Though he was in England at the time of the Anti-Federalist Papers, Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet "Common Sense" served as motivation for independence from British rule during the American Revolution, also opposed the unitary executive. While this position was already evidenced from his role as Clerk to the Pennsylvania Assembly during the writing of Pennsylvania's 1776 Constitution, he clearly stated it in a letter to George Washington in 1796. In this letter, Paine argued for a plural executive on the grounds that a unitary executive would become head of a party and that a republic should not debase itself by obeying an individual.