Thomas Paine, American Propagandist
Monday, September 21, 2020
A sometimes-unacknowledged feature of war is the effort to make one side's cause seem the better, while vilifying that of the enemy. This is known as propaganda.
Case in point: The writings of Thomas Paine, counted by some as among America's "Founding Fathers," though he never held American office nor picked up a gun in America's defense. When the revolution had been won, Paine continued writing to help shape a philosophy for the new government.
When Paine arrived in America in 1774, it was not a sovereign nation but a colony of Great Britain. But revolution was in the air, and his pamphlet entitled "Common Sense," published in January of 1776 (six months before the "Declaration of Independence") became a best-seller--in fact, read (or heard by the illiterate) by a larger percentage of Americans than any other work before or since. Political activist John Adams (who became America's first vice-president under George Washington, and second president) wrote, "Without the pen of the author of 'Common Sense,' the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain."
Paine followed up this incendiary work with a series of sixteen pamphlets titled "The American Crisis," published from 1776 to 1783 as the American Revolution progressed. (Thirteen of them were published in the first two years of the run.) Paine used "Common Sense," the title of his first pamphlet, as a pseudonym when signing each pamphlet in the later series. The first words of the first pamphlet have become especially famous:
"These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."
The first winter of the war was especially trying. The troops under George Washington suffered so badly that many were tempted to quit. On December 23, 1776, Washington ordered that the pamphlet--published just four days earlier--be read aloud to the troops. Three days later, the Americans were victorious at the Battle of Trenton.