We have it in our power to begin the world over again
Common Sense“We have it in our power to begin the world over again” is Thomas Paine’s declaration that American independence could open more than a new political chapter: it could give the people a chance to create a constitution and political order on a different foundation. In Common Sense, the phrase makes the stakes of independence both practical and world-historical, while insisting that the manner of achieving it matters as much as the break itself.
The phrase and its political setting
Paine introduces the possibility of beginning anew while warning that America’s immediate condition is unstable. He describes a continent without settled law or government, held together by a concurrence of sentiment that enemies might dissolve. Legislation proceeds without law, wisdom without a plan, and a constitution without a name; amid that uncertainty, people lack a fixed political object to guide their actions.
The weakness is not simply a lack of formal institutions. Paine argues that without established laws defining political offenses and their consequences, inhabitants who take up arms against the emerging political community are not clearly distinguished from enemy soldiers captured in battle. He contends that this uncertainty encourages division and leaves property insecure. The image of beginning the world over again answers that disorder with a demand to turn shared commitment into a durable political structure.
Independence as a choice of means
Paine identifies three possible routes by which independence might eventually be achieved: the legal voice of the people in Congress, military power, or a mob. He favors the first, arguing that the present moment offers the opportunity and encouragement to form what he calls the noblest and purest constitution. The promise of a new beginning therefore depends on political agency exercised through Congress, rather than on force alone or uncontrolled popular action.
That choice is urgent because Paine does not regard independence as a distant abstraction. He warns that if the favorable period is neglected, independence may still come, but by one of the other means. In that case, he says, the consequences must be charged to those who oppose the measure without examining or reflecting on it. The phrase’s optimism is thus edged with responsibility: the ability to begin anew is an opportunity, not a guaranteed outcome.
The argument for separation
Paine presents reconciliation as an increasingly untenable alternative. He argues that repeated petitions have failed, that Britain’s distance and ignorance make it unable to govern the continent adequately, and that renewed assurances after the repeal of the Stamp Act had not prevented a return to conflict. The outbreak of hostilities changed his own position: he says he had been a strong supporter of reconciliation before April 19, 1775, but rejected it once news of that day reached him.
His case for resistance rests on the nature of the injury and the failure of peaceful remedies. Paine distinguishes taking up arms to enforce a pecuniary law from defending people and property against violence and invasion. In his account, it is the threatened or actual harm to the colonies, rather than a dispute over taxation alone, that makes armed defense conscientious. He argues that subjection to Britain ought to have ended when that mode of defense became necessary, and that independence should be understood as dating from the first musket fired against America.
A new political world
The scale of Paine’s claim reaches beyond the immediate dispute. He imagines a population perhaps as numerous as all Europe receiving its share of freedom through the events of a few months. Against that prospect, he treats the objections of a few opponents as small concerns weighed against the political future of an entire continent. The phrase gives this contrast its clearest form: a break with inherited authority can become the beginning of a new political world.
Yet Paine’s vision is not an endorsement of novelty for its own sake. The new beginning must be made on a firm, secure, and honorable basis, and the legal voice of the people in Congress is presented as the means most likely to achieve it. The expression joins possibility to political responsibility: independence can create the conditions for a new constitution, but delay may surrender that task to less deliberate forms of power.
