Why are Thomas Paines ideas important to democratic thought?
English political philosopher and author Thomas Paine (1737–1809) believed that a democracy (government based on the will of the people) is the only form of government that can guarantee natural rights (laws endowed by God to all people). Paine arrived in the American colonies in 1774. Two years later he wrote Common Sense, a pamphlet that gained strong public support for the American Revolution (1775–83), the conflict by which the American colonies gained independence from Great Britain. During the struggle Paine wrote and distributed a series of sixteen papers, called Crisis, upholding the colonists’ cause. In the papers he used the language of common speech, which helped his message reach a mass audience in America and elsewhere. He soon became known as an advocate of individual freedom. In 1791 and 1792, after returning…
