Read the passage. In his pamphlet Common Sense, published in January, 1776, Thomas Paine used the everyday language of the colonists to express his feelings about Great Britain.

excerpt from Common Sense by Thomas Paine

As to government matters, it is not in the powers of Britain to do this continent justice: The business of it will soon be too weighty, and intricate, to be managed with any tolerable degree of convenience, by a power so distant from us, and so very ignorant of us; for if they cannot conquer us, they cannot govern us. To be always running three or four thousand miles with a tale or a petition, waiting four or five months for an answer, which when obtained requires five or six more to explain it in, will in a few years be looked upon as folly and childishness—there was a time when it was proper, and there is a proper time for it to cease.

Drag the central argument Paine presents and its two claims to complete the chart.

Argument Claims