In 1776, Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” dismantled the moral and political foundations of British rule and argued persuasively for independence for an audience craving change. By the end of the Revolution, it had sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Paine’s writing and its reception reflected the essence of the American Revolution as an intellectual revolution.
We deservedly commemorate the military battles our Forefathers fought. But the Revolutionaries were engaged in a deeper struggle: a philosophical break from authoritarian rule toward a government dedicated to individual rights. The war was won on the battlefield and on the minds of the American people, and we should always remember the connection between the two.
“Common Sense” persuaded the colonists of the impossibility of reconciliation with the Crown and the need for independence. Paine understood that ideas are for everybody, not only ivory tower intellectuals, so he wrote for everyday colonists using accessible language and distilling complex political philosophy into clear concepts. He argued that hereditary monarchy was illegitimate, that a tiny island had no business governing a distant continent, and that independence —and a republican government based on consent— was morally and practically inevitable. George Washington himself would refer to “Common Sense” as “sound doctrine and unanswerable reasoning.”
The pamphlet did much intellectual heavy lifting to secure moral support for the cause of independence. As John Adams would later say,“without the pen of Paine, the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain.” Adams’ words emphasize the connection between the ideas driving the Revolution and the action needed to implement them.
Paine understood the gravity of the historical moment by stating that “we have it in our power to begin the world over again.” He was right: his arguments paved the way for the most important document in history: the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration argued for and established the foundational principles of individual rights and self-governance. It laid out America’s political philosophy, building on Enlightenment philosopher John Locke among others. The intention of the Declaration, per Jefferson himself, was to integrate the ideas that had been animating the Revolution and be “an expression of the American mind.” It aimed to lay the moral background for the new system of government and to “place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take.”
While “Common Sense” persuaded the colonists of the need to become independent, the Declaration argued for and implemented that independence. But the Founders kept writing. They went from the question of whether to be free to how to remain free: for example, the Federalist Papers aimed to persuade voters to ratify the new Constitution to preserve the Union and establish an accountable government. Countless correspondence, essays, pamphlets, and other literature arguing in various directions shaped America’s founding era because the nature of the revolution required it.
The Revolution was a complete change in the way of conceptualizing government and the individual, and these ideas needed arguments and debate. In a letter, John Adams said that the “real” American revolution was a “radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections” of the American people, stressing the break from the European tradition and the creation of something new.
Continental army officer Baron von Steuben succinctly captured this new American attitude when he wrote: “In Europe, you say to your soldier, ‘Do this’ and he does it. But I am obliged to say to the American, ‘This is why you ought to do this’ and then he does it.” The Founders gave Americans plenty of “whys” to support the revolution.
Ideas and actions fed on each other during the founding era. As Adams put it in a letter to Jefferson, the war was “an effect and consequence” of the revolution, which really took place in the “minds of the people.” The Founders’ brilliance rests on their capacity to devise an intellectual framework for their cause, and to act on it. As philosopher Ayn Rand once put it, “as a political group, [the Founders] were a phenomenon unprecedented in history: they were thinkers who were also men of action.” They translated abstract ideas into a concrete political system that we’re still celebrating 250 years later.
America was forged by muskets and ink, and it is the ink that has enabled the freedom we celebrate today. That freedom was thought through, written down, and reasoned into existence by individuals who understood they were founding a nation based on ideas, and who risked their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to make them a reality.
Agustina Vergara Cid is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. Follow her on X @agustinavcid