Two hundred and fifty years ago Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense, challenging the rule of the British Empire and its domineering oligarchy, and encouraging Americans to adopt a new form of government. The book was eulogized by George Washington and was influential in promoting the American Revolution. The same challenge needs to be renewed today.America is again ruled by an oligarchy, this time of billionaires and mega-millionaires hiding behind corporations. They dominate government, industry, the media, our military, and our educational facilities, and their insatiable greed for ever greater profits threatens all our social uplift programs.They have shredded our Constitution, limiting freedoms, curtailing rights, militarizing the police, filling prisons and subjecting Americans to constant surveillance. Corporate rights have been strengthened and those of individual citizens weakened.These unwarranted changes in our society are buttressed by the present US Constitution, which was written by aristocrats and slaveholders to protect their own interests, upholding the rights of property over human rights. The word democracy appears nowhere in the document. It is time to subject this 250 year old relic to scrutiny and to suggest that a new Constitution be written. Here are arguments in favor of doing exactly this, looking first at the history of the present Constitution, then what social philosophers have said about good government, how our present government fails us in many ways, and offering some suggestions for a new Constitution.

Addressed to the Inhabitants of America, on the Following Interesting Subjects, viz.: I. Of the Origin and Design of Government in General, with Concise Remarks on the English Constitution. II. Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession. III. Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs. IV. Of the Present Ability of America, with some Miscellaneous Reflections

Common Sense was a revolutionary work that played a significant role in inspiring the American Revolution. Paine's arguments for independence and democracy were instrumental in galvanizing support for the cause, and it heled to unite the colonies in their fight against British rule. Today, Common Sense is recognized as a classic of American political literature, and it continues to be studied and debated by scholars and students of history and politics.Paine called for the establishment of a democratic republic in America, where government power would be based on the consent of the governed. He criticized the idea of hereditary monarchy and called for an end to the system of aristocracy that was prevalent in Europe at the time.In Common Sense, Paine makes a compelling case for independence, arguing that it was the natural and rational course of action for the American colonies. He challenged the legitimacy of the British monarchy and argued that it was not in the best interests of the American people to remain under British rule.Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense was a political document published in 1776 that argued for the American colonies to declare independence from Great Britain. The pamphlet was written in plain and direct language, making it easily accessible to the common people of the time.

Enormously popular and widely read pamphlet, first published in January of 1776, clearly and persuasively argues for American separation from Great Britain and paves the way for the Declaration of Independence. This highly influential landmark document attacks the monarchy, cites the evils of government and combines idealism with practical economic concerns.

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This sentence is perfectly familiar. We know it as a core principle of our founding. But few, if any of us consider why Jefferson wrote it in exactly this way. Why “unalienable rights” and not simply rights? Why “self-evident” truths and not simply truths? Why does the Declaration make these distinctions? Do they really matter? If these questions are challenging or Jefferson’s words seem esoteric, it is because we no longer conduct our politics in the language of the Founders and we are no longer able to think as they once thought. In Congress and the media, political arguments are advanced by a torrent of policy studies and “expert” opinions—not on the basis of self-evident truths, unalienable rights, and definitely not in the language of the Founders. Common Sense Nation is a potent re-introduction to the political ideas of the Founders—in their own words and on their terms. It is dedicated to the proposition that the only way to fully unlock the profound and distinctive power of American self-government is to understand it as its inventors did. Common Sense Nation reclaims the language of liberty from entities that prefer to interpret our freedoms for us. For in knowing the Founders as they knew themselves, readers will learn the surprising depths of their own political powers as American citizens.

Common Sense inflamed its readers and ignited the American Revolution. It was here that our constitutional form of government was first suggested. The forces that were focused and unleashed by Common Sense led directly to The Declaration of Independence. The Declaration led to the American Revolution and the United States' victory in that revolution led to the Articles of Confederation. Dissatisfaction with the Articles caused Alexander Hamilton John Jay and James Madison to write The Federalist Papers which then led to the United States Constitution as we know it today. Here in one volume are these cornerstones of American freedom.

In this brilliantly illuminating group portrait of the men who came to be known as the Founding Fathers, the incomparable Gordon Wood has written a book that seriously asks, "What made these men great?" and shows us, among many other things, just how much character did in fact matter. The life of each—Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Paine—is presented individually as well as collectively, but the thread that binds these portraits together is the idea of character as a lived reality. They were members of the first generation in history that was self-consciously self-made men who understood that the arc of lives, as of nations, is one of moral progress.