Thomas Paine's Radical Proposal

Now, you already know that Thomas Paine wrote the book "Common Sense". But here is a short biography, to let you know a little bit more about his life:

Thomas Paine is a fascinating figure from the history of American politics. Born in February of 1737, he published numerous pamphlets and contributed valuable insights to the political discourse of his time; the depth of his impact on American society is impossible to know.

Tomas Paine was born in rural England. In early life, he attended grammar school and then was apprenticed to his father, who was a corset stay maker. After a brief stint as a privateer, he became a master stay-maker and opened up a shop. He married in 1759, but his wife died of complications from her first pregnancy. In England he was involved in a brief second marriage and various business and civic ventures until, legend has it, Benjamin Franklin suggested that he immigrate to America. After a difficult passage that took him some weeks to recover from, he gained citizenship in the colonies and started work editing Pennsylvania Magazine–a post he would follow with an illustrious career as a propagandist and writer.

So, now Thomas Paine's influence was not quite over with the book. He proposed a totally different direction on things, which where:

1)Independence from Britain.

2)Republican State Government.

3)Union of States.

Paine saw the king and the Aristocrats as parasites and frauds. He thought that the king was an enemy to the American Liberties. He wanted common people to elect the government, and he did not like the class structures that were marked. Of course, he also hated the smothering of people just because they did not have a noble title. His ideas were, to create a republic where everyone had the opportunity to improve. By uniting to create a republic, America would be a role model for the rest of the countries. He wanted to create a democratic model so that he could achieve this. 

In spring of 1776, Pain's ideas made the independance possible. The congress selected a committee to draft the declaration of independance, and explain the reasons in it, Thomas Jefferson, was the man for this job.  On July 2nd, America was free. I'm guessing you all know what happened the 4th of July? the Declaration of Independence was approved!. 


As told before, the declaration of independence contained some of Paine's ideas; like denouncing the king as a tyrant, and the idea that all men were created equal and born with natural rights that could not be taken away by the governement. These natural rights were called the unalienable rights by Jefferson. Although, it seems like the whole independance process is complete, unfortunetely, it is not. writing a declaration of independence was very different from actually achieving it. The colonists had to have the courage to face the many obstacles that were presented to them, before succeeding on their major goal. First, they had to declare independance from an European empire.


In conclusion, we could say that the declaration of independance was nothing but a long list of colonial grievances that were just taken in consideration, but did not really mean the absolute independance from this empire. Imagine how hard it was back then?