eded Franklin six
months.

That Mr. Paine did not attach his name to the pamphlet, Common Sense,
there is abundance of evidence to prove. The author of a pamphlet,
subscribed Rationalis, in answer to Common Sense, says: "I know not the
author, nor am I anxious to learn his name or character, for the book,
and not the writer of it, is to be the subject of my animadversions."

But we have Mr. Paine's own testimony, in the second edition of Common
Sense, direct to the point. In a postscript to the Introduction, he
says: "Who the author of this production is, is wholly unnecessary to
the public, as the object for attention is the doctrine, not the man.
Yet it may not be unnecessary to say that he is unconnected with any
party, and under no sort of influence, public or private, but the
influence of reason and principle."

An examination of all the earliest editions which can be seen in the
Congressional Library at Washington will satisfy any one on this
subject.

If Mr. Jefferson had read Common Sense before the writing of the
Declaration, he would never have erred so in regard to this fact. This
goes to show he had not even read it, much less studied it. How, then,
was the exact order followed, in writing the Declaration, which Mr.
Paine laid down in Common Sense?

My first proposition, then, I have proven, namely: that Thomas Paine
wrote a work for the sole purpose of bringing about a separation and
making a Declaration of Independence. I have proven, also, that he
therein submitted the subject-matter in the _order_ in which it was
afterwards put. This much on the positive side. On the negative side, I
have shown that Mr. Jefferson did none of these things, for it was
produced from "the fullness of his own mind, without consulting one
single book."

But if Mr. Bancroft be a truthful historian, there is already great
doubt thrown on Jefferson's authorship of it, and it would have been
better to have made Jefferson a close student and thorough reader for
this special purpose. This is the view, in fact, taken of the question
of authorship in the New American Cyclopedia (article Thomas Jefferson),
and I will give an extract therefrom, to show how historians differ.
Speaking of the Declaration, the Cyclopedia says: "Two questions have,
however, arisen as to its originality: the first, a general one upon the
substance of the document; the second, in regard to its phraseology in
connection with the alleged Mecklenburg dec