Cincinnati Address at the National Liberal Party in 1902

Blue-grass blade (Lexington, Ky.), March 16, 1902

THOMAS PAINE

An Address Delivered at the Millennial Congress of the National Liberal Party, Cincinnati, Jan. 26, 1902

By T. J. Weaver

While the eastern horizon is hovering, and while the splendid achievements of the past are totally eclipsed by the dating possibilities of the future, it is highly proper that we turn to the past, and kindly, and tenderly, and lovingly place a wreath of sweet flowers upon the brow of one of the noblest defenders of human liberty.

While I am not disposed to indulge in excessive commendations of the grand, and glorious, intellectual and moral landmarks of the ages that are forever gone, I have no apology for the slight tribute I have to offer. That voice to truth will live as long as the sun of human liberty continues to shine.

The towering intellectual landmarks along the highway of human progress are few. In all the nations of the world, each generation can boast of not more than one.

Nearly all of the prominent historical characters are, and have been, murderers, thieves and moral lepers. The good of many of the great men of the world has been neutralized by the injury they did. Napoleon—the greatest military figure in all history—was a moral monster whose ambition was to plant in the human heart the dagger of a brute.

While I entertain the most exalted feeling of respect for the man who assisted with the sword to win the great battles of life, the armies and navies of the world are the darkest blots upon the sacred banner of civilization, and are, and always will be, a menace to human liberty.

When we become sufficiently civilized to teach our children that war is murder, that every man who enters an army is a murderer at heart, then there will be some hope for the dawn of that exalted, ideal civilization about which we are faintly dreaming.

What did Thomas Paine do? No other man ever did as much for political liberty as Thomas Paine.

During the darkest days of the Revolution, when the defeat of the colonists seemed almost at hand, when Washington, after traveling many days across a trackless country, with his army dejected, humanity deserted, our tongues parching with thirst and our brows burning and throbbing from the terrible effects of the sun’s merciless rays, how incomparably soothing and enrapturing are the delicious perfumes of flowing waters and the luscious fruits and berries.

After thousands and thousands of years of ignorance and superstition, after horrible punishment and terrible persecution, after all the bloody wars and battles to drive from the human heart the last vestige of reason and justice, what a supreme delight to commune with such a paragon of original mentality and unswerving devotion to truth.

Why? What did Thomas Paine do? From the time when Thomas Paine landed in America, he was the giant spirit that rocked the cradle of liberty, and on every battlefield he fought with pen and word with a physical, an intellectual and a moral courage unequaled in all the world’s history.

When human liberty, under the existing authorities, was treated as a criminal, when every mouth was gagged, so that the brain of the patriot was paralyzed, the work of Thomas Paine, by his matchless logic and his relentless devotion to truth, broke the chains.

What did the “Rights of Man” do? When the world was bowed down by the assumptions of rulers, when kings and potentates presumed to dominate the earth by the grace of God, when a human being was merely a beast of burden, a man or woman, or any other creature, to be governed, and today, today, the truths proclaimed in the Rights of Man are embodied in the declaration of human liberty, and giving to human liberty the right to plant its standard in the full light of truth, and every man is entitled to be a sovereign in his own right.

Thomas Paine did more. He was not only proclaiming human liberty and weaving it into the Declaration of Independence—the grandest political document to be found in all the annals of time.

Future historians will record the fact that it was Thomas Paine who wrote the Declaration of Independence, and planted in the hearts of millions of down-trodden, half-clothed, half-starved slaves of toil whose pieces are found in all the countries on the face of the earth, the hope of liberty.

Thomas Paine! With thy burning words that flashed from the tip of thy pen, had it not been for Thomas Paine, the Declaration of Independence would have been a meaningless declaration, that there was a volunteer burst of matchless logic, enthusiastic in Common Sense.

Common Sense! That monument of glory was read by the millions of fools, have been seasoned by the masterly pen of the author of “Common Sense.”

The grand and inspiring truths contained in them, as Common Sense, having nearly half a million copies world-wide circulation, and shattering the traditional achievements of the world’s movements of the past, what effect will it have upon future historians?

Much more on many hundred accounts, the advent of “Common Sense” and the universal and staunch public sentiment in favor of independence, conquered prejudice and overcame the political leaders of his day, that they doubted his sincerity—could not understand why he should desire to kill the king and out-fountain of “Common Sense.”

Jefferson, always, was a faithful pupil of Thomas Paine, than whom, he imbibed nearly all of those imperishable truths proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence.

All historians agree that “The Crisis,” the stirring Revolutionary text, was, at that time, the mighty power that saved the Revolutionary army from defeat.

Congress ordered “Common Sense” to be read at the head of the army, and Washington directed his captains to read “The Crisis” to the discouraged soldiers. The effect was magical, and instantly turned defeat into victory. These are some of the glorious things “Common Sense” did.

And another thing: He was a soldier and endured all the privations of the army during that struggling seven years’ war.

While the colonists were endeavoring to pacify England, Thomas Paine undermined the foundations of all potentates, and shocking the minds of nearly all Americans with his analysis in favor of liberty and independence. His brilliant pen productions thrilled every patriot with awe and created such a political revolution, that there was a universe fair name of the grandest exponent of human liberty.

To Washington, to whom Thomas Paine dedicated the “Rights of Man,” and whose heart was filled with that blackest act of ingratitude that always darkens the bosom of his popularity, while the splendid achievements of the past are totally eclipsed by the dating possibilities of the future, we would like to be permitted to drop a few words of kindly sympathy and tearful remembrance upon the hallowed, silently desecrated, outlawed grave of Thomas Paine, in the name of human liberty, and wearing in our hearts the memory of the “Crisis” and “Common Sense” and the “Rights of Man,” that caused every tyrant on the face of the earth to tremble with a frenzy of fear.

What did Thomas Paine do for religious liberty? After having fought the battle for political liberty as no other man ever did, subsequently he gave the world the “Age of Reason,” which has done more to drive from the human mind the hoary superstition of the world, and convince the world of the absolute truth and justice of the great principles of human liberty?

Before his arrest, he prepared the first part of the “Age of Reason” and placed it in the hands of a friend for publication. He was thrown into prison for several months, after Robespierre fell. During his long and flattering imprisonment, he wrote the second part of “The Age of Reason.”

He fought for France, with tongue and pen, rather than for men, and yet the government of France, beautiful France, through leaders of his day, because they could not understand his grand and noble purposes, threw him into prison, where he remained for fourteen months.

To him, you owe a debt of glorious gratitude, which you can never fully repay.

After having planted the seeds of human liberty, he knew full well that it would produce an abundant harvest for the future. The kings and potentates of the earth, with the dark clouds of calumny, which can for a time obscure the works of the greatest writers and philosophers of the world, have long since been destroyed by the magic pen of Thomas Paine.

In 1802, Thomas Paine returned to America, an old man, to find that the country that honored him, the country that he was the first to call the “United States of America,” will have turned its back upon him. Fiendish ingratitude and public opinion had heaped upon him every form of calumny, and today, today, the name of Thomas Paine, instead of being written in letters of gold, is treated with scorn and contempt.

But the electrical flash from the mind of Thomas Paine, that woke the cradle of liberty, will yet echo through the corridors of time, until millions of muffled voices will speak his name in praise, and the world will yet realize that he was one of the greatest blessings ever given to humanity.