Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it. — President Barack Obama quoting Thomas Paine, The American Crisis #1, December 23, 1776

Not bad for a man that Teddy Roosevelt once described as "that filthy little atheist." The line that President Obama quoted today at the end of his Inaugural Address is from Thomas Paine's The American Crisis #1, the first in a series of 16 essays written between 1776 and 1780. Most Americans know the opening line "These are the times that try men's souls." Beyond that, most Americans are less aware of the circumstances or the rest of the contents of the American Crisis though it is perhaps the second most important piece of political essay writing, because of its immediate impact, in American history. It can be said that it saved the Revolution. The only other work of greater importance in the annals of American political essay writing is also from Paine. Common Sense stands apart in the annals of American political essays for the forty-seven page pamphlet published in January 1776 presented the argument for independence from British rule at a time when the question of independence was still undecided.

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