Thomas Paine (1737 – 1809)
A compendium of notes
‘...he sought an end to
executive tyranny and what we would now call 'sleaze' through the
'virtue' and common good of representative democratic republican
government.'
Thomas Paine (January 29, 1737–June 8, 1809) was a widely recognized intellectual, scholar, and idealist who is considered to be one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. As a radical pamphleteer, Paine impacted the American Revolution with his powerful writings, most famously Common Sense, his revolutionary tract advocating independence from Britain. Paine was notable for his belief in deism and his writings on the French Revolution.
"These are the times that try men's souls." This simple quotation from Thomas Paine's The Crisis not only describes the beginnings of the American Revolution, but also the life of Paine himself.
Throughout most of his life, he was a failure, living off the gratitude and generosity of others, but his writings helped inspire a nation. He communicated the ideas of the Revolution to common farmers as easily as to intellectuals, creating prose that stirred the hearts of the fledgling United States. He had a grand vision for society: he was staunchly anti-slavery, and he was one of the first to advocate a world peace organization and social security for the poor and elderly. But his radical views on religion would destroy his success, and by the end of his life, only a handful of people attended his funeral
A.Biography
B.Legacy
C.Thomas Paine: Citizen of the World
Paine was born in eastern England, in Thetford, Norfolk. His father, Joseph Paine, was a corseter and Quaker, while his mother, Frances "Cocke" Paine, belonged to the Church of England. Paine's sister Elizabeth died at seven months old, and he grew up around farmers and other common people, and at the age of twelve, failed out of school. He began work as an apprentice with his father at age thirteen, but failed at this as well. At age 19, Paine became a sailor, where he served a very short time before returning to England in April 1759, setting up a corset shop in Sandwich, Kent. In September 1759, Paine married; after moving to Margate, his wife died in 1760.
In July 1761, Paine returned to Thetford where he worked as a supernumerary officer. In December 1762, he became an excise officer in Grantham, Lincolnshire; in August 1764 he was again transferred, this time to Alford, where his salary was £50 a year. On August 27, 1765, Paine was discharged from his post for claiming to have inspected goods when in fact he had only seen the documentation. On July 3, 1766, he wrote a letter to the board of excise asking to be reinstated, and the next day the board granted his request to be filled upon vacancy. While waiting for an opening, Paine worked as a staymaker in Diss, Norfolk, and later as a servant (records show he worked for a Mr. Noble of Goodman's Fields and then a Mr. Gardiner at Kensington). He also applied to become an ordained Minister of the Church of England, and according to some accounts preached in Moorfields.
On May 15, 1767, Paine was appointed to a position in Grampound, Cornwall. He later was asked to leave to await another vacancy, and was a schoolteacher in London at this time. On February 19, 1768, Paine was appointed to Lewes, East Sussex; he moved into the room above the 15th century Bull House, a building which held the snuff and tobacco shop of Samuel and Esther Ollive. Here Paine first became involved in civic matters, with Samuel Ollive introducing him into the Society of Twelve, a group of town elites who met twice a year to discuss town issues. In addition, Paine participated in the Vestry, the influential church group that collected taxes and tithes and distributed them to the poor.
He married his landlord's daughter, Elizabeth Ollive, on March 26, 1771.
Paine lobbied Parliament for better pay and working conditions for excisemen, and in 1772 published The Case of the Officers of Excise, a 21-page article and his first political work. In September 1774, Paine met Benjamin Franklin in London. Franklin advised Paine to emigrate to the British colonies in America, and wrote him letters of recommendation. Paine left England in October, arriving in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 30. Just before he left, Paine and his second wife, with whom he did not get along, were legally separated.
It is thought by some that, at a relatively early age, Paine may have begun to form his early views on natural justice while sitting in the Quaker Meeting House in Thetford, listening to the mob jeering and attacking the unfortunates convicted to be punished in the stocks outside. There have been some historians who have argued he was strongly influenced in his views by his father. In his deistic tract The Age of Reason, Paine writes:
The
religion that approaches the nearest of all others to true Deism, in
the moral and benign part thereof, is that professed by the Quakers...
Though I reverence their philanthropy, I cannot help smiling at the
conceit, that if the taste of a Quaker could have been consulted at the
creation, what a silent and drab-colored creation it would have been!
Not a flower would have blossomed its gayeties, nor a bird been
permitted to sing.
