.

[In between I read the pamphlet by Richard Price and Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France.]

Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, Part the First: Being a Reply to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution [1791]

This is a reply to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. It considers his arguments one by one and shows that they are either absurd in themselves or at odds with actual history. Unlike Burke, Paine was actually in France and knew many of the leaders of the revolution, particularly of course the Marquis de Lafayette. He presents a much more detailed and believable account of the events in 1789 around the taking of the Bastile and the transportation of the King and Queen to Paris. (I have to admit that I haven't read much history of the French Revolution, so I can't say whether it is completely accurate.) In general, while Burke's book is obviously written in support of the ancien régime and relies mainly on insults, dramatic emotional appeals and a hardly veiled contempt for the people, while presenting the nobility, clergy and royalty as innocent victims possessed of every kind of virtue, Paine's book sides with the people and considers the nobility and clergy basically as oppressors, if not individually at least as a class (he, unlike Burke, tries to distinguish classes from individual personalities, and while considering the monarchy as such as despotic admits that Louis XVI personally was not a despot). In fact, one of the differences between Burke and Paine is that Paine insists on considering the nobility as a definite class and not simply as individuals who happened to own landed property. In every respect, this is a much better book, one that is fun to read and one that should be read by anyone who is interested in the ideas of one of our most consistent "founding fathers".

I do have to admit, however, that Paine at times is very naive in his estimate of the leaders of the National Assembly, and that in hindsight they come off much worse than Paine would allow (Paine himself barely escaped being executed in the period of the terror, for associating with a losing faction and opposing the execution of the King.) While Paine is superior to Burke in considering the class nature of the ancien régime, Burke is far more aware of the class nature of the National Assembly as representatives of the "monied interest" (i.e. the rising bourgeoisie) while Paine considers them representatives of an undivided "people". He eventually became disillusioned with both the French and American governments, while never ceasing to be a revolutionary.

[Next I read Edmund Burke, An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs ]


Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, Part the Second: Combining Principle and Practice [1792]

Despite a few references to the two books by Burke, in the second part Paine essentially leaves behind the polemical nature of the first part for a more positive discussion. He begins with a discussion of the British Constitution, comparing it not only to the French but also to the American Constitution. The only weaknesses in his discussion were the assumption that "representation" by itself would end all the abuses of the old governments, including war, and the assumption that the merchants and manufacturers would be allies in the struggle. The first was understandable at a time when real representative government was new in the United States and France and existed nowhere else; after all it was reasonable to assume that if the representatives were elected by the majority of the population they would represent the common people who were the vast majority -- he could hardly foresee the techniques that modern states use to control opinion and distort elections. (He was mercifully spared knowing about the Democrats and Republicans.) The second was the common assumption of most revolutionaries in the era of the bourgeois revolutions.

The second half of part two is quite different and surprised me. Here he attacks the British Parliament for representing the "landed interest" and describes in detail how this is against the interests of the farmers and workers, showing in particular how taxes were heaviest on the poor. He then makes some startlingly modern proposals -- a progressive tax on landed estates, social security for the elderly, welfare for the children of the poor, veterans' benefits, government subsidies for education, arms limitation treaties . . . all things which were first achieved well into the twentieth century.

Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice, As Opposed to Agrarian Law and Agrarian Monopoly [1796]

A short pamphlet of about twenty pages, which continues the arguments of the previous book and suggests a progressive inheritance tax. The interest here is that he justifies applying the inheritance tax to personal as well as landed property on the grounds that profits result from paying wage workers less than the value of their labor.

[Angela Castille · Rating 5 out of 5]

This copy had a detailed introduction/biography of Paine. I learned some facts that weren't included in my Western Political Theory classes in college. The copy also had a very nifty timeline that encompassed the author's life, as well as the political and literary developments of the era.

The pamphlets themselves are always good to read. I enjoyed the refresher on how Paine's thought processes helped solidify those of the authors of the Declaration of Independence.

[Alex Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paine is to Plato as Rights of Man is to The Republic.

Both justify a particular social order on universal principles. They use the language of philosophy to determine a fairness for a certain material arrangement.

In this sense, universals are just ways to en-coach authority behind some idea that can act as a metric for fairness.

