Common Sense
contributor: Eric Lease Morgan (Infomotions, Inc.)
creator: Paine, Thomas
date: 0000-00-00
extent: 125040
format: text/plain
language: en
publisher: Wiretap Electronic Text Archive
rights: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/
source: common.txt
subject: king
subject: government
subject: time
subject: england
subject: etext
subject: public
subject: domain
subject: paine
subject: thomas
subject: common
subject: sense
subject: western
subject: philosophy
type: text
local mirror: paine-common-398.txt
concordance: http://infomotions.com/alex/cgi-bin/concordance.pl
plain html: paine-common-398.htm
sort title: Common Sense
full text: [pg/etext94/comsn10.txt] July, 1994 Common Sense, by Thomas Paine [comsn10x.xxx] [#147] Common Sense, by Thomas Paine July 4th, 1994 [Etext #147] This text is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN. Entered by John Campbell CAMPBJW@WKUVX1.BITNET ETEXT OF _COMMON SENSE_ BY THOMAS PAINE Mr. Paine's footnotes are contained within brackets [ ] within the text. As this is my first attempt at Etext transcription, I welcome all comments and suggestions - I trust there shall be many! I had an especially difficult time keeping margins even as the word processor I started with could not handle such a large file and the program I changed to was one I had not used before so there were some quirks I had not expected. Most of the text in all caps was in italics in the version of the book I used. INTRODUCTION Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason. As a long and violent abuse of power, is generally the Means of calling the right of it in question (and in Matters too which might never have been thought of, had not the Sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry) and as the King of England hath undertaken in his OWN RIGHT, to support the Parliament in what he calls THEIRS, and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpation of either. In the following sheets, the author hath studiously avoided every thing which is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof. The wise, and the worthy, need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious, or unfriendly, will cease of themselves unless …