Michael Hattem

This popular groundswell in early 1776 that eventually pushes the Congress toward independence, you know, in a way that they hadn't been before.

Yeah, yeah.

It is a very influential document.

There's no doubt about that.

Though, interestingly, historians have, in recent years, done some work to try to understand just how quickly and how far common sense spread.

And you might not be surprised to know that historians' current estimates of how widely it was published and republished and how far it was published is quite under the estimate of Paine himself.

But it was actually very literate.

The colonies were very highly literate.

The colonies had a much higher literacy rate than England did.

Yeah.

And most of Europe.

And also the thing that Paine does, and one of the things that makes it more influential than a lot of other Patriot writings is...

His use of the Bible and his use of biblical references and allusions to the Bible, because the colonies, you know, just as they were highly literate, they were also highly religious, right?

And Paine made these arguments...

in couch them in religious illusions in ways that other patriot leaders more enlightened patriot leaders say like you know jefferson or franklin who took an enlightened view of religion a skeptical view of religion pain didn't do that and that's part of why he resonated so much you know so much more immediately than the others

That's not the majority.

No, but I mean, you know, it's it's it's better than the you know, what Adams assessment was during his life.

He thought that it was a one third majority.

were for independence.

One third were loyalists and the other third were basically neutrals.