Paine advocated a liberal world view, which was radical at the time. He had no use for royalty, and viewed government as a necessary evil. He opposed slavery and was an early supporter of social security, public education, genuinely unconditional grant and many other ideas that came to fruition decades later. He was a Deist and outspoken critic of organized religion.
Paine published an antislavery tract and became co-editor of Pennsylvania Magazine. As a republican, Paine soon became an articulate spokesman for the American independence movement. Paine's pro-independence pamphlet Common Sense, published on January 10, 1776, quickly became well known to every literate colonist. It is claimed that as many as half a million copies may have been distributed in a country with only a few million inhabitants.
Legend tells that Paine was tarred and feathered at one time in New Jersey, but no proof exists of this legend. Many scurrilous tales about Paine were circulated, first by the British during the time of the American Revolution, and later by his political opponents.
Thomas Paine used his powerful ability to present ideas common to his time in clear form, in contrast with highly philosophical approaches used by his colleagues.
Common Sense convinced many Americans, including George Washington, to seek redress in political independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. Benjamin Rush had a great influence on this work, as well as its name (Paine had proposed the title Plain Truth). It was instrumental in bringing about the Declaration of Independence. Paine also has the distinction of being the man who proposed the name United States of America for the new nation.
During the Revolutionary War Paine published a series of pamphlets called The American Crisis that served to inspire Americans during the long struggle. The first Crisis paper, published December, 1776, began with the immortal line, "These are the times that try men's souls".
Following a series of military failures, morale was wavering among the Patriot army. The first Crisis paper was so uplifting that Washington had it read to all of his troops.
He was also an inventor, receiving a patent in Europe for the single span iron bridge, working with John Fitch on steam engines, and developing a smokeless candle.
Returning to Europe, Paine finished his Rights of Man on 29 January 1791. On 31 January he passed the manuscript to publisher Joseph Johnson, who intended to have it ready for Washington's birthday on 22 February. Johnson was visited on a number of occasions by agents of the government; sensing that Paine's book would be controversial, he decided not to release it on the day it was due to be published. Paine quickly began to negotiate with another publisher, J.S. Jordan. Once the deal was secured, Paine left for Paris, leaving three good friends, William Godwin, Thomas Brand Hollis and Thomas Holcroft, in charge of the final arrangements. The book appeard on 13 March, 3 weeks later than planned. It was an abstract political tract published in support of the French Revolution, written as a reply to Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke. The book — which was highly critical of monarchies and European social institutions — was so controversial that the British government put Paine on trial in absentia for seditious libel. Paine had already (prudently) left for Paris.
Although Paine was an enthusiatic supporter of the French Revolution, as a member of the National Convention, he opposed the execution of Louis XVI and advocated he be exiled to the USA instead. That was enough to bring Paine — who was never noted for his diplomacy — into conflict with the increasingly out-of-control revolutionary leaders. Imprisoned and sentenced to death by Robespierre, Paine escaped beheading apparently by chance. A guard walked through the prison placing a chalk mark on the doors of the condemned prisoners. He placed one on Paine's door — but because a doctor was treating Paine at that moment, the cell door was open. When the doctor left, the door was swung closed, such that the chalk mark faced into the cell. Later, when the condemned prisoners were rounded up for execution, Paine was spared because there was no apparent chalk mark on his cell door.
In prison, convinced he would soon be dead, Paine wrote The Age of Reason, an assault on organized religion. A second part was written and published after his release from prison. The content of the work can be briefly summarized in this quotation:
The
opinions I have advanced... are the effect of the most clear and
long-established conviction that the Bible and the Testament are
impositions upon the world, that the fall of man, the account of Jesus
Christ being the Son of God, and of his dying to appease the wrath of
God, and of salvation by that strange means, are all fabulous
inventions, dishonorable to the wisdom and power of the Almighty; that
the only true religion is Deism, by which I then meant, and mean now,
the belief of one God, and an imitation of his moral character, or the
practice of what are called moral virtues—and that it was upon this
only (so far as religion is concerned) that I rested all my hopes of
happiness hereafter. So say I now—and so help me God.
Paine published his last great pamphlet, Agrarian Justice, in the winter of 1795-1796. In this pamphlet, Paine further developed ideas proposed in the Rights of Man as to how the institution of land ownership separated the great majority of persons from their rightful natural inheritance and means of independent survival. The U.S. Social Security Administration recognizes Agrarian Justice as the first American proposal for an old-age pension.
