|
|
People of the Revolutionary War | Patriots of the American Revolution | Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
1737-1809
I am certain that when opinions are free, either in matters of government or religion, truth will
finally and powerfully prevail.
The Age of Reason, 1794.
Anglo-American political theorist and writer, b. Thetford, Norfolk, England. He was the son of a Quaker.
An excise officer, he was dismissed from the service after leading (1772) agitation for higher salaries.
Paine emigrated to America in 1774, bearing letters of introduction from Benjamin Franklin, who was then
in England. He soon became involved in the clashes between England and the American colonies and published
the enormously successful pamphlet Common Sense
(Jan., 1776), in which he argued that the colonies had outgrown any need for English domination and should
be given independence. In Dec., 1776, Paine wrote the first of a series of 16 pamphlets called The
Crisis (1776-83). These essays were widely distributed and did much to encourage the patriot cause
throughout the American Revolution. After the war he returned to his farm in New Rochelle, N.Y. In 1787
he went to England and while there wrote The Rights of Man (2 parts, 1791 and 1792), which defended
the French Revolution in reply to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. Its basic
premises were that there are natural rights common to all men and that only democratic institutions are
able to guarantee these rights. Paine's attack on English institutions led to his prosecution for treason
and subsequent flight to Paris (1792). There, as a member of the National Convention, he took a significant
part in French affairs. During the Reign of Terror he was imprisoned by the Jacobins from Dec., 1793, to
Nov., 1794. During this time he wrote his famous deistic, antibiblical work The Age of Reason
(2 parts, 1794 and 1795), which alienated many people. His diatribe against George Washington,
Letter to Washington (1796), added more fuel to the persisting resentment against him. When Paine
returned to the United States in 1802, he was practically ostracized; he died in poverty seven years
later. An idealist, a radical, and a master rhetorician, Paine wrote and lived with a keen sense of urgency
and excitement. See his writings ed. by M. D. Conway (1894-96, repr. 1969) and representative
selections ed. by H. H. Clark (1944, repr. 1961); biographies by D. F. Hawke (1974) and Audrey
Williamson (1974).
Alternate Link:
> Religion and The Founding of the American Republic
|
|
|
 |
|
|
