‘It Was Time for Every Man to Stir’: Thomas Paine’s Common Sense

By Jon Hersey

In April 1775, British redcoats and American militiamen clashed in the Battles of Lexington and Concord. In the following months, many Americans held out hope that the colonies would reconcile peacefully with their mother country. On January 10, 1776, however, Thomas Paine anonymously published the pamphlet Common Sense, which urged American colonists t…