While pamphlets like these would prompt John Adams to say one was “too absurd to be considered twice,” the anti-republicanism that they injected into American society made a difference. According to Inglis and Chalmer, this was Paine’s fatal error, and it was America’s fatal error to trust Paine. More than anything, they believed, Thomas Paine gave many assurances of the promise of revolution, all without justification. Because Americans were essentially Britons, just as the English Revolution of 1688 failed, so must the American Revolution, so Inglis and Chalmers believed. They have the manner, habits, and ideas of Britons.” Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787, 94. (Phila., 1776), 63-64, 70.īoth Inglis and Chalmer were sure that “The Americans are properly Britons. Containing, Remarks on a Late Pamphlet, Entitled Common Sense. quoting Inglis, True Interest of America, 49, 52-53.Ĭhalmer wrote that republicanism would only result in anarchy and eventually a dictatorship, with “commercial chaos and agrarian laws limiting the possession of property.” Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787, 94 citing Chalmers, Plain Truth. Inglis, in The True Interest of America Impartially Stated, wrote that, “All our property throughout the continent would be unhinged,” and “the greatest confusion, and the most violent convulsions would take place.” Id.

They looked to past republics and only saw failure, as each was torn apart “by faction and internal struggles, tumults from which America would never escape.” Id. Further, both wrote that the American people were innately incapable of sustaining republicanism. Both Inglis and Chalmer opposed American independence based on “a vigorous defense of the English monarchical constitution.” Id.īut more than anything, Inglis and Chalmer warned of the “social dangers of republicanism” that would result from declaring independence. There were two major responses to Paine’s Common Sense: Charles Inglis’s The True Interest of America Impartially Stated and James Chalmer’s Plain Truth. However, it had its detractors who did not believe that “republicanism for America was a matter of common sense.” Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787, 94.

Thomas Paine’s Common Sense was a hugely influential pamphlet that has been cherished by several generations of Americans.

Thomas paine common sense sparknotes