The first edition of Thomas Paine’s controversial work The Age of Reason has long been a bibliographical enigma. There are many contenders for priority, published in French or English and dated either 1794 of “1 An II” of the French Revolutionary Calendar. Francois Lanthenas, Paine’s French translator, complicated the problem when, in his appeal for Paine’s liberation from prison, dated August 5, 1794, he wrote (in French):

This book (The Age of Reason) was written by the author in the beginning of the year ‘93 (old style). I undertook its translation before the revolution against the priests, and it was published in French about the same time. Couthon, to whom I sent it, seemed offended with me for having translated this work. 

Moncure D. Conway, in his authoritative life of Paine, gave this account:

Under the frown of Couthon, one of the most atrocious colleagues of Robespierre, the early translations seems to have been so effectively suppressed that no copy bearing that date, 1793, can be found in France or elsewhere. In Paine’s letter to Samuel Adams, he says that he had it translated into French, “to stay the progress of atheism”. The time indicated to Lanthenas as that in which he submitted the work to Couthon who appear to be in the latter part of March 1793, the fury against the priesthood having reached its climax in degrees against them of March 19 and 26. 

J.M. Querard, in his bibliography of French literature, gives 1793 as the date of the first edition of “L’Age de la raison.”

Although attributed on the title page to Lanthenas, this is indeed a translation of Paine’s The Age of Reason before the addition of several new chapters and the dedication (dated 1794). The year of its publication is not given, but it seems to answer the description of the 1793 edition. A passage referring to the fury against the priests included in editions of 1794 does not appear in this edition, the events apparently not yet having occurred. 

The present copy is unfortunately not complete. The entire signature B (pages 17-32) belongs apparently to another, as yet unidentified pamphlet, and the “Tableau frappant” by Citizen Neez, called for on the title page, is not present. On the other hand, there are at the end four pages of new material entitled “Maximes Republicaines”, consisting of twenty-five unnumbered sayings, very possibly the work of Paine, and not known to have been published elsewhere in French or in English. They are not the “Twenty Five Precepts of Reason”, a catechism by J. Graset St. Sauveur, found on page 189-192 of the first New York (1794) edition of The Age of Reason, printed by T. & J. Swords for J. Fellows. For illustration, one of the new maxims (the thirteenth) reads, in translation:

“There is some shame in being rich and happy in sight of the poor”.

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MANY YEARS AGO when Gifford Pinchot was Governor of Pennsylvania he honored me by requesting that I accept an appointment to a high position in his administration. Knowing nothing whatsoever about politics, I sought a confer- ence with him. I inquired, “What makes one successful in politics?” 

The astute Governor replied, “The main ingredient of success in politics is to restrict yourself to endorsing very few worthwhile projects. It would be best if you identified yourself with only one. For,” as he explained, “no matter how beneficial a project may be to the general community, it neverthe- less hurts quite a few persons, sometimes important in politics and finance. If you succumb to espousing every good cause, you keep building up the number of your enemies. Soon they reach such proportions that you cannot possibly be re-elected, and become generally disliked.” 

No one illustrates this form of committing political suicide better than Thomas Paine. He did not hesitate a moment to rush in to promote every good cause and to expose every injustice, and he ended up being generally despised, with virtually everyone his enemy for one reason or another. 

Two hundred and twenty-two years ago, when Thomas Paine was born in Thetford, Norfolk, England, nearly all governments were hereditary monarchies, despotic or benign. Opportunities for free education for the workingman’s children were either scarce or non-existent. Paine’s first thirty-seven years were of little significance. They included a formal education through the Thetford Grammar School, which was all his family could afford, and two brief marriages. He tried to earn a decent livelihood, but failed or was unhappy in every job he tried. When working for the government as an exciseman, he discovered that his meagre pay was insufficient to include upkeep for a horse, which was a necessity. Graft was rampant and the government was cheated to make ends meet. Seeing injustice to both sides, Paine organized the excisemen into a kind of union and wrote for them a plea for an increase in their pay, which he addressed to each member of Parliament. The result was foregone: he was dismissed. 

Benjamin Franklin had at this same time been dismissed from his position as Postmaster for North America, and the two of them met in London at scientific lectures and became friends. Franklin must have been favorably impressed by Paine’s methods of reasoning, because he sent him with letters of introduction to his son-in-law Richard Bache, a prosperous wine merchant in Philadelphia, and apparently also to his natural son William Franklin, then royal Governor of New Jersey (See letter from Paine to Franklin, March 4, 1775). 

The best way to correct an injustice, Paine thought, was to publicize it. When he found a slave market opposite his lodgings in Philadelphia, he immed- iately wrote for the newspaper (Pennsylvania Journal, March 8,1775) an article against slavery so powerful that it not only attracted attention, but also gained him important friends, such as the Philadelphia physician, Dr. Benjamin Rush. Perhaps it is only coincidental, but the first association against slavery in America was organised in Philadelphia shortly after Paine’s article appeared. 

A month later when blood was spilled in the Battle of Lexington (April 19, 1775), Paine felt so strongly against this outrage by the British Government that he thought the newspapers would not give sufficient space to do justice to his carefully worked-out arguments. The article, more than eighty pages long, he called Common Sense. Dr. Rush introduced Paine to a fearless liberal print named Robert Bell, who was willing to take the risk of publishing it. Its clear portrayal of the reasons for independence spread like wildfire throughout the colonies. As a direct result, the Declaration of Independence was signed, and Paine became a famous man. 

Paine enlisted in the war as a common soldier. After the long, disheartening retreat across the Jerseys, the war appeared lost, and it became necessary for Paine to pick up his pen. He wrote The American Crisis, opening with the words: “These are times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman” – words which were never to be forgotten. The pamphlet provided the needed lift. The result: Washington crossed the Delaware and the first American victory at Trenton followed. At each subsequent crisis Paine’s pen was called on for assistance, and he never failed to respond effectively, thirteen times in all. During the war his fiery arguments drove the Tories from positions of influence. He attacked profiteers, inflationists and counterfeiters as well. He revealed confidential data in order to expose the crooked dealings of the influential Silas Deane. When politicians considered taking the supreme command of the Army away from George Washington, Paine hastened to defend him. When funds were needed to feed and clothe the soldiers, he founded the first bank in this country and defended it from all attacks. He freely printed his opinions on every controversy. Not having Governor Pinchot as an adviser, he did not realize the growing number of enemies he was making. 

Although his pen had contributed as much to the success of the war as Washington’s sword, Paine was disappointed that he failed to receive any reward for his patriotic writings. To gain the widest circulation these had been sold by the hundreds of thousands, purposely without any recompense to the author. He was nearing fifty years of age and wished to retire to write a history of the War. His friends found, however, that he had trod on so many toes that they only succeeded with difficulty in securing for him a farm in New Rochelle from the State of New York, £500 from the State of Pennsylvania, and $3000 from Congress. This was but a fraction of what he deserved. 

His well known prejudice against slavery, his conviction that every adult should vote, landowner or not, prevented him from being considered as a delegate to the forthcoming Constitutional Convention. No one could have con- tributed more toward a liberal constitution than Paine. The Civil War might have been averted had Paine attended the Convention. 

Now Paine turned his attention to something useful in peace. He had invented the first large bridge to be made entirely of iron, designed to cross the broad Schuylkill River near Philadelphia in a single arch, without the use of piers. Franklin advised Paine that no one in America would dare build so novel a bridge without first getting the approval of the French Academy of Science. 

So, once again we find Paine, armed with appropriate letters of introduction from Franklin, setting sail for Paris. 

When he arrived there he conferred with our Ambassador, Thomas Jefferson, and these two great liberals saw everything eye to eye. The success of the American Revolution and the setting up of a republican form of government were making deep inroads in the minds of the downtrodden masses, both in France and in England. Paine’s dream of a world revolution seemed likely to come true. To Paine a revolution meant a change from. hereditary government to a representative democratic system with universal suffrage and safeguards for the inherent rights of the little people, who owned no land. 

While he was in Paris, the treacherous flight of Louis XV1, King of France, took place. Paine thought it was good riddance to bad rubbish, and was astound- ed that the people wanted their runaway King to return. As he had first sparked independence for America, he was now the first one to spark a republic for France. His printed Manifesto demanding a republic was posted all over Paris. Like the famous Theses of Martin Luther, it was audaciously nailed to the very door of the National Assembly, where it could not fail to receive attention. But with the capture of the King and his return to Paris, Paine’s republican “bubble” burst, though not without planting a seed that was to grow rapidly. 

