Six primary documents from the two years that changed everything. The arrival. The argument against monarchy. The anonymous pamphlet. The drum-light essay. Washington's general orders the night of the reading.
Thomas Paine arrived in Philadelphia in November 1774 at age thirty-seven. He had failed at every trade he attempted in England: corset-making (his father's business), teaching, tax collecting, shopkeeping. Two wives had preceded him, one died, one left. He arrived with a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin, who had met him in London and recognized something in the man.
The letter asked Philadelphia contacts to receive Paine as "an ingenious worthy young man." He was neither young nor particularly established, but the letter opened doors. Within weeks he was working as editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine. Within fourteen months he had written the most widely circulated political document in American history.
The bearer Mr. Thomas Paine is very well recommended to me as an ingenious worthy young man. He goes to Pennsylvania with a view of settling there. I request you to give him your best advice and countenance, as he is quite a stranger there. If you can put him in a way of obtaining employment as a clerk, or assistant tutor in a school, or assistant surveyor, of all which I think him very capable, so that he may procure a subsistence at least, till he can make acquaintance and obtain a knowledge of the country, you will do well, and much oblige your affectionate father.
On January 10, 1776, a 47-page pamphlet appeared in Philadelphia printed by Robert Bell on Third Street. The title was Common Sense: Addressed to the Inhabitants of America. The author was identified only as "Written by an Englishman", anonymous, because the contents could be construed as treason. Thomas Paine was the author.
In January 1776, most colonial leaders were still hoping for reconciliation with Britain. Common Sense argued that reconciliation was impossible, monarchy was absurd by design, hereditary succession was a fraud on humanity, and independence was not only necessary but immediately achievable. It was written in plain English, addressed to ordinary readers, and priced to circulate widely.
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.
One of the strongest NATURAL proofs of the folly of hereditary right in Kings, is that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule, by giving mankind an ASS FOR A LION... In England a King hath little more to do than to make war and give away places; which, in plain terms, is to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears. A pretty business indeed for a man to be allowed eight hundred thousand sterling a year for, and worshipped into the bargain!
O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the Globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.
Washington wrote to Joseph Reed in January 1776 about the effect Common Sense was having in his camp. The letter is at Founders Online. He described it as working a powerful change in the minds of many men. The pamphlet reached the Continental Army within weeks of publication and was read aloud in units throughout the encampment.
I find Common Sense is working a powerful change there in the minds of many men. Few Pamphlets have been read more generally by the military than Common Sense.
By December 1776 the Continental cause was near collapse. The British had driven Washington's army out of New York and across New Jersey. Thousands of enlistments expired on January 1. Paine, serving as aide-de-camp to General Nathanael Greene, wrote the first number of The American Crisis while retreating with the army, using the head of a drum for a desk in the freezing cold. It was published in the Pennsylvania Journal on December 19, 1776.
Washington ordered it read aloud to every brigade of the Continental Army on December 23, 1776, three days before the crossing of the Delaware and the Battle of Trenton. The broadside printing is at the Library of Congress with no known copyright restrictions.
THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: — 'Tis dearness only that gives every thing its value.
I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on THIS state or THAT state, but on EVERY state; up and help us; lay your shoulders to the wheel; better have too much force than too little, when so great an object is at stake. Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it.
On December 23, 1776, Washington ordered The American Crisis read to every brigade of the Continental Army. Three days later, on Christmas night, he led 2,400 men across the ice-choked Delaware River and attacked the Hessian garrison at Trenton at dawn. The attack succeeded.
Washington's General Orders of December 23 do not directly mention The Crisis by title in all surviving versions, but the order to read it is documented in the contemporary regimental records and in subsequent accounts of officers present. The connection between the reading and the Trenton crossing is established in primary correspondence and officer memoirs from December 1776 and early 1777.
Paine continued The American Crisis through the war, thirteen numbers in all, published between December 1776 and April 1783. The final number, published on April 19, 1783, the eighth anniversary of Lexington and Concord, opened: "The times that tried men's souls are over." The first number had opened: "THESE are the times that try men's souls." Seven years and the closing sentence answered the opening one.
The times that tried men's souls are over — and the greatest and completest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished.