What happens in Chapter 3 of Common Sense?
In Chapter 3, Paine launches a thorough critique of monarchy and hereditary succession, arguing that kingship doesn't come from divine right but from conquest and usurpation. He starts by examining early human society, suggesting that people originally lived without kings and that the idea of monarchy emerged from ambition and force, not from any natural order. Citing the Old Testament, Paine tells the story of how the Israelites asked for a king despite God's clear warning through the prophet Samuel, who outlined the oppressions a monarch would impose on the people—taxes, conscription, and property seizure. Paine uses this biblical account as evidence that monarchy is an affront to both God and reason. He then addresses hereditary succession, challenging the notion that being born into royalty makes someone fit to rule. He points out that history is filled with incompetent, cruel, and insane kings whose subjects paid the price for their failings. The chapter concludes with Paine encouraging readers to view the English monarchy not as a respected institution but as a relatively recent Norman takeover—a foreign conquest masquerading as tradition. Throughout, Paine's tone shifts from objective historical analysis to barely contained moral outrage, urging colonial readers to recognize that seeking independence is not an act of rebellion but a restoration of natural rights.
Analysis
Paine's skill in this chapter hinges on a careful triangulation of authority: he invokes scripture, history, and reason to simultaneously condemn monarchy, leaving no reader—whether religious, classically educated, or empirically inclined—able to find refuge. His use of the passage from Samuel is particularly clever; by allowing the biblical text to lead, he shields himself from accusations of impiety and positions God on the republican side. This rhetorical strategy redirects the narrative: what appears to be tradition (monarchy) is reframed as a violation.
The chapter's tone is equally intentional. Paine starts with the measured tone of a historian, but the prose becomes tighter and more urgent as he transitions to hereditary succession. The famous list of royal failures—"a thirst for absolute power," "the most bare-faced villany"—sounds almost like a legal indictment, with each clause adding weight to a judgment the reader is prompted to make. Sentence lengths shorten, and declarative statements increase. This is persuasion crafted to feel like a revelation.
Paine also employs a recurring theme of contamination: poor governance, like a disease, spreads through bloodlines. Hereditary succession is not just illogical; it is biologically irresponsible, risking the welfare of millions based on the character of one man's descendants. The framing of the Norman Conquest at the chapter's conclusion serves as a final defamiliarization tactic—removing the English crown's sense of ancient legitimacy and revealing it as an imposed tyranny. For colonial readers already inclined to view Britain as an external force, this parallel is striking.
Key quotes from Chapter 3
“For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever.”
Paine states this as the axiomatic refutation of hereditary succession, grounding his argument in natural equality before turning to historical evidence.
“Monarchy and succession have laid (not this or that kingdom only) but the world in blood and ashes.”
This sweeping indictment appears as Paine tallies the human cost of hereditary rule, escalating the chapter's emotional pitch toward its climax.
“In England a king hath little more to do than to make war and give away places; which in plain terms, is to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears.”
Paine strips the English monarchy of ceremonial dignity with blunt, demotic language, a tonal shift that signals his direct address to the common reader.
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Create an accountSign inVocabulary in Chapter 3
- succession
- The system by which a throne or title passes automatically from a ruler to his or her heir by birth; Paine attacks it as irrational and the source of endless war.
- usurpation
- The act of seizing power, a throne, or authority by force or without legal right; Paine argues this is the true origin of kingship, not divine appointment.
- hath
- An archaic third-person singular form of the verb 'has,' used in formal or biblical English of Paine's era.
- give away places
- To hand out government offices, appointments, and positions of profit to favorites; Paine uses it to show that a king's real power is patronage and favoritism rather than wise leadership.
- set it together by the ears
- To stir up quarrels and conflict among people; an old idiom meaning to cause a group to fight amongst themselves, like animals biting each other's ears.