Which Phrase From the Excerpt Best Uses Persuasion? About the Art
Counselor: Robert A. Ferguson, George Edward Woodberry Professor in Law, Literature and Criticism, Columbia Academy, National Humanities Centre Beau.
Copyright National Humanities Center, 2014
How did Thomas Paine'southward pamphlet Common Sense convince reluctant Americans to abandon the goal of reconciliation with Britain and accept that separation from United kingdom — independence — was the but option for preserving their liberty?
Understanding
Past Jan 1776, the American colonies were in open up rebellion confronting Britain. Their soldiers had captured Fort Ticonderoga, besieged Boston, fortified New York Urban center, and invaded Canada. Even so few dared voice what most knew was true — they were no longer fighting for their rights as British subjects. They weren't fighting for self-defense, or protection of their property, or to forcefulness Britain to the negotiating tabular array. They were fighting for independence. It took a hard jolt to motility Americans from professed loyalty to declared rebellion, and it came in large part from Thomas Paine'south Mutual Sense. Not a dumbed-downward rant for the masses, as often described, Common Sense is a masterful slice of argument and rhetoric that proved the power of words.
Text
Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776 
[Observe more than primary sources related to Mutual Sense in Making the Revolution from the National Humanities Center.]
Text Type
Literary nonfiction; persuasive essay. In the Text Analysis section, Tier ii vocabulary words are defined in pop-ups, and Tier 3 words are explained in brackets.
Text Complexity
Grades 9-10 complexity ring.
For more information on text complexity see these resource from achievethecore.org.
Click here for standards and skills for this lesson.
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Common Core State Standards
- ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.6 (Make up one's mind an author's point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to accelerate that point of view or purpose.)
Avant-garde Placement Usa History
- three.2 (IB) (Republican forms of authorities found expression in Thomas Paine's Mutual Sense.)
Avant-garde Placement English Language and Limerick
- Reading nonfiction
- Analyzing and identifying and author'south use of rhetorical strategies
Teacher'southward Note
This lesson focuses on the sections central to Paine's statement in Common Sense — Department III and the Appendix to the Third Edition, published a month subsequently the commencement edition. Nosotros do not recommend assigning the full essay (Sections I, 2, and IV require avant-garde background in British history that Paine's readers would have known well). However, students should exist led through an overview of the essay to sympathize how Paine built his arguments to a "cocky-evident" decision (See Groundwork: Message, beneath.)
Atomic number 82 students through an initial overview of the essay (see Background). To brainstorm, they could skim the full text and read the pull-quotes (separated quotes in large assuming text). What impression of Mutual Sense do the quotes provide? What questions do they prompt? And so guide students equally they read (perhaps aloud) Section 3 of Common Sense and the Appendix to the Third Edition (pp. 10-19 and 25-29 in the full text provided with this lesson).
Continue to the shut reading of three excerpts in the Text Analysis below. (Note that part of Excerpt #iii is a Mutual Cadre exemplar text.)
This lesson is divided into two parts, both accessible below. The teacher's guide includes a groundwork note, the text analysis with responses to the close reading questions, admission to the interactive exercises, and a follow-up assignment. The pupil'due south version, an interactive worksheet that can be e-mailed, contains all of the above except the responses to the shut reading questions.
Instructor'southward Guide (continues below)
| Student Version (click to open)
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Teacher's Guide
Background
The man at right does not look angry. To us, he projects the typical figure of a "Founding Father" — equanimous, elite, and empowered. And to us his famous essays are awash in powdered-wig prose. But the portrait and the prose belie the reality. Thomas Paine was a firebrand, and his almost influential essay — Common Sense — was a fevered no-holds-barred call for independence. He is credited with turning the tide of public opinion at a crucial juncture, convincing many Americans that war for independence was the only option to take, and they had to have it now, or else.
