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Primary source: Thomas Paine, Common Sense, essay, 1776.
Caption: Thomas Paine (1737–1809) was born in England and emigrated to the colonies in 1774. In Common Sense, Paine articulates his argument for independence.
. . . the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other. . .
A government of our own is our natural right: And when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance. . .
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Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776; reprint, edited with an introduction by Isaac Kramnick, New York: Penguin Classics, 1986), 98.
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