What did Paine argue in common sense?

Thomas Paine, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

Thomas Paine answers

I began with a distinction, because I found that most men had confounded two things. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the one promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the other negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions; the first is a patron, the last a punisher.1

Government, then, even at its best, is a necessary evil, and a necessary evil ought to be kept as small and as accountable as it can be made. A hereditary king is neither. From that I turned to the English constitution and to monarchy. A King in England has little more to do than make war and give away places, which in plain terms is to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears.

For that he is allowed eight hundred thousand sterling a year, and worshipped into the bargain. I held then, and hold now, that one honest man is of more worth to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.2 Then the cause itself. The quarrel with England had been argued in volumes by men of every rank, to no effect, and the period of debate was closed; arms decided it, the appeal was the choice of the King, and the Continent had accepted the challenge.

I asked no deference of the reader, only simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense, and that he would not put off the true character of a man.3 The cause was not the affair of a city, a county, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent, of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe, and posterity would be affected by it to the end of time.

Now was the seed-time of continental union, faith and honour; the least fracture would be like a name cut with a pin into the rind of a young oak, which widens with the tree until posterity reads it in full-grown characters.4 Nor was it an American quarrel only. The cause of America is in great measure the cause of all mankind. To lay a country desolate with fire and sword, to declare war against the natural rights of all mankind and to extirpate their defenders from the earth, is the concern of every man to whom nature has given the power of feeling.5

That is why I signed no name. The object for the public's attention was the doctrine, not the man, and I was under no influence, public or private, but the influence of reason and principle.6

Sources

  1. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness possitivelyhy uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
    The Writings of Thomas Paine Vol 1, 1774-1779
  2. In England a King hath little more to do than to make war and give away places; which, in plain terms, is to empoverish the nation and set it together by the ears.
    The Writings of Thomas Paine Vol 1, 1774-1779
  3. In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense
    The Writings of Thomas Paine Vol 1, 1774-1779
  4. Now is the seed-time of Continental union, faith and honour. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak
    The Writings of Thomas Paine Vol 1, 1774-1779
  5. The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.
    The Writings of Thomas Paine Vol 1, 1774-1779
  6. Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the Doctrine itself, not the Man.
    The Writings of Thomas Paine Vol 1, 1774-1779