He now returned to England, where a large-scale model of his iron bridge was being built. He fomented republican clubs, which exchanged sentiments of friendship with those in Scotland and Ireland, as well as those in France. Paine’s revolution seemed to be brewing in Great Britain, Edmund Burke, whose friendly actions during the American Revolution had endeared him to Paine, made Paine’s acquaintance. They visited together and corresponded. Suddenly, Burke changed sides and assailed the principles of the French Revolution. Paine accused Burke of being a pensioner in a fictitious name, and hinted this might have been the real reason he changed his mind. Paine gloried in the task of publicly answering him, which he did in his monumental work the Rights of Man. It first appeared on February 22, appropriately dedicated to George Washington. Praising Washington’s “exemplary virtue” he prayed that he would see the “new world regenerate the old.” At this time Paine was at the height of his popularity, and he felt certain that Rights of Man would do for England what Common Sense had done for America. Unfortunately for his cause, it was at just this time that dreadful massacres of innocent people in France took place. England, horrified at this kind of revolution, took warning and went to the other extreme, and for a while England was the least free spot on earth. The National Guard was called out. A royal proclamation was issued for the purpose of suppressing Paine’s book, and by court action Paine was declared an outlaw. Publishers, printers, and sellers of Paine’s work were jailed for libel as fast as they could be tried. Yet Paine’s book seems mild enough for us today. Paine said of the libel: 

If to expose the fraud and the imposition of monarchy, and every species of hereditary government-to lessen the oppression of taxes-to propose plans for the education of helpless infancy, and the comfortable support of the aged and distressed-to endeavor to conciliate nations to each other-to extirpate the horrid practise of war-to promote universal peace, civilization, and com- merce-and to break the chains of political superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank-if these things be libellous,let me live the life of a Libeller, and let the name of LIBELLER be engraved on my tomb. 

The polished rhetoric of Burke could not refute the blunt logic of Paine’s arguments. The government resorted to a smear campaign of unprecedented proport- ions. It had published a Life of Paine, which maliciously purported on its title page to be “A Defense of Paine’s Works” and then was filled with lies and slander. According to this Life, the death of Paine’s first wife was due to ill usage and a premature birth; the cause of legal separation from his Second wife was said to be his refusal to cohabit with her through the three and one-half years of their marriage; and the claim was made that he had swindled many, including his own mother. 

In contradiction, consider the treatment Paine received when he went to France. Four Departments had vied with each other to elect Paine to the French National Convention. Paine accepted a seat from the Department of Calais and henceforth embraced and defended the French Revolution. He worked on a new democratic Constitution for France. Unfortunately, it was never activated, and as a result chaos reigned. This proved to be disastrous to France. The murderous course now taken by the Revolution alienated the entire world, and Paine had to take full share of responsibility for all actions coming from a government established according to the form he had so strongly advocated. Yet Paine tried to prevent bloodshed and went further than anyone else to save Louis XV1 from the guillotine. Paine, the hater of kings, cried, “Kill the King, but not the man, for he remembered that this same French King had courageously given vital aid to the struggling American colonies in their darkest hour. Robespierre, smashing all who opposed him, considered Paine’s humanitarianism a drawback, and ordered this “arch rebel” of England and America jailed, ironically, as a dangerous conservative. 

The tenets of Christian religion had troubled Paine from the time he was seven years old, but although he kept making notes on this subject, he purposely delayed publication of his beliefs until late in life, for then, being closer to the next world, he would be more concerned. But the reign of terror in France so threatened Paine’s life with early extinction that he resolved to bring his work to a close and publish it. So well had Paine estimated his remaining freedom that only six hours after he had finished his writing, the dreaded knock came on the door; the police had arrived and he was arrested. He contrived by a subterfuge to stop on the way to prison at the lodging of Joel Barlow, who was doing the proof-reading. He handed to Barlow the remainder of his manuscript, called The Age of Reason, and asked him to publish it at once. He had dedicated it to his fellow Citizens of America: 

I put the following work under your protection. It contains my opinion upon religion. You will do me the justice to remember that I have always strenu- ously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it. 

The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall. 

He refused to believe that the orders to commit crimes, which he found in the Bible, were the words of God. He called them mythical. He would not accept any of the miracles, for he considered them based solely on hearsay evidence. 

However, it is difficult to find any logical reason for branding Paine an atheist, when his expression of faith is so unmistakably written in The Age of Reason: 

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow-creatures happy. 

Paine’s book failed in its purpose to save France from atheism, and was fiercely denounced in all other countries as the work of the devil. In England, Thomas Williams, who reprinted it, was thrown into jail and the work suppressed as blasphemous. Punishment as severe as fourteen years in a penal colony, like Botany Bay, was inflicted. Even speaking favourably of the work might earn one the pillory. Nevertheless, The Age of Reason continued to circulate surreptitiously. 

In his French prison Paine expected early release through intercession of President Washington. He was an American citizen against whom no charge had been made. But month by month he waited in vain and became dangerously ill as a result of his confinement in a damp cell. Robespierre finally condemned him to death, but before the busy guillotine could chop off Paine’s head, Robespierre had lost his own. Months later Paine’s release was obtained by the American Ambassador James Monroe on his own responsibility, but Paine’s grievance against Washington mounted. 

While being nursed back to health in Monroe’s home, he wrote Washington two identical letters, asking him to explain why he had ditched his old friend, and sent them by different vessels to guarantee their receipt. Washington received both. When a year had passed without a reply, Paine, feeling betrayed, hotheadedly published in America a bitter attack on Washington. This accomplished little more than to complete Paine’s fall from public favour, particularly in his own country. 

Paine’s next great work was Agrarian Justice. Here he outlined his plan for really ameliorating the conditions of the poor and aged. By leveling a tax on the landowners, he would create a national fund in every nation, to pay every person reaching twenty-one years of age a sum of money to enable him or her to begin the world. When one reached the age of fifty (the considered old) a sum would be given annually, sufficient to enable him to go on living without wretchedness, and to go decently out of the world. Paine’s excellently thought-out social security programme was unfortunately considered too advanced to receive the attention it deserved. 

Now Paine became one of a group in Paris to organise a new religious society called “The Theophilanthropists,” a compound word meaning “Lovers of God and Man.” Paine’s religion consisted only in belief in “one God” and “doing good. The French government at first supported this religion and allowed its followers to use Notre Dame and three other church edifices in Paris; but after a few years’ growth, Napoleon, who had made peace with the Pope, crushed the society. 

Paine’s battle for freedom in the Old World had come to a grinding halt. Paine, however, refused to give up. He now decided to return to the New World. He would go to his farm in New Rochelle, hoping to find freedom and tolerance there. Thomas Jefferson, the first real Democrat, who had steadfastly remained a friend of Paine, was President of the United States. He was bold enough to offer a frigate (today’s equivalent a battleship) to bring Paine safely through any British blockade back to America. However, Paine took an ordinary vessel. 

Much to Paine’s dismay, from the moment of landing in Baltimore he was outrageously attacked as a blasphemer. This continued unrelentingly for the remaining five years of his life. The Federalists, taking umbrage at Paine’s attack on their idol, Washington, pulled out all the stops in fiery denunciation of Paine the Infidel. Even on a stage coach, the driver, learning that Paine was a passenger, refused to proceed until Paine got out, fearing that such a defiler of God would invite retribution by lightning, at least. So whipped up was this hatred, that the City of New Rochelle stopped him from voting when he went to cast his ballot, on the grounds that he was no longer a citizen. How ungrateful could his country be? 

Many of Paine’s friends shunned him, except disciples like Elihu Palmer, or the fearless democrat, President Jefferson, and a few others. Paine, past seventy, still continued to publish powerful essays, furthering both his religious and political principles and assailing his enemies. Since his name was no longer an asset, they were mostly anonymous. 

All this controversy might have been expected to end in 1809 when Paine died at the age of seventy-two, one hundred and fifty years ago; but this was not to be the case. He had requested in his will to be buried in a Quaker burying ground, provided the authorities would admit a person who did not belong to their Society. Otherwise, he desired to be buried on his own farm in New Rochelle. 

His obituary, written by his enemy, James Cheetham, editor of the (New York) American Citizen, appeared on June 10 and was widely copied. It read: 

Died on Thursday morning, the 8th of June. Thomas Paine, author of the Crisis, Rights of Man, The Age of Reason. Mr.Paine had a desire to be interred in the Quaker burying ground, and some days previous to his demise, had an interview with some Quaker gentlemen on the subject, but as he declined a renunciation of his deistical views, his anxious wishes were not complied with. He was yesterday interred at New Rochelle, Westchester county, perhaps on his own farm. I am unacquainted with his age, but he had lived long, done some good, and much harm. 

The obituary written by his friend, Jacob Frank, editor of the (New York) Public Advertiser, had appeared the day before, June 9, but seems not to have been copied by any other paper. 

With heartfelt sorrow and poignant regret, we are compelled to announce to the world that Thomas Paine is no more. This distinguished Philanthropist, whose life was devoted to the cause of humanity, departed this life yesterday morning. But if ever a man’s memory deserved a place in the breast of a freeman, it is that of the deceased, for: 

Take ’em all in all 

We ne’er shall look upon his like again! 

The friends of the deceased, are invited to attend his funeral, at nine o’clock, from his late residence at Greenwich, from whence the corpse will be conveyed to New Rochelle, for interment. 

