We don’t give much attention to Thomas Paine these days. He was from England and had tried to make a living alternatively as a grocer, a Methodist preacher, an excise officer, an English teacher and a writer. He wasn’t much of a businessman as you can see, and he had a difficult time relating to others. However, he was a creative and imaginative literary mastermind.

He was an unknown and moneyless unsuccessful writer who decided to migrate to America. He had met Benjamin Franklin in London, and Franklin gave him a letter of recommendation to Congress. Paine soon got a job working for The Pennsylvania Magazine. He wrote numerous articles for his new employer.

After Benjamin Franklin returned to America, he suggested to Thomas Paine that he write a new pamphlet and that it should be designed around basic independence. Paine had his own sense of what was right and wrong, and saw injustice happening in his new found country.

By September, 1775, he had finished his first draft. He was able to present it to Benjamin Rush, who would be one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Dr. Rush offered some suggestions for improvement of the draft and praised the manuscript. In December Paine sent the revised draft for reading by Benjamin Franklin and Sam Adams. They also found it praiseworthy.

On January 10, 1776, the work was published under the title “Common Sense”. The 39 year old Paine was totally unprepared for the response this booklet received. The first edition sold out within 2 weeks in Philadelphia. In 3 weeks it had sold more than 120,000 copies throughout the Colonies. It would sell more than half a million in the next 2 years.

Naturally you would think that such a successful writer would become wealthy and famous. Famous yes. But he donated all his proceeds to the Second Continental Congress to do with as they pleased. Thomas Paine did not receive one cent for this publication. The booklet did have a major impact on the movement for independence in the American Colonies.