"Common Sense was one of the first decisive calls in the Colonies for independence and revolution. The logic and language influenced the writing of the first draft of the Declaration of Independence. The sixteen essays collected in The American Crisis rallied the public and the demoralized army during the dark period of the revolution between 1776 and 1780. George Washington, knowing that Paine’s potent voice could lend persuasion and articulation to the cause of independence, ordered the pamphlet to be read to all the troops. Paine was the most influential propagandist of the American Revolution."
Thomas Paine Cyclopedia of World Authors, Fourth Revised Edition
"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 mankind are affected, and in the event of which their affections are interested." (Norton, p. 631)
Paine was in some ways a perfect candidate for emigration to America. A disaffected and talented man who had failed at all the pursuits available to him, he arrived in Philadelphia in middle age at precisely the moment when his uncompromising political vision and his rousing eloquence were most needed. He was able to step off the boat and remake himself immediately.
The American quarrel with Britain was largely an aristocratic one. The landowning elites who sat on the colonial legislatures did not want to be subservient to the British Parliament or subject to their taxes. The working poor were largely removed from this contest, and the American population in general was quite divided on the issue of loyalty to the Crown. A leader was needed who could bring the fight to the ordinary people and enlist their support in the struggle. The landed elites were not going to fight a war on their own. Paine was the perfect voice for rousing the populace and stirring their indignation.
It is interesting that Paine's language deals in the general and the universal. A lifetime of intelligent inquisitiveness and discontent had led him to develop general ideas about justice and authority which were applicable to the American situation. In the end he was not a typical American immigrant who settled in the new country to make a new life. He did not stay in America, he moved on to the next struggle, the next fight for liberation.
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