William Cobbett, an ultra-Tory during his first. American sojourn, printed in the (Philadelphia) – Political Censor, September 1796, thirteen years before Paine died, this unfriendly prediction: 

He has done all the mischief he can in the world, and whether his carcass is at last to be suffered to rot on the earth, or to be dried in the air is of little consequence. Whenever and wherever he breathes his last he will excite neither sorrow nor compassion; no friendly hand will close his eyes, not a groan will be uttered, not a tear will be shed. Like Judas he will be remembered by posterity; men will learn to express all that is base, malignant, treacherous, unnatural and blasphemous, by the single monosyllable, PAINE. 

Who would believe that only a few years after Paine’s death Cobbett would retract every vile word he had written about Paine? Having the opportunity to study Paine’s writings during a long confinement in Newgate Prison for expressing some liberal sentiments, Cobbett became a convert. Doing a complete about-face, he started to expound Paine’s principles to the British masses. Later he was forced to flee once more to America. After a two-year sojourn there, in an act of unusual penance he exhumed Paine’s bones from their resting place in New Rochelle and brought them to England in order to give them a new funeral worthy of so great a man. The British, however, now despising Cobbett almost as much as Paine, ruined the plan by ridicule. Paine’s bones have now disappeared, giving circulation to a weird tale used by a preacher, denouncing Paine: “Thomas Paine was so wicked that he could not be buried; his bones were thrown into a box which was bandied about the world until it came to a button manufacturer, and now Paine is traveling around in the form of buttons.” 

Suppression of Paine’s work in England had the opposite effect desired and increased the demand for them. New printers, like W.T. Sherwin and Richard Carlile, were found who would take the risk of publication. Arrested or not,they continued battling for the freedom of the press, even from their cells in jail. Over the years such freedom was finally won and Paine’s works have been regul- arly reprinted since then. For instance, nine editions of Rights of Man have been published in London since World War 1. The Age of Reason, now a Bible for Freethinkers, this year (1959) was reprinted in New York in an edition of 100,000 copies. Today people are not ostracized who refuse to take their Bible literally.

Succeeding generations have seen the smoke screen of personal abuse around Paine gradually disappear, allowing him to stand forth as the greatest advocate of democracy, social security, and freedom of thought the world has yet seen. 

Public appreciation of Paine is mounting. In England, his birthplace at Thetford, Norfolk, is marked in bronze, and at Lewes, Sussex, all places associated with him are marked. In London his portrait hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, and there is another portrait and bust in the South Place Ethical Society. In France, a great statue by Gutzon Borglum of Paine pleading for the life of Louis XV1 stands facing the dormitories of the University of Paris, In America he has been elected to the Hall of Fame in New York, where his bust stands next to that of his great friend Thomas Jefferson. There is another bust in the New York Historical Society, and his last home in Greenwich Village is marked by a bronze plaque. If you visit Jefferson’s home in Monticello, the guides will point out to you the miniature portrait of Paine painted from life by John Trumbull. In the National Gallery, Washington, D.C.; there is a portrait painted from life by John Wesley Jarvis. In Philadel- phia, his portrait hangs in Independence Hall. There is a small portrait in our American Antiquarian Society. In New Jersey, at Bordentown, his little house is marked with bronze, while in Morristown, there is a large statue which is gold-plated, carrying out the suggestion once made by Napoleon that every city in the world should erect a statue of gold to Paine, Napoleon also said he never went to bed at night without a copy of Paine’s Rights of Man under his pillow. New Rochelle has also repented, for the original burial place is graced by an imposing monument; the home is preserved as a historic shrine; and there is a beautiful museum building nearby which is devoted to an exhibition of his works. They even gave him back his citizenship by an official act a few years ago. Next Tuesday the Library of Yale University opens a comprehensive exhibit of his works and manuscripts. 

Paine has influenced nearly all our Presidents, particularly Abraham Lincoln. Woodrow Wilson’s “League of Nations” may have been indebted to Paine, who conceived an “Association of Nations” under a rainbow-coloured flag, who would maintain their neutrality by an economic blockade of any aggressor. In the Rights of Man, which with his other works, the Soviet Union has this year tran- slated into Russian, appears his plan of disarmament. Let me read to you what Paine wrote in 1792: 

It is, I think, certain, that if the fleets of England, France, and Holland were confederated, they could propose, with effect, a limitation to, and a general dismantling of all the navies in Europe, to a certain proportion to be agreed upon. 

First, That no new ship of war shall be built by any power in Europe, themselves included. 

Secondly, That all the navies now in existence shall be put back, suppose to one-tenth of their present force. 

If men will permit themselves to think, nothing can appear more ridiculous and absurd, exclusive of all moral reflections, than to be at the expense of building navies, filling them with men, and then hauling them into the ocean, to try to sink each other fastest. Peace, which costs nothing, is attended with infinitely more advantage, than any victory with all its expense. 

…the above confederated powers, together with that of the United States of America, can propose, with effect, the independence of South America…. …nations will become acquainted, and the animosities and prejudices formented by the intrigue and artifice of courts,will cease. The oppressed soldier will become a freeman; and the tortured sailor,no longer dragged along the streets like a felon, will pursue his mercantile voyage in safety. It would be better that nations should continue the pay of their soldiers during their lives, and give them their discharge and restore them to freedom and their friends, and cease recruiting, than retain such multitudes at the same expence, in a condition useless to society and themselves.

These were Paine’s words, taken from Part 11 of the Rights of Man. 

Do you suppose that Khrushchev, before he presented his plan of disarmament to the United Nations last month, had read Paine’s plan? 

I think there has been a resurgence of Thomas Paine. 

Reprinted from the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society. 

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Lecture Opening the Exhibition at the Yale University Library, Commemorating the One Hundred Fiftieth Anniversary of the Death of Thomas Paine, Tuesday, October 27, 1959.

When Gifford Pinchot, Yale Class of 1889, was Governor of Pennsylvania many years ago, he honored me by requesting that I accept an appointment to a high position in his administration. Knowing nothing whatsoever about politics, I sought a conference with him. l inquired,” what makes one successful in politics”.

The astute Governor replied, “The main ingredient of success in politics is to restrict yourself to endorsing very few worthwhile projects. It would be best if you identified yourself with only one.” He explained, “for, no matter how beneficial a project may be to the general community, it nevertheless hurts quite a few persons, sometimes important in politics or in finance. If you succumb to espousing every good cause, you keep building up the number of your enemies. Soon they reach such proportions that you cannot possibly be re-elected, and become generally disliked.”

No one illustrates this form of committing political suicide better than Thomas Paine. Whether in the Old World, the New World, or the Next World, Thomas Paine never hesitated a moment to rush in and promote every good cause and expose every injustice. As a result, he was hated and despised by almost everyone. However he was not the first great man to suffer for doing good.

More than two centuries ago when Thomas Paine was born in England (Thetford, Norfolk), the Old World appeared to him rotten to the core. His parents were very poor. His father was by religion a Quaker and by profession a staymaker (if any of the females in the audience wear foundations they will know what this means). His mother was a strict member of the Anglican Church, and constantly argued with his father. Paine noted that the only thing his parents agreed on was that there was a God. At-the age of seven he had listened to a sermon in which the minister described God Almighty acting like a passionate man, killing his son. Paine felt that a man would be hanged who did such a thing and could see no reason why a sermon like this should be preached. If one did not believe in the religion of the State, it seemed easier to leave the country than perpetually to fight prejudice and persecution.

His family could afford only to send him through grammar school, and he resented having his education cut off in order to learn the distasteful art of staymaking. He excelled in mathematics and science, but was best remembered for his skill in political arguments. Local politics were crooked; representation in Parliament was a farce. Paine claimed that the only right possessed by the poor was the right to obey the law, which the rich had written.

As soon as he was able, he bought a pair of globes and attended lectures on astronomy given by Dr. Bevis of the Royal Society. He learned how to operate the orrery. As he looked at the Universe he contemplated the creator. No man or anything like a man could have created this. He kept notes on his religious views. He read constantly, and for relaxation wrote poetry. His memory was so good, it was uncanny.

Hardly married a year, Paine and his wife, Mary Lambert, were travelling for work a long distance from home when she suddenly died. Here he suffered a humiliation known only to the poor. He had no money, either to bring her remains home or give them decent burial. Her grave has never been discovered.

When he obtained a government job as an exciseman, whose task was hunting down smugglers of liquor and tobacco, he found the pay insufficient to include care for a horse, which was necessary. He organized the excisemen into a union, and wrote a plea for an increase in their pay, which he sent to each member of Parliament. The result could have been foretold: he was dismissed. But Paine learned that little attention was given a grievance, unless it could receive wide pub1icity.

Benjamin Franklin had at this same time been dismissed from his position as Postmaster for North America, and the two of them met in London at scientific lectures and became friends. Franklin must have been favorably impressed by Paine’s methods of reasoning, because he sent him to America with letters of introduction to his son-in-law Richard Bache, a prosperous wine merchant in Philadelphia, and apparently also to his natural son William Franklin, then Royal-Governor of New Jersey. (see letter from Paine to Franklin, March 4, 1775.)