Common Sense appeared as a pamphlet for sale in Philadelphia on January 10, 1776, and, every bit we say today, information technology went viral. The get-go printing sold out in 2 weeks and over 150,000 copies were sold throughout America and Europe. It is estimated that i fifth of Americans read the pamphlet or heard it read aloud in public. General Washington ordered it read to his troops. Within weeks, it seemed, reconciliation with Britain had gone from an honorable goal to a cowardly betrayal, while independence became the rallying cry of united Patriots. How did Paine reach this?
1. Timing.
Over a year elapsed between the outbreak of armed disharmonize and the Declaration of Independence. During these fifteen months, many bemoaned the reluctance of Americans to renounce their ties with Great britain despite the escalating warfare around them. "When we are no longer fascinated with the Idea of a speedy Reconciliation," wrote Benjamin Franklin in mid-1775, "we shall exert ourselves to some purpose. Till then Things will be done by Halves."1 In improver, at that place remained much discord among the colonies almost their shared future. "Some timid minds are terrified at the give-and-take independence," wrote Elbridge Gerry in March 1776, referring to the colonial legislatures. "America has gone such lengths she cannot recede, and I am convinced a few weeks or months at furthest will convince her of the fact, only the fruit must take time to ripen in some of the other Colonies."2 In this environment, Common Sense appeared like a "shooting star," wrote John Adams,3 and propelled many to support independence. Many noted it at the time with amazement.
"Sometime by the thought [of independence] would have struck me with horror. I at present see no culling;… Can whatsoever virtuous and brave American hesitate ane moment in the pick?"
The Pennsylvania Evening Post, thirteen Feb 1776
"We were blind, but on reading these enlightening works the scales accept fallen from our eyes…. The doctrine of Independence hath been in times past greatly disgustful; we abhorred the principle. It is now become our delightful theme and commands our purest affections. We revere the author and highly prize and adore his works."
The New-London [Connecticut] Gazette, 22 March 1776
2. Message.
What made Common Sense so esteemed and "enlightening"? Some fence that Common Sense said nil new, that it simply put the call-to-war in fiery street linguistic communication that rallied the mutual people. But this trivializes Paine's accomplishment. He did accept a new message in Mutual Sense — an ultimatum. Give up reconciliation now, or forever lose the chance for independence. If we neglect to deed, nosotros're self-deceiving cowards condemning our children to tyranny and cheating the earth of a beacon of liberty. Information technology is our calling to model self-actualized nationhood for the globe. "The cause of America is in a nifty measure the cause of all mankind."
Paine divided Mutual Sense into four sections with deceptively mundane titles, mimicking the erudite political pamphlets of the 24-hour interval. But his essay did not offer the aforementioned-onetime-same-old treatise on British heritage and American rights. Here's what he says in Mutual Sense:
Introduction: The ideas I present here are and then new that many people will pass up them. Readers must clear their minds of long-held notions, apply mutual sense, and prefer the crusade of America equally the "cause of all mankind." How nosotros respond to tyranny today volition matter for all time.
Section One: The English government y'all worship? It'southward a sham. Man may need government to protect him from his flawed nature, but that doesn't mean he must suffocate under brute tyranny. Just as you would cut ties with abusive parents, you must break from Britain.
Section Two: The monarchy you revere? Information technology's not our protector; it'due south our enemy. It doesn't intendance near us; it cares well-nigh Britain'due south wealth. It has brought misery to people all over the world. And the very idea of monarchy is absurd. Why should someone rule over u.s.a. just considering he (or she) is someone's child? So evil is monarchy by its very nature that God condemns it in the Bible.
Department Three: Our crunch today? It's folly to recall we should maintain loyalty to a afar tyrant. It'south self-sabotage to pursue reconciliation. For us, right hither, right now, reconciliation means ruin. America must separate from Britain. We can't become back to the cozy days before the Stamp Act. You lot know that'southward true; information technology'south time to admit it. For heaven's sake, nosotros're already at war!
