The New American Crisis: Common Sense
America 250 through the eyes of Thomas Paine
"These are the times that try men's souls." That famed line was penned by Thomas Paine in The American Crisis No. 1, written in December of 1776, a few months after the Declaration of Independence and during a very uncertain war with the British Empire. Then, like today, we as Americans faced a tyrant ruling our country, and no assurance on how things will end. Unlike then, however, our tyrant and fate is of our own hand. We have crises in governance, in climate, and in equality which hang over us like a thick fog. We are a nation 250 years old this year, and are looking back at our past for guidance. Paine represents some of the best of that history. He was a major intellectual influence on the revolution, and his pamphlet Common Sense (written in Philadelphia when he had only come over from England two years prior) helped galvanize the colonies in favor of full independence. He advocated not just for an independent republic, but for true democracy and economic justice as well. His later works advocated for an early form of universal basic income and defended the principles of equal rights amidst the French Revolution. He was both an intellectual leader among the founding fathers, and had one of the most forward-facing visions among them.
Through Paine and other early revolutionaries we can interpret and perhaps even reclaim some of that history. He was a major influence not just on the country as a whole, but on Pennsylvania specifically. Active in Philadelphia, his works were a major influence on the revolutionary Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776. That constitution sought to prevent aristocracy from dominating an upper chamber with a unicameral state legislature, and prevented a single leader from gaining too much power by having a power shared by collective executive council. Both seem like fairly prescient reforms today. It was under this constitution that Pennsylvania fought the Revolutionary War, and in 1780 Pennsylvania became the first of the 13 colonies to pass a law on the prohibition of slavery with the flawed but groundbreaking Gradual Abolition Act.
The American Revolution, and America itself, has more than its share of moral failings and hypocrisies, but figures like Paine also show the long arc of progress that we fight for. He was certainly not the only person in that long arc, and the project is not about big man history or putting him on a pedestal. We look at the whole of our history for guidance and context, in America, in Pennsylvania, in Erie. Ever more towards equality, democracy, liberty, and justice for all.
Ambiguity is the difference between reading about history and living through it. History flattens the human experience into a digestible, understandable narrative. It provides clarity which allows us to make sense of our past. Those of us in the present have no such luxury. We know not how this story ends, whether ours has a happy ending, or perhaps a tragedy. Life doesn't stop happening – there is a profound sense of disconnection when you still have to go to work, get groceries, see your friends – while a crisis surrounds you. But there is also possibility. Characters like Paine have already had their stories written, and furthermore, they helped write them themselves. In our story, in our country, we are both character and author, and we can shape what will seem so predetermined in some future history. We are, fundamentally, the same humanity that accomplished all of those feats which seem so impossible in our present state.
It is now us, in the present, who are bearers of the long arc. We cannot continue things as we have done and which have failed. Local sovereignty, direct action, a new democracy, and an aggressive reform of our economic system is needed. These crises are ultimately, human problems with human solutions. These are not small or trivial tasks, but neither was American independence.
"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph." – Thomas Paine, The American Crisis
This essay was written as part of the Thomas Paine Project, an interpretive history initiative by the Erie Research Team looking at the progressive history of the American Revolution at 250 years, and how its lessons can be applied to civic life today.
