In January 1776, Thomas Paine’s pamphlet, “Common Sense,” was first distributed in the American colonies. “Common Sense” is more revolutionary than the casual reader may realize. It spread extraordinarily quickly and generated widespread support not only against the British Parliament but also – conspicuously and influentially – against the British monarch and against monarchy generally. 

On behalf of the Federal Bar Council Quarterly, I recently interviewed Eric M. Nelson, the Robert M. Beren Professor of Government at Harvard University, whose research focuses on the history of political thought in early-modern Europe and America, and who is the author of, among other works, The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought and The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding. 

Intellectual Roots

In charting the intellectual roots of the influential argument advanced by Paine, Nelson explained that John Milton, during the mid-seventeenth century, had crafted a striking defense of republicanism that relied in part on rabbinical interpretations of the Bible. When Milton was writing in defense of republicanism during the Commonwealth period, “the basic legitimacy of monarchy was not on the table,” as Nelson put it. Instead, what was needed was something more narrow – justifying the removal of a king who had, through tyranny, violated his contract with his subjects – but Milton exceeded that brief. Milton used what Nelson referred to as “hand me down” Latin translations of “midrash” (rabbinical commentary), interpreting biblical texts in Deuteronomy 17 about kingship, set in the light of verses critical of kingship in I Samuel 8, to argue for republicanism as not just “the best, but the only” form of government. 

Nelson pointed out that, post-Restoration, this kind of talk fell out of the common discourse, for the most part. The discourse in the colonies was largely about taxation and representation. Then a “bolt from the blue” arrived, in the form of Paine, making the same anti-monarchy arguments as Milton, over a century later. 

At the time the American Revolution was brewing, the public discourse went from the familiar “stridently royalist” tone in 1775 to one very different in 1776, in just one year. Nelson pointed out that Paine’s January 1776 pamphlet arrived at “the perfect moment.” The text of King George’s October 1775 speech declaring the colonies to be in rebellion had reached American shores in January 1776. There was trauma for colonists who had been “putting their faith in the king for years,” Nelson noted. Paine, in providing an anti-monarchy thesis, “provided the words to that music.”

As Nelson points out in The Hebrew Republic, Paine himself acknowledged “that he owed this argument to Milton.” John Adams later reported that he had confronted Paine, who had been a political radical in England, disliking his biblical reasoning and “could hardly think him sincere,” but Paine had “laughed and said he had taken his ideas in part from Milton.” It is intriguing to think how much democratic ideas owed to these religious roots; it was not necessarily secularization that led to the liberties we hold so dear today.

Astronomical Circulation 

Whether Paine believed the exegesis or knew how to speak to a colonial audience imbued with religious sensibilities, the circulation of his pamphlet reached astronomical numbers; over 100,000 copies were printed. However stupendous these numbers were, Nelson pointed out, this far understates the reach of Paine’s argument against kingship and monarchy, because his pamphlet was serialized in newspapers and appeared in broadsheets.

Today, you can find the site of Paine’s former grave in Westchester, New York. His body was disinterred and taken to England, but his impact is woven into the fabric of the Revolution. Yet it remains largely unknown that a series of biblical arguments advanced in seventeenth century England were seized upon, over a century later, and across the ocean, in a way that changed the world.

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Editor’s note: The author is a member of the Board of Editors of the Federal Bar Council Quarterly.