Thomas Paine

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Thomas Paine was born on January 29, 1737 at Thetford, Norfolk in England. After a short education, he started to work, at first for his father.. During this time Thomas Paine was an unsuccesfull man.. In 1774, he met Benjamin Franklin in London, toldhim to emigrate to America.


Paine arrived in Philadelphia on November 30, 1774. He started out as a publicist, he first published his African Slavery in America, in 1775, criticizing slavery in America as being unjust and inhumaine. At this time he also had become co-editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine In Philadelphia, Paine had sensed the rise of tension, and the spirit of rebellion, that had steadily mounted in the Colonies after the Boston Tea Partyand when the fightings had started, in April 1775, with the battles of Lexington and Concord. In Paine's view the Colonies had all the right to revolt against a government that imposed taxes on them but which did not give them the right of representation in the Parliament at Westminster. But he went even further: for him there was no reason for the Colonies to stay dependent on England. On January 10, 1776 Paine formulated his ideas on american independence in his pamphlet Common Sense.

In his Common Sense, Paine states that sooner or later independence from England must come, because America had lost touch with the mother country. In his words, all the arguments for separation of England are based on nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments and common sense. Government was necessary evil that could only become safe when it was representative and altered by frequent elections. The function of government in society ought to be only regulating and therefore as simple as possible. Not suprisingly, but nevertheless remarkable was his call for a declaration of independence. Due to the many copies sold (500.000) Paine's influence on the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776 is eminent. Another sign of his great influen...