By David Nash
The Eric Paine Memorial Lecture for 2004
The writings, thoughts and indeed the eventful life of Thomas Paine regularly leaves an indelible mark upon a significant number of us who have lived after him. He challenges and excites the receptive just as much as he can infuriate those who have already made their minds up about the things Thomas Paine chose to criticise. My first encounter with the name and ideas of Thomas Paine occurred in a secondary school history lesson in which those present heard that an Englishman had gone dramatically out on a limb to defend the ideas of freedom embodied by the French Revolution. Moreover, he had done so in a text entitled Rights of Man, a title to stir the emotions and blood of any early adolescent. However discovering and investigating the legacy of Thomas Paine, even at the rudimentary level of youthful exuberance, was also an important moment for me in entering a dialogue with the conflicting identities I had been bequeathed. Just as Paine argued, as I was later to discover, no generation had a right to determine the choices of a future one so I felt able to question my own inheritance or at least to look at it more critically.
Growing up simultaneously with Irish and English influences could certainly have led to some stark choices. Paine’s good (common?) sense and pithy dislike of humbug was, for me, an enabling intellectual strategy. It clearly helped me to transcend the archaic triumphalism of an English identity that was about to go into a rapid irretrievable tailspin. However, disdain of humbug was equally valuable in transcending the dangers of ghettoised identity that Irish nationalist sympathy might have led me into. The world is my country and to do good my religion’ was a forceful motto to carry around in late seventies and early 1980s London, A London which as we know witnessed conflict, violence and social being without doubt ‘a time to try men’s souls’.
I was fortunate enough to attend university in England, in the last gasp of a properly funded, enabling education system which valued knowledge and personal enrichment as unequivocal social goods with potential benefits for all. In studying history and (for me) the 19th century, in which most things of importance seemed to happen, Paine became indispensable. He and his works were valuable companions to my undergraduate study both of radicalism and 19th century literature. These henceforth became a constant companion for me in my studies and writing of 19th century history. This is, in its way, indicative of a time in which my studies responded to the consequences of an historical moment. My tutors, almost to a man and woman, had been through the flowering of leftward inspired social history. Raymond Williams and E. P. Thompson had left indelible imprints upon all who had lived through the academia of these years. Even those sceptical; and even downright hostile to such developments could clearly not ignore the fact that they were happening. In those years in academia, if you wanted to, you could trace the impact of Paine upon the thousands of people who were the source and raw material of history from below. For the self educated artisan whose consciousness filled riot and corresponding society alike Blake had been an exemplar poet whilst Paine was the ultimate consummate politician. This became cast as the newly recovered contribution of the English to the broader culture of the European left.
Nonetheless, Thomas Paine and his influence did conflict with other agendas. When I studied the chartist movement and the radicalism surrounding it Paine was cast as a crucial part of the older, outmoded ideological emphasis. Paine’s creation of ‘did Corruption’ was cast as a regency hangover, which owed perhaps too much to eighteenth century Whiggery and anachronistic conceptions of duty and worth. Paine above all others would concede that mankind appreciates ideas, even old ones, through the history of experiences. Creating and praising the productive classes in the early 1980s made Paine sound uncomfortably poujadist and far too close to the mutterings of the Grantham grocer’s daughter for comfort. This attitude was readily contrasted with the economic agenda and analysis in radicalism that had been advocated not primarily by Thomas Paine but by Thomas Spence and Robert Owen. Owen, in particular for those who felt more comfortable with Marxism, could be portrayed as the man who simultaneously invented the labour theory of value, created the language of anti-capitalist denunciation, yet also disdained politics as an unnecessary distraction.
My immersion in this exciting and rewarding world took me into postgraduate study in which I reconnected with radicalism and most importantly rediscovered one of its most underrated, yet endearing qualities — indignation. Owen was an alarmingly cold-fish in comparison to Paine. He assured all who heard him that he alone had the answer to society’s ills and began to speak the language of inevitability which Marxists would later adopt as their own. This lineage undoubtedly had a history but it certainly did not deserve the liberty to overwrite political radicalism that some allowed it. Indignation had been central to the motivation of this earlier political lineage and this was a valuable emotion which Paine contained in abundance. An emotion which he successfully trickled through the whole of the nineteenth century popular politics. So Paine and indignation had been a constant companion to my studies of Radicalism, Chartism, Secularism, Blasphemy and Republicanism. He remains valuable to all of us who would venture into those worlds in search of historical and ideological explanations of how society developed during these crucially turbulent years.
