1830 Birthday Celebration of Thomas Paine in NY

Philadelphian, 5 Feb. 1830, p. 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers. Accessed 19 Aug. 2026.

THE PHILADELPHIAN.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1830.

TOM PAINE.

The Mechanic’s Free Press of Jan. 30th gives the following account of the

“Celebration of the Anniversary of the Birthday of Thomas Paine.—Yesterday the Society of Free Enquirers celebrated the birthday of Thomas Paine by a public dinner at Tammany Hall, prepared in Lovejoy and Co.’s fine stile. About sixty gentlemen were present. On the removal of the cloth, an appropriate address was delivered from the chair, after which an ode, written expressly for the occasion, was recited and highly applauded. Many excellent toasts were given, mostly accompanied with songs. The company separated at an early hour, highly gratified with the harmony and hilarity of the day.”

This celebration was doubtless very suitable to the character of the person celebrated! He wrote a few good “common sense” political pieces, lived an abandoned infidel, and died a poor miserable sot. It would be well for the honour of our country, would their indiscreet admirers suffer the odious infidelity of Tom Paine and of Thomas Jefferson to be forgotten as soon as possible.

Philadelphian, 26 Feb. 1830, p. 4. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers. Accessed 19 Aug. 2026.

EDITOR’S CORRESPONDENCE.

Mr. Editor, the following paper, purporting to be, the Journal of a very singular meeting, held in some nameless City or Borough, relating very much to yourself, and many of your readers, having accidentally fallen into my hands, I have concluded to commit it without note or comment to your disposal.

A Distant Subscriber.

Pursuant to previous notice, a numerous meeting was convened at Punch Hall, Grog street, at the sign of the Devil, Thomas Paine, Robert Owen and Miss Fanny Wright, burning the Bible. Pickeled Heron being called to the chair, and Tristram Shandy, elected clerk, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted, viz:

1. Resolved, that the thanks of this meeting be rendered to his Satanic Excellency, the president of darkness, for the industry and subtlety, with which he has pursued his plans of deception, and for his success in affecting the ruin of the souls and the bodies of men, by opposing the doctrines of the Gospel of Christ, Bible, Missionary, Tract, and Temperance Societies, and the efforts of all the good citizens of the United States, who would have the mail stopped, and the Post Offices closed on the Sabbath day, and by promoting irreligion, irreverence for the Bible and the Sabbath, contempt for the ministers of the Gospel, and drunkenness, adulteries, diseases, poverty, blasphemies, perjuries, thefts, robberies, deaths and murders.
2. Resolved, That the grateful acknowledgements of this meeting be made to Robert Owen of Lanark, and to his disciples and coadjutors, Abner Kneeland, Miss Frances Wright, and others; who by their industry in writing and lecturing, or by the expense of time and money, have in any other way, humbly endeavoured to aid his Satanic Excellency, in promoting his malevolent, and destructive designs. 
3. Resolved, That Senator Johnson is justly entitled, to the public approbation of this meeting, for the very artful, ingenious, and specious manner, in which, in his report of 1829, by a sophistical combination of trite ideas, he misrepresented the numerous petitioners against Sunday Mails, as forming an “entering wedge” for the Union of Church and State, and as a dangerous combination against the liberties of our country; and for his very republican insinuation, that christians ought to be content with the enjoyment of their religion, and peaceably to surrender the management of state concerns into other and worthier hands; and, that in our opinion, this report ought to be printed on silk, and vellum, and set up in gilt frames by the side of the Declaration of Independence, in every parlour, bar room, and steam boat cabin in the United States; and, that it should, in all Episcopal Churches, be read every Sunday in the place of the Liturgy, and in all churches having no Liturgy, in the place of the Bible.
4. Resolved, That, although the law, requiring an oath of Post Masters to violate the Sabbath, contravenes the prerogatives of those States, which have enacted laws against the profanation of that day, and is not granted by that clause of the Constitution of the United States, giving authority to Congress “to regulate Post Offices and Post roads;” yet, inasmuch, as operating as a religious test, it must exclude all conscientious observers of the Sabbath from the service of their country in the Post Office department, and of course, must place all its honours and emoluments in our hands, we record it as our sense of equity, that the law remain as it is; and, that meetings be called in different parts of the Union to memorialize Congress to that effect. Also, that, in the mean time, we send forth our agents into every part of the Continent, to raise the hue and cry, about the Union of Church and State, and to employ every little hobbler of verse, who can make two lines gingle; every bar-room and rum orator; and every scurilous editor, and as many poets, orators and editors, of a better character as they can, to repeat the calumny.
5. Resolved, moreover, that we use our influence, as soon as practicable, to require of every member of congress, and of every member of the judiciary, and executive departments of the United States’ Government, a similar path, to violate the Sabbath. Then shall we have effectually forced out Sabbath keepers from all the departments of honour and profit in the Government of the U. States, and shall have all to ourselves! Thanks then to our stars we shall have the union of Bael-Zebub and State!
6. Resolved, that all zealous Christians, and especially, all zealous Ministers of the Gospel, be regarded as enemies to our Cause, and, that all means whether righteous or unrighteous, and especially, slander and abuse, be employed to render them contemptible and odious.
7. Resolved, That the curses of this meeting, be recorded against the Rev. William L. McCalla, and against the Rev. Ezra S. Ely, D. D., both of Philadelphia. Against the former, for exposing the doctrines of Miss Fanny Wright, and for expelling from Philadelphia, by his arguments, eloquence and satire, our very dear friend, and faithful fellow labourer Abner Kneeland; and against the latter for dreaming in his “Retrospective Theology” that Universalists and Unitarians were not found in heaven; for preaching and publishing to the world, that religious freemen have a political right to vote for religious and moral men; and above all, for his audacity, in stating it at his belief that Sabbath Schools will ultimately produce a religious influence on our national councils.
8. Resolved, That the Rev. Ezra S. Ely, D. D. be required to subscribe the following recantation of his political theological heresies.

