Common Sense: Addressed to the Inhabitants of America

Society in every state is a blessing but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government which we might expect in a country without government our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government like dress is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. -from Common Sense It is impossible to overstate influence of Thomas Paine-idealist radical and master rhetorician-in the creation of America. With this incendiary pamphlet published anonymously in early 1776 he gave voice to the discontent that gripped the British colonists in the New World with his cries for small government and personal liberty and his calls to shrug off the tyranny of Crown led directly to the Declaration of Independence only months later. He was the premiere political blogger of his day a man Thomas Edison called one of the greatest of all Americans and one todays liberals and progressives still claim as their intellectual forefather. Everyone who values freedom-of speech of thought of governance-and the ongoing fight required to maintain it must read and appreciate this one of the foundational documents of the United States of America. Also available from Cosimo Classics: Paines The Age of Reason OF INTEREST TO: students of liberal philosophy reader of American history AUTHOR BIO: Anglo-American political theorist and writer THOMAS PAINE (1737-1809) was born in England and emigrated to America in 1774 bearing letters of introduction from Benjamin Franklin. He also wrote Rights of Man (1791).