Glorious Revolution

The Glorious Revolution appears in Common Sense as part of Thomas Paine’s historical argument against hereditary succession. Rather than treating dynastic monarchy as a safeguard against civil conflict, Paine includes the Revolution in a record of upheaval that, he argues, refutes that claim and strengthens the case for political independence and self-government.

Historical Evidence Against Hereditary Succession

Paine addresses the claim that hereditary succession prevents civil wars. He answers with a count of England’s history since the Norman Conquest: thirty kings and two minors had reigned, while the kingdom experienced eight civil wars and nineteen rebellions, including the Glorious Revolution. In his account, the Revolution belongs within the very record that hereditary succession is supposed to avert. The institution therefore fails, in his view, to secure the peace offered as its chief justification.

This tally is part of a broader attack on inherited political authority. Paine argues that succession can place a minor on the throne or leave an infirm king dependent on a regency, exposing public affairs to those who may exploit the rulers’ weakness. More generally, a hereditary claim to rule can elevate people without regard to their fitness and separate them from the circumstances and interests of the public. The Revolution’s place in his list makes dynastic history evidence not of stable continuity but of recurring political vulnerability.

Revolution and the Case for Separation

Paine also invokes the Revolution when assessing the prospect of American reconciliation with Great Britain. He argues that the colonies’ political connection draws them into European conflicts and compromises their ability to remain neutral. Instead, he presents commerce with Europe as a basis for peace and friendship, and calls for America to avoid partial dependence on any European power. In this argument, the Revolution is a reminder that political change in Britain forms part of a history the colonies need not reproduce through continued dependence.

The pamphlet’s argument turns decisively on the outbreak of hostilities in April 1775. Paine says that earlier proposals, whether they sought union through force or friendship, belonged to a political moment that had passed. After peaceful petitions failed, he contends, continued reconciliation would leave the underlying conflict unresolved and risk passing it on to another generation. He presents separation as a response to political circumstances, not as an appeal to personal resentment: dependence, in his view, cannot offer lasting security or redress.

From Colonial Dependence to Political Representation

Paine connects the demand for independence to the practical problem of governing across distance. A government thousands of miles away, he argues, cannot adequately administer the continent’s affairs: petitions and appeals require months to travel and receive answers, which may themselves take further months to explain. He contrasts the scale and complexity of the colonies’ needs with Britain’s limited knowledge of them, concluding that a power unable to conquer America cannot govern it effectively.

He offers a provisional representative design rather than leaving independence as an abstract demand. Assemblies would meet annually, with a president, and would handle domestic business under a Continental Congress. Each colony would be divided into districts and send delegates; Paine proposes at least thirty delegates per colony and a Congress of at least 390. The Congress would select its president by ballot from delegates belonging to a colony chosen by rotation, and a three-fifths threshold would be required for a majority. The Glorious Revolution is not presented as a model for these arrangements; its role is instead to undermine the claim that inherited monarchy reliably prevents disorder, while Paine’s proposed institutions point toward a different basis for political authority.

Independence, Recognition, and the Revolutionary Threshold

Paine argues that an open declaration of independence would make the colonies legible to other powers as a nation rather than as subjects in revolt. While they continued to call themselves British subjects, he says, foreign powers could not mediate the conflict, and France or Spain would have little reason to assist them in repairing their relationship with Britain. A public statement explaining their grievances, failed efforts at peaceful redress, and willingness to trade could, he proposes, do more than another shipload of petitions. Independence would allow the continent to seek a place among nations and pursue diplomacy on its own behalf.

He grounds resistance in the injuries and dangers he attributes to armed force, not in a dispute over a financial law alone. In his formulation, violence against people and property makes defensive arms morally justifiable; from the first musket fired against America, he says, subjection should have ended and independence should be understood as having begun. This claim turns a military rupture into a political threshold, linking the justification for resistance to the need to establish a new authority.

The pamphlet closes this line of argument by contrasting three possible routes to independence: a decision through Congress, military power, or mob action. Independence achieved by the people’s representatives would offer the best chance to form what Paine calls a noble constitution; delay, he warns, could leave the outcome to less responsible forces. Against the historical record in which he places the Glorious Revolution, he sets the possibility of deliberate constitutional creation: a new political order founded on representation rather than hereditary rule.