So why is he so useful? Why has Paine been a constant companion and why should he be.afforded quite such importance? We are already, by now, familiar with a conventional ideological history. However I would like to take us down some of the less obvious ways in which Paine is a companion to English history and — let me say a founder and proponent of the public interest and opinion as key concepts that make us modern. It is not simply a question of Thomas. Paine being ideologically valuable, he was also a radical who learned the important lesson that publicity and the skilled use of the media was essential to the successful reception of one’s message. Paine was an endlessly pithy and articulate critic. For a historian wanting to write the history of radicalism through these years Paine endlessly creates and inspires public pronouncement — even after his death. Paine was also the definitive user of the decisive moment, calculating the value of what he said and appreciating the importance of when he said it. He was the first to understand the nature of revolution and the first modem to understand the nature and potential magnitude of political change.
He also understood that the first way to change things is to think them into being different — to imagine and use ‘mental strength’ (a phrase frequently used by 19th century radicals) to transcend the status quo. After all, it was Thomas Paine who showed the resonant power of thought and its publicity through his invention of the global village. No idea ever moved around the globe so fast as revolution in the name of reason. As a historian I could spend the rest of my life tracing the radical ripples from the huge pebble that was Thomas Paine. But his value also lies elsewhere. He is also a voice I sometimes hear when I am trying to evaluate our radical history alongside some of its personalities and byways. But there are also things that are essential about Paine’s work and contribution that made the entire phenomenon of the 19th century radicalism possible. Paine and his ideas have an enormous presence in their own right in this world and these clearly deserve to be studied. But also importantly for me, he sometimes acts as a companion and a prism through which to view the phenomena one encounters as a historian in this era.
Ironically for someone who despised inheritance we need and deserve to look at what Paine inherited that is useful to us. Edward Thompson, in his last (posthumously published) work Witness against the Beast, tried to show how William Blake learned religious dissidence from his Muggletonian mother. We might similarly ask what did Paine take from Quakerism? The Quakers had once been extraordinarily radical and had been numbered amongst the dangerous sectaries of the English Revolution. They refused to accept what they regularly saw as spurious authority and refused (literally) to doff their hats to it and similarly refused to swear oaths to do things they deemed unworthy. In doing so they nurtured a culture of sober, considered yet determined resistance. Moreover, the Quakers through their actions in both England and the New World got themselves into trouble through their insistence upon the necessity of converting an unregenerate world. For these dedicated sectaries actions spoke emphatically as loudly as words ever did. Above ail, Quakers were moved by the spirit within them to pronounce and denounce. Quakerism was about speaking the mind and soul. Now obviously we know that Paine rejected Christianity in its remotely organised forms but some of those traits from Quakerism he arguably retained. Through his indulgence of some of these he gave radicalism in Britain the means and confidence to speak. Radicalism was to have opinions for itself, and to have no compunction about publicising these no matter how awkward and unpopular they might prove and no matter where such sentiments might lead the speakers.
Paine also provided the ‘ways and means’ for others to form and communicate their opinions. He was lucky enough to be regularly published and republished whilst continually exposing his readers (even posthumously) to the endless exciting possibilities of print culture. The danger for us is to see such developments as natural components of the modern world. Or worse to underestimate them or even consider them to be mundane. We should always remember the enlightenment world this torrent burst upon. It was a world where philosophical societies throughout the land craved information and acquired the urge to experiment and derive knowledge about a universe freed from the cant and prescription of protected knowledge. Corresponding societies and societies for constitutional information were more than mere focus groups. Provincial societies like these were places where the science of electricity would be discussed one evening to be followed the very next by the sciences of man and his interactions – in other words politics.
