The Spirit of Thomas Paine

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered,” Paine wrote in that fraught moment, “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: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.”

Thomas Paine wrote these words in his Common Sense pamphlet at a low point in the struggle to throw off the yoke of the King George III. Now, nearly 250 years later, we are in similarly fraught times with a man who would be king yearning to reign over us. We must invoke the spirit of the pamphleteer to buck up our spirits.

Here is Heather Cox Richardson’s telling of how the Continental Army turned the tide and threw off the yoke.