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Thomas Paine Impact On Common Sense

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Thomas Paine’s Common Sense is a pamphlet that was published January 10, 1776. The words in this pamphlet were to be used by means of supporting the independence of individuals in the thirteen colonies from Great Britain. Thomas Paine’s goal was for the general population to have the capacity to choose. Paine wanted them to elect every aspect of their government. He did not believe they should only have a say in certain parts of it. In today’s time, the government is not as Paine would have wanted it to be. He believed that people would be much happier if they created the laws that ruled them. Now, bills are created and passed by Congress. After that process, the President signs those bills into law. I will reveal how things have changed over …show more content…

By the time the American Revolutionary War began in 1775, there were thirteen settlements, or colonies (Bigelow, McConnell, Schmittroth, 1). For more than 140 years, the colonies and Great Britain, the "mother country," shared strong bonds of friendship and business, based on a common language and customs and a profitable trade relationship (Bigelow, McConnell, Schmittroth, 1). The colonies sent farm products and raw materials to Great Britain and in return got British-manufactured goods (Bigelow, McConnell, Schmittroth, 1). With that being said, it wasn’t always bad for the thirteen colonies and Britain. Along the course of time, however, some things transpired to alter the once good …show more content…

This was a war where the fight was with the New World and France. The British King tried to imposes taxes on the thirteen colonies to help pay for the cost. Thomas Paine talked about these types of “burdensome taxations” in Common Sense as well as in his other writing titled Rights of Man. He talked about these issues because he knew the colonists were angry. Writing about the injustice would appeal to them (Hacht, 178). There is no doubt that America is not exactly how it was in the late 1700s. How the government is now is similar and different from how it was then with the thirteen colonies under British rule. Thomas Paine once stated, "Government even in the best state is but a necessary evil," which is saying sometimes what we create can be the thing that holds us hostage or cause us suffering (Paine). What he said then can is seen in what the thirteen colonies were going through with the King and his taxes on them, and what we are going through now in

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