Common Sense challenged the power of the British government and the royal monarchy. The words that Thomas Paine used made the common people of America and was the first work to openly ask for independence from Great Britain. On this day in 1776, Thomas Paine published his pamphlet, stating his arguments for approval of American independence. Although it’s only used a little today, pamphlets were an important way to spread ideas in the 16th through 19th centuries. Recommended independence for the American colonies from Britain and is considered one of the most influential pamphlets in American history. Made with uniting average citizens and political leaders behind the idea of independence played an important role in transforming a colonial disagreement …show more content…
Thomas Paine basically changed the meaning of colonists’ argument with the crown when he wrote this: “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. Hither they have fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.”Paine was born in England in 1737 and worked as a corset maker in his teens and later, as a sailor and schoolteacher before becoming a prominent pamphleteer. In 1774, Paine arrived in Philadelphia and soon came to support American independence. Two years later, his 47-page pamphlet sold some 500,000 copies, powerfully influencing American opinion. Paine went on to serve in the U.S. Army and to work for the Committee of Foreign Affairs before returning to Europe in 1787. Back in England, he continued writing pamphlets in support of revolution. He released “The Rights of Man,” supporting the French Revolution in 1791-92, in answer to Edmund Burke’s famous “Reflections on the Revolution in France”