I, Ezra Stiles Ely, D. D., author of Retrospective Theology, of Visits of Mercy, Didactic Theology, The Contrast, the Quarterly Theological Review, of one Annual Report of the American S. S. Union, and of the Sermon on the rights of religious freemen, to vote for moral and religious men in opposition to sots and infidels, Editor of the Philadelphian, &c. &c. &c., being of a mature age and a sane mind, do now solemnly recant all that I have written in the above mentioned publications against Unitarianism and Universalism, and the law for Sunday Mails, and, in favour of Sunday Schools, and the rights of religious freemen; and publicly profess to believe, that Unitarians, and Universalists, whether denominated Hicksites, or distinguished by any other name, and all other unbelievers, and sinners, at death shall immediately pass into glory; that Universalists, although they believe that to be hung for perjury would be but a short road to heaven, where the reward will be as great for swearing to a lie as for testifying to the truth, nevertheless, ought to be admitted as competent witnesses in courts of justice; that the principles of irreligion as taught by Owen, Kneeland, Miss Wright and others, and not the principles of religion, as taught in Christian Sunday Schools, ought to influence our national councils; that the Post Office law, as well as the laws which regulate the other departments of the government of the United States, ought to be such, as to make men swear to violate the Sabbath; and thus, to exclude from every office in their country’s service all, who conscientiously regard that day as sacred, and to admit none but such, as are willing to profane it; and finally, that religious freemen have no political right to vote as they choose, especially if they should choose to vote for religious or even moral men in opposition to scoffers and unbelievers. So help me Devil.

9. Resolved furthermore, that if said E. S. Ely, D. D. should refuse publicly to sign this reasonable recantation, he be reported as intent on the Union of Church and State; be denounced as such, in the legislative halls of his country; written down as such, in every Universalist and Infidel Magazine and Newspaper, and every other abusive periodical in the nation; and finally, that he be enrolled in Madam Royall’s Black Book, & if there be nothing in this world, blacker, O! that there could be a hell for him in the next!
10. Resolved finally that the proceedings of this meeting be kept concealed from all but our known and tried friends; and, that to secure the object of this resolution, the oath of secrecy be taken by all present.

Accordingly all were sworn, some, on Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason; others on the lids of Theophilus Gate’s Reformer; and the rest on Madam Royall’s Black Book. The meeting dissolved in order, with the exception of a little cursing, swearing, and huzzaing, and all that were sufficiently sober, retired.