Common Sense Excerpts

​Common Sense 1 Sentence Summaries

By Michelle Sharper

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...But there is another and great distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and it is the distinction of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS. Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of Heaven; but how race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth inquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind…

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I have heard it asserted by some, that as America flourished under her former connection with Great Britain, the same connection is necessary towards her future happiness, and will always have the same effect. Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of argument. We may as well assert that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat, or that the first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty. But even this is admitting more than is true; for I answer roundly that America would have flourished as much, and probably much more, had no European power taken any notice of her…

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I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation to show a single advantage that this continent can reap by being connected with Great Britain. I repeat the challenge; not a single advantage is derived. Our corn will fetch its price in any market in Europe, and our imported goods must be paid for buy them where we will.

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But the injuries and disadvantages which we sustain by that connection, are without number; and our duty to mankind at large, as well as to ourselves, instruct us to renounce the alliance: because, any submission to, or dependence on Great Britain, tends directly to involve this Continent in European wars and quarrels, and set us at variance with nation who would otherwise seek our friendship, and against whom we have neither anger nor complaint…

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But where some says is the King of America? I’ll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve as monarchy, that on America LAW IS KING. For as in absolute government the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.