America's 1st Viral Post, Jan 10, 1776, Thom Paine's 'Common Sense' Sparked A Revolution, Tore Down Monarchy

Last edited Thu Jan 23, 2025, 10:19 PM - Edit history (1)

On This Day in History. America's First ‘Viral’ Post Was Published on This Day in 1776, When Thomas Paine’s ‘Common Sense’ Sparked a Revolution. The Englishman’s pamphlet helped spur the 13 colonies to declare independence from Britain. Smithsonian, Jan. 10, 2025. Ed.
- Portrait of Thomas Paine. 📃
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It was Philadelphia in the winter of 1776. In the few years prior, the colonies’ faraway owner, Britain, had imposed taxation without representation and the so-called Intolerable Acts; colonists had convened at two Continental Congresses; and British and American troops had battled for the first time at Bunker Hill. Revolutionary sentiment had been brewing throughout the American colonies for some time and was near boiling in the Northeast. Still, many colonists had not seriously considered separating from the mother country—until a history-making pamphlet was published in the City of Brotherly Love on January 10, 1776.

Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, “addressed to the inhabitants of America,” was a 47-page dynamo presenting the recently immigrated Englishman’s clear case for America’s independence from Britain. Paine’s words flew off the shelves, selling tens of thousands of copies within weeks. The text has been called America’s first viral communications event: Its content gripped and inspired Americans, who loudly read it aloud on the street and in bars, spreading Paine’s message.

In short, Paine’s argument was that given Britain's tyrannical rule, the only way forward for the American colonies was to become an independent country.

He tore down the idea of monarchy, questioning the legitimacy of kings like George III, who, like all other British kings, was seen as divinely ordained to rule.

“The divine right of kings is a lie; monarchy runs against God’s plans,” Paine wrote. “For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever.” Paine encouraged colonists to unite against their colonial overlord and take their independence, then decide as a people who should govern them, as is their “natural right.” He accused those opposed to American independence of “opening a door to eternal tyranny,” reminding readers of the suffering Britain had inflicted upon them in the colonies and asserting that most of the colonies’ economic problems could be solved by separating from Britain.

Just half a year after Common Sense hit the presses, the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia—a move certainly influenced by Paine’s writing, which inspired its chief author, Thomas Jefferson. Later that same year, when the colonies were on their backs, Paine wrote in American Crisis the famous words: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” “Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph,” he added. By the end of the American Revolution, Paine was regarded as a national hero...
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/americas-first-viral-post-was-published-on-this-day-in-1776-when-thomas-paines-common-sense-sparked-a-revolution-180985802/

Thomas Paine (b. Feb. 9, 1737- June 8, 1809) was an English-born American Founding Father, French Revolutionary, inventor, and political philosopher. He authored Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783), two of the most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and he helped to inspire the colonial era patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era ideals of human rights.

Paine was born in Thetford, Norfolk, and immigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 with the help of Benjamin Franklin, arriving just in time to participate in the American Revolution. Virtually every American Patriot read his 47-page pamphlet Common Sense, which catalyzed the call for independence from Great Britain. The American Crisis was a pro-independence pamphlet series. Paine lived in France for most of the 1790s, becoming deeply involved in the French Revolution...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine