It is January 9th. Welcome to Episode 9 of History in a Year. Today, we meet the most unlikely Founding Father of them all: a bankrupt corset-maker named Thomas Paine. In January 1776, with the war stalled and Americans terrified to say the word “Independence,” Paine publishes a 47-page pamphlet that sets the continent on fire. We explore the arguments of Common Sense, the attack on the “Royal Brute,” and how a single booklet accomplished what gunpowder could not.
STEPHEN: Welcome to History in a Year: America’s First 250 Years.
LEAH: Join us every single day as we journey from the Revolution of 1776 to the 250th anniversary of the United States.
STEPHEN: You can find every episode and join the discussion at PointedWords.com. I’m Stephen.
LEAH: And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN: It is January 9th. Welcome to Episode 9. Yesterday, we stood on the bloody slopes of Breed’s Hill. We saw the American militia go toe-to-toe with the British army. But here is the strange thing about 1775…
LEAH: Even after Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill—even after thousands of men had been killed or wounded—Americans still refused to call this a war for Independence.
STEPHEN: It was a schizophrenic war. General Washington—who had just arrived to take command of the army—was ordering his officers to toast the health of King George III at dinner every night.
LEAH: The Continental Congress was sending petitions to London saying, “We love you, Your Majesty. Please just protect us from your evil Parliament.” They were fighting the King’s soldiers while praying for the King’s health.
STEPHEN: Why? Because the idea of “Independence” was terrifying. It meant treason. It meant losing the protection of the greatest empire on earth. It meant economic ruin.
LEAH: Most Americans were proud Britons. They didn’t want to leave the Empire; they just wanted to reset the clock to 1763. They needed someone to shake them by the shoulders and tell them, “It’s over. The relationship is dead.”
STEPHEN: And the man who did that was a recent immigrant. A man who had been in America for only 13 months. A man who, by all accounts, was a total failure.
LEAH: Thomas Paine.
STEPHEN: Let’s look at his resume before 1776. He was born in England. He dropped out of school at age 12. He tried to be a corset-maker—a maker of ladies’ undergarments—and failed.
LEAH: He tried to be a sailor. He tried to be a schoolteacher. He worked as an excise officer—a tax collector—but was fired for negligence. He was married twice; his first wife died, and he separated from his second.
STEPHEN: By 1774, he was 37 years old, broke, and alone in London. He was virtually hopeless. But he had one lucky break. He happened to meet Benjamin Franklin in a London coffeehouse.
LEAH: Franklin saw something in Paine. Maybe it was his anger, or his sharp wit. Franklin wrote him a letter of recommendation to his son-in-law in Philadelphia, basically saying, “This is a good young man. Give him a job.”
STEPHEN: Paine arrived in Philadelphia in November 1774. He was so sick from the voyage that he had to be carried off the ship on a stretcher. He spent six weeks recovering.
LEAH: But when he woke up, he looked around and saw a continent on the brink of explosion. He found a job as an editor for Pennsylvania Magazine, and suddenly, he realized he had a talent. He could write.
STEPHEN: And he didn’t write like the other Founding Fathers. Men like Jefferson and Adams wrote like lawyers. They used Latin phrases and complex sentences. They wrote for the aristocracy.
LEAH: Paine wrote for the guy at the tavern. He wrote in plain, punchy, angry English. He used biblical metaphors that everyone understood.
STEPHEN: In late 1775, as the fighting raged around Boston, Paine began writing a pamphlet. He originally wanted to call it Plain Truth. But his friend, Dr. Benjamin Rush, suggested a better title: Common Sense.
LEAH: It was published on January 10, 1776—almost exactly 250 years ago today. And it hit the colonies like a nuclear bomb.
STEPHEN: To understand why, you have to read the arguments. Paine didn’t just complain about taxes. He attacked the entire idea of Monarchy.
LEAH: Before Paine, Americans blamed the “bad ministers” or the “corrupt Parliament.” The King was off-limits. He was the father figure.
