Nation’s founding documents are also literary works

“These are the times that try men’s souls.” When Thomas Paine started his essay, “The American Crisis,” to support Washington’s army with these words, he had already written the tract, “Common Sense,” in which he excoriates George III as a petty tyrant. “Common Sense” has been called “the writing that sparked an American Revolution,” and it is only one of several revolutionary works we should read on this national holiday.