Why Thomas Paine?

In 1973, as the 200th anniversary of Common Sense loomed, Bernard Bailyn dared to wonder, “What is one to make of this extraordinary document after 200 years? What questions…should one ask of it?” ¹ Bailyn chose to focus his study on the “uncommon,” or extraordinary elements of Common Sense. ² That same year noted historian Winthrop Jordan also published an essay about Common Sense entitled “Familial Politics: Thomas Paine and the Killing of the King, 1776.” ³ Whereas Bailyn chose to focus more on the unique rhetorical aspects of Common Sense, Jordan opted to inquire into “the subliminal sources of political influence” and pondered whether or not such an “arcane” study of a symbolic homicide should even be undertaken. ⁴ This has been the nature of Paine scholarship over the course of the past 200 years: a hodgepodge of theories and assessments ranging from the mundane to the truly esoteric and everything in between. Over the course of the past two centuries, rhetoricians, literary critics, political scientists, historians, and religious scholars have all taken an interest in Paine’s explosive pamphlet.