Thomas Paine (1737–1809) was a radical writer who emigrated from England to America in 1774. Just two years later, early in 1776, Paine published Common Sense, a hugely influential pamphlet that convinced many American colonists that the time had finally come to break away from British rule. In Common Sense, Paine made a persuasive and passionate argument to the colonists that the cause of independence was just and urgent. The first prominent pamphleteer to advocate a complete break with England, Paine successfully convinced a great many Americans who'd previously thought of themselves as loyal, if disgruntled, subjects of the king.
It was impossible for the federal government to enforce the proclamation in the areas where it actually applied—the states in rebellion that were not under federal control.
