50bookchallenge #33/50: <u>Common Sense</u>, Thomas Paine

This was another short one, but the eighteenth-century language was a little difficult to wade through. With overcomplicated compound sentences, I got a little of an idea of what a chore it must be to read my writing.

It was not as relevant a read as I expected. I guess I’d thought this would be a manifesto illuminating the rights of man, and part of Common Sense did in fact fill that bill. I thought, however, that this would be a timeless declaration of values, in much the same way that the Declaration of Independence is. What I didn’t realize was how Paine meant to inspire not confidence or unity but action. Common Sense is an urgent call to take a stand against the British and shake the yoke. What made it a fascinating read was not its moral sense, but the historical illumination it made of the conception of our nation.

Almost every plan and every prediction Paine makes has come true or close to it. One particularly chilling passage, though, is where he rebuts a Tory argument that the American colonies were too young for independence, and that rushing into an independent Union would lead to a bloody civil war down the road. Of course hindsight is 20/20, and I think that he was right to say that bowing to the rule of a sovereign an ocean away could no longer be withstood, but how true that no matter how wisely the Federalists and the Anti-federalists hammered out compromise the Union would eventually resolve that question with its own blood.

Also fascinating is Paine’s use of Biblical passages to renounce monarchy. I haven’t checked his references or their context, but he makes a case that Kings appeared in the Bible only against the expressed wish of the Almighty.

Oh! And how eloquently he put it: that in Great Britain the King is the Law, but in America the law should be king.

Again a reminder that I’ve forgotten more American history than I know.