Why Is Thomas Paine Justified In Declaring Independence

Thomas Paine published his pamphlet Common Sense on January 10, 1776 in which he put forth many effective and assuring reasons as to why the colonies should fight for complete independence from the king’s rule and no longer conform to a significantly smaller island thousands of miles across the sea. Around the time when this argumentative piece was published, tensions with Britain were at their peak and colonies were extremely agitated with the number of taxes and trade restrictions imposed on them. Additionally, British soldiers had been great nuisances to American people as they occupied our towns and ultimately prohibiting the colonies from ever progressing. As Britain kept tightening its grip on the colonies, Thomas Paine, one of the many

Colonial frustration had been present in the “New World” for quite some time and can even be traced back to the French and Indian War in 1763. The British demonstrated their power and began to tax the colonies in order to pay off the costs of the war. This eventually led to the Townshend acts in 1767 in which Parliament placed new taxes on the colonies and while the Townshend acts were repealed, Britain kept piling new acts on the colonies such as the Tea act. Come 1770, colonists were extremely frustrated began to demonstrate the first acts of rebellion against Britain, the Boston Tea Party. Boston colonists, in 1773, boarded a ship owned by the British East India Company dumping over 92,000 pounds of tea into the Harbor. This event signified the colonists finally decided it was time to fight back against the

Paine states that the perfect time to separate from Britain is now, for America possesses “the largest body of armed and disciplined men”, the capability to raise a navy with the ability to of rival the British, and no national debt (Paine, 17). For many years, Britain was deemed as an extremely powerful force. However, Paine is presenting to the American people that they are powerful too and actually have the abilities to take on the British. Also, due to fact that the British navy was seen as undefeatable, the idea that they could be defeated by the same people they took over was very significant to the colonists. Additionally, Paine states that the colonies should break away from Britain now because Britain would no longer be able to inhabit any more land from the continent therefore, the colonies could unite and decide what to do with the westward land themselves. Paine also states that if the colonies remained under Britain’s rule, the population would only increase and were we more populated, “we might be less united” (Paine, 21). If such an event happens people will become less cooperative and not as willing to work together towards a goal of independence. Thomas Paine simply reassures the colonists that they do have the capabilities to break free from the world’s largest