Considering Common Sense: In Memory of Thomas Paine

For most of my life, I have known the name Thomas Paine. But also for most of my life, I have known little about him and his importance. This month, however, seemed like a good time to learn/think a little more about Paine, who was born 285 years ago, and about his emphasis on common sense. 

Who Was Thomas Paine?

Paine was born in England in 1737 on January 29, which was February 9 according to the “new style” calendar used after 1752.

After losing his wife and baby at childbirth in 1760, and then after various failures and the loss of his job in 1774, he moved to Philadelphia and got a job working as an editorial assistant for the Pennsylvania Magazine.

After the first battles of the Revolutionary War in 1775, Paine argued that the colonists should not simply revolt against taxation but demand independence from Great Britain entirely. He expanded that idea in a 50-page pamphlet called “Common Sense,” printed in January 1776.

Why Is Thomas Paine Memorable?

Within a few months after its publication, “Common Sense” sold more than 500,000 copies, and according to Biography.com (here), more than any other publication, it “paved the way for the Declaration of Independence, which was unanimously ratified on July 4, 1776.”

Then beginning in December of that year, a most uncertain time regarding the outcome of the revolution, Paine began publishing a series of pamphlets under the title The American Crisis, and he signed them with his pseudonym, “Common Sense.”

The first of those thirteen pamphlets famously begins, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” At the beginning of that harsh winter of 1776, a great many soldiers were ready to quit—until ordered by General Washington to read Paine’s Crisis (which can be read in full at this link).

The morale of the American colonists was bolstered and their resolve fortified by Paine’s words, “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

In 1787, Paine returned to England, and two years after the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789, he wrote The Rights of Man. That tract moved beyond supporting that revolution to discussing the basic reasons for the widespread discontent in Europe and railing against an aristocratic society.

Paine’s last major book was The Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology, the first part of which was written in 1794 after he had been imprisoned for nearly a year in France.

Paine returned to the United States in 1802 or ’03, but by then his influential revolutionary work had mostly been forgotten. He died in 1809, and only six mourners were present at his funeral.

Because of his last book, though, he became known in the mid-nineteenth century as a leader of “freethinkers.” And then in the early twentieth century, Paine's reputation was restored and he again was (accurately) viewed as a vital figure in the American Revolution.

What Is Common Sense?

“Common sense” can be called that only for those who see the world through the same, or quite similar, “conceptual lenses.”

What Paine wrote about common sense for those who wanted to be free from the “tyranny” of England was, truly, common sense for them. But it certainly was not common sense for King George and all the Redcoats who fought for him.

And so it is regarding many burning issues today.

You would think it is only common sense that everyone would get covid-19 vaccinations and only common sense for the government to mandate vaccines and masks in order to control the spread of covid-19.

But, alas, a sizeable portion of society wears different conceptual lenses: they see the greatest good as personal “freedom” and oppose “tyrannical” governments they see as seeking to usurp that freedom. Even a “Christian” organization is used to support the “Freedom Convoy” in Canada (see here).

And you would think it is only common sense that we humans would acknowledge the seriousness of global warming and take even drastic measures to mitigate the coming environmental crisis. But, again, alas! 

Taxation and Representation

When I was in Washington, D.C., this month, once again I saw many license plates with the words “taxation without representation” on them. The newest plates with those words look like this: 

The issue, of course, is that the citizens of D.C. must pay federal income tax just as all U.S. citizens do, but they do not have representation in Congress. The words “taxation without representation” were first used on some D.C. license plates in 2000—but, as you know, it was expressing a sentiment from long ago.

A Boston pastor used the phrase “no taxation without representation” in a sermon as early as 1750. After the Stamp Act of 1765 it became common for the colonists to exclaim that “taxation without representation is tyranny.”

Have you seen the new U.S. postage stamps that were issued on May 29? They commemorate the 250th anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766. These new “forever” stamps are sold only as souvenir sheets of 10 stamps and are $4.70. 

The USPS website explains: “The commemorative stamp art depicts a crowd gathered around a ‘liberty tree’ to celebrate the repeal of the Stamp Act.” Such “liberty trees” were “found in a number of cities throughout the colonies, and were popular gathering spots for community meetings, political discussions, celebrations and more.”

The new British legislation required American colonists to pay a tax on a wide array of paper materials, such as newspapers, legal documents, mortgages, contracts—and even playing cards. A revenue stamp embossed on those papers indicated payment of the tax.

Many colonists were not happy with the new tax, to say the least. Accordingly, the USPS website also says that the Stamp Act, which was passed by the British Parliament in March 1765, “proved historic in galvanizing and uniting the American colonies, setting them on a path toward independence.”

The first chapter of The Beginnings of the American Revolution (1910) by Ellen Chase is sub-titled “Stamp Act Causes Riot,” and then the second chapter is “The Colonies Unite Successfully for Repeal.” Thus, actions resulting from the negative reaction toward the Stamp Act was a major impetus toward the colonists’ declaration of independence from Great Britain on July 4, 1776.

The tax levied by the Stamp Act was not exorbitant; it was the principle that rankled the colonists. As Chase says, “The exception was not taken to the tax in itself. . . . The objections rose solely from Parliament’s assumption of supremacy in the Colonies’ internal affairs” (p. 23).

For a long time after independence from Great Britain, however, U.S. citizens mostly had representation without taxation. There was an excise tax placed on whiskey in 1791—but that led to the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.

The first personal income tax resulted from the Revenue Act signed into law by President Lincoln in August 1861. He who wanted government “of the people, by the people, for the people” needed to raise money to pay for the Civil War activities of the Union.

The first permanent income tax in this country, though, was not established until 1913—and the first general sales tax not until 1930.

In D.C. now, though, there is taxation but no representation on the federal level. Statehood for the District is one possible solution to the problem.

However, the “party of Lincoln” that freed the slaves in spite of strong objection by the Democratic Party then does not want to grant statehood now to a territory that would most probably send Democrats to the U.S. Congress. As I wrote earlier, the Parties have switched positions.