Thomas Paine Chapter 3 Summary

Thomas Paine is known for many popular books in the eighteenth century America. Thomas Paine was born in England in 1737 and never step soul on America until he was the age of thirty-seven. His high intelligence and from the standpoint of the way Paine lived it shows that he was a stronger supporter of the revolution. As a child he went to grammar school until thirteen; nineteen he ran away from home to go too sea.
Then, started doing numerous jobs after that; he lost his main job by stamping goods that were suppose to be examined but weren’t. His first wife died after less then a year of marriage, and he was separated from his second wife after three years. Throughout this time he found himself going thru scandals. He landed a job in Philadelphia as a journalist making a name for himself first for a spokesman against slavery and then as the anonymous author of Common Sense.

Common sense Chapter 3: Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs; Thomas Paine is basically stating that independence for America is the right path to head and relying on Britain to rule America is going to improve anything.

Thomas Paine talks about numerous topics in this story, like for an example how Britain has defended America and all of Americans property. Britain is continuously getting into wars with Spain and France causing them to send American soldiers to war and end up dying. Even though Britain is America’s parent country that is only bound together by their British ancestry, but America is build up from immigrants from Europe. Thomas Paine

stated
“Alas! We have been long led away by ancient prejudices, and made large sacrifices to superstition. We have boasted the protection of Great Britain, without considering that her motive was interest not attachment; and that she did not protect us from our enemies on our account; but from her enemies on her own account, from those who had no quarrel with us on any other account, and who will always be our enemies on the same account.” (PAINE, THOMAS 326)
As you can tell from that quote he’s in love with the word “account”, but what else is also noticeable is Britain tides to America is only in their interests in the long run because of the benefits that come with it. In the end this will cause conflicts between the colonies and Britain. Another good quote Thomas Paine has in support of the split-up actually goes back to that point I just talked about is,
“But the injuries and disadvantages which we sustain by that connection, are without number; and our duty to mankind at large, as well as to ourselves, instruct us to renounce the alliance: because any submission to, or dependence on, Great Britain tends directly to involve this continent in European wars and quarrels, and set us at variance with nations who would otherwise seek our friendship, and against whom we have neither anger nor complaint.” (PAINE, THOMAS 328)
This quote proves that Britain is unpredictable and volatile one that doesn’t seem to benefit the colonies so much as it benefits Britain through taxation and extortion where the colonies have little to do with and then forced to pay for the debt Britain accumulated; Britain is also not the best protector. Thomas Paine tends to take advantage of the colonies and exploiting the wealth Thomas Paine can produce themselves and harvesting it for their own goods. So Thomas Paine view is pretty common sense. Chapter 3 he shows light to how Britain is using America for countless acts and how we need to departure from Britain and declare the independence of the colonies. In this chapter Thomas Paine main point in Common Sense isn’t to worry about the new form of government is correct or wrong but that the state of affairs sis wrong and should be out the door through revolution.