Purportedly in 1800, Napoleon met with Paine, and stated that "a statue of gold should be erected to him in every city of the earth". Paine did not like Napoleon, by all accounts. Paine remained in France until 1802 when he returned to America on an invitation from Thomas Jefferson.
Derided by the public and abandoned by his friends due to his religious views, Paine died at 59 Grove Street in Greenwich Village, in New York City on June 8, 1809. At the time of his death, most U.S. newspapers reprinted the obituary notice from the New York Citizen, which read in part: "He had lived long, did some good and much harm." Only six mourners came to his funeral. A few years later the agrarian radical William Cobbett would ship his bones back to England, only to lose them in transit.
Thomas Paine's writings have greatly affected Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, as well as his other contemporaries such as George Washington. There is a museum in New Rochelle, New York in his honor, and a statue of him stands in King Street in Thetford, Norfolk, his place of birth.
‘Common Sense’ by Thomas Paine; addressed to the inhabitants of America, on the following interesting subjects. I. Of the origin and design of government in general, with concise remarks on the English Constitution. II. Of monarchy and hereditary succession. III. Thoughts on the present state of American affairs. IV. Of the present ability of America, with some miscellaneous reflections. Maintaining “the cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind,” Paine passionately argued for independence from Great Britain and the ability of the young country to prosper unfettered by the oppressive and economically draining English.
Thomas Paine was a driving force in the 'Atlantic-Democratic revolution' of the late 18th century, personifying the political currents that linked American independence, the French Revolution and British radicalism. Professor John Belchem analyses the life of an inspirational radical who died in miserable circumstances.
Common Sense
An inveterate pamphleteer, Thomas Paine broadcast the merits of reason, republicanism and radicalism in a series of writings perhaps more innovative in their popular tone and language than in their message. His origins were humble and his education limited. Born in Thetford in 1737, he was apprenticed to his father's trade of corset-making, but tried a number of other occupations (most notably serving as an exciseman in Lewes) before sailing for America in 1774, having recently separated from his second wife.
In America Paine made his name with a pamphlet, Common Sense (1776), which, in advocating complete independence for the American colonies, argued for republicanism as the sole rational means of government. Relishing the freedom of the new world (and its potential for commercial progress) Paine readily cast aside the restrictive and gentlemanly conventions of British politics, not least the exclusive tone of Whig 'republicanism'.
In the Whig paradigm of 'civic humanism', premised on glorified models of classical antiquity and selective memories of 17th-century constitutional struggles, political primacy was accorded to independent landowners. As guardians of the constitution, it was their duty to resist imbalance and corruption in the polity through civic virtue, by active participation in political affairs.
Paine, however, was altogether more democratic. Looking beyond the trivia of piecemeal constitutional renovation, he sought an end to executive tyranny and what we would now call 'sleaze' through the 'virtue' and common good of representative democratic republican government.
Rights of Man
On Paine's return to England in 1787, this democratic republicanism reached its most influential expression in his two-part Rights of Man (1791-2), prompted by the need to refute Edmund Burke's critical Reflections on the Revolution in France. For citizen Paine the French Revolution represented a much-needed new beginning, an age of reason in which universal and natural rights (at least for men) were no longer denied by privilege and the past, by spurious argument premised on dubious history, bogus constitutionalism, invented tradition or inherited superstition. A talented writer, Paine deployed his 'intellectual vernacular prose' to render natural rights and rational republicanism accessible, uncompromising and all-embracing, including the 'swinish multitude' disparaged by Burke.
But it was not just the style that accounted for the remarkable success of the Rights of Man which, even by the most conservative estimate, sold between 100,000 and 200,000 copies in the first three years after publication. As Part Two evinced, Paine was much more than a talented popularizer of advanced ideas, a megaphone for the enlightenment project against kingcraft, lordcraft and priestcraft. An original thinker far ahead of his time, he sought to redress poverty (seemingly endemic in advanced European societies) through an interventionist programme of welfare redistribution, including old-age pensions, marriage allowances and maternity benefits.
Paine found both the language and the programme to attract working people to politics, underlining its relevance to their experience of economic hardship. Stopping short of socialism, Paine transformed jurisprudential notions of social obligation - the 'soft' right to charity - into a theory of 'positive liberty' - the 'hard' right to welfare, guaranteed by government and financed by redistributive taxation.
Members unlimited
Inspired by Paine, radicalism reached a new audience in the early 1790s, a mass expansion into 'members unlimited' which soon prompted the moderate reformers, the patrician 'Friends of the People', to draw away and apart from the democratic radicals, the plebeian 'Friends of Liberty'.
Paine was held in reverence by those new to the radical cause. This was perhaps best expressed in the song, 'God Save Great Thomas Paine', the alternative national anthem, as it were, of British republicans:
‘God save great Thomas Paine / His 'Rights of Man' explain / To every soul. / He makes the blind to see / What dupes and slaves they be, / And points out liberty, / From pole to pole.
Thousands cry 'Church and King' / That well deserve to swing, / All must allow: / Birmingham blush for shame, / Manchester do the same, / Infamous is your name, / Patriots vow.’
As the second verse indicates, however, with its reference to 'Church and King' mobs in the midlands and the north-west, Paineite radicals did not carry all before them in the 1790s. Indeed, as historians now acknowledge, 'Painophobia' - the reaction against Paine - proved stronger in the short term than the radicalism he excited.
Compelled to answer the democratic Jacobin challenge, conservative opponents of reform developed a convincing defence of the existing order: indeed, it was the conservatives who won the battle for the popular mind in the 1790s. Burke had already set the tone, recapturing the language of nationalism for the conservative cause in his Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vindicated by the subsequent course of events in France, Burke's prescient pronouncements duly confirmed the supremacy of the accumulated wisdom of precedent and prescription over the wild (and un-English) fanaticism of Paineite abstract reason.
Age of Reason
By cruel irony Paine's own fate strengthened the conservative case. Having fled to France to avoid arrest for treason in 1792, he gained election to the National Convention but ceased to attend after opposing (to some people's surprise) the execution of Louis XVI and the fall of the Girondins, after which he himself soon fell victim of the Terror.
During imprisonment, he began work on his Age of Reason (two parts, 1794-5), an ill-timed deist attack on organised religion. Already denigrated as spoliators - enemies of commercial civilisation who would thrust society back to poverty and primitivism - his followers in Britain were now stigmatised as infidels as well. In the crusade against godless republican levellers, loyalists deployed every media and resource, from parish pulpit to national organisation (Reeves Association for the Preservation of Liberty and Property against Republicans and Levellers was the largest political organisation in the country), to spread the patriotic conservative message in popular and homiletic form among the lower orders. While radicals struggled to gain a public hearing, loyalists chose to treat the crowds to an increasing number of patriotic demonstrations to celebrate royal anniversaries and victories over the French.
The success of these free holidays and licensed street festivals - at which effigies of Paine were often burnt - was not without irony. In confronting Paineite democracy through such popular nationalist participation, loyalists had established what the radicals had failed fully to achieve, the extension of politics to a mass public. As subsequent events were to show, this public expressed its loyalty to the nation, not necessarily to the status quo.
Paine repatriated
Many of the new radical 'corresponding' societies of the 1790s fell victim to this conservative onslaught: those that survived judiciously excised the offending Paineite vocabulary of rational republicanism with its alien and revolutionary stigma. Henceforth radicals adapted to the national tenor, contesting the conservatives on their own territory. Presenting themselves as the true defenders and guardians of the constitution, radicals sought to legitimise their programme of democratic parliamentary reform not by natural right but through patriotic evocation of people's history, the glorious struggle against absolutism in Britain.
Admittedly in ultra-radical counter-culture there were a number of devoted and purist Paineite ideologues, but for those involved in mass agitation - in the populist 'spin' of radical politics - republicanism was seldom mentioned. While never denying the inspiration provided by 'immortal' Thomas Paine, popular radical leaders ensured that his memory was preserved within a patriotic pantheon in which the universal rights of man were subsumed within the historic and constitutional rights of the freeborn Englishman, the charter of the land. The citizen of the world was honoured as British patriot.
Perhaps the most symbolic act in this radical realignment was the reclamation of Paine's bones from their American grave by William Cobbett, the great radical journalist and writer of the early 19th century. The implacable opponent of 'Old Corruption', Cobbett drew inspiration from a lesser-known text by Paine, The Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance (1796). Having also gained much of his political education from Paine's critical insights into the operation of the 'system' (or 'the Thing' as Cobbett himself called it) - which produced lucrative profits for political peculators and financial speculators at the expense of an intolerable and demand-stifling tax burden on the poor - Cobbett wished to honour his mentor.
Paine had died in miserable circumstances in New York in 1809, having spent his last years in America often depressed, drunk and diseased. Ten years later Cobbett dug up the bones and brought them to England - they have since disappeared - for a national memorial which, alas, has never materialised.