Seven things to know about ‘Common Sense’

On Jan. 10, 1776, revolutionary writer and intellectual Thomas Paine anonymously published a small pamphlet that would end up having a huge impact on the colonial world. The publication, titled “Common Sense,” was widely read across the future United States, and continues to influence many thinkers and activists today. The Penn Libraries’ Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts holds several copies.

The importance of Paine’s seminal work was the topic of a panel discussion convened by Penn Alumni Lifelong Learning and co-sponsored by the Penn Libraries and the School of Arts & Sciences. The panel of Penn experts consisted of:

• Moderator John H. Pollack, curator of research services at the Kislak Center for Special Collections

• Emma Hart, director of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies and Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Chair of American History, School of Arts & Sciences

• Sophia Rosenfeld, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History, School of Arts & Sciences

• Duncan Watts, Stevens University Professor and Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor, with appointments in the Annenberg School, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and the Wharton School and a secondary appointment in the School of Arts & Sciences

Here are seven things to know about “Common Sense”:

Who was Thomas Paine?

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Hart spoke about Paine’s background. In England, Paine had worked as a corset-maker, a privateer, and a tax officer, and was a member of a debating club, Hart said. 

Paine was also a writer, eventually receiving backing from the Duke of Richmond to promote broader suffrage, she said. By the time he arrived in the American colonies, “it’s clear that Paine already had the networks and the contacts. 

Paine was already recognized for having the ability to write really well and also to be willing to write radical material that called for things like complete social equality.”

How did Paine come to Philadelphia?

Paine was invited by Benjamin Franklin and arrived in Philadelphia in November 1774, Hart said. The First Continental Congress had just finished sitting, and it would return in 1775.

“Philadelphia is now established not only as the center of Pennsylvania politics but also as the center of national politics,” Hart said. Paine “had the fervor. He had the political principles. And coming to Philadelphia, I think he must have really felt like he was home.”

What was Paine’s life like here?

Pollack mentioned Paine’s next-door neighbor in Philadelphia, a printer named Robert Aitken. He wrote articles for Aitken’s magazine, Pollack said. Paine was part of a circle of “Philadelphia radicals,” including teachers, artists, doctors, and workers, with several having connections to the school that would become Penn: David Rittenhouse, James Cannon, and Benjamin Rush.

What was ‘Common Sense’?

“Common Sense” was a small pamphlet, not really a book, Pollack said. And Paine’s ideas spread with editions printed up and down the colonies and in Dublin and in London, Rosenfeld said, noting they were translated into German and Spanish.

The pamphlet quickly grew in popularity. Pollack said that Paine claimed that within a few months it had printed 120,000 copies. “Numbers like that are pretty hard to verify,” he said, “But the explosive popularity of this little pamphlet is not. Its reach was extraordinary.”

Broadly, what is the idea of common sense?

Commenting on the concept of common sense, Watts said that people aren’t born with it. “You learn it, usually from your parents and other people around you. And the way you learn it is just by being told things over and over again,” he said.

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In a 2023 paper, Watts and colleague Mark Whiting looked at how “commonsensical” 2,000 people rated certain claims to be. They found that “common sense varies a lot across different types of claims,” he said, but the same was not true across different groups of people. Pointing to his work on the topic, Watts said, “Everybody roughly has about the same amount of common sense.”

What was Paine’s lasting impact?

Rosenfeld noted that Paine introduced two ideas that would have a tremendous effect on American politics: First, independence from the British Empire, and second, that an independent nation could be ruled by the people.

“He starts to suggest that self-evidence is a good basis for self-rule,” Rosenfeld said. “He likes to say repeatedly that ordinary language needs to be turned upside down.” For example, Rosenfeld said, calling someone a “king” is just an empty signifier with no meaning.

How did Paine’s own beliefs evolve?

Eventually, Hart said, Paine alienated many of the people he had known during the American Revolution, including George Washington. She pointed to Paine having written “a couple of really nasty letters” to Washington, with lines such as: “The world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an imposter, whether you have abandoned good principles or whether you every had any.”

She also noted that Paine later expressed the belief that republican experiments had failed. Ultimately, said Hart, Paine thought there was too much of a wealth gap for it to work. Paine believed “that wealth needed to be redistributed equally if anything was going to succeed.”

The forum was part of the America 250 at Penn event calendar, continuing throughout the year. A video of the event, which was offered both in-person and via Zoom, is available via Penn Giving.