Thomas Paine, Common Sense

In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense: and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day. Thomas Paine, Common Sense

See the first of a short series of posts on Common Sense, the phrase and contemporary usage.