ABSTRACT
No one, especially Thomas Paine, could have predicted the profound impact Common Sense would have upon the American psyche in January 1776. In a matter of weeks, the pamphlet set the colonies aflame with its dramatic and urgent call for revolution. After he published Common Sense Paine’s initial shock regarding its success was replaced by the knowledge that he had the power to change the way that people thought with mere words. Not only that, but he believed that his success was the result of Americans using their capacity for reason to recognize the irrationality of remaining in the British Empire. This triumph of reason, as Paine perceived it, worked a curious and significant change upon Paine’s own mind: he determined that it was possible to create entire nations of devout, democratic, deists through political revolution.
