Common Sense

Titel: Common Sense

von Augustus J. Thebaud, Charles Kingsley, Henry James, Thomas Hardy, Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin, Joseph Butler, John D. Barry, William Allan Neilson, Henry Rider Haggard, Rudolf Erich Raspe, Paul Heyse, Carl Russell Fish, Tom Taylor, Margaret Pedler, Homer, John Kendrick Bangs, John Burroughs, Juanita Helm Floyd, Maurice Liber, Anthony Trollope, William Morris, Mark Twain, Charles Dudley Warner, Thomas Hobbes, Winfried Honig, Albrecht Dürer, Militia of Mercy . Gift Book Committee, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Andrew Lang, Katharine Pyle, Sir Samuel White Baker, Frederic William Moorman, the Younger Pliny, Samuel Butler, William Dean Howells, Harold MacGrath, Joseph Crosby Lincoln, Ralph Connor, Various, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Abraham Lincoln, John Galsworthy, Ian Maclaren, Charlotte Mary Yonge, Sir Owen Morgan Edwards, Robert J. C. Stead, Harold Bell Wright, Eleanor H. Porter, Richard Le Gallienne, Ann Ward Radcliffe, Mark Rutherford, John Bunyan, Artemus Ward, John Hanning Speke, James Fenimore Cooper, Edmund Burke, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Francis Bacon, Gisela Engel, Edward Samuel Corwin, Washington Irving, Rafael Sabatini, Emma Lazarus, Bishop of Hippo Saint Augustine, Christian Friedrich Hebbel, Adam Smith, Upton Sinclair, Michael Earls, John Hargrave, Charles Hose, William McDougall, Albert Ernest Jenks, marquis de Jean-François-Albert du Pouget Nadaillac, Robert Sewell, 16th cent. Fernão Nunes, 16th cent. Domingos Paes, Inez Haynes Gillmore, Charles Warren Stoddard, Will Irwin, Vivia Hemphill, J. Hampton Moore, Philip Gibbs, Sir Richard Steele, Joseph Addison, L. Mühlbach, Leroy Scott, Mrs. Henry Wood, Ottilie A. Liljencrantz, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Thomas Bulfinch, Bernard Shaw, Confucius, Samuel Pepys, Luís Vaz de Camões, Walter Bigges, Theodore Roosevelt, Émile Gaboriau, fl. 1580. Edward Hayes, Eugène Sue, Earl of Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Robert Smythe Hichens, Bliss Perry, Isabella L. Bird, Stewart Edward White, Roald Amundsen, Viscount James Bryce Bryce, Francis Hopkinson Smith, Annie Hamilton Donnell, Mary Wollstonecraft, Jean-Henri Fabre, Marcus Andrew Hislop Clarke, Marietta Holley, W. E. Gladstone, Ellis Parker Butler, Booth Tarkington, G. A. Henty, E. L. Voynich, Anonymous, Francis Leggett, Charles Alfred Tyrrell, Josef Cohen, Jules Verne, Zane Grey, Mary Baker Eddy, Albert Bigelow Paine, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Ouida, Joseph Furphy, Harry Leon Wilson, Sir Hugh Walpole, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fay Inchfawn, E. Pauline Johnson, Abraham Merritt, James Sheridan Knowles, Herbert George Jenkins, Richard Hakluyt, Georges Victor Legros, J. M. Barrie, Dana Gatlin, Padraic Colum, Lucy Fitch Perkins, Heinrich Heine, Louisa May Alcott, John Ceiriog Hughes, Henry Van Dyke, Laurence Housman, Ludwig van Beethoven, Stephen Leacock, Watkin Tench, E. Nesbit, Edward William Bok, graf Leo Tolstoy, Giacomo Casanova, Oliver Goldsmith, Raffaello Carboni, Orville O. Hiestand, Abraham Cowley, Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, Louis Constant Wairy, Michel de Montaigne, Edward Salisbury Field, Guy de Maupassant, Doris Stevens, Hamilton Brock Fuller, Anna Chapin Ray, Wilkie Collins, Robert Tressell, Victoria Cross, William Guthrie, Alexandre Dumas père, Mary Jane Holmes, Charles Darwin, J. Hartley Manners, Sir James George Frazer, Sir Adolphus William Ward, James Hamilton, Theodore Dreiser, Kathleen Thompson Norris, William Henry Knight, Arnold Bennett, Cosmo Hamilton, Voltaire, Molière, Winston Churchill, Alexander Mackenzie, Joseph A. Altsheler, Maria Edgeworth, Florence L. Barclay, Mary E. Bamford, Frank Harris, Harold Bindloss, Alfred Henry Lewis, Charles Reade, United States. Central Intelligence Agency, Charles Ives, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, Marion Polk Angellotti, Steele Rudd, Louis Stone, J. C. F. Johnson, Pierre Loti, Henry Martyn Cist, Howard Pyle, Saki, Franz Liszt, H. G. Wells, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ben Jonson, William Cowper, Lord Dufferin, Dion Boucicault, Ethel C. Pedley, Robert Alexander Wason, Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton, O. Henry, Rufus Phillips Williams, Friedrich Heinrich Karl Freiherr de La Motte-Fouqué, Ambrose Bierce, Francis Parkman, Gene Stratton-Porter, Addison B. Poland, John H. Haaren, Giovanni Boccaccio, Henry Handel Richardson, Oliver T. Osborne, Victor [pseud.] Appleton, Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, Thomas Paine, Maria Thompson Daviess, Gilbert Parker, Lodovico Ariosto, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Ethel Dench Puffer Howes, Walter De la Mare

ISBN 978-3-7429-3614-1

Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Es ist ohne vorherige schriftliche Erlaubnis nicht gestattet, dieses Werk im Ganzen oder in Teilen zu vervielfältigen oder zu veröffentlichen.

[Redactor's Note: Reprinted from the "The Writings of Thomas Paine Volume I" (1894 - 1896). The author's notes are preceded by a "*".]

THE WRITINGS

OF

THOMAS PAINE

COLLECTED AND EDITED BY

MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY

VOLUME I.

1774 - 1779

XV.

COMMON SENSE

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

I. OF THE ORIGIN AND DESIGN OF GOVERNMENT IN GENERAL, WITH CONCISE REMARKS ON THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION

II. OF MONARCHY AND HEREDITARY SUCCESSION

III. THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF AMERICAN AFFAIRS

IV. OF THE PRESENT ABILITY OF AMERICA, WITH SOME MISCELLANEOUS REFLEXIONS

APPENDIX

INTRODUCTION

PERHAPS the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

As a long and violent abuse of power, is generally the Means of calling the right of it in question (and in Matters too which might never have been thought of, had not the Sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry) and as the King of England hath undertaken in his OWN RIGHT, to support the Parliament in what he calls THEIRS, and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpations of either.

In the following sheets, the author hath studiously avoided every thing which is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof. The wise, and the worthy, need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious, or unfriendly, will cease of themselves unless too much pains are bestowed upon their conversion.

The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested. The laying of a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censure, is

THE AUTHOR

POSTSCRIPT TO PREFACE IN THE THIRD EDITION

P. S. The Publication of this new Edition hath been delayed, with a View of taking notice (had it been necessary) of any Attempt to refute the Doctrine of Independance: As no Answer hath yet appeared, it is now presumed that none will, the Time needful for getting such a Performance ready for the Public being considerably past.

Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the DOCTRINE ITSELF, not the MAN. Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any Party, and under no sort of Influence public or private, but the influence of reason and principle.

Philadelphia, February 14, 1776.