Section Iv: Can we win this war? Absolutely! Ignore the naysayers who tremble at the thought of British might. Permit's build a Continental Navy equally we take built our Continental Army. Allow us declare independence. If nosotros delay, information technology will be that much harder to win. I know the prospect is daunting, but the prospect of inaction is terrifying.
A month after, in his appendix to the third edition, Paine escalated his appeal to a utopian fervor. "We have it in our power to begin the world over again," he insisted. "The birthday of a new world is at hand."
three. Rhetoric.
"Information technology is necessary to exist bold," wrote Paine years afterwards on his rhetorical ability. "Some people tin can exist reasoned into sense, and others must exist shocked into information technology. Say a bold thing that will stagger them, and they will brainstorm to think."4 Continue this idea front and center as you study Common Sense.
As an experienced essayist and a contempo English immigrant with his ain deep resentments against Britain, Paine was the right human being at the right fourth dimension to galvanize public opinion. He "understood better than anyone else in America," explains literary scholar Robert Ferguson, "that 'style and style of thinking' might dictate the difficult shift from loyalty to rebellion."5 Earlier Paine, the language of political essays had been moderate. Educated men wrote civilly for publication and kept their fury for individual letters and diaries. Then came Paine, cursing Britain as an "open enemy," denouncing George Three as the "Purple Brute of England," and damning reconciliation equally "truly farcical" and "a fallacious dream." To think otherwise, he charged, was "absurd," "unmanly," and "repugnant to reason." As Virginian Landon Carter wrote in dismay, Paine implied that anyone who disagreed with him "is nothing short of a coward and a sycophant [stooge/lackey], which in plain significant must be a damned rascal."6 Paine knew what he was doing: the pen was his weapon, and words his ammunition. He argued with ideas while disarming with raw emotion. "The point to call back," writes Ferguson, "is that Paine's natural and intended audience is the American mob…. He uses anger, the natural emotion of the mob, to permit the most active groups discover themselves in the general will of a republican denizens."7 What if Paine had written the Annunciation of Independence with the same hard-driving rhetoric?
Every bit JEFFERSON WROTE IT: Nosotros hold these truths to exist self-axiomatic, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with sure unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their but powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Course of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to plant new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem virtually likely to upshot their Safety and Happiness.
IF PAINE HAD WRITTEN IT: NO man tin deny, without abandoning his God-given ability to reason, that all men enter into being as equals. No affair how lowly or majestic their origins, they enter life with three God-given RIGHTS — the right to alive, to correct to live free, and the right to live happily (or, at the least, to pursue Happiness on earth). Who would choose existence on whatever other terms? So treasured are these rights that man created government to protect them. So treasured are they that human being is duty-bound to destroy any authorities that crushes them — and commencement anew as men worthy of the title of FREE MEN. This is the plain truth, impossible to refute.
Text Assay
Excerpt #1
Close Reading Questions
Imagine yourself sitting downwardly to read Common Sense in January 1776. How does Paine introduce his reasoning to you?
He announces that his logic will be direct and down to world, using just "unproblematic facts" and "plain arguments" to explain his position, unlike (he implies) the complex political pamphlets addressed to the educated aristocracy. His audition would empathize "common sense" to advise the moral sense of the yeoman farmer, whose independence and clear-headedness made him a more reliable guardian of national virtue (similar to Jefferson's agrarian platonic).
Why does he write "I offering naught more" instead of "I offer you many reasons" or "I offer a detailed argument"?
"Nothing more" implies that Common Sense will exist easy to follow, presenting only what is necessary to make his statement. (Paine considered titling his essay Evidently Truth.)
How does Paine ask you to set yourself for his "common sense" arguments?
Exist willing to put aside pre-conceived notions, he says, and judge his arguments on their ain merits.
What does he imply by saying a fair reader "volition put on, or rather than he will non put off, the truthful character of a man"?
