Paine’s Common Sense reframed colonial resistance as a revolution for independence.

Evidence

Rather than end what became the pamphlet’s definitive edition as he had its first edition with the fourth section’s everyday comparison to necessary tasks reluctantly performed, Paine closes the new appendix with a soaring analogy that, when read with the rest of the tract, lifts the patriot cause to the highest ranks of human purpose. “We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now,” he claims. “How ridiculous, do the little paltry caviling of a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed against the business of a world.” America, the new world, can remake the old one, Paine avows, and give birth to a new epoch of human freedom under republican rule. — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 94 (#expands, via linked claim)

“O ye that love mankind!” Paine exclaims in the final haunting paragraph of Common Sense’s never-to-be-forgotten third section. “Freedom hath been hunted round the Globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.” By ending the section with these words, Paine gives colonists a nobler cause even than independence: human liberty. — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 79 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Even Paine initially favored reconciliation with Britain over independence — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 60; Paine’s Common Sense exceeded Locke’s influence on American independence — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 96; Paine’s common sense was a democratic resource against established power — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 308 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Paine converted reconciliation arguments into pro-independence reasons. #expands (0.90)
• Paine framed American independence as a world-historical new beginning, not a mere separation #expands (0.85) — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 94
• Paine framed American independence as a universal cause of human liberty #expands (0.80) — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 79
• Paine framed American independence from the start as a universal asylum for human liberty. #expands (0.80) — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 79
• Paine’s Common Sense exceeded Locke’s influence on American independence #expands (0.75) — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 96
• Paine’s common sense was a democratic resource against established power #expands (0.75) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 308