Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine's pro-independence (American Revolution) Pamphlet Common Sense, published on January 10 of 1776, quickly became well known to every literate colonist. It is claimed that as many as half a million copies may have been distributed in a country with only a few million inhabitants. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine

• fulltext of Common Sense - Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness Positively by uniting our affections, the latter Negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher... I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered, and the easier repaired when disordered.