Thomas Paine is the "forgotten" Framer. He was the first to write the words, the United States of America. With his first two books, Common Sense and the American Crisis, he brought most Americans to think of themselves as citizens of America, not just of their States. He encouraged them to declare their independence, and then to fight and win the Revolutionary War.

The title of this book is the most powerful single sentence Paine wrote. Without the first victory won by General Washington's troops at Trenton the day after Christmas,1776, the cause of America would have been lost, then and there. And Washington had Chapter I of Paine's latest work read to his troops just before they set out to cross the Delaware at night and in a snowstorm, to launch the attack on Trenton.

Paine's words have not lost their power with passage of two centuries. What he wrote about dictators who were called kings, applies full well to today's dictators called Presidents, Generals or Prime Ministers. This book connects the life and times of Tom Paine with the modern crises facing America, for we are again in the midst of threats to the very existence of the United States.

These are the times that try men's souls.