Paine also wrote in a linguistically liberating language. Not only did he expose the possibilities of print culture he also innovated in his – use of it. Many scholars have noted how his literary style was a break from the past – putting aside the classical allusions (we might say in unison with his audience illusions) to adopt and promote plain speaking and writing. He attacked Bastilles of the word and Palaces of the imagination. Being in awe of language and spurious unearned nobility not only cheated us of our humanity it also cheapened and demoralised our lives turning them into mere enslaved existences. Bastilles of the mind and Palaces of the imagination, these ideas are potent and have not been purged from contemporary life, never mind our history, and we will have cause to visit them later.
Again, for Paine, this innovative and immediate language was about creating the decisive moment although as we also know at times he could also lose the plot. Like most figures his ability to produce material that was memorable – when he could do it was what people would remember him by. The value of Paine’s language would extend beyond the simple and didactic into producing the endlessly quotable epithet. His image of the ‘plumage and the dying bird’ resonates throughout the radical world but the lack of reverence he showed for even the institution of accepted British history is also informative and demonstrates how irreverence had a purpose. Paine’s forthright language could be seen as a form of blasphemy upon the sacred cow of conventional British history. If the power of blasphemy lies in the power to remove the sting from revered institutions then Paine could do this with his waspish version of history. Could his contemporaries (and can we) ever take the Norman Conquest (or even most of aristocratic history from above) seriously again without conjuring to mind the scornful phrase ‘The Armed Banditti’?
Thus for me, Thomas Paine has been a companion on a journey through 19th century radicalism and the language attached to this. He comes into his own when examining the history of the unstamped press in the 1830’s. Those daring and courageous individuals who took indignation onto the streets to sell unstamped newspapers in defiance of authority. They took such struggles into the court room and thence to prison only to come out and sell such papers again. Paine here reminds us of the duty to communicate, the value of such communication and also of the fear that authority would always possess about these issues.
In thinking about Chartism Paine is perhaps of little help in looking at the mass movement and the demagoguery of Fergus O’Connor. He is of more assistance in assessing the value and achievements of James Bronterre O’Brien — the man with more credentials than most to lay claim to the title of the English Robespierre. Paine is of most use however in assessing the contributions and achievements of William Lovett and John Collins, the individuals who found themselves in prison after the Bull Ring riots of 1839. These men took a long hard look at what Chartism had achieved- for them as individuals and the cause of the working classes. They asked themselves some frank questions. Where had anarchy and mass protest got us and why they had not realised the potential of the radical mass platform? Rapidly these men realised that Chartism needed to rethink its strategy and ultimately to make some harsh decisions about what it was trying to achieve. They found themselves arguing that the working classes had not achieved their aims because they appeared raw and debased in the eyes and minds of their rulers. Thus their task was to raise expectations and standards through ‘Education Chartism’, ‘Temperance Chartism’ and ‘Christian Chartism’. This was communicated in their publication ‘Charitism a New Move’. Whilst Paine might not have liked the last of these all of them were species of self-help and enabling strategies that were taking and establishing rights for the individual, even if only within their own environment.
However, this is not to say that Thomas Paine is not a useful companion to have at your side when examining some of the set piece moments of the Chartist era. It is possible to hear him in one’s ear when scrutinising the events of the 1842 Chartist petition and its presentation to parliament. In presenting the petition the chartists believed parliament would see the justice of their cause and produce actions that would rectify the damage that had been done. However they reckoned without the Tory Thomas Macaulay, who rallied to protect the vested interests of those who had property to defend. In refuting the requests of the chartists, albeit in the kindest possible way, Macaulay outlined the manifesto of the conservatives with vested interests who have ever thought about the issue from that day to this:
…I believe that universal suffrage would be fatal to all purposes for which government exists,. and for which aristocracies and all other things exist, and that it is utterly incompatible with the very existence of civilisation. I am firmly convinced that the effect of any such measure would not merely to overthrow those institutions which now exist, and to ruin those who are rich, but to make the poor poorer, and the amount of misery of the country even greater, than it is now represented to be… No one can say that such a spoliation of property as these petitioners point at would be a relief to the evils of which they complain, and I believe that no one would deny that it would be a great addition to the mischief which is supposed to be removed. But if such would be the result, why should such power be conferred upon the petitioners? That they should ask for it is not blameable; but on what principle is it that we, knowing their views are entirely delusive, should put into their hands the irresistible power of doing all this evil to us and to themselves?
