Thomas Paine (January 29, 1737 - June 8, 1809) was an English-American political activist, author, and revolutionary. He has been called "a corset-maker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination." In a series of pamphlets titled Common Sense and The American Crisis, Paine spelled out the tribulation that was inherent in the coming Revolution, and also what that tribulation would mean to the Americans who stood up against tyranny.
Common Sense (January 1776): “The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the affair of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent—of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe. 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; The wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters.”
The American Crisis (December 1776): “These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.”
Whether your ancestors stood up then or later when other times tried our souls, or more recently arrived in this “land of the free and the home of the brave,” please keep in mind the values underpinning our Independence, then and now, and say a word of thanks that men like Thomas Paine incited our country into existence.