Episode 5: Common Sense by Thomas Paine (Part 3) | Of the Present Ability of America: with Some Miscellaneous Reflections

Creating America · Feb 12, 2026 · 49m · transcript

In this episode of Creating America: The Documents and Speeches That Shaped the United States, host and narrator Will Sarris continues the dramatic reading of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, one of the most influential pamphlets in American history.

We hear Part IV: “Of the Present Ability of America; with Some Miscellaneous Reflections,” along with the Appendix to Common Sense, in which Paine delivers a forceful, wide-ranging argument for American independence. From military readiness and naval power to economics, governance, religion, representation, and national character, Paine lays out why…