Thomas Paine
When Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1775 he invited Paine to join him. With the American revolution in full swing, Paine latched on to their cause and became very passionate about it. He wrote Common Sense anonymously and it became hugely popular. It was sold and distributed widely and read aloud at taverns and meeting places. In proportion to the population of the colonies at that time (2.5 million), it had the largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history.
It was rumored that John Adam's had wrote it but in a private letter to his wife Abigail, he admitted that he had not and admired whomever had.
"It has been very generally propagated through the Continent that I wrote this Pamphlet. But altho I could not have written any Thing in so manly and striking a style, I flatter myself I should have made a more respectable Figure as an Architect, if I had undertaken such a Work."
However, when it was uncovered that Thomas Paine, a friend of Benjamin Frankin, who Adam's was not a fan of, had written it, John Adam's changed his tune.
John Adam's called it, "a poor, short-sighted crapulous mass.” in a letter to a friend of his.
During the Revolutionary War, Paine served as an aide-de-camp to the important general, Nathanael Greene.
In 1777, Paine became secretary of the Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs. However, while in that office he criticized some of the wealthy politicians for their conflicts of interest and profiting personally from their political choices.
Paine was then denounced as unpatriotic for criticizing an American revolutionary. He was even physically assaulted twice in the street by Deane supporters. This much-added stress took a large toll on Paine, who was generally of a sensitive character and he resigned as secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs in 1779.
Much later, when Paine returned from his mission to France, Deane's corruption had become more widely acknowledged. Many, including Robert Morris, apologized to Paine and Paine's reputation in Philadelphia was restored.
Paine moved to New Jersey, joined the American Philosophical Society and turned his mind to science and inventions like his friend Benjamin Franklin. At that time, Paine put all his focus on a design for a new kind of bridge. This gained interest in France and it traveled out there to try to make money from it.
Rights of Man
Paine had few friends when arriving in France aside from Lafayette and Jefferson, he continued to correspond heavily with Benjamin Franklin, a long time friend and mentor. Franklin provided letters of introduction for Paine to use to gain associates and contacts in France.
Travelling back and forth between France & England, Thomas Paine took an interest in the French Revolution. When those in England attempted to discredit the revolution, Paine wrote an essay supporting it and called it, Rights of Man. He gave the book to a publisher but government agents persuaded the publisher to reject the book. However, he was able to get the book published by three friends.
Rights of Man was hugely popular and inspired many to support the French Revolution. The UK government sought to charge Paine with Seditious libel (trying to overthrow government with words) Government agents followed Paine and instigated mobs, hate meetings, and burnings in effigy. A fierce pamphlet war also resulted, in which Paine was defended and assailed in dozens of works. The authorities aimed, with ultimate success, to chase Paine out of Great Britain. He was then tried in absentia and found guilty.
In summer of 1792, he answered the sedition and libel charges thus: "If, to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy ... to promote universal peace, civilization, and commerce, and to break the chains of political superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank; if these things be libellous ... let the name of libeller be engraved on my tomb."
Paine was an enthusiastic supporter of the French Revolution, and was granted honorary French citizenship alongside prominent contemporaries such as Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and others. Paine's honorary citizenship was in recognition of the publishing of his Rights of Man, Part II and the sensation it created within France.
Despite not speaking French, Paine was selected as a member of the committee to create a new government for France.
He voted for the French Republic, but argued against the execution of Louis XVI, saying the monarch should instead be exiled to the United States: firstly, because of the way royalist France had come to the aid of the American Revolution; and secondly, because of a moral objection to capital punishment in general and to revenge killings in particular. However, Paine's speech in defense of Louis XVI was interrupted by Jean-Paul Marat, who claimed that as a Quaker, Paine's religious beliefs ran counter to inflicting capital punishment and thus he should be ineligible to vote. Marat interrupted a second time, stating that the translator was deceiving the convention by distorting the meanings of Paine's words, prompting Paine to provide a copy of the speech as proof that he was being correctly translated.
The French Revolution eventually became increasingly extreme, Lafayette was viewed as a royalist sympathizer eventhough he supported the revolution. Maximilien Robespierre took over and it was no longer good enough to just be a supporter of the revolution but you had to support his view of the Revolution. A decree was passed at the end of 1793 excluding foreigners from their places in the Convention. Paine was arrested and imprisoned in December 1793.
Sixteen American citizens were allowed to plead for Paine's release to the Convention, yet they refused to acknowledge Paine's American citizenship, stating he was an Englishman and a citizen of a country at war with France. Paine wrote to President George Washington asking for help but when it was clear that no response was coming, Paine wrote another.
Thomas Paine to George Washington 1796
This is the ground upon which America now stands. All her rights of commerce and navigation are to begin anew, and that with loss of character to begin with. If there is sense enough left in the heart to call a blush into the cheek, the Washington Administration must be ashamed to appear. And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any.
