By Gary Berton
But while I beheld with pleasure the dawn of liberty rising in Europe, I saw with regret the lustre of it fading in America. In less than two years from the time of my departure some distant symptoms painfully suggested the idea that the principles of the Revolution were expiring on the soil that produced them.
– Thomas Paine (1802)
The quote above is from the first article written by Paine on his return to America in 1802: “To the Citizens of the U.S. #1”. The time frame he speaks of, “In less than 2 years from the time of (my) departure”, was the enactment of the U.S. Constitution culminating in 1789. His departure was in 1787.
Among other things, Paine objected to the creation of a Senate. Like Franklin, he supported a unicameral legislature, divided in two at random, which would then separately debate laws, then convene together to come to agreement. The Pennsylvania Constitution had a single legislature with no equivalent of an elite House of Lords. The Senate created in the Constitutional Convention was a block on the popular Representatives. This was Paine’s “painful” “symptoms”. The Federalists were pushing for a Senate for life, and they were largely appointed by Governors. There was no direct election of Senators, and that wasn’t changed until 1913.
In Rights of Man, Paine compared the U.S. Constitution to Britain’s lack of one positively, because of the way America created it, not because of all its content. Paine had argued that the people write a Constitution and then the government will have a set of rules, a structure, that has to be abided by.
Compared to the monarchical system where one person dictates whatever he or she wants, and all functions of government are run by his or her whims, Paine’s principle of the mass of people sets the rules by first creating a Constitution.
Paine unveiled that Britain does not have a constitution because the people never set one up. The only progress in Britain was that the barons and landowners forced on the monarch some reforms, like the Magna Carta. None of these helped the people. Laws were proposed and passed on the basis of protecting the rule of the elite, and the natural rights of the people were repeatedly suppressed. And civil rights were scarce and obscure. The theme of Rights of Man lays out the comparison, which resulted in a revolution in the concept of government.
So Paine, in contrasting the new American Constitution with Britain’s lack of one, was a call to the English people to copy America. This is why he was charged with sedition, among many other issues, including his attack on monarchy itself.
The Pennsylvania Constitution forged by the democratic faction of the Revolution led by the Whig Society, had a single legislature; a seven year convention to make adjustments by popularly elected delegates; a plural executive so as not to mimic a king; and further democratic Principles, all of which were copied in France in the 1793 Constitution (but it was never enacted.)
A crucial article was written by a friend of our Association, Richard Rosenfeld, who we introduced to Lewis Lapham of Harper’s Magazine. Rosenfeld then wrote an article which has more importance today then in 2004 when he first wrote it: “What Democracy?”, which questions the scam perpetrated on the American people: the Senate. It is in the May Issue of 2004, and we would reprint it here, but it is still owned by Harper’s.
Another relevant article is his “Adams’ Tyranny” from 2001, also in Harper’s. We also recommend Rosenfeld’s book which documents the proof of the accuracy of Paine’s Letter to Washington in 1795 and the corrupt Adams administration: American Aurora. Paine has been heavily criticized for this work on Washington in his day, and since by historians; but its accuracy of analysis has now been proven from original sources in Rosenfeld’s book.
There is also a recent book by Michael Klarman of Harvard University, The Framers’ Coup, which documents in detail the 1787 Constitutional Convention, and the politics and class content of that spectacle.