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Thomas Paine - Common Sense - Coggle Diagram
Thomas Paine - Common Sense
Biography
Thomas Paine - 1737-1809
A major political theorist of the American Revolution
Paine was born in England as the son of a corset maker
From 1757-74 he took up many different employments
He followed Benjamin Franklin’s advice to emigrate when they met in London. Paine left for Philadelphia at the age of 37
Next to Common Sense (1776), Paine is also known for Rights of Man (1791) in which he defends the French Revolution
Genre
it's a pamphlet (Flugblatt)
next to newspapers pamphlets were the most important media to propagate the ideas of the American Revolution
a good way to spread information
General facts
it had a great impact on his contemporaries right after its publication
It was a bestseller and accelerated the spread of the revolutionary fervor
The title Common Sense already contains an enlightenment idea. The term recurs to
Locke’s faculty of reason (Vernunft) that every human being is endowed with.
In the introduction, Paine complains about Britain’s “violent abuse of power”, also later expressed in the Declaration of Independence. According to him, it is the King who has violated the social contract.
The basis for his argument are the “natural rights of all mankind” which everyone shares just by being born - they cannot be taken away by anyone, not by the government
--> The idea of natural rights will shortly afterward find entry into the Declaration of Independence (July 1776) with the phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Paine formulates the idea that America ought to be an asylum for the persecuted for the
first time. The inscription on the Statue of Liberty at the beginning of the 20th century welcoming “the humble masses yearning to breathe free,”—taken from a poem by Emma Lazarus—attests to the fact that this concept had become part of American ideology.
While the Puritans had claimed freedom to exercise their religion for themselves only, this freedom is now extended also to all kinds of other persuasions.
--> These ideas proved influential for the French Revolution of 1789.
Family Metaphor
“But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families”
The family metaphor, Britain as the mother and the colonies as her children, is used throughout Common Sense. The metaphor suggests that Britain ought to treat her offspring with love, protection, solidarity, benevolence, etc.
According to Paine, Britain has violated her role as a mother. In a reversal of the “natural” order, Britain behaves unnaturally while Indians and animals act naturally protecting their young.
“Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America ... Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster”
America offers to be a refuge from the violations of the mother country
Quotes
“The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind” is
an instance of Paine’s heroic style and
a secularized version of Winthrop’s idea of America’s exceptionalism, the idea that America ought to become a utopian society, a “city upon a hill.”
“The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. ‘Tis not the affair of a city, a county, a province, or a kingdom; but of a continent”. Time and again, Paine stresses the international significance of American affairs.
“Our plan is commerce, and that, well attended to, will secure us the peace and friendship of all Europe; because it is in the interest of all Europe to have America a free port. Her trade will always be a protection, and her barrenness of gold and silver secure her from invaders”
--> According to him it is of economical necessity and advantage to remain part of Britain , because economic independence will not only lead to economic prosperity but also to peace
“Everything that is right or reasonable pleads for separation”
“A government of our own is our natural right ... It is infinitely safer to form
a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner”
--> This conclusion is arrived at not by passion but by reason. The spirit of independence
is not prompted by an arbitrary mood that might change again but is evident.