Now is it possible that, according to the principles of human nature, if you give them this power, it would not be used to its fullest extent? There has been a constant and systematic attempt for years to represent the Government as being able to do, and as bound to attempt that which no Govermment ever attempted; and instead of the Govenunent being represented, as is the truth, as being supported by the people, it been treated as if the Government possessed some mine of wealth, some extraordinary means of supplying the wants of the people – as if they could give them bread from the clouds, water from the rocks to increase the bread and the fishes five thousand fold. Is it possible to believe that the moment you give them absolute, supreme, irresistible power, they will forget all this? You propose to give them supreme power; in every constituent body throughout the empire capital and accumulated property is to be placed absolutely at the foot of labour. How is it possible to doubt what the result will be?’
Certainly it is possible to analyse the language here and as a historian to see that it embodies many well understood conceptions of eighteenth century government. But how should we get into the mind of the chartists whose claims and questions are to be consigned to oblivion by this answer? The language of indignation taught to them through a generation of unstamped papers and through their own paper the Northern Star must have made them equally able to hear Thomas Paine’s voice clearly. In this incident they would have heard him telling them in no uncertain terms that such language is not the defence of legitimately earned property but the defence of vested interests. Moreover, he would have asked the chartists to think long and hard about the condescension being offered to them. Such dismissive attitudes argue ordinary men and women are not discriminating, are capable of theoretical thought and indeed are spurned as a mob and populace or still worse Edmund Burke’s swinish multitude_ Paine would have asked bluntly whether parliament had bothered to read properly the Chartist Petition with any level of discrimination. Paine would argue that the quest for Annual Parliaments and the . payment of M.P’s made central authority more accountable. In the words of the petition, the role of an M.P. is a great and responsible position taking office ‘When called upon to undertake the ‘important business of the country’. This is Paine’s own language about sharing power, taking responsibility for government and considering it a great (the greatest) calling.
If we move to study the great radical autodidacts of the 19th century Paine is again supremely valuable. He reminds us of the uses of the scowling crustiness and disdain for easy solutions that so characterised these people. Moreover, his work to demystify language was turned into a life’s work for many who clearly saw the social and political power inherent in education — particularly if it was self realised. This was also the gospel of self-help in action showcasing the power of individual accomplishment to reaffirm that making the most of life was worth the effort.
Examining the radical history around another of my research subjects — blasphemy – will rapidly convince anyone that Paine stands as a colossus. He provides the foundation text which is prosecuted endlessly by the authorities — The Age of Reason (a volume still producing converts to rationalism as late as the 1950s). Once again Paine is a good companion in this territory. We can feel him alongside Daniel Isaac Eaton and the defenceless shopmen brought before the bench who in this instance resemble clearly Blake’s imposing tyrannical figure of Steelyard the Law Giver. However, it is also possible to feel Paine wincing alongside Richard Cattle as he embarks upon an exhaustive complete reading of The Age of Reason in the court room. But nonetheless Paine (as we do) would take some time to admire the fortitude of a man who would spend years of his life in prison and would regularly quote Diderot’s epithet about strangling the last king with the entrails of the last priest.
Paine might have chided J.S.MiII for being too polite in On Liberty for his denunciation of the prosecution for blasphemy of the insane individual Thomas Pooley in 1857 which really cried out for more in the way of indignation. But more importantly still Paine’s.culture of speaking out influenced those who would blaspheme. To blaspheme was emphatically to speak out, to venture the unpopular opinion and not be afraid of retribution and its consequences whether it emanated from this world or the next. Moreover, it was a call to feel and admit within your very self that the spurious must be questioned even unto your last breath. Importantly, the introduction of fun and ribaldry into blasphemy in the 1880s had an important cultural purpose — to argue we should not take power seriously any more. This was the colossal achievement of the enlightenment no matter what the suspicious post modem theorists would say. Paine’s favourite blasphemy might well have been Python’s Life of Brian. Not because it was particularly erudite but because it was mainstream and popular and touched thousands. It was perpetrated by public figures with cult influence especially amongst the young. Christian doctrine might summon to the mind comic images as easily as sacred ones. Paine argued that the sovereignty of this opinion was paramount — preserving it and offering it to others — after all was how revolutions began — a global village is, after all, one that talks and shares values.