He implies that any reader who would pass up to consider his arguments is narrow-minded. With the "on"–"off" contrast, he suggests that you, the individual reader, are open up-minded and thus a fellow man of honour willing to consider a new point of view.
In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense: and accept no other preliminaries to settle with the reader than that he will divest [rid] himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer [permit] his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves: that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views across the nowadays day.
PARAGRAPH 55
This paragraph begins with one of the most famous hyperboles in American writing. A hyperbole is an overstatement or exaggeration to emphasize a point. What are the ii examples of hyperbole in this paragraph?
ane. "the sun never shined on a cause of greater worth"
2. "posterity… volition be more than or less affected, fifty-fifty to the end of time"
With the hyperboles, how does Paine lead you to view the "cause" of American independence?
View information technology, he says, from an overarching global perspective, not the narrow perspective of American colonists in the tardily 1700s. The hyperboles are ultimates — the most worthy of worthy causes, affecting the future now and forever. The American cause can lead mankind toward enlightened self-conclusion, driving frontward the progress of civilization. Paine says this directly in his introduction: "The cause of America is in a great measure the crusade of all mankind." We're not just talking taxes and representation, people.
What tone does Paine add with the phrases "The sun never shined" and "even to the end of fourth dimension"?
A biblical and prophetic tone. The lord's day shining down on human endeavors suggests divine endorsement of the American cause — a cause that will bring light and liberty ("conservancy") to the world. Resisting the cause, Paine implies, would be resisting divine will.
Let'due south consider Paine every bit a wordsmith. How does he employ repetition to add impact to the first part of the paragraph?
He includes two repetitive sets:
1. "'Tis non" to begin sentences 2 and 3 [anaphora]
2. the phrases "of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom" and "of a day, a twelvemonth, or an age" [prepositions with multiple objects].
Read the department aloud to hear the insistent rhythm that elevates Paine'south prose to a rousing call to action (his goal in writing Common Sense).
Paine ends this paragraph with an analogy: What we do now is like carving initials into the bark of a young oak tree. What does he mean with the analogy?
A. This is the time to create a new nation. Our smallest efforts now will lead to enormous benefits in the hereafter.
B. This is the time to unite for independence. Discord amidst usa now volition escalate into time to come crises that could ruin the young nation.
Reply: B.
The dominicus never shined on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the affair of a city, a land, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent – of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe. 'Tis not the business organization of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are well-nigh involved in the contest and will be more or less afflicted, even to the end of fourth dimension, by the proceedings at present. At present is the seed time of continental [colonies'] union, faith and honor. The least fracture at present will exist like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters.
PARAGRAPH 58
Paine includes multiple repetitions in this paragraph. What discussion repetition do you find?
The adjective "new" in a "new area" and a "new method." [anaphora]
What audio repetitions practice you lot detect?
Alliteration: argument/arms/area/arisen
plans/proposals/prior/April
Consonance: politics/struck
method/thinking/hathursday
1000atter/argugent/arms
Read the sentences aloud. What bear on does the repetition add together to Paine'south delivery?
A stirring oratorical rhythm is achieved, similar that of a solemn spoken language or sermon meant to convey the truth and gravity of an argument.
Paine compares the attempts to reconcile with Britain after the Battle of Lexington and Concord to an sometime annual. What does he mean?
He means the idea of reconciliation is now preposterous and that no rational person could back up it. No one would utilise last yr'south almanac to make plans for the current yr! Also, as an almanac ceases to exist useful at a specific moment (midnight of Dec 31), Paine implies that reconciliation ceased to exist a valid goal at the moment of the first shot on April xix, 1775. (Paine often alludes to aspects of colonial life, like almanacs, that would resonate with all readers. They include references to farming, tree cutting, hunting, land ownership, slavery, biblical scripture, family unit and neighbor bonds, maturation, and the parent-child relationship; meet "The Metaphor of Youth" below.)
