What happens after the revolution?
Thomas Paine’s Common Sense made the case for independence, but Paine himself understood that breaking free from a king was only the beginning. The harder work was figuring out how to govern without one. 250 years later, that question is more urgent than ever.
In this special live-recorded episode — a first for Ben Franklin’s World — Joseph Adelman chairs a panel at the Common Sense at 250 conference, held at Bull House in Lewes, England, where Paine once lived and worked. Scholars Leanne O’Boyle, Nicole Mahoney, and Jeanne Zaino join us to tackle the legacy of Common Sense and what it still demands of democratic citizens today.
This episode is part of a special collaboration with the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies and Clio Digital Media that seeks to bring Common Sense and its world to life through audio, archival collections, and digital storytelling.
About the Show
Ben Franklin’s World is a podcast about early American history.
It is a show for people who love history and for those who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world.
Episode Summary
This episode features a live panel discussion titled “A Template for Democracy: Common Sense and Civic Life,” recorded at Bull House in Lewes, England, as part of the Common Sense at 250 conference co-hosted by the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona University, the University of Sussex, and the Thomas Paine Legacy at Bull House.
The panel is chaired by Joseph Adelman, Professor of History at Framingham State University, co-founder of Clio Digital Media, and co-host of Ben Franklin’s World. Panelists include Leanne O’Boyle, Founding Director of the Thomas Paine Legacy at Bull House and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London; Nicole Mahoney, Public Historian for the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona University; and Jeanne Sheehan Zaino, Professor of Political Science at Iona University and Democracy Visiting Fellow at the Ash Center at the Harvard Kennedy School.
During the discussion, the panel reveals:
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- Why democracy’s real challenge is the “day two problem,” sustaining self-governance after the thrill of revolution fades, and how Paine’s own struggle with that question mirrors structural weaknesses in American democracy today
- How women shaped the world of Common Sense, even though Paine’s language rendered them invisible
- What Bull House, a 15th-century building that Paine shared with his second wife and mother-in-law, teaches us about where democratic ideas actually take root
What You’ll Discover
- How Paine’s years in Lewes laid the groundwork for Common Sense
- Why Lewes’s lack of a royal charter allowed Paine to participate in civic life
- The role of Elizabeth Olive and her family in opening doors for Paine in the Lewes community
- How Paine’s legal separation from Elizabeth included clauses protecting her financial independence
- Paine’s 277-acre farm in New Rochelle and what it meant for his post-revolutionary life
- Why New Rochelle’s Huguenot heritage and culture of religious tolerance aligned with Paine’s ideas
- Democracy’s “day two problem”
- The founding-era debate over reconstitution between Madison, Jefferson, and Paine
- Why “the law is king” has resurfaced in the “No Kings” protests
- How Common Sense is a strikingly masculine text, and what women readers may have recognized in its contradictions
- The uncomfortable question of whether fundamental change is possible without violence
- How Paine’s Agrarian Justice anticipated modern social welfare programs
- The “myth of Thomas Paine” and whether he was forward-looking or fighting yesterday’s battles
- How public historians use honest transparency to communicate the complexity of difficult historical figures
Links to People, Places, and Publications
Complementary Episodes
🎧 Episode 431: Thomas Paine’s Common Sense at 250: The Pamphlet That Sparked a Revolution
🎧 Episode 287: Elections in Early America: Presidential Elections & the Electoral College
🎧 Episode 156: The Power of the Press in the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 144: The Common Cause of the American Revolution
🎧 Episode 243: Revolutionary Print Networks
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