Looking at the British Empire also provides fertile ground for the implications of Paine’s culture of questioning and indignation. To radicals it was a system of oppression — but one changed by the application of opinion and holding this up to the measure of a civilised nation. Imperialism had, for radicals, originated in aristocratic tendencies and provided the playground for the worst tendencies of the ‘armed banditti’ let loose on a defenceless population. Paine’s ideological heir Charles Bradlaugh carried on the fight against such practices becoming the unofficial parliamentary ‘Member for India’ in the 1880s in succession to the radical Henry Fawcett. He fought jobbery, flunkeyism and attacks on the indigenous desire to govern and participate. Bradlaugh’s own visit to India in the 1880s, enabled him to envisage a risen people casting aside gods and princes in equal measure to embrace the enlightenment and reason. This dream was dashed for this generation by the growth of separatism and factionalism which moved Indian nationalism away from liberal, radical and rational solutions to the problem of government.
However, it is really, paradoxically in the realm of republicanism where Thomas Paine’s influence is really not appreciated and perhaps a significant chunk of my own work has veered towards demonstrating a different history of republicanism in Britain. Paine’s feelings on monarchy and the cultural power it wielded are often resurrected and often quoted. He communicates this in an obviously celebrated phrase that has profoundly affected the history and historiography of republicanism.
‘I have always considered monarchy to be a silly, contemptible thing. I ) compare it to something kept behind a curtain, about which there’s a great deal of bustle and fuss, and a wonderful air of seeming solemnity, but when, by any accident, the curtain happens to open, and the company sees what it is, they burst into laughter’.
This is a wonderfully cinematic image and like any cinematic image, we tend to view it from one camera angle. Our instinct is to feel ourselves a part of the audience. Paine would argue we are encouraged to look at the contemptible show and see a mixture of bombastic over the top ham performances. He would also draw our attention to the sight of some who have trouble with their lines and others who try not to be in the performance at all. It would also not escape his eye that some cast members appear merely interested in their press notices. Whilst laughter is generated in radical circles by this the laughter fades and Paine would solemnly note that a new generation of indifferent performers and performances replaces the old. This particular reading of the English republican legacy is traditionally how history has seen English republicanism. It is deemed a failure because we are still supposedly enthralled by the performance and will continue to watch it even if farce follows tragedy in the way Marx argued it would. No matter how much we as a nation allegedly lose respect we are nonetheless dismissed as addicted to the show.
But my own investigations into republicanism suggest our cinematic angle is wrong and Thomas Paine’s contribution is wider than simple invective. Paine intended us to focus on what the audience think — to watch for changes — and to make this audience progressively more discriminating. This was to be accomplished by the generation of opinion early on. From the spectacle of George IV’s funeral cortege being pelted with excrement through the accession of William IV (a man dull people called dull), monarchy had scarcely distinguished itself in the nineteenth century. But Victoria however became the middle class darling. In response to this English Republicanism set about undoing the special relationship to make the middle classes feel uneasy about this new alliance. In doing this they drew on everything Thomas Paine told them about how new societies would operate. They would foster and promote talent, industry, attainment and merit. They would, in short, be enabling and have a lively and healthy public sphere which would enshrine the demonstration of virtue. English Republicans did not have to overthrow the monarchy but to show how it was the enemy of all these things. They hoped it would go quietly under the urging of parliament and civil society.