[Marcus Vinicius · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Equality’s Utopia
Thomas Paine’s words illuminated the world in which America was born and gave inspiration to the men and women that came from Europe to this new land. Its described some aspects of the political landscape of the time in England, France and America. The reading (listening) of these works shared light about the French Revolution and its implications. One also had a better understanding of the disputes involving Paine and Edmund Burke. Above all, these books presented Paine’s argument for equality in a world of established social hierarchies.

[ProgressiveBookClub · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Greatest Radical of a Radical Age

Paine turned Americans into radicals, and we’ve remained radicals at heart ever since.

By Harvey J. Kaye

You want to understand American experience? You want to make sense of why you despise injustice, inequality, and oppression? You want to know why you yearn to turn the world upside down? Read Thomas Paine’s revolutionary pamphlet, Common Sense.

In fewer than fifty pages, Paine not only inspired Americans to declare their independence and create a republic, he also emboldened them to turn their colonial rebellion into a world-historic revolutionary war, defined the new nation-to-be in a democratically expansive and progressive fashion, and articulated an American identity charged with exceptional purpose and promise. Moreover, he afforded a vision of the United States that—despite the best efforts of conservatives to have it otherwise—has inspired and encouraged liberals, progressives, and radicals in every generation to mobilize their fellow citizens in favor of extending and deepening freedom, equality, and democracy in the United States. Indeed, Paine’s radical-democratic arguments continue to resonate in American life.

Thomas Paine was the greatest radical of a radical age. Born in England in 1737, he would come to America and help to turn not only the thirteen colonies, but eventually the entire Atlantic world upside down. The story is told of a dinner gathering at which—on hearing his mentor Benjamin Franklin observe “Where liberty is, there is my country”—Paine cried out: “Where liberty is not, there is my country.”

Yet this son of an English artisan and his wife did not become a radical until his arrival in America in late 1774 at the rather mature age of thirty-seven. And even then he had never expected such things to happen. But, of course, he brought volatile stuff with him.

Anything but elite, Paine’s career before coming to America had included corset making, privateering, tax collecting, preaching, teaching, labor campaigning, and shopkeeping. All of which was punctuated by bouts of poverty, the loss of two wives, political defeat, business bankruptcy, and dismissal from government service (not once, but twice!!)—hardly the makings of a man who would help to found a great nation and transform the world.

But Paine brought more than a record of tragedy and loss with him. His mother had instructed him in the Bible. His schoolteachers had educated him in Shakespeare and Milton. His father had taught him how to work with his hands (and told him of England’s seventeenth-century revolution, when the English showed the French how to take off the head of a king!). And his fellow artisans had lectured him on the ideas and arguments of science, natural philosophy, and deism.

Moreover, while Paine had seen and suffered aristocratic power and corruption and religious intolerance and persecution, he had witnessed working-people’s protests and experienced firsthand the solidarity and bravery of fighting sailors.

Nevertheless, it was not Britain, but America, that finally turned Paine into a revolutionary. Struck by America’s magnificent possibilities—not only its resources, but also the determination of its diverse people to resist British authority—he would dedicate himself to the American cause. In fact, he would transform it.

In words such as “The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind,” “The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth,” and “We have it in our power to begin the world over again,” he harnessed Americans’ shared but as-of-yet unstated thoughts and—expressing them in language bold and clear—urged Americans to recognize their historic possibilities and responsibilities and to make a true revolution of their struggles.

Calling forth his critical memories of Britain and intense affections for America, drawing upon both eighteenth-century liberalism and classical republicanism, quoting the Bible, citing History, and raising up the force of Reason itself, he disabused Americans of their persistent affections for King and Empire.

Against those who revered the English Constitution, he insisted, “It is wholly owing to the constitution of the people, and not to the constitution of the government that the crown is not as oppressive in England as in Turkey.” Clearly revealing the monarchy to be a ridiculous institution whose origins were anything but divinely ordained, he wrote: “A French bastard [William the Conqueror:] landing with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original.” Then, appealing to Americans’ egalitarian sentiments, Paine added that “hereditary succession” compounds the evil of monarchy: “For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever.” And he humorously observed, “One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.”

Paine even rejected the proposition that Britain was America’s parent. Embracing America’s diversity, he wrote: “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.” But he did not fail to speak to American economic interests. I particularly love his observation that America “will always have a market while eating is the custom of Europe.”

