What Is Paine's Argument For Independence

In 1776 Thomas Paine published his most popular and influential pamphlet known as “Common Sense”. Its extreme popularity was due to the fact that at the time of publishment the relationship between England and her colonies were at its lowest point. Paine’s pamphlet was groundbreaking because it was one the first documents that blatantly argued for independence from Great Britain (The Norton Anthology of American Literature 640). Citizens of the colonies wanted rebellion because they saw themselves as, “abused citizens of Britain,” (Common Sense: Critical Reception). Paine centers his arguments for the immediate separation from Great Britain around the relationship between America and England.

In Paine's Introduction he calls into question

One of the first arguments against separation is that America thrives under Britain’s control, and in order to continue to do so, a connection with Her is a necessity, Paine rebuttals back that this is completely “fallacious” and says that is basically the same as saying that, “because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat, or that the first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty” (Paine 642). He continues on by saying that, “…America would have flourished as much, and probably much more, had no European power taken any notice of her.” (Paine

Who no had quarrel with us on any other account.” (Paine 643). Which is Paine’s way of saying that by staying affiliated with Great Britain, the American colonies will be inadvertently dragged into pointless wars, and have unnecessary enemies with nations. Another argument against our separation from Great Britain that Paine dismisses is about how the colonies supposedly have no ties to each other except the connection that England, our “mother country”, provides. Thus making all the colonies “sister colonies” because of England (Paine 643). He goes on to say that the term mother country had been implemented by the King to play on the human psyche, because naturally no one wants to fight with “family”. Eventually, Paine switches from countering the reasons against the separation and starts proposing his own reasons for the immediate separation from Great Britain. Paine states that, “The authority of Great Britain over this continent is a form of government, which sooner or later must have an end” (Paine 643), because in his opinion, he believes that “this government (one ruled by England) is not sufficiently lasting to insure anything which we may bequeath to Posterity” (Paine