By Robert Morrell
“My Pen And My Soul Have Ever Gone Together”, Thomas Paine and the American Revolution. Vikki J. Vickers. Routledge, 2000. 186pp. Hardbound. ISBN 0-415 07652-9.
Over the past few years there have been not a few biographical studies of Thomas Paine, most of which may be rightly described as relatively routine, while a handful stand out. I have no hesitation in ascribing this short book as being firmly in the latter category, although in the strictest sense it is not really biographical as the author sets it primarily in a context of the years 1737 to 1783. This said she goes beyond this by making allowances for the fact that two of Paine’s most important works, Rights of Man and The Age of Reason fall outside this time span.
The author seeks to place Paine firmly into a historical context and is critical of biographers such as John Keane and Jack Fruchtman Jr, on the grounds that their works lack critical analysis. This a fault she considers to arise from the fact that neither are historians, others, she feels, tend typically to be devotees, and others study Paine’s politics, his religion, his rhetoric, but rarely do these threads ever intersect in scholarship related to him. She is critical of those who highlight the more “sensational elements” in his life, instancing the question of his alcoholism and “possible sexual dysfunction”, which latter she describes as being almost too ridiculous to confront. On the subject of his drinking, she states that it would appear that in the 1790s he developed a serious drinking problem, but tat before this time none of his friends or enemies seems to have noticed any. She notes, as have others, that during his imprisonment he had become seriously ill and had never fully recovered, and found in drink a remedy for pain and a restorative. However, while she says her comments should not be seen as an excuse for Paine’s “possible alcoholism”, which on the whole is an irrelevance. It would only become worthy of serious consideration, she contends, “If he thought, acted, and wrote one way while drinking and another while sober”.
Ms. Vickers traces the factors that she considers had influenced Paine in formulating his views, drawing attention to Milton’s Paradise Lost, citing a comment in it that Satan had secured his independence through his fall from grace. In using this, Paine took on the role of Devil’s Advocate to force Americans and the Continental Congress to examine what had been envisioned as a worse case scenario, independence from Britain. Through Paine’s examination, “America realized, like Satan in Milton’s fable, that independence was actually the best of all possible solutions.
The book is divided into six chapters and an appendix, the headings of each giving a clear indication of how the author develops her arguments:
- The Devil’s Advocate: Thomas Paine and the Making of Common Sense.
- Why Thomas Paine?
- The Origins and Significance of Thomas Paine’s Religious Beliefs.
- “One God and No More”: The Strange Mission of Thomas Paine.
- Conclusion.
- Appendix: Common Sense: A Historiographical Overview.
In addition, there is a useful introduction, notes, bibliography and an index. Nearly two hundred years of scholarship exist on Paine, so the author notes, yet there remains no answer to the question posed by historians: “why Thomas Paine?”, namely, why was it that a poor, unknown Englishman wrote Common Sense, which she rightly notes transformed the nature of political debate on two continents? In chapter five, she seeks to provide an answer, but in doing so argues that what should be excluded in the task is any reliance upon “suspect biographies” such as those by Chalmers (Oldys) and Cheetham. However, her reference to Thetford as a city is incorrect.
One cannot do justice to this fascinating and I would say controversial work. Ms. Vickers in the space available, she rejects the charge that Paine’s work lacks originality and she is scathing about some of the comments made by several scholars critical of Paine. He was, she concludes, an ordinary man whose pen helped to start the American revolution, although she also refers to his “often limited perspective and attention to short term solutions is that scholars will never know how Paine might have succeeded had he turned his potent pen to such issues as slavery, women’s rights, or universal suffrage. Nevertheless”, she continues, “it cannot be denied that Paine’s activism (however flawed his reasoning) influenced the minds of his readers….. Although Paine failed in his personal mission to create a world of deists, his indomitable will, his tireless crusade for justice and human rights ensured him of a success unequalled by any other writer of his time”.
Whatever criticism I might have of this book, and I have some, but overall these are few in number, so much so that they can be passed over unwritten. I consider this book to be absolutely essential reading for all those interested in Thomas Paine.