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Oil on canvas; w533 x h635 cm. National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian), Washington, DC.
John Adams, 1793
Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense (1775), urging the colonies to declare their independence, found 150,000 purchasers in a population of less than 3 million — the equivalent today of a sale of 14 million.
Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, the Rake Who Wrote the Constitution (2003)