Thomas Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense helped build support for independence before the Declaration and America250’s 1776 milestone.
Published anonymously in Philadelphia on January 10, 1776, the pamphlet argued that the American colonies should break from Great Britain and establish a republican government. Paine wrote in direct, accessible prose rather than the highly formal style common in political debate.
Common Sense became an immediate sensation. It was sold widely, read aloud in public places, and circulated throughout the Thirteen Colonies. Its arguments helped turn independence from a controversial idea into a subject of mass political discussion.
The pamphlet is sometimes confused with Paine’s later work The Rights of Man, which defended the French Revolution. Common Sense addressed the American independence crisis specifically and appeared months before the Declaration was adopted.