Monarchy was expensive – an intrinsic message of Charles Bradlaugh’s Impeachment of the House of Brunswick. Moreover, its benefits were extended only graciously and were in the end arbitrary. The benefits of local government existed only as long as monarchy’s charters were honoured; what had been graciously bestowed could be cynically withdrawn. Besides, monarchy’s attachment to the middle classes was fleeting and dramatically went into freefall with the death of Prince Albert. Victoria neglected her public duties; her ‘friendship’ with John Brown provoked adverse comment whilst her attempts to massage the royal finances were an embarrassment to the government. The last discovery allowed opponents to argue that the monarchy was crooked — a real fear for the Victorian middle classes who came to view fraud as the cardinal sin.
Honour was scarcely satisfied by the succeeding generation since the Prince of Wales was shown to be deeply in debt. His less than distinguished performance in the Mordaunt divorce scandal and accusations he had perjured himself in court showed monarchy riding roughshod over civil society. Republicans openly asked the people what they thought of this and the answer came from monarchy — it would remake itself. We in turn should ask ourselves why such a move was necessary if the institution was so prosperous. Ultimately monarchy was made into an institution and it has been in this straight jacket ever since. We can judge it on these criteria and assess its usefulness. In doing so we have acquired discretion, powers of evaluation and nobility of reason Paine wanted us all to have. He would have argued that it is the duty of succeeding generations to look into the eyes of other members of this audience and make them tired of even laughing at the show.
Paine has gained new relevance from some political scholars who have suggested that with the eclipse of socialism the radical agenda is up for grabs. If this is true it may be that we are living through a period in which ideology is becoming malleable. Not in some post-modernist flabby way but in asking individuals to draw upon their human resources and their own conceptions of worth and rights. This raw power can challenge governments and multinationals as effectively as older socialist critiques. Perhaps this should also be an occasion to re-examine the legacy of liberalism that came down to us shorn of at least some of its indignation. It should persuade us to look at how liberalism became polite and lost its potency. John Stewart Mill, when he stood for parliament, refused to canvas for votes assuming that right would triumph in the hearts, or more correctly, the minds of men. Would Thomas Paine have taken such an eventuality for chance? The polite New- Liberalism of John Robertson argued that the empire should be dispensed with because it was an uncivilised burden. Paine would have used stronger language than this and would have echoed Bradlaugh’s more strident criticism which saw republican virtue as the cause that would save the unfortunate peoples of an exploitative aristocratic empire.
But the work of indignation is never complete. Paine and his ideological descendents like Charles Bradlaugh taught us that whilst the ignoble elements of human awe and the debasing effects of charisma could still do their work we should never be free. Our duty (in their eyes) was to become discriminating. To tear down, even if only in our own minds, the pedestals that envy, superstition and tawdry admiration had erected before our eyes.
But to come full circle, the issue of enabling people and how privilege was a blight on this was emphasised by two events occurring during my own lifetime at either end of the 1960s. The first of these was the expansion of the universities in which talent rather than the ability or means to pay merit an important social force. This waged, at least for a time, what war it could on the bastilles of the word and of the mind. This gave us social history and history from below — forces empowering and inspiring talent. When the opportunities were closed down we subsequently acquired postmodernism with its attendant obfuscation, cleverness and elitism — our worst Bastille of the mind!
The second event was the Aberfan mine disaster and its appalling aftermath. This latter event prompted the radical songwriter Leon Rosselson to write his driven and scathing attack upon privilege and the destruction of opportunity ‘Palaces of Gold’. It is no coincidence here that palaces were the enemies of the republic of opinion and of merit and our finest instincts.
The last verse reads as an indictment of accepting the condemnation of a previous generation and the failure to enable us all!
“I’m not suggesting any kind of plot,
Everyone knows there’s not,
But you unborn millions might like to be warned
That if you don’t’ want to be buried alive by slag heaps.
Pitfalls and damp walls and rat traps and dead streets,
Arrange to be democratically born
The son of a company director
Or a judge’s fine and private daughter.
Buttons will be press,
Rules will be broken.
Strings will be pulled
And magic words spoken.
Invisible fingers will mould
Palaces of God.”
We all owe Thomas Paine for giving us and helping us to retain our indignation, may it remain and grow ever more righteous as time passes. AMEN!