Past referring the matter from statement to arms, a new area for politics is struck; a new method of thinking hath arisen. All plans, proposals, etc., prior to the nineteenth of April, i.eastward., to the commencement of hostilities [Lexington and Concord], are like the almanacs of the last year which, though proper [accurate] and then, are superseded and useless now. Whatever was avant-garde by the advocates on either side of the question and then, terminated in one and the aforementioned bespeak, viz. [that is], a wedlock with Britain. The simply difference between the parties was the method of effecting it — the ane proposing forcefulness, the other friendship; simply it hath so far happened that the starting time hath failed and the second hath withdrawn her influence.
PARAGRAPH 59
Paine compares the goal of reconciliation to an "agreeable dream [that has] passed away and left us as nosotros were." Why doesn't he aim harsher criticism here at the goal of reconciling with Britain?
With this paragraph, Paine begins his argument against reconciliation and does not want to insult or alienate his readers at the commencement. Everyone tin can hope, he implies: there's nothing wrong with that, but nosotros have to move on if a promise proves fruitless.
With this in mind, what tone does he lead the reader to expect: cynical, impatient, hopeful, reasonable, impassioned, aroused?
Reasonable. The two sentences resemble the opening of a legal argument that promises a balanced appraisal of ii options on the footing of known bear witness ("principles of nature") and honest ordinary reasoning ("common sense").
How does his tone prepare the resistant reader?
Paine ways to deflect challenges of bias or extremism by inviting readers to give him a hearing. "If I'chiliad being off-white in my writing, you can try to be off-white in your listening."
While Paine promises a fair appraisal, look how he describes the 2 options in the concluding sentence.
Option 1: "if separated" from United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland
Option 2: "if dependent on Britain"
Why didn't he apply the usual terms for the ii options — "independence" and "reconciliation"?
Showtime, INDEPENDENCE and RECONCILIATION audio like as plausible options, but Paine wants to convince you that independence is the only acceptable option. If and then, then why did he choose SEPARATION instead of INDEPENDENCE? By January 1776, INDEPENDENCE carried the drastic connotations of war and treason. It was an irrevocable decision with unknown consequences. In contrast, SEPARATION seems less drastic, and even positive. In human development, separation from one's parents is the natural and long-sought footstep to full machismo. That's the self-image Paine wants to foster in his readers. Are nosotros adults or children? [See the activity below, "The Metaphor of Youth".]
In this vein, Paine chose DEPENDENCE instead of RECONCILIATION for Choice 2 (staying with United kingdom). RECONCILIATION suggests the calm and rational agreement of two grownups, simply Paine wants you to view reconciliation as the defeatist choice of spineless subjects who could never take care of themselves. In other words, DEPENDENCE.
[Note: Paine does phone call the 2 options "independence" and "reconciliation" elsewhere in Common Sense, but he meant to avoid them here.]
Equally much hath been said of the advantages of reconciliation, which, like an amusing dream, hath passed abroad and left us every bit we were, it is merely right that we should examine the contrary [opposing] side of the argument and inquire into some of the many fabric injuries which these colonies sustain, and ever will sustain, by being connected with and dependent on Neat United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland. To examine that connexion and dependence, on the principles of nature and common sense, to see what nosotros have to trust to [expect] if separated, and what we are to wait if dependent.
PARAGRAPH 60
Activity: The Metaphor of Youth
Written report Paine'southward metaphors that compare the colonies' readiness for independence to a child'due south maturation into machismo.
Here Paine rebuts the first argument for reconciliation—that America has thrived every bit a British colony and would fail on her own. How does he dismiss this argument?
He slams it down difficult. "Null can be more FALLACIOUS," he yells. The statement is beyond misdirected or brusque-sighted, he insists; it's a fatal error in reasoning. And then much for calm and reasoned fence. Simply Paine is not having a atmosphere tantrum in impress. His technique was to fence with ideas while convincing with emotion.
