Thomas Paine was mainly a political writer and a figure for the Revolution. He wrote many things, but probably his most important work was Common Sense. Common Sense was a pamphlet that told people to declare independence from Great Britain right away. Common Sense had a very big impact, and it helped to persuade Americans to believe that they could successfully wage a war against Britain.
In Common Sense, Paine talks about how a monarchy is bad. He says that rule by a king is not very good, and that the rule should be by the people. Paine makes it pretty clear that he does not really like government and that he believes society is very good. He explains it in this quote:
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamities is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer! Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others. (Paine).
In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end of government, let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest, they will then represent the first peopling of any country, or of the world. In this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought. A thousand motives will excite them thereto, the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and his mind so unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek assistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires the same. Four or five united would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness, but one man might labor out the common period of life without accomplishing any thing; when he had felled his timber he could not remove it, nor erect it after it was removed; hunger in the mean time would urge him from his work, and every different want call him a different way. Disease, nay even misfortune would be death, for though neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from living, and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said to perish than to die. (Paine).
In this quote Thomas Paine continues to say how much better society is than government. He is obviously trying to move the American government into a democracy.
I agree with what Thomas Paine says about society and government. I also think government was way too controlling back then, especially with Great Britain and it's monarchies. I think Paine does a good job in Common Sense of telling people how much better the society is then government. He makes a good argument for America to establish a democracy.
Works Cited
Paine, Thomas. "Common Sense." Common Sense (1971). Archiving Early America. Archiving Early America, 2010. Web. 17 Oct. 2010.
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