As the ideas behind Common Sense spread through the country, it’s an interesting coincidence that Common Sense came to both North and South Carolina a day apart. What’s curious is the way it caught on very quickly in South Carolina, but was more of a slow burn in North Carolina.

It’s possible that the difference is as simple as Christopher Gadsden presenting the pamphlet orally before the Provincial Congress, whereas John Penn took more of a backdoor approach, giving a copy to a colleague and hoping word gets out. Sure enough it did, and while there was no hard line of “Wow! We need to act on this!,” it proved to be quite the influential pamphlet that led to a gradual changing of minds regarding whether or not the Colonies should be free from England.

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