TPNHA Editor’s Note

TPNHA is leading an international effort to expand and clarify the Paine Canon. We have attempted to mark those works that have come into question and are doubtful that they are the work of Paine. The Canon is expanding as new works and correspondence not previously in collected writings of Paine are located. Those new works are not yet posted here until it is decided how they will be released to the public.

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From Richard Gimbel’s pamphlet New Political Writings by Thomas Paine

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 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.

from the Aurora, September 22, 1804

A publication having the appearance of a memorial and remonstrance, to be presented to Congress at the ensuing session, has appeared in several papers. It is therefore open to examination, and I offer you my remarks upon it. The title and introductory paragraph are as follows:

“To the Congress of the United States, in the Senate and House of Representatives convened.

We the subscribers, planters, merchants and other inhabitants of Louisiana, respectfully approach the Legislature of the United States, with a memorial of our rights, a remonstrance against certain laws which contravene them, and a petition for that redress to which the laws of nature, sanctioned by positive stipulations have entitled us.”

It often happens that when one party, or one that thinks itself a party, talks much about its rights, it puts those of the other party upon examining into their own, and such is the effect produced by your memorial.

A single reading of that memorial will shew it is the work of some person who is not of your people. His acquaintance with the cause, commencement, progress, and termination of the American revolution decides this point; and his making our merits in that revolution the ground of your claims, as if our merits could become yours, shews he does not understand your situation.

We obtained our rights by calmly understanding principles, and by the successful event of a long, obstinate, and expensive war. But it is not incumbent on us to fight the battles of the world for the world’s profit. You are already participating, without any merit or expence in obtaining it, the blessings of freedom acquired by ourselves; and in proportion as you become initiated into the principles and practise of the representative system of government, of which you have yet had no experience, you will participate more and finally be partakers of the whole. You see what mischief ensued in France by the possession of power before they understood principles. They earned liberty in words but not in fact. The writer of this was in France through the whole of the revolution and knows the truth of what he speaks; for after endeavouring to give it principle he had nearly fallen a victim to its rage.

There is a great want of judgment in the person who drew up your memorial. He has mistaken your case, and forgotten his own; and by trying to court your applause has injured your pretensions. He has written like a lawyer, straining every point that would please his client, without studying his advantage. I find no fault with the composition of the memorial, for it is well written; nor with the principles of liberty it contains, considered in the abstract. The error lies in the misapplication of them, and in assuming a ground they have not a right to stand upon. Instead of their serving you as a ground of reclamation against us, they change into a satire on yourselves. Why did you not speak thus when you ought to have spoken it. We fought for liberty when you stood quiet in slavery.

The author of the memorial injudiciously confounding two distinct cases together, has spoken as if he was the memorialist of a body of Americans, who after sharing equally with us in all the dangers and hardships of the revolutionary war had retired to a distance and made a settlement for themselves. If in such a situation congress had established a temporary government over them in which they were not personally consulted, they would have had a right to speak as the memorial speaks. But your situation is different from what the situation of such persons would be, and therefore their ground of reclamation cannot of right become yours. You are arriving at freedom by the easiest means that any people ever enjoyed it; without contest, without expence, and even without any contrivance of your own. And you already so far mistake principles that under the name of rights you ask for powers; power to import and enslave Africans; and to govern a territory that we have purchased.

To give colour to your memorial, you refer to the treaty of cession (in which you were not one of the contracting parties) concluded at Paris between the governments of the United States and France.

“The third article (you say) of the treaty lately concluded at Paris declares, that, the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the federal constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States, and, in the mean time, they shall be protected in the enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the exercise of the religion they profess.”

As from your former condition you cannot be much acquainted with diplomatic policy, and I am convinced that even the gentleman who drew up the memorial is not, I will explain to you the ground of this article. It may prevent your running into further errors.

The territory of Louisiana had been so often ceded to different European powers that it became a necessary article on the part of France, and for the security of Spain the ally of France, and which accorded perfectly with our own principles and intentions, that it should be ceded no more; and this article, stipulating for the incorporation of Louisiana into the union of the United States, stands as a bar against all future cession, and at the same time as Well as “in the mean time;” secures to you a civil and political permanency, personal security and liberty which you never enjoyed before.

France and Spain might suspect (and the suspicion would not have been ill founded had the cession been treated for in the Administration of John Adams, or when Washington was president, and Alexander Hamilton president over him), that we bought Louisiana for the British Government, or with a view of selling it to her; and though such suspicion had no just ground to stand upon with respect to our present president Thomas Jefferson, who is not only not a man of intrigue, but who possesses that honest pride of principle that cannot be intrigued with, and which keeps intriguers at a distance, the article was nevertheless necessary as a precaution against future contingencies. But you, from not knowing the political ground of the article, apply to yourselves personally and exclusively what had reference to the territory to prevent its falling into the hands of any foreign power that might endanger the Spanish dominions in America, or those of the French in the West India islands.

You claim (you say,) to be incorporated into the Union of the United States, and your remonstrances on this subject are unjust and without cause.

You are already incorporated into it as fully and effectually as the Americans themselves are, who are settled in Louisiana. You enjoy the same rights, privileges, advantages and immunities which they enjoy, and when Louisiana, or some part of it, shall be erected into a constitutional state, you also will be citizens equal with them.

You speak in your memorial, as if you were the only people who were to live in Louisiana, and as if the territory was purchased that you exclusively might govern it. In both these cases you are greatly mistaken. The emigrations from the United States into the purchased territory, and the population arising therefrom will, in a few years exceed you in numbers. It is but twenty-six years since Kentucky began to be settled, and it already contains more than double your population.

In a candid view of the case, you ask for what would be injurious to yourselves to receive, and unjust in us to grant. — Injurious, because the settlement of Louisiana will go on much faster under the government and guardianship of congress than if the government of it were committed to your hands; and consequently the landed property you possessed as individuals when the treaty was concluded, or have purchased since, will increase so much faster in value. — Unjust to ourselves, because as the reimbursements of the purchase money must come out of the sale of the lands to new settlers the government of it cannot suddenly go out of the hands of congress. They are guardians of that property for all the people of the United States. And besides this, as the new settlers will be chiefly from the United States, it would be unjust and ill policy to put them and their property under the jurisdiction of a people whose freedom they had contributed to purchase. You ought also to recollect that the French Revolution has not exhibited to the world that grand display of principles and rights that would induce settlers from other countries to put themselves under a French jurisdiction in Louisiana. Beware of intriguers who may push you on from private motives of their own.

You complain of two cases, one of which you have no right, no concern with; and the other is founded in direct injustice.

You complain that Congress has passed a law to divide the country into two territories. It is not improper to inform you, that after the revolutionary war ended, Congress divided the territory acquired by that war, