Tom Paine’s War: The Words That Rallied a Nation and the Founder for Our Time
Thomas Paine (b. 1737 in England) had been in America only two years when he penned his fast-selling pamphlet, Common Sense, in January 1776. In it, he called the King of England a fraud and called for the American colonies to break with the Crown. Widely circulated, printed in every city newspaper, his plain-spoken language led Congress only months later to declare that the American colonies were “absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown.” At heart a debater and writer, Paine again galvanized the American patriots when, at the end of the same year as the desperate nadir of General Washington’s army war efforts, he inscribed these famous words in a Philadelphia coffee house: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Eight beats, like heroic verse, opened “The American Crisis” (provided in Kelly’s appendix). What followed these words inspired hope in the newfound nation, initiating an early turning point in the Revolutionary War, when days later Washington crossed the Delaware River.
Between writing dramatic battlefield accounts and a fascinating biography of Paine, Kelly points out how both Presidents Lincoln and Obama quoted Paine at their respective crises in the country best known for hope.
