Thomas Paine Video Related Questions 1. How would you characterize Paine before he came to America? Thomas Paine was a self educated man who was perceived as a trouble maker. He was an activist who strived hard to prove his point. Before he came to America he remained involved in many civic matters. For example, Paine once appeared in the Town Book as a member of the Court Leets, the town’s governing body. He was also a member of the rural community vestry, an influential local church group whose responsibilities for parish business would comprise collecting taxes and tithes to dispense among the poor. Before he came to America, he had this mission in mind to bring revolution for his nation. 2. Who sponsored his passage to America? In London, on the behalf of hundreds of civil workers Thomas Paine was facing a court appeal where he caught the attention of Benjamin Franklin who was there as an agent of several colonists. After meeting Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin recommended him as an ingenious and worthy young man. He was extremely impressed by Thomas’s extraordinary abilities and his power of thinking. He suggested Thomas, emigration to British colonial America, and gave him a letter of recommendation. Benjamin’s sponsorship was indeed a great …show more content…
It was published in 1776, when the American Revolution began, and became an instant sensation. Common Sense made community a persuasive and impassioned case for independence, which before the pamphlet had not yet been given serious intellectual consideration. He connected independence with common rebel Protestant beliefs as a means to present a manifestly American political identity, structuring Common Sense as if it were a sermon. For example in the first passage of the part “Thoughts of the present state of American Affiars” he wrote