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Title: Common Sense Author: Thomas Paine Entered by John Campbell CAMPBJW@WKUVX1.BITNET PROJECT GUTENBERG 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. 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 too much pains are bestowed upon their conversion. The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, | ||||
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