250 Years After Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, We Could Really Use SomeIt speaks to the power of Common Sense that its author could articulate a series of circumstances that played out surprisingly accurately over the centuries.
By: Christopher Jacobs
January 22, 2026
The FederalistIt is arguably the best-selling (non-biblical) work in our nation’s history and inarguably one of the most influential. A treatise that helped lead to the creation of a new nation, it was written by someone who had spent little more than a year on this side of the Atlantic before taking up his pen.
First published a quarter-millennium ago this month, Common Sense launched a continental debate about whether the American colonies should declare their independence from Great Britain. As our nation prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday, a creation that Common Sense helped bring about, it seems appropriate to reexamine Thomas Paine’s seminal work in light of both the American Revolution and events since. ...
In some sections, Common Sense seems archaic amid the philosophical discussion of systems of government — a discussion that by modern standards appears consigned to university seminars and Enlightenment-era literature — and righteous indignation at the misdeeds of King George III and the British Army. Yet portions seem eerily prescient and relevant still to our 21st-century society.
While highlighting the brutality of British rule in the decade leading up to the Revolution, Paine also noted the impracticality and absurdity of a small island nation trying to rule an entire continent an ocean away: “It is evident they belong to different systems.” He added words that might serve as music to the ears of some modern audiences: “England to Europe: America to itself.” ...
