ABSTRACT
Thomas (Tom) Paine was a leading voice for independence in the American colonies. His widely read pamplet Common Sense helped turn the colonies' dispute with Great Britain into a movement for independence and revolution. Paine's writings, with their sustained attacks on the excesses of hereditary government and calls for greater political power for the middle classes, played an important role in the late-eighteenth-century transition from monarchy and colonialism to republican government and independence.