The golden promise of the New World was quickly dissipated when Paine found opposite his lodgings in Philadelphia, an odious slave market. How could Americans complain of their enslavement by England when they kept slaves themselves? The pitiful plight of the Africans drove him to compose a powerful article against the practice of slavery. This time he gave it to a Philadelphia newspaper (Pennsylvania Journal, March 8, 1775). Although anonymous, it attracted Dr. Benjamin Rush enough for him to find out the author of such convincing arguments. Possibly it is only coincidental that the first association against slavery in America was organized in Philadelphia shortly after Paine’s article appeared. Paine’s fight for freedom in the New World had begun.

A month later he was appalled by the bloodshed in the Battle of Lexington (April 19, 1775). This outrage by the British Government called for something more than a mere revolt against taxation. Because his carefully worked-out arguments were too long for the space that could be spared for them in newspapers, Dr. Rush introduced Paine to a fearless liberal printer, Robert Bell, who was willing to publish the essay in pamphlet form. Entitled Common Sense, its clear portrayal of the valid reasons for independence spread like wildfire through the colonies. Everyone who was able to read, read it. Its effect cannot be overestimated. As a direct result the Declaration of Independence was signed, and Paine became famous.

Paine’s fighting went further than merely writing. He enlisted, shouldered a musket, and was prepared to give his life for the Cause. He marched in the disheartening retreat across the Jerseys. General despair seemed to strike all, except Paine: he picked up his pen, and on a drumhead by the light of a campfire, wrote the first American Crisis: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” The words, never to be forgotten, provided the needed immediate lift, with the result that Washington crossed the Delaware and the first American victory at Trenton followed. At each subsequent crisis Paine was called on for assistance, and he never failed to respond effectively with his pen, thirteen times in all.

His fiery arguments drove the Tories from positions of influence. He smashed profiteers, inflationists and counterfeiters as well. He revealed confidential data in order to expose crooked dealings of the influential Silas Deane (I am sorry to say, Yale, Class of 1758). When George Washington’s generalship of the troops was under fire, Paine rushed to his defense. When funds were needed to clothe and feed the soldiers, Paine founded the first bank in this country to accommodate their needs, and later on defended it from every attack. Not having Governor Pinchot as his advisor, Paine freely printed his opinion on every controversy. Soon he could write that “the greatest and completest revolution the world ever knew [had been] gloriously and happily accomplished.” Paine’s pen had contributed as much as Washington’s sword. Even his enemies admitted this much. His battle for political freedom in the New World was a success. He had been elected to the American Philosophical Society; the University of Pennsylvania gave him a MA degree.

Paine, approaching fifty years of age, wanted to retire and write a history, but was financially in straitened circumstances. To gain wider circulation, his patriotic articles had been sold by the hundreds of thousands, purposely without any compensation whatsoever coming to the author. His friends tried to secure a pension for him, but in his many bitter fights he had trod on so many toes that it was only with great difficulty that they secured from the State of New York a farm situated in New Rochelle; from the State of Pennsylvania, 500 pounds; and from Congress, $3,000; only a fraction of what he deserved. Paine was not selected as a delegate to the approaching Constitutional Convention; his well-known prejudice against slavery and his conviction that every adult should vote, landowner or not, undoubtedly prevented this. Perhaps the Civil War might have been avoided had Paine attended the convention. Paine used his small pension to invent the first bridge made of iron, but no one in America had the courage, to build it. He sought the advice of Franklin, who told him to go to Paris and get approval first from the French Academy of Science. So, armed again with letters of introduction from Franklin to important people in Paris, Paine left the New World for the Old.

Thomas Jefferson, then our ambassador in France, had much in common with Paine and they became close friends. Seeping into the minds of the downtrodden masses of the Old World was the success of the American Revolution. Could Paine’s dream of a world revolution become an actuality? Revolution in Paine’s mind meant solely a change from hereditary government to a representative democratic system, with universal suffrage and protection for the rights of the little people who own no land. A bloodless revolution – the kind that is usually given the name “reform” – would be ideal.

While he was in Paris the treacherous flight of Louis XVI, King of France, took place. Louis wanted to reach armed allies, with whom he hoped to reconquer France and restore himself as absolute monarch. Paine had expected the populace to dance in the streets with joy at the disappearance of the King. He felt that this was “good riddance to bad rubbish,” and could hardly believe they were so anxious for the King’s return that they were actually pursuing him. Just as Paine had been the very first to spark the fight for freedom in America, now he was the first to spark freedom for France. He daringly printed a Manifesto, demanding an immediate republic, and posted it all over the city of Paris (July l, 179I). Like the Theses of Martin Luther, he had it nailed to the very door of the National Assembly where it could not fail to command attention. But with the capture of the King and his return to Paris, Paine’s republican bubble burst, although not without having planted a seed in the minds of some fearless and dangerous men.

He now returned to England, where a large-scale model of his iron bridge was being built. He fomented republican clubs, which exchanged sentiments of friendship with those in Scotland and Ireland, as; well as those in France. Paine’s revolution seemed to be brewing in Great Britain. Edmund Burke, whose friendly actions during the American Revolution had endeared him to Paine, made Paine’s acquaintance. They visited together and corresponded. Suddenly’, Burke changed sides and assailed the principles of the French Revolution. Paine accused Burke of being a Pensioner in a fictitious name, and hinted this might have been the real reason he changed his mind. Paine gloried in the task of publicly answering him in his monumental work the Rights of Man. It first appeared on February 22, appropriately dedicated to George Washington. Praising Washington’s “exemplary virtue,” he prayed that he would see “the new world regenerate the old.” At this time Paine was at the height of his popularity, and he felt certain that Rights of Man would do for England what Common Sense had done for America. Unfortunately for his cause, it was at just this time that the most dreadful massacres of innocent in France took place. England, horrified at this kind of a revolution, took warning and went to the other extreme, and for a while England was the least free spot on earth. The National Guard was called out. A Royal Proclamation was issued for the purpose of suppressing Paine’s book, and by court action Paine was declared an outlaw. Publishers, printers and sellers of Paine’s work were jailed for libel as fast as they could be tried. Yet Paine’s book seems mild enough to us today. Paine said of the libel: “If to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy, and every species of hereditary government to lessen the oppression of taxes – to propose plans for the education of helpless infancy, and the comfortable support of the aged and distressed – to endeavor to conciliate nations to each other – to extirpate the horrid practice of war – 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 me live the life of a libeller, and let the name of LIBELLER be engraved on my tomb.”

Paine also would provide funds to defray the funeral expense of persons, who, travelling for work, die at a distance from their friends.

The polished rhetoric of Burke could not refute the blunt logic of Paine’s arguments. The government resorted to a smear campaign of unprecedented proportions. It had published a Life of Paine, which maliciously purported on its title page to be “A Defense of Paine’s Works” and then was filled With lies and slanders. According to this Life, the death of Paine’s first wife was due to ill usage and a premature birth; the cause of legal separation from his second wife was said to be his refusal to cohabit with her throughout the three and one-half years of their marriage; and the claim was made that he had swindled many, including his own mother.

In contradistinction, consider the. treatment Paine received when he went to France. Four Departments had vied with each other to elect Paine to the French National Convention. Paine accepted a seat from the Department of Calais and henceforth embraced and defended the French Revolution. He worked on a new democratic Constitution for France. Unfortuneately, it was never activated, and as a result chaos reigned. This proved to be disastrous to France. The murderous course now taken by the Revolution alienated the entire world, and Paine had to take full share of responsibility for all actions of a government established according to the form he had so strongly advocated. Yet Paine tried to prevent bloodshed and went further than anyone else to save Louis XVI from the guillotine. Paine, the hater of kings, cried, “Kill the King, but not the man,” for he remembered that this same French King had courageously given vital aid to the struggling American colonies in their darkest hour.

In these trying days he turned toward the notes he had made on religion. He saw how God in the Bible acted exactly like a man, having the same passions and revenges. The more he read the Bible the less sense it made. He was unwilling to worship a God who commanded man to commit crimes; for example: from First Samuel, XV, 3; “Slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” And worst of all, the only reason given for this butchery in the Bible was that 400 years before their ancestors had the courage to defend their homes from invasion. As for miracles, it did not seem to him unbelievable for a whale to swallow Jonah. It would have been far more miraculous had Jonah swallowed the whale! As Paine peered into the sky everything seemed perfect in the universe: night followed day; the seasons came and went regularly; the earth revolved; the planets kept to their orbits. There was no wickedness there. Nature was likewise magnificent and beautiful.

He had planned to wait until near the end of his life to publish his notes on religion, for then, being closer to the Next World, he would be more concerned. But this reign of terror in France so threatened his life with early extinction that Paine resolved to bring his work to a close and publish the result.

