The Forgotten Man Behind the Declaration

The Fourth of July celebrates the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Schoolchildren learn Jefferson, Adams, Franklin. The man who did more than any of them to push the colonies toward that decision gets almost no mention.

Thomas Paine published "Common Sense" in January 1776. The pamphlet sold 500,000 copies in a population of 2.5 million free colonists. That is roughly one copy for every five people. It made the case for independence in plain language a farmer could understand. It turned a colonial grievance into a demand for a new nation.

Paine arrived in America from England only 14 months earlier. He had failed at every trade he tried – corset-making, teaching, tax collecting. Benjamin Franklin met him in London and gave him a letter of introduction. Paine used it.

"Common Sense" did not argue for reconciliation with Britain. It attacked the monarchy itself. Paine called the king a "royal brute" and said the colonies had no obligation to an island that had no right to rule them. The pamphlet appeared at a moment when the Continental Congress was still debating whether to seek independence. It shifted public opinion decisively.

Washington ordered the pamphlet read aloud to his troops. John Adams wrote that "without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain." That is a measure of the man's influence.

Paine later wrote "The American Crisis" during the war. The first line is famous: "These are the times that try men's souls." Washington had the pamphlet read to his army before the crossing of the Delaware. It rallied a force that was about to dissolve.

After the war, Paine returned to Europe. He wrote "The Rights of Man" in defense of the French Revolution. The book sold widely but made him an enemy of the British government. He was charged with seditious libel and fled to France. There he was elected to the National Convention, then imprisoned during the Reign of Terror. He narrowly escaped execution.