Thomas Paine and his little pamphlet of Common Sense is credited with
making the American and French Revolutions anti-monarchical. WI Thomas
Paine is killed during one of his voyages as a crewman on a privateer.
We would not have The Case of the Officers of Excise, Common Sense,
Rights of Man, The Age of Reason, or even An Essay on the Origin of
Free-Masonry (1803-1805).
The name of the United States of America is supposed to be a Paine
invention. Would the colonies ever get beyond a possible victory
against the British, possibly even breaking off without the text to
guide them. Without a vision where would the visionaries look? Would
the vision be a small one of individual "nations" clustered together
for little more than the celebration of their independence or the
large one of The Rights of Man extended to the entire sphere?
