Two hundred-and-fifty years ago, on Jan. 10, 1776, Thomas Paine published words that changed the course of history: “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” Characterized by Paine as “nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense,” his words transformed a colonial fight for rights under royal rule into a globally significant revolution for liberty under representative government.
Paine’s timing for “Common Sense,” the first widely-read pamphlet proposing independence rather than pleading for rights and reconciliation, was perfect. Only a year earlier, his words would have not been taken seriously. Patriots had been fighting for their rights as British subjects since the Stamp Act Crisis of 1765, the result of Parliament imposing taxes on colonists who were not represented in that body, but they had always looked to the king for relief.
