Thomas Paine published his short pamphlet “Common Sense; Addressed to the Inhabitants of America” in January 1776, and it sold 500,000 copies in its first year. It remains in print and is the all-time bestselling American-authored title. Paine, offering “nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense,” made a persuasive argument for independence and the creation of a democratic republic as “an asylum for mankind.”
