CHAPTER TWo • FoRGiNG A NEW GovERNmENT: THE CoNsTiTuTioN 25
attempted to reach a peaceful settlement with the British Parliament. One declaration of
the congress stated explicitly that “we have not raised armies with ambitious designs of
separating from Great Britain, and establishing indepen dent states.” But by the beginning
of 1776, military encounters had become increasingly frequent.
Public debate was acrimonious. Then Thomas Paine’s Common Sense appeared in
Philadelphia bookstores. The pamphlet was a colonial best seller. (To do relatively as well
today, a book would have to sell between 9 million and 11 million copies in its first year of
publication.) Many agreed that Paine did make common sense when he argued thata government of our own is our natural right: and when a man seriously reflects on
the precariousness [instability, unpredictability] of human affairs, he will become con-
vinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool
and deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interest-
ing event to time and chance.^3Paine further argued that “nothing can settle our affairs so expeditiously as an open and
determined declaration for Independence.”^4
Students of Paine’s pamphlet point out that his arguments were not new—they were
common in tavern debates throughout the land. Rather, it was the near poetry of his
words—which were at the same time as plain as the alphabet—that struck his readers.The minutemen were members of a colonial militia that was ready to fight the British
at a moment’s notice. Why did the Continental Congress later turn the militia into an army?
(MPI/Getty Images)- The Political Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. 1 (Boston: J. P. Mendum Investigator Office, 1870), p. 46.
- Ibid., p. 54.
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