Paine follows his utter rejection of the argument with an analogy. Consummate the analogy: America staying with United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland would exist like a child _______.
"America staying with United kingdom would exist like a child remaining dependent on its parents forever and never growing upward." And who would want that, Paine implies? By writing "first twenty years of our lives" instead of, say, "showtime 5 years," Paine alludes to the general consensus that a 20-yr-old is an developed.
Paine goes 1 step further in the last sentence. What does he say near America's "childhood" as a British colony?
He "answers roundly" (with conviction) that the colonies' growth was actually hampered by being office of a European empire. They would accept been more healthy and successful "adults," he insists, if they had not been the "children" of the British empire. This was a radical premise in 1776, but one that buttressed Paine'due south statement for independence
I have heard it asserted by some that as America hath flourished nether her former connection with United kingdom, that the same connection is necessary towards her time to come happiness, and will e'er have the same result. Nothing tin can be more than fallacious than this kind of argument. We may as well assert that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat, or that the first 20 years of our lives is to go a precedent for the next twenty. Simply even this is albeit more is true; for I answer roundly that America would have flourished equally much, and probably much more, had no European ability had annihilation to do with her.
PARAGRAPH 61
Extract #2
Shut Reading Questions
Here Paine challenges his opponents to bring "reconciliation to the touchstone of nature." What does he mean? (A "touchstone" is a test of the quality or genuineness of something. From ancient times the purity of gold or argent was tested with a "touchstone" of basalt stone.)
Examination the chances of reconciliation against what you know about people's reactions in similar crises throughout history, not against your own hopes and fears during this detail crisis. In other words, use common sense.
At the start of this paragraph Paine mildly faults the supporters of reconciliation as unrealistic optimists "still hoping for the best." By the finish of the paragraph, nonetheless, they are cowards willing to "milk shake hands with the murderers." How did he construct the paragraph to reach this transition?
He poses two challenges to the supporters of reconciliation. If they tin honestly answer each challenge, he asserts, and notwithstanding support reconciliation, and so they are selfish cowards bringing ruin to America.
Paraphrase the offset claiming (sentences ii–5).
"Ask yourself if you lot can remain loyal to a nation that has brought war and suffering to you. If you say you tin, you're fooling yourself and condemning the states to a worse life nether Britain than nosotros suffer now."
Paraphrase the second claiming (sentences 6–11).
"Have you been the victim of British violence? If you lot haven't, so you still owe compassion to those who have. And if y'all have, nevertheless all the same support reconciliation, then you lot have abandoned your censor."
With what phrase does Paine condemn those who would still hope for reconciliation even if they were victims of British violence?
They are men who "tin still milk shake hands with the murderers," i.e., men who have betrayed their boyfriend Americans and thus become as evil as the British invaders. There is no nuance in this condemnation, and thus no mode for the reader to avoid its implications.
Notation how Paine weaves impassioned questions through the paragraph: "Are you only deceiving yourselves?" "Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands?" How do these questions intensify his challenges?
Addressed to "you" directly and not a faceless "he or they," the questions deliver an in-your-face challenge that allows no escape. Here's my question to you: Answer it! or your silence will reveal your cowardice.
Rewrite sentences #4 and #11 to modify the second-person "you" to the third-person "he/she/they." How does the alter weaken Paine's challenges?
The reader is off the hook. Since the challenges are deflected from "you," the reader, to the third-person "other," no immediate personal respond is demanded. The reader can blithely read on and avoid the aim of Paine'southward questions.
Worksheet: The Question as a Rhetorical Device
Employ this worksheet to examine Paine's use of questions as persuasive devices throughout Common Sense, specifically the rhetorical question and the hypophora (questions with implied or stated answers, used for rhetorical touch on).
