ABSTRACT

The various philosophies referred to summarize the prevalent views of Thomas Paine’s political stance when he wrote Common Sense. Views expressed by people Paine encountered in the coffee houses and taverns of Philadelphia are the most likely source of the objections to independence which he refuted in Common Sense. Many of Montgomery’s arguments repeat those Paine had put forward in Common Sense. Paine’s pamphlet on Montgomery’s ghost appeared just before Congress voted to accept the Declaration of Independence. Paine contributed prose essays, among them a Swiftian satire, ‘New Anecdotes of Alexander the Great’, which appeared in the issue. J. C. D. Clark explains why Paine spent so many pages attacking ‘the ideology of monarchical legitimism’ by pointing out that ‘the case for the specifically Christian character of political obligation and for the divine sanction of monarchical government, commanded a wide following in the American colonies, as well as in England’.