Paine did not simply harangue his fellow citizens-to-be. He gave them definite ideas about what needed doing. He offered a vision of independence that enabled Americans to see themselves as “Americans”—a people no longer subject to king and noble but—as was their “natural right”—free and equal before God and “the law” and governing themselves through democratically elected representatives. In short, he made them see themselves as citizens, not subjects.

Urging unity, Paine portrayed America not as thirteen separate entities, but as a nation-state: “Now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honour. . . . Our strength is continental, not provincial.” He proposed a charter—a Constitution encompassing a Bill of Rights—both to bind the prospective states into a union and to guarantee that liberty, equality, and democracy would prevail. Most emphatically, he argued for “freedom of conscience” and, to assure it, the separation of Church and State: “As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of all government, to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith.”

And in words that would reverberate through the generations he projected the new American nation serving as a model to the world and a refuge for immigrants: “O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.”

Heartened and animated by Paine’s Common Sense—and his later writings such as The Crisis, Rights of Man, The Age of Reason, and Agrarian Justice—we have pressed for the rights of workingmen; insisted upon the separation of church and state; demanded the abolition of slavery; campaigned for the equality of women; confronted the power of property and wealth; opposed the tyrannies of Fascism and Communism; and challenged our own government’s authorities and policies, domestic and foreign. We have suffered defeats, committed mistakes, and endured tragedy and irony. But we have achieved great victories and far more often than not, as Paine himself fully expected, we have in the process transformed the nation and the world for the better.

Through Common Sense, Paine turned Americans into radicals and we have remained radicals at heart ever since. Still inspired and encouraged by his words and vision we too can renew the spirit of the American Revolution and extend and deepen freedom, equality, and democracy.

To learn more, visit The Progressive Book Club: http://www.progressivebookclub.com/bl...

[Adam Gutschenritter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts of this are very quotable and his arguments are convincing, if often sarcastic. Still, the style of this makes it difficult due to it being different then 2018 language.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the most gripping read, as it’s exhaustively argued. But it’s inspiring and convincing and a little naive and an important historical document at this fraught moment in American history

[Paul Parsons · Rating 4 out of 5]

At a time in which our freedoms are threatened from within by an overreaching Federal government, it is helpful to read the thoughts of those who lived during the times of our founding. Thomas Paines' political essays written in the late 1700s decried the English form of hereditary rule vs. the newer form of representative government recently established in America. The concerns, however, are the same today; that of overtaxation and intrusion into our personal lives of a governing body out of touch with its people and functioning largely for its own benefit.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer."

[John]

The most progressive of the "founding fathers". Although he is a bit fond of strange extrapolations from mathematical data to prove social points (a weakness of the Enlightenment generally) the volume is an entertaining and educational read. The volume also includes Paine's short work, Agrarian Justice, with a plea for comprehensive social provisions for the old, the young, the disabled, and the unpropertied based on an interesting version of an estate tax.

[GB Noriega · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought that what was pertinent in 1780s is pertinent now. The subjects Paine touched upon are still very real, but the faith he put on representational government and constitutions seemed a bit supernatural. Centuries later we are still grappling with unjust taxation and global conflicts.

[Cyndie Dyer]

I can't give this book a rating. I admit to some skimming and some boredom. But I am very glad I read it. Mr. Paine shares some of my opinions: trickle-down econmomics doesn't work, we need to take care of our poor, our seniors and our veterans, and religion has no place in government.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

The old arguments are still relevant.

[Annette Renaud · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thomas Paine's Common Sense opened my eyes to a better understanding of human kind and my own pentient to live free. A definite read for everyone.

[José · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the end this is really a petty argument between two men, and mostly about each other, but in the midst of all this, are some incredible notions.

[James Violand · Rating 4 out of 5]

The great propagandist of two revolutions, Paine told it like it is. An excellent rendition of the rights of the common man against oppression. Well worth and annual reading.

[Shaimaa Suleiman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't handle the irony.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classics. Should be taught in every school.

[Sally Horn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am just overwhelmed by his intellect. Much of his writings are above my pay level but then comes the most astute and glorious thoughts on a subject. He is brilliant.

[Joe]

Read excerpts in college and now idolize Thomas Paine