Men of passive tempers [temperaments] expect somewhat lightly over the offenses of United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland and, still hoping for the best, are apt to phone call out, "Come, come, we shall be friends once more for all this." Merely examine the passions and feelings of mankind. Bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature and then tell me whether you lot can hereafter honey, honor, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If you cannot exercise all these, so are you but deceiving yourselves and by your delay bringing ruin upon posterity? Your future connection with Britain, whom you lot can neither honey nor honor, will be forced and unnatural, and being formed but on the plan of present convenience, will in a little time autumn into a relapse more wretched than the first. But if you say yous can still laissez passer the violations over [ignore or underrate them], then I ask, Hath your house been burnt? Hath your belongings been destroyed before your face up? Are your wife and children destitute of [without] a bed to lie on or bread to live on? Have y'all lost a parent or a kid past their hands and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you accept not, and then are you non a gauge of those who take. But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers, so are yous unworthy the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and, whatever may exist your rank or title in life, you have the eye of a coward and the spirit of a sycophant.
PARAGRAPH 77
Excerpt #3
Close Reading Questions
At this point, Paine pleads with his readers to write the constitution for their contained nation without delay. What danger practice they adventure, he warns, if they go out this crucial chore to a later mean solar day?
A colonial leader could grasp dictatorial power by taking advantage of the postwar disorder likely to event if the colonies have no constitution fix to implement. Even if Uk tried to regain control of the colonies, it could be too late to wrest control back from a powerful dictator. "Ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny," Paine warns, "by keeping vacant the seat of government."
What historical bear witness does Paine offer to illustrate the danger?
He states that "some Massanello may future ascend" and grasp ability, alluding to the short-lived people'due south defection led by the commoner Thomas Aniello (Masaniello) in 1647 against Spanish control of Naples (Italy). The Spanish ruler granted a few rights, simply Masaniello was soon murdered, catastrophe the insurgence and its short-lived gains for the people.
Equally his plea escalates in intensity, Paine exclaims "Ye that oppose independence at present, ye know non what ye practice." To what climactic moment in the New Attestation does he insinuate?
While suffering on the cantankerous before his death, Jesus calls out, "Begetter, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23: 34); that is, his crucifiers do not know they are killing the Son of God. With this compelling innuendo (which most readers would instantly recognize), Paine warns that opposing independence is equally calamitous a conclusion for Americans as killing Jesus was for his executioners and for mankind.
Paine heightens his apocalyptic tone every bit he appeals to "ye that love mankind" to have a mission of salvation (alluding to Christ's mission of salvation). What must the lovers of mankind achieve in order to save flesh?
They must establish the "free and independent States of America" equally the sole preserve of homo freedom in the world. A drastic fugitive, "freedom" has been "hunted" and "expelled" throughout the world, and it is America's mission to protect and nurture her. America's victory volition be mankind's victory, non just the feat of xiii small colonies in a distant corner of the world.
Notation: "A government of our own is our natural correct" asserts Paine at the showtime of this extract. Six months later Thomas Jefferson asserted the aforementioned right in the opening of the Declaration of Independence. This Enlightenment ideal anchored revolutionary initiatives in America and Europe for decades.
A authorities of our ain is our natural right, and when a human being seriously reflects on the precariousness of homo diplomacy, he volition go convinced that it is infinitely wiser and safer to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate style, while we take it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and risk. If we omit it now, some Massanello* may hereafter arise who, laying hold of pop disquietudes [grievances], may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and past bold to themselves the powers of regime, finally sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge. Should the government of America return again into the hands of Britain, the tottering situation of things will be a temptation for some desperate adventurer to try his fortune; and in such a case, what relief can Britain give? Ere [before] she could hear the news, the fatal business might be done, and ourselves suffering like the wretched Britons under the oppression of the Conquistador [William the Conquistador in 1066]. Ye that oppose independence now, ye know non what ye do. Ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny by keeping vacant the seat of government….
O ye that honey flesh! Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny merely the tyrant, stand up forth! Every spot of the onetime world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her.—Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her alert to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an aviary for mankind.
