Common Sense by Thomas Paine (11/53)

As I've previously discussed here, anonymity on the web and on this blog is appropriate. After all, our Founding Fathers hid behind pseudonyms routinely. In this ongoing piece, I'm highlighting one of the more famous anonymous writings from a Founding Father - Common Sense by Thomas Paine.

But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families. Wherefore, the assertion, if true, turns to her reproach; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so, and the phrase PARENT OR MOTHER COUNTRY hath been jesuitically adopted by the King and his parasites, with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds. Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new World hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from EVERY PART of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.

Wow! I've never read Common Sense. And now I'm only reading it one paragraph each day. But damn... this thing is startin' to get good! This paragraph has several words I'd never heard. And the last sentence is incredibly powerful. I can understand why people were so moved.

Tim White