Thomas Paine's Common Sense popularises the case for independence
- Date
- 10 January 1776
- Category
- Culture, arts & philosophy
- Region
- British North America
- Era
- Early Modern
- Significance
On 10 January 1776 the English-born radical Thomas Paine published Common Sense, a roughly fifty-page pamphlet that made a plain-language argument for American independence and against hereditary monarchy.
Selling hundreds of thousands of copies within months, it reached an extraordinary share of the colonial population and reframed the conflict with Britain from a dispute over the rights of British subjects into a contest over the legitimacy of monarchy itself. Paine urged the colonies to sever ties with Britain, adopt republican self-government under a written constitution, and embrace free trade. The pamphlet helped shift public opinion decisively toward independence in the months before July 1776 and demonstrated the power of cheap print to mobilise mass political sentiment. Paine later carried the same universalist arguments to Europe in Rights of Man (1791–92), defending the French Revolution; his works were translated and circulated worldwide, influencing reformers and revolutionaries far beyond the Atlantic world.
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Empires active in 10 January 1776
- Qing Dynasty1636 CE – 1912 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Russian Empire1721 CE – 1917 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Mughal Empire1526 CE – 1857 CE
Related culture, arts & philosophy events
- The Enlightenment (Age of Reason)c. 1685–1815
- Locke's Two Treatises and Essay: social contract and empiricism1689 (published; dated 1690)
- Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and 'What Is Enlightenment?'1781 (Critique) / 1784 (essay)
- Rousseau's The Social Contract and ÉmileApril–May 1762
- Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie1751–1772 (first 17 text vols. + plates)
- Voltaire's Lettres philosophiques popularises English liberty1733 (English) / 1734 (French)
Further reading
The wider story
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