Robespierre, smashing all who opposed him, considered Paine’s humanitarian sentiments a drawback, and ordered this arch REBEL of England and America jailed, ironically, as a dangerous conservative. So well had Paine estimated his remaining freedom that only six hours after he had finished his writing, the dreaded knock came on the door; the police had arrived and he was arrested. He contrived by a subterfuge to stop on the way to prison at the lodgings of Joel Barlow (Yale, Class,o f 1776) who was doing the proofreading of his book. He handed to Barlow the remainder of his manuscript, called The Age of Reason, and asked him to publish it at once. He had dedicated it to his fellow citizens of America:

“I put the following work under your protection. It contains my opinion upon religion. you will do me the justice to remember, that I have strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.

“The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used by any other, and I trust I never shall.”

Paine’s book was fiercely denounced in all other countries as the work of the devil. In England, Thomas Williams, who reprinted it, was thrown into jail and the work suppressed As blasphemous. Punishment as severe as fourteen years in a penal colony, like Botany Bay, was inflicted. Even speaking favorably of the work might earn one the pillory. Nevertheless, The Age of Reason continued to .circulate surreptitiously.

Paine, as an American citizen, expected President Washington to intercede at once and secure his release from jail, since no charge had been preferred against him. Month after month Paine waited in vain and became dangerously ill due to his unjust confinement in a damp cell. Robespierre finally condemned him to death, but before the busy guillotine had time to cut off Paine’s head, Robespierre had lost his own. Many months later our ambassador James Monroe, on his own responsibility, obtained Paine’s release, but Paine’s resentment against Washington’s neglect mounted.

He wrote Washington two identical letters, asking him to explain why he had ditched his old friend, and sent them by different vessels to guarantee their receipt. Washington got both. When a year passed without any reply, Paine, feeling betrayed, hotheadedly published in America a bitter attack on Washington. This accomplished little more than to complete Paine’s fall from public favor, particularly in his own country.

Paine’s next important work was Agrarian Justice. Here he outlined his plan for really ameliorating the conditions of the poor and aged. By levelling a tax on the landowners, he would create a national fund in every nation, to pay every person reaching twenty-one years of age a sum of money to enable him or her to make a beginning in the world. When one reached the age of 50 (then considered old) a sum would be given, annually, sufficient to enable him to go on living without wretchedness and to go decently out of the world. Paine’s excellently thought-out social security program was considered too advanced to receive the attention it deserved.

Now Paine became one of a group in Paris to organize a new religious society called The Theophilanthropists (a compound word meaning “Lovers of God and Man.”) Paine’s religion consisted only of belief in “one God” and “doing good.” The French government at first supported this religion and turned over to their use to Notre Dame church and three other church edifices in Paris, but after a few years’ growth, Napoleon, who had made peace with the Pope, crushed the society.

Paine’s battle for freedom in the Old World had come to a grinding halt. Paine, however, refused to give up. He now decided to return to the New World. He would go to his farm in New Rochelle, hoping to find freedom and tolerance there. Thomas Jefferson, the first real Democrat, who had steadfastly remained a friend of Paine, was President of the United States. He was bold enough to offer a frigate (today’s equivalent a battleship) to bring Paine safely through any British blockade back to America. However, Paine took an ordinary vessel.

Much to Paine’s dismay, from the moment of landing in Baltimore he was outrageously attacked as a blasphemer. This continued unrelentingly for the remaining five years of his life. The Federalists taking umbrage at Paine’s attack on their idol, Washington, pulled out all the stops in fiery denunciation of Paine the Infidel. Even on a stage coach, the driver, learning that Paine was a passenger refused to proceed until Paine got out, fearing that such a defiler of God would invite retribution by lightning, at least. So whipped up was this hatred, that the City of New Rochelle stopped him from voting when he went to cast his ballot, on the grounds that he was no longer a citizen. How ungrateful could this country be?

Many of Paine’s friends shunned him, except disciples like Elihu Palmer, or the fearless democrat, President Jefferson, and a few others. Paine, past seventy, still continued to publish powerful essays furthering both his religious and political principles and assailing his enemies. Since his name was no longer an asset, they were mostly anonymous.

All this controversy might have been expected to end in 1809 when Paine died at the age of seventy-two, one hundred and fifty years ago, but this was not to be the case. William Cobbett, an ultra-Tory during his first American sojourn, printed in the [Philadelphia] Political Censor, September, 1796, thirteen years before Paine died, this unfriendly prediction:

“He has done all the mischief he can in the world, and whether his carcass is at last to be suffered to rot on the earth, or to be dried in the air is of very little consequence. Whenever and wherever he breathes his last he will excite neither sorrow nor Compassion; no friendly hand will close his eyes, not a groan will be uttered, not a tear will be shed. Like Judas he will be remembered by posterity; men will learn to express all that is base, malignant, treacherous, unnatural and blasphemous by the single monosyllable, PAINE.”

Who would believe that only a few years after Paine’s death Cobbett would retract every vile word he had written about Paine? Having the opportunity to study Paine’s writings during a long confinement in Newgate Prison for expressing some liberal sentiments, Cobbett became a convert. Doing a complete about-face, he started to expound Paine’s principles to the British masses. Later he was forced to flee once more to America. After a two-year sojourn there, in an act of unusual penance he exhumed Paine’s bones from their resting place in New Rochelle and brought them to England in order to give them a new funeral worthy of so great a man. The British, however, now despising Cobbett almost as much as Paine, ruined the plan by ridicule. Paine’s bones have since disappeared, giving circulation to a weird tale used by a preacher, denouncing Paine. “Thomas Paine was so wicked that he could not be buried; his bones were thrown into a box which was bandied about the world until it came to a button manufacturer, and now Paine is traveling around in the form of buttons.”

Succeeding generations have seen the smoke screen of personal abuse around Paine gradually disappear, allowing him to stand forth as the greatest advocate of democracy, social security and freedom of thought the world has yet seen.

Public appreciation of Paine is mounting. In England, his birthplace at Thetford, Norfolk, is marked in bronze and at Lewes, Sussex, all places associated with him are marked. In London, his portrait hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, and there is another portrait and a bust in the South Place Ethical society. In France, a great statue by Gutzon Borglum of Paine pleading for the life of Louis XVI stands facing the dormitories of the university of Paris. In America, he has been elected to the Hall of Fame in New York, where his bust stands next to that of his great friend Thomas Jefferson. There is another bust in the New York Historical Society, and his last home in Greenwich village is marked by a bronze plaque. If you visit Jefferson’s home in Monticello, the guides will point out to you the miniature portrait of Paine painted from life by John Trumbull. In the National Gallery, Washington, D.C., there is a portrait painted from life by John Wesley Jarvis. In Philadelphia, his portrait hangs in Independence Hall. There is a small portrait in the American Antiquarian Society. In New Jersey, at Bordentown, his little house is marked with bronze, while in Morristown, there is a large statue which has been gold-plated, carrying out the suggestion once made by Napoleon that every city in the world should erect a statue of gold to Paine. Napoleon also said he never went to bed at night without a copy of Paine’s Rights of Man under his pillow. New Rochelle has also repented, for the original burial place is graced by an imposing monument; the home is preserved as a historic shrine; and there is a beautiful museum building nearby which is devoted to an exhibition of his works. They even gave him back his citizenship by an official act a few years ago. His works, which will always remain his real monument, can still be read to advantage. London has recently printed nine editions of the Rights of Man, and this year there has been printed in New York 100,000 copies of his Age of Reason. The Soviet Union, showing great interest, has translated into Russian all of Paine’s works this year. Paine’s disarmament plan, in which he spelled out all details, may have influenced Khrushchev’s recent proposals to the United Nations.

Paine summed up his philosophy in these words:

“Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.”

The post Thomas Paine Fights for Freedom appeared first on .

By Richard Gimbel, Yale University Library Gazette, Vol. 30, No. 3, January, 1956

Thomas Paine frequently stated that he was not a member of any political party, but it is apparent from the following letters and the anonymous articles alluded to, that he took a more active part than has hitherto been known in helping the Republican (Jeffersonian) Party achieve its ends.

After the American Revolution most of the states were quick to drop their English charters and substitute constitutions patterned after the constitution adopted by the United States. A few states held on to their old charters and Connecticut was one of them.

This state was still governed by the charter granted by Charles II, which provided for a house of representatives and an upper house consisting of twelve members, variously called the Governor’s assistants, council, or senate. Under this charter, a small but exceedingly powerful group of men in the upper house had gained and were resolved to keep absolute control of the state. Seven of them­ a majority-had banded together, holding the whip hand. They were all lawyers: David Daggett, Nathaniel Smith, Chauncey Goodrich, Jonathan Brace, John Allen, William Edmond, and Elizur Goodrich. No legislation could be passed without their consent; they acted as a supreme court; they appointed the judiciary; by a special law, they were even allowed to plead cases before the court in which they sat; and they secured their re-election by equally questionable methods. They were in close contact with the ten Congregational ministers who controlled the only college in the state, Yale College (the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, and the six senior senators were by law ex-officio Fellows of the Yale Corporation). This combined political machine, known to be the most powerful in the United States, was ardently Federalist (party of Washington and Adams). It was opposed by the Republican (Jeffersonian) Party, the members of which referred to the Federalist combination of church and state as “Moses and Aaron.”

