Thomas Paine’s 1776 pamphlet Common Sense influenced the debate behind the United States Declaration of Independence.
Published anonymously in Philadelphia on January 10, 1776, Common Sense argued that the American colonies should seek complete independence from Great Britain. Paine attacked monarchy and hereditary rule in direct, accessible language, helping make independence understandable to a broad reading public.
The pamphlet appeared months before Congress adopted the Declaration. Its arguments contributed to the political climate in which colonial opinion shifted from seeking reconciliation toward supporting separation. Paine later wrote The American Crisis, another influential Revolutionary-era publication, but that was a different work.
Common Sense did not serve as the Declaration’s official draft. Thomas Jefferson wrote the original draft of the Declaration, and the Second Continental Congress revised and adopted it. Paine’s pamphlet is best understood as an influential public argument for independence rather than a formal congressional document.