* Thomas Anello, otherwise Massanello, a fisherman of Naples, who later on spiriting up his countrymen in the public marketplace against the oppression of the Spaniards, to whom the place was then discipline, prompted them to revolt, and in the space of a twenty-four hours become King. [footnote in Paine]
PARAGRAPHS 104, 107
Follow-Upwardly Assignment
- Write a how-to essay on persuasive writing using Mutual Sense as the focus text and this statement by Thomas Paine as the cadre idea: "Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it. Say a bold thing that will stagger them, and they will begin to think." –Letter to Elihu Palmer, 21 Feb 1802.
- Write an essay to summarize and evaluate Mutual Sense using one of the quotations below as the organizing concept. Use the metaphor in the quotation every bit a rhetorical device throughout the essay. (Paragraph numbers refer to the total text of Common Sense with this lesson.)
Quotation Para. Metaphor "The lord's day never shined on a cause of greater worth." 58 low-cal, newness, celebrity "The blood of the slain, the weeping vocalisation of nature cries
"'TIS TIME TO PART."73 massacre, suffering "Reconciliation is now a fallacious dream." 79 illusion, vain promise "It is now in the involvement of America to provide for herself." 144 adulthood, self-reliance "Independence is the but BOND that can tie and go along us together." 163 tying cord, unity for survival - See colonists' and newspapers' responses to Common Sense in the primary source collection Making the Revolution (Department: Mutual Sense?) to examine how Paine turned public opinion in 1776. Notation the critical pieces by John Adams, Hannah Griffitts, and others. What tin be learned nigh Paine'due south effectiveness past studying his critics?
Vocabulary Popular-ups
[including 18th-c. connotations]
- posterity : all future generations of mankind
- superseded : replaced something quondam or no longer useful
- precedent : an activeness or policy that serves as an example or rule for the hereafter
- touchstone : as a metaphor, a test of the quality or genuineness of something. (in the past, the purity of gold or silvery was tested with a "toughstone" of basalt stone.)
- relapse : a return to a previous worse condition after a catamenia of improvement
- sycophant : someone who acts submissively to some other in power in order to gain advantage; yes-human, flatterer, bootlicker
- precariousness : doubt, instability; dependence on hazard circumstances or unknown conditions
- deluge : a cataclysmic alluvion
1. Benjamin Franklin, letter to Silas Deane, 27 August 1775. Full text in Founders Online (National Archives).↩
ii. Elbridge Gerry, letter to James Warren, 26 March 1776.↩
3. John Adams, autobiography, part 1, "John Adams," through 1776, sheet 23 of 53 [electronic edition]. Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive. Massachusetts Historical Society. world wide web.masshist.org/digitaladams/.↩
4. Thomas Paine, letter to Elihu Palmer, 21 Feb 1802; cited in Henry Hayden Clark, "Thomas Paine's Theories of Rhetoric," Wisconsin University of Sciences, Arts, and Messages, 28 (1933), 317.↩
v. Robert A. Ferguson, "The Commonalities of Common Sense," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d. Series, 57:3 (July 2000), 483.↩
6. Landon Carter, diary entry, 20 Feb 1776, recounting content of letter written that day to George Washington. Full entry in Founders Online (National Archives).↩
7. Robert A. Ferguson, The American Enlightenment, 1750-1820 (Harvard Academy Printing, 1994; paper ed., 1997), 113.↩
*For a helpful discussion of Paine's response to the "horrid cruelties" of the British in Republic of india, meet J.Thousand. Opal, "Common Sense and Majestic Atrocity: How Thomas Paine Saw South Asia in N America," Common-Place, July 2009.
Images courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Library.
- Portrait of Thomas Paine by John Henry Bufford (1810-1870), engraving by Bufford's Lithography, ca. 1850. Record ID 268504.
- Title page (cover) of Common Sense, 1776. Tape ID 2052092.
Source: https://americainclass.org/thomas-paine-common-sense-1776/
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