Six members of the Yale Class of 1778 enter our story. Two were Federalists: Uriah Tracy, United States Senator from Connecticut, and Noah Webster, of dictionary fame. Oliver Wolcott, who as Secretary of the Treasury under both Washington and Adams was Federalist, later became an anti-Federalist and was elected Governor of Connecticut. Three were Republicans: Joel Barlow, with whom Thomas Paine was closely associated when they were together in Paris; Alexander Wolcott, who was strongly anti-Federalist; and Abraham Bishop, a New Haven lawyer and eldest son of Samuel Bishop, Mayor of New Haven.

Young Bishop, elected to the Yale chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in 1780, was well known as a speaker. Invited in 1800 to deliver the annual Phi Beta Kappa oration at the public exhibition on the day preceding the Yale Commencement, he prepared instead of the usual type of learned subject, a virulent political address in favor of Jefferson, who was then running for President of the United States. An advance printed copy of the intended address, entitled Connecticut Republicanism. An Oration on the Extent and Power of Political Delusion, so alarmed Phi Beta Kappa that the society immediately by public advertisement canceled the scheduled oration. Bishop, not to be denied speaking, announced, also by public advertisement, that he would deliver his oration at the original time at White Haven Meeting House, another hall just across the “Green.” He later claimed that the audience numbered 1,500. As a result of this affair, Bishop has the probably unique distinction of having resigned or been expelled (the records are not exactly clear) from Phi Beta Kappa.(1) His classmate, Noah Webster, was quick to reply in print to Bishop’s oration with a violent anonymous review, A Rod for the Fool’s Back (1800).

Despite his inability to capture the strongly Federalist state of Connecticut, Jefferson was elected President. He rewarded Abraham Bishop by appointing his seventy-eight-year-old father, Samuel Bishop, to the lucrative post of Collector of the Port of New Haven. This action caused the strongly worded “New-Haven Remonstrance” to be sent to President Jefferson, protesting the appointment and signed by the owners of more than seven-eighths of the navigation of the Port of New Haven. President Jefferson’s reply, dated July 12, 1801, re-affirmed his appointment, giving reasons so sagacious that these documents have been ever since a classic in studies of the civil service and the question of patronage. They are both found in the appendix to An Examination of the President’s Reply to the New­Haven Remonstrance, a sixty-nine-page pamphlet printed in New York by George F. Hopkins in 1801. When Samuel Bishop died in 1803, his son Abraham succeeded him in the post, and held it until 1829.

The platform and nominations of the Republican Party were contained in a Republican Address to the Free Men of Connecticut, signed by order of the General Committee, Levi Ives, Junior Clerk, dated August 30, 1803. Alexander Wolcott is believed to have been the chief author. It was also printed in the Hartford American Mercury, the leading Republican paper of Connecticut, on September 15, 1803, and charged that the Federalists were in fact “Royalists” who intended to overthrow the constitution of the United States and establish some form of monarchy or perpetual presidency. On the Federalist side had appeared many articles, among them Uriah Tracy’s address To the Freemen of Connecticut, dated Litchfield, September 6, 1803, appearing both in the newspapers and as a sixteen­page pamphlet.

It is easy to understand how Thomas Paine would be interested in the goings-on in Connecticut. The attempt to turn out the Federalists and secure for the state a Republican constitution in place of an English charter was toward an end for which Paine had always fought – government under a constitution. He owned a large farm in New Rochelle, near the Connecticut border, which had been given to him by the state of New York as a reward for his patriotic services during the American Revolution. In 1803 he was spending a great deal of the summer in Stonington, Connecticut, at the home of a friend, probably the Reverend Mr. Foster, Universalist minister.(2)

In the library of Princeton University there are two letters addressed by Paine to Elisha Babcock, the publisher of the American Mercury, and through the courtesy of Alexander P. Clark, Curator of Manuscripts, I am permitted to publish them in full, I believe for the first time. The first letter reads:

Stonington, Connecticut Oct 10 1803 Dear Sir During my absence from Bordenton(3) your friendly letter arrived there which I received on my return and as I then intended coming on to the eastward I had hopes of making my thanks to you personally, but the fever at N. York(4) obliged me to go by long Island which threw me out of my intended course. I left Joel Barlow in good health at Paris. Mrs. B was but indifferent. He is always talking of coming home, but he waits to sell a house which he bought about four years ago and for which he expects 8 or 9 thousand pounds sterling – was lucky in passing the Atlantic between the storms of last War and this, but America is not the same agreeable Country as when I left it. This federal faction has debased its politics and corrupted its Morality.

I have seen Uriah Tracy’s publication and also some other pieces in Green’s paper(5) in answer to the republican Address. They all deny the charge of plotting to overthrow the Constitution and establishing a Monarchy, and I do not sup­ pose the charge is true against them as a whole party, for though one in a thou­ sand might be advanced by such a System, hundreds of thousands of them must be sunk by it, and become hewers of wood and drawers of water to support the pomposity of the few, and they must be fools indeed not to see this. But the charge is true against their leaders, or at least against some of them, and this is the only way in which the charge has been made. It is true, I believe, against your leading Man in Connecticut, Oliver Elsworth.(6) Star Chester of Groton, a Justice of the Peace and a very respectable Man, told me a few days ago that he was in company with Elsworth and about twelve other persons, about a year ago, and that Elsworth there declared himself to be a Monarchist. Major Smith of New London was with Mr. Chester when he related this declaration of Elsworth. As a fact that can be established is sometimes of more effect than a great deal of argument I put you in the way of satisfying yourself with respect to Mr. Elsworth’s anti-republican principles. Perhaps you[r] correspondent David(7) can find a stone in his scrip for this Philistine.

I shall stay at this place about three weeks and as your paper is preferable to any in this part of the Country I will be obliged to you to favour me with it. Direct to me at Stonington point, Connecticut. Present my respects to your correspondent David. Yours in friendship THOMAS PAINE

Babcock undoubtedly complied with Paine’s request to send him the American Mercury, but his correspondent “David” did not publish the charge against Oliver Ellsworth for favoring a monarchy. As late as July 2, 1805, in a letter to Babcock which has already been published in Foner’s edition of The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine (New York, 1945), Vol. II, pp. 1467-68, Paine complains that Babcock has made no use of this information; so he must have scanned the paper regularly. The second letter, now in the Andre de Coppet collection at Princeton University, was addressed by Paine to Babcock in August, 1804:

New Rochelle, New York State August 27, 1804 I have received three of your Papers. The first wherein you announce for publication of the piece I sent to Mr. Bishop signed A friend to Constitutional Order. The next, in which the piece is published; and the last (Augst. 23) The papers of the two preceding weeks have not arrived. In Duane’s paper (the Aurora of the 8th Inst•) is a piece of mine signed Common Sense, on Governeur Morris’s foolish Oration on Hamilton(8) I desired Duane to send you one in case he was not in the habit of doing so; and in Duane’s Country paper of the 23 and 24, and in his daily paper of one of those dates, is a piece of mine signed Camus and entitled Nonsense from New York. It is a burlesque on a piece in Lang’s paper and on Mason’s Oration on Hamilton. Mr. Bishop, in his answer to me (20 July) after receiving the piece says, “I have submitted its contents to our general Committee, who consider it rather as a valuable Chapter of texts, from which we may preach for a long time, than as an essay for publication.” But as it was better to publish it first, and preach about it afterwards, I was glad to find they had changed their mind and sent it to you.

From what I could learn, the republicans of Connecticut were endeavouring to reform their legislature for the purpose of obtaining a constitution. This round-about way, besides the tediousness and uncertainty of it, was fundamentally wrong; because as a Constitution is a law to the legislature, and defines and limits its powers, it cannot, from the Nature of the Case, be the act of the legislature; it must be the act of the people creating a legislature. The right way is always a strait line, and a strait line is always shorter than a crooked one. A law, enacted by a legislature, binds the citizens individually; but a Constitution binds the legislature collectively.

I see by your last paper there is to be “a Meeting of the republicans at New Haven, not to form a Constitution, but to consider the expediency of proposing this measure to the people.” – I much question if the feds had any Idea of being taken upon this ground, and therefore as long as they could keep a Majority, ac­ cording to the present state of election rights, they felt themselves secure; but this cuts them up at the root. I know not what is the qualification to entitle a Man to vote according to your rechartered Charter, but be it what it may it cannot become a rule for electing a convention, because conventions for forming constitutions being of American origin cannot be under the controul of an english Charter. The people when they elect a Convention, and the Convention when elected, can know of no such authority as Charles the Second, nor of any such instrument as the Charter.

I suppose I shall see in your next paper some account of the meeting at New­ Haven, and if there is any thing you can inform me of by letter I shall be glad to receive it.