STEPHEN: Paine tore that down. He called George III the “Royal Brute of Great Britain.” He asked a simple question: Why should one man, by accident of birth, rule over millions? He looked at the history of kings in the Bible and argued that monarchy was a sin.
LEAH: He wrote, “Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.”
STEPHEN: That was treason. But it was thrilling. He was saying what everyone was secretly thinking but was too afraid to say.
LEAH: Then, he tackled the geographical argument. This is one of his most famous lines. He wrote: “There is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.”
STEPHEN: He pointed out that America was huge, rich, and growing. It was “nature’s darling.” Why should it be dragged into European wars just because it was tied to Britain? He argued that America’s true interest was free trade with the whole world, not just England.
LEAH: And finally, he addressed the fear. He told them that Independence wasn’t a danger; it was destiny. He painted a picture of America as an “asylum for mankind”—a place where freedom could live when it was being hunted down everywhere else in the world.
STEPHEN: He wrote: “The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth… ‘Tis not the affair of a city, a county, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent… ‘Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest.”
LEAH: The reaction was instant. The first printing sold out in days.
STEPHEN: We have to talk about the numbers. In 1776, the population of the colonies was about 2.5 million. It is estimated that Common Sense sold between 100,000 and 150,000 copies in the first three months.
LEAH: To put that in perspective, that would be like a book selling 15 or 20 million copies today in three months. It was viral.
STEPHEN: And that’s just the copies sold. People who couldn’t read had it read to them. It was read aloud in taverns, in churches, and around campfires.
LEAH: One Connecticut man wrote, “I have seen the pamphlet… and it is greedily bought up and read by all ranks of people.”
STEPHEN: General Washington, who was besieging Boston, read it. He wrote to his secretary: “The sound doctrine and unanswerable reasoning contained in the pamphlet ‘Common Sense’ will not leave many at a loss to decide upon the propriety of a separation.”
LEAH: Basically, Washington was saying, “This book just changed the game.” He ordered it read to his troops.
STEPHEN: Before Common Sense, Independence was a fringe idea held by a few radicals in Boston. After Common Sense, it was the mainstream position. It shifted the “Overton Window”—the range of acceptable ideas.
LEAH: Suddenly, being a “Loyalist” became defensive. You had to explain why you didn’t want independence.
STEPHEN: But not everyone loved it. John Adams, for example. He was jealous.
LEAH: Adams agreed with the goal—Independence—but he hated Paine’s style. He called Common Sense a “poor, ignorant, malicious, short-sighted, crapulous mass.”
STEPHEN: “Crapulous” basically means “drunk.” Adams thought Paine was a dangerous demagogue who would lead the country into anarchy. He didn’t trust Paine’s plan for government, which was very democratic. Adams wanted checks and balances; Paine wanted a single mighty assembly.
LEAH: But Adams admitted later: “Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.”
STEPHEN: That is the verdict of history. Washington provided the muscle; Paine provided the soul.
LEAH: And what about Paine himself? Did he get rich?
STEPHEN: This is the tragedy of Thomas Paine. He donated the copyright of Common Sense to the Continental Congress. He wanted every penny of profit to buy mittens for the soldiers in Quebec.
LEAH: He didn’t make a dime. He remained poor.
STEPHEN: But for a few months in early 1776, the bankrupt corset-maker was the most famous man in America. He gave the colonists the vocabulary to say goodbye to the King.
LEAH: He wrote, “The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, ‘TIS TIME TO PART.”
STEPHEN: And once those words were out there, there was no going back. The Continental Congress began to receive instructions from the colonies: “Vote for Independence.”
LEAH: So, we have the army. We have the philosophy. But we still have a British army occupying Boston.
STEPHEN: That standoff has to end. And it ends thanks to a former bookseller who performs a miracle of logistics.
LEAH: Join us tomorrow for Episode 10. We meet Henry Knox, the man who drags 60 tons of cannon over frozen mountains to deliver a nasty surprise to the British. We witness the end of the Siege of Boston.
STEPHEN: You can find every episode at PointedWords.com. I’m Stephen.
LEAH: And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN: And this… is our story.