George Washington did not reply.
Paine himself protested and claimed that he was a citizen of the U.S., which was an ally of Revolutionary France, rather than of Great Britain, which was by that time at war with France.
Paine narrowly escaped execution. A chalk mark was supposed to be left by the gaoler on the door of a cell to denote that the prisoner inside was due to be removed for execution. In Paine's case, the mark had accidentally been made on the inside of his door rather than the outside; this was due to the fact that the door of Paine's cell had been left open whilst the gaoler was making his rounds that day, since Paine had been receiving official visitors. But for this quirk of fate, Paine would have been executed the following morning. He kept his head and survived the few vital days needed to be spared by the fall of Robespierre.
Paine was released in November 1794 largely because of the work of the new American Minister to France, James Monroe, who successfully argued the case for Paine's American citizenship. Paine then lived in Monroe's house in Paris for a few months. They became friends during this time. However, Paine continued to write negatively about George Washington and Monroe soon suggested that Paine live elsewhere.
Paine purportedly had a meeting with Napoleon. Napoleon claimed he slept with a copy of Rights of Man under his pillow and went so far as to say to Paine that "a statue of gold should be erected to you in every city in the universe". Paine discussed with Napoleon how best to invade England.
However, soon after, upon noting Napoleon's progress towards dictatorship, he condemned him as "the completest charlatan that ever existed". Paine remained in France until 1802, returning to the United States only at President Jefferson's invitation.
While imprisoned in France, Paine had been writing about his thoughts on religions. He planned to release a new pamphlet criticizing power structures, abuses of power and superstition in organized religion. Fearing unpleasant and even violent reprisals, Thomas Jefferson convinced him not to publish it in 1802. Five years later, Paine decided to publish despite the backlash he knew would ensue.
Thomas Paine called his book, Age of Reason and it shared his deistic view of a God of nature, influenced by enlightenment thinking.
Amongst high ranking educated Americans, deism was popular and the belief in miracles, divine inspiration of the bible and the divinity of christ was highly doubted behind closed doors. It's believed that the first six presidents of the USA, Washington, Adam's, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe & Quincy Adam's did not believe Jesus was the son of God. Jefferson also famously literally cut all the miracles and superstition out of his bible and just left the humanitarian teachings of jesus.
"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church."
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel."
In England, Thomas Williams collaborated with Paine on an edition, which sold about 2,000 copies. Williams also produced his own edition, but the British government indicted him and confiscated the pamphlets. He was sentenced to one year's hard labor for publishing The Age of Reason. The prosecutions surrounding the printing of The Age of Reason in Britain continued for 30 years after its initial release and encompassed numerous publishers as well as over a hundred booksellers.
Thomas Paine lived in New York City for the rest of his life. As a man whose opinions were well-known by many, his negative views of slavery, religion, monarchy and politics left him alienated from many. Extending the vote to non-land owning men of all races was too radical for even the American revolutionaries. Abolishing slavery was too radical for his friends such as Jefferson. His anti-religious views created tension between him and founders such as John Adam's. His views against Monarchy made him an unpopular figure in his native England.
"Thomas Paine had passed the legendary limit of life. One by one most of his old friends and acquaintances had deserted him. Maligned on every side, execrated, shunned and abhorred – his virtues denounced as vices – his services forgotten – his character blackened, he preserved the poise and balance of his soul. He was a victim of the people, but his convictions remained unshaken. He was still a soldier in the army of freedom, and still tried to enlighten and civilize those who were impatiently waiting for his death. Even those who loved their enemies hated him, their friend – the friend of the whole world – with all their hearts. On the 8th of June 1809, death came – Death, almost his only friend. At his funeral no pomp, no pageantry, no civic procession, no military display. In a carriage, a woman and her son who had lived on the bounty of the dead – on horseback, a Quaker, the humanity of whose heart dominated the creed of his head – and, following on foot, two negroes filled with gratitude – constituted the funeral cortege of Thomas Paine."
Although, commonly agreed to be ahead of his time and correct in his passions, his opinions proceeded him and it made him a lonely man. Sometimes, even if you're right, it's important to not let it alienate you from the world around you.
John Adams, highly critical of Thomas Paine said in a letter to a friend.
"I am willing you should call this the Age of Frivolity as you do and would not object if you had named it the Age of Folly, Vice, Frenzy, Brutality, Daemons, Buonaparte, Tom Paine, or the Age of the Burning Brand from the Bottomless Pit, or anything but the Age of Reason. I know not whether any man in the world has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for the last thirty years than Thomas Paine. There can be no severer satyr on the age. For such a mongrel between pig and puppy, begotten by a wild boar on a bitch wolf, never before in any age of the world was suffered by the poltroonery of mankind, to run through such a career of mischief. Call it then the Age of Paine."
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