The last paragraph in the first page of this letter beginning with the words­ From what I learn, and ending on this page with the words legislature collectively, you may, if you please, put in the Mercury as, Extract of a letter from a Republican in a Neighbouring State. The paragraph is concise and the Idea clear, and is of that kind that serves to put thought in Motion.(9)

I am now settled on my farm at N. Rochelle where I intend to reside. It is a healthy pleasant situation about ten Miles from the Connecticut line. The southern and eastern posts pass through every day. It is not my intention to publish any pieces or letters on the ensuing presidential election, because I think there will be no occasion for it; but if any Champion of the Feds whether priest or Musqueteer throws the Gauntlet I hold myself in reserve for him.- yours in friendship THOMAS PAINE

The piece signed ”A Friend to Constitutional Order,” revealed in the above letter to be by Thomas Paine, had been advertised in the American Mercury on July 26, 1804, as follows: “A Friend to Constitutional Order” is received, and shall have a place in our paper of next week. We thank the writer for this Communication, and hope for a continuation of his favors.

The complete article appeared as promised in the American Mercury on August 2, 1804:

For the MERCURY To the people of Connecticut, ON THE SUBJECT OF A CONSTITUTION

IT was not generally known, until Mr. Bishop’s excellent Oration of last May appeared, that the State of Connecticut had not a Constitution. Congress some time in 1775 or the beginning of ’76 recommended to the people of the several provinces (as they were then called) to take up and establish new governments; but the Legislature of Connecticut, disregarding this recommendation of Congress, assumed the power of enacting that the form of government contained in the Charter of Charles the 2d of England, should be the civil constitution of Connecticut.-This was an unwarrantable act of assumption of the legislature of that day. The right of forming a Constitution belongs to the people in their original character, and cannot be exercised by any body of representatives unless they are chosen expressly for the purpose.

The people of Connecticut have now to exercise the right they ought to have exercised before, for it may be doubted, whether in their present condition, not having an authorised Constitution, they have any legal government of their own. The Legislature which enacted that the form of government contained in the Charter of Charles the second should be the civil Constitution of the state could not derive the right of so doing from the Charter itself, because the Charter could not give the right of changing the authority from whence it issued and under which that legislature was then sitting. The only source from whence such a right could proceed was the authority of the people, but this the legislature was not possessed of because they were not invested with it, nor elected, as Conventions in other States were, for the express purpose of forming a Constitution. The act therefore which changed the name of Charter into that of Constitution being an unauthorised act, is in itself a nullity.

Neither have the present legislature any right in the matter otherwise than as individual citizens, because the right of forming and establishing Constitutions belongs, as before said, to the people in their original character, and cannot be assumed or exercised by any body of men elected for the ordinary purposes of legislation.

It is evident, from the nature of the case, that the first step towards bringing this business forward must be voluntary, for in all cases where rights are equal, though any one may propose or recommend, none can have authority to command in the first instance.

Let then, in the first place, the people of the several towns elect Town Committees, and let the elections be made by persons subject to military or militia duty or who pay taxes.

Secondly, Let the Committees thus elected be authorised to appoint deputies to meet in conference with deputies from the other towns.

Thirdly, Let the deputies thus met in conference form a plan for the election of a Convention, which shall be authorised to form and propose a Constitution to the people.

Fourthly, When the Constitution is proposed let it be voted for by YEAS and NAYS by all the people of the several towns who were entitled to vote for the Town Committees in the first instance.

It is not difficult to foresee that when the Constitution shall be before the people for their consideration, there will be those who will be proposing alterations or amendments, some will do this from a good motive, and others from no other motive than that of embarrassing and preventing the matter coming to a conclusion, like the Connecticut members in Congress to prevent the repeal of the internal taxes.

As a Constitution should contain within itself the means of amending any part thereof as time and experience shall shew necessary, and as it is to be presumed the Convention will discuss every article they adopt, more effectually than men thinking individually can do, it will be best to vote its adoption or rejection simply by YEAS and NAYS, unincumbered by conditions. There has been so much experience on the principles and manner of forming Constitutions since the revolution began, that no material error can now take place. This was not the case at first. The legislature that assumed the power of re-enacting the Charter knew so little about Constitutions that they arrogated to themselves the right of establishing their illegitimate of spring through all generations. There is no article which provides for the amendment. They dethroned Charles and then put themselves in his place, and to display their sovereignty they uncharted the charter to charter it anew. The whole matter therefore must now begin as it ought to have began at first, on the authority of the people in their original character.

Governor Trumbull, in his speech to the Legislature in May last, informed them of the proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, by designating the persons to be voted for as President and Vice-President, and he made this the occasion of speaking against the policy of altering Constitutions on “SPECULATION.” This word was very injudiciously applied to the case; be­ cause it is not on SPECULATION but on EXPERIENCE had at the last Presidential election that the amendment was proposed. Something, therefore, must have been in Governor Trumbull’s mind, besides the case itself, to have led him so far and so erroneously from the merits of it. He could not but know that Connecticut, though it has a form of government, has not a Constitution, and that the thing patched up in the place of one (and that by those who had not authority for the purpose) has no declaration of rights prefixed to it, nor any article in which it provides for its amendment. It was therefore consistent with the policy of the party to which Governor Trumbull adheres, to keep all considerations on the subject of Constitutions and amendments as distant as possible from the minds of the people. It might occur to that party, that if we (the Feds) agree to amend the Constitution of the Union, it will suggest the idea of looking into our own, and in that case, the firm of MOSES and AARON, and the beast with SEVEN HEADS*, will fall like the dagon of the Philistines.

A Friend to Constitutional Order.

*See the account in Mr. Bishop’s Oration about the seven Lawyers who govern the State.

The piece signed “Comus” and entitled “Nonsense From New York” – also referred to by Paine in his second letter to Babcock­ appeared in the Philadelphia Aurora on August 23, 1804. It was a burlesque on a piece in Lang’s New York Gazette of July 27, 1804, and on Reverend John Mitchell Mason’s oration on Hamilton. Mason’s text was not printed in the newspapers since it was copy-righted, but it did appear in a forty-page pamphlet, An Oration, Commemorative of the Late Major-General Alexander Hamilton; Pronounced Before the New-York State Society of the Cincinnati, on Tuesday, the 3ist July, 1804, printed by Hopkins and Seymour, New York, 1804. Now revealed to be Paine’s work, the burlesque is here published in full:

FOR THE AURORA. NONSENSE FROM NEW YORK. The following absurd and extravagant publication entitled “Reflections,” is copied from Lang’s N. York Gazette, of July 27. I send it you, accompanied with some remarks.

“The loss of gen. Hamilton (says this writer) cannot be considered by those who knew his extraordinary worth in any other light than as a severe judgment upon the United States. This being the case (it happens not to be the case) it becomes every one seriously to reflect on the cause of the dsipleasure [sic] and the only method for its removal. [Now for it.]

“The primary source, says he, of all the evils appears to be the conduct of the citizens at the last presidential election. From that moment discontent, division and confusion began to take place; and unless a speedy remedy be applied more afflicting scenes may be expected. Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Burr were elected, each having an equal number of votes.-(Burr was not voted for with the idea of his being president.) The public are now dreadfully convinned [i.e., convinced] ( this is another severe judgment ) that the election of Mr. Burr was improper; and they have seen fall by his hand their first citizen and one of the most enlightened and honest statesmen in the world.-Language fails to express (that is, the writer has not wit enough to do it) the extent of his talents, and of the services which he has rendered .

“But the principal error was the election of Mr. Jefferson, and what the nation has the greatest reason to fear is his re-election, The objections to him are well known and need not be repeated. If in opposition to former warnings, and the calamities which have been felt, the electors will vote for him, then ruin will most probably ensue; embittered with consideration that the people have drawn it down upon themselves.

“It is understood that Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Clinton are to be the candidates, at the next election. If there should be no other candidate the preference ought clearly to be given to Mr. Clinton for president, though a more suitable man than either might be found, yet of the two the election of the latter would avert those frowns of Heaven under which the country labours. Every serious and reflecting person should look forward with anxiety to the event.” (The writer signs himself)

INVESTIGATOR. (He means Instigator or lnfestigator.)

Remarks on the foregoing publication. The poor unfortunate feds of New York, appear to be drawn from folly to insanity, and the foregoing piece is a proof of it.-The meaning of the first paragraph, if the writer was capable of having any meaning, is that God, to shew “a severe judgement” upon the United States had Alexander Hamilton shot in a duel! He then goes on. “The primary source says he, of all this appears to be the conduct of the citizens at the last presidential election. From that moment (0 terrible to tell!) discontent, division, and confusion began to take place,” (among the feds he must mean, for the republicans are contented and happy at the event of the last presidential election, and united for the next) and “unless, (says he) a speedy remedy is applied more afflicting scenes may be expected.” That is, all the feds will certainly shoot one another. This will be a severe judgment! upon the re­ publicans, for they will have-to bury them!!!

But the principal error, (continues our unfortunate author, for he is quite beside himself) was the election of Mr. Jefferson, and what the nation has most to fear, is his re-election, (Yes, it will be the death of the feds!) The objections to Mr. Jefferson, continues he, are well known, and need not be repeated. Yes, we know what the objections are. He turned some of them out of office that were not fit for it, and broke up a gang of blood-suckers that were living by useless offices on the public, of which, most probably, our unhappy author was one. “It is understood, continues he, that Mr. Jefferson and Clinton are to be the candidates at the next election. If there should be no other candidate the preference ought clearly be given to Mr. Clinton for president.” (This quackery­ monger might have the manners to let the electors make their own choice.) “Though, says he, a more suitable man than either might be found, (he means more suitable to his own purpose) yet, says he, of the two the election of the latter would avert those frowns of Heaven under which the country labours”!!!

Can this whining hypocrite suppose that this sort of cant will have any influence? – To pretend to write, and have nothing to say, is the worst of nonsense, because nonsense ingeniously done, may afford a momentary amusement; but there is something in this hypocritical cant that is tinctured with impious ingratitude. We have been favored with a fine season, with plentiful crops of grass, grain, and fruits, for man and beast; we are blessed with peace abroad and at home; we have acquired Louisiana by negociation, without bloodshed, and without the addition of any new tax; no symptoms of the yellow fever have appeared at New York, nor elsewhere in our country that is publicly known; – we have every cause to be thankful ; yet this murmurer of discontent and in­ gratitude talks of the frowns of Heaven under which the country labours because the poor feds were defeated at the last presidential election, and because Alexander Hamilton, though a man of some private merit, has died, “as a fool dieth,” 2, Sam. chap. 3, v. 33.

Another writer of Rodomontade (one Mason) has made his appearance in a funeral oration on Hamilton; to let you know it is a catch-penny, the copy right is secured. No man who writes from principle, and wishes that principle to spread through the world, secures a copy right for small works. It is only in large and expensive undertakings, & to prevent other printers committing robbery, that this is prudent to be done. “When Washington was taken (says our wild goose orator!) Hamilton was left-but Hamilton is taken and we have no Washington, we have not such another man to die.” This might be true if we had no better men than our orator. “Bereaved America! (cries he) Thou art languishing beneath the divine displeasure. ” The orator has certainly got a crack in the brain; a touch of what they now call in England the King’s Evil, or he would not rave thus.-This short specimen of our orator’s work will serve to shew what this catch penny oration is, of which, to catch every penny, the copy right is secured. It is a mean and despicable trick. He might think himself well off if people would read his wild goose nonsense gratis.

Should no yellow fever afflict New York this summer, and we hear of none at present, the New York clergy, if they do as the[y] did the year before last, will have to return thanks to heaven for its bounty to New York. Our revered orator will then have to unsay all that he now says. We shall then hear of nothing but the smiles of heaven.* Now we are told of its frowns and “divine displeasure.”

There is a marked inconsistency in every thing the feds undertake. Their praise of Hamilton is a satire on themselves-they extol his wisdom, now he is dead, and they despised his advice when he was living; for he strongly opposed putting Burr in nomination for the governorship of the state of New York, and the duel in which he fell, grew out of that circumstance. They are themselves the cause of the loss they deplore, and their manner of deploring it is an additional disgrace. “We have not” (says our orator) “such another man to die.” Then they have nobody left they can put up for President at the next ele[c]tion, This is a good reason for declaring off, and we give the orator credit for the truth of it, for it is the only truth his oration contains. It is however an ill bird that befouls its own nest.

COMUS.

*The summer before last, Philadelphia was afflicted with the fever and New York escaped. The New York clergy advertised a public thanks-giving for this; and the triumphant manner in which it was done, had the appearance of a commercial advertisement, to inform people at a distance and vessels of commerce, that it was safer to trade to N. York than to Philadelphia. This was the light in which it was considered by great numbers of thinking people. Let every man thank God in his own heart, but let not men assume to be mediators with heaven.

The antepenultimate paragraph in Paine’s letter of August 27, 1804, refers to “a Meeting of the republicans at New Haven, not to form a Constitution, but to consider the expediency of proposing this measure to the people.” This meeting was held in New Haven on Wednesday, August 29, 1804, and consisted of the Republican delegates from ninety-seven towns from the state of Connecticut. William Judd was in the chair. A report of the meeting is printed in the American Mercury of September 6, 1804, the same issue which contains Paine’s “Extract ” dated August 27, 1804, already mentioned.

The aftermath of this meeting was very serious for those who participated in it. The Republicans on that occasion had formally declared and published “their opinion that the people of this state (Connecticut] are at present without a constitution of civil government.” The powerful Federalist political steam-roller at its late October session was quick to answer the challenge by immediately removing from office five of the justices who had signed the statement. William Judd was one of these. Shortly after receiving notice of his dismissal, he died on November 13, 1804. He had been preparing an address questioning the motives of the general assembly in removing him. This was completed after his death, probably by Abraham Bishop, and published as a separate twenty-four-page pamphlet entitled William Judd’s Address (1804).

Thomas Paine, having doubtlessly been informed of all these events, may very well have published the article “Connecticut Has No Constitution” which appeared first on November 26, 1804, in the National Intelligencer of Washington (D.C.), a strongly Republican paper to which he had often contributed. This article was re­ printed in Babcock’s American Mercury for December 27, 1804. It sounds a great deal like Paine, particularly in the use of “the times that tried men’s souls” which was not very likely to have been used by any other writer almost thirty years after its first use by Paine in his celebrated pamphlet, The American Crisis (1776). It is published in full below as possibly written by Paine:

National Intelligencer. “CONNECTICUT HAS NO CONSTITUTION.”

For the declaration of this truth, a respectable citizen has lost his office, and, from circumstances, which would not otherwise have existed, his life – There is something so tragical in the effects of this persecution, that, judging of the feelings of others by our own, we anticipate from the people of Connecticut a deep and deliberate attention to events so powerfully calculated to awaken enquiry, and we anticipate also an award, which, while it embalms the memory of the deceased martyr, will consign to merited FAME the names of those who have produced this mournful catastrophe.

Mr. Judd, we are told, was one of those active whigs, who exposed his life in defence of our rights in times which tried men’s souls. The independence, which he thus in unison with others acquired for his country, he dared on a recent occasion to assert for himself For this the lightening of federal vengeance has fallen on his head; and but for this he might have lived to this day the ornament of his country- But a Superintending power has permitted him to be numbered with the dead. Be it so. He has fallen in an honorable cause; and human nature has surely sink [i.e., sunk] to its lowest state, if the exertions of patriotism, which cost him his life, do not arouse the spirit of liberty that slumbers in Connecticut.

Paine’s effort to help Connecticut adopt a constitution was not successful until nine years after his death. Oliver Wolcott, turning against his former friends the Federalists, was elected Governor of the state on a Toleration Party ticket. Presiding in 1818 over a Constitutional Convention, he pushed through a constitution which separated church from state and gave suffrage on personal qualifications, thus spelling victory for religious and personal liberty. Thomas Paine had not fought in vain.

RICHARD GIMBEL.

1. His name no longer appears on the rolls, and in the earliest register, someone has written “expelled” in the margin opposite his name, although there was no resolution passed to this effect, the only resolution recorded on the subject having been “laid on the table.”
2. Paine was giving financial support to Mrs. Nicolas Bonneville and her family, refugees from Napoleonic France. One of her sons, named Thomas Paine Bonneville, in Paine’s honor, was attending school at Mr. Foster’s in Stonington.
3. Paine frequently resided in a small house which he had purchased in Bordentown, New Jersey.
4. In the summer of 1803 New York City had an epidemic of yellow fever, following a similar epidemic in Philadelphia the previous year.
5. Thomas Green’s paper, called the Connecticut Journal, was published at New Haven and was strongly Federalist .
6. Oliver Ellsworth was Connecticut’s most important statesman. He was Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, United States Senator, and had been on most of the committees representing his state. He entered Yale in 1762, but was dismissed in the middle of his Sophomore year, and transferred to Princeton where he graduated. He later received an honorary degree from Yale, and became a Fellow of the Yale Corporation.
7. “David” was a frequent correspondent of the American Mercury and had made a violent attack on Uriah Tracy’s address in the issue of that paper for September 22, 1803.
8. Alexander Hamilton had been killed as a result of a duel with Aaron Burr on July II, 1804, and was succeeded by Oliver Wolcott as Secretary of the Treasury. The many eulogies heaped on Hamilton by Federalists irritated Paine and roused him into writing replies. On August 7, 1804, in William Duane’s newspaper, the Philadelphia Aurora, appeared the piece “Remarks on Gouverneur Morris’s Funeral Oration on General Hamilton” signed “Common Sense.” (It is already published in full in Foner’s The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. II, pp. 957-62.)
9. This request of Paine’s was fulfilled by Babcock in the American Mercury for September 6, I 804, where the paragraph in question-with minor variations in capitalization and spelling­ appears under the heading, “Extract of a letter from a gentleman, to his friend in this city, dated Aug. 27, 1804.”

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