The first of these papers, later to be published together as The American Crisis, appeared on 23 December 1776. Addressed to all Americans as much as to Washington and his troops huddled in the New Jersey cold, its opening lines have remained to this day the most frequently quoted of all that Paine wrote. All America must persevere, must suffer, he wrote, for all history awaited the battle’s outcome:

These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.

In addition to his military experience and his inspirational journalism, Paine played an active role in the politics of the war period. In 1777 he was appointed Secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs by the Congress and in this capacity worked tirelessly to obtain supplies, loans and military assistance from France. In the course of arranging this aid Paine found himself embroiled in a bitter controversy with Silas Deane. Paine contended that the supplies which America received from France through the offices of Caron de Beaumarchais, the adventurer and playwright author of The Marriage of Figaro, were a gift and not a loan. Deane claimed they were a loan and demanded a commission. Never one to hide his anger, Paine rushed into print with a public attack on Deane, which led ultimately to Paine’s dismissal from his congressional position by a coalition of those who supported Deane and those who had felt all along that the appointment of such a radical was a mistake. Gouverneur Morris, one of the latter, insisted that it was inappropriate for such a delicate position to be held by ‘a mere adventurer from England, without fortune, without family or connections, ignorant even of grammar’.5

Paine was also active during these years in the local politics of Pennsylvania. He was an ardent supporter of its constitution of 1776, the most radically democratic of all the thirteen state constitutions. By 1780 Paine had, in fact, been appointed Clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly. One of his acts as Clerk was to draft the legislation that provided for the gradual emancipation of slaves in that state, the first such legislation passed in the United States. During this Pennsylvania period Paine also helped found the Bank of Pennsylvania with several well-to-do merchants and bankers. For Paine this seemed the only way to allow Pennsylvania to answer Washington’s call for money to pay and provisions to feed his troops. Paine’s defence of this bank against farmer and radical attack in 1786 was taken by some as a sign that he had moved to a more conservative position. However, Paine himself argued that the bank was essential for commercial growth and would ultimately contribute to the well-being of all. He contended that the people had no right to revoke economic contracts entered into by the Legislature of Pennsylvania.

Throughout this period when America was governed by the states-centred Articles of Confederation, Paine was a self-proclaimed advocate for a stronger central government, the cause which would triumph in the Constitution of 1787. He opposed Virginia’s claim to land in the West, for example, insisting that such land belonged to the nation and not to individual states. He also urged the individual states to approve amendments to the Articles that would have granted Congress the power to levy national tariff duties to support the war.

Paine’s writings on the Bank of Pennsylvania as well as his opposition to unlimited state sovereignty may well have fuelled speculation that he had been bought off by the merchants of Philadelphia or by the elites calling for constitutional reform. But this was not the case. His views were shaped by his vision of America as a powerful and flourishing nation, the better to represent the democratic ideal; and he was virtually penniless throughout this period of his life. Most of his earnings from Common Sense and his political appointments had been contributed over the years to the revolutionary army or to facilitate the printing and distribution of his writings. In 1783 Paine was forced to ask Congress for financial assistance. He received nothing from the central government. Pennsylvania, however, gave him $500 in cash, and New York gave him a farm in New Rochelle, confiscated from a loyalist.

Like many of his contemporaries in England and America – Priestley, Price, Jefferson and Franklin among others – Paine combined political liberalism with the dream of technological and scientific progress. The ease with which political arguments could use scientific and technical principles is illustrated beautifully in Common Sense with its discussions of weights and forces. In terms of his career, the project to which Paine devoted most of his energy in the 1780s was the construction of an iron bridge. His efforts to develop and finance his bridge led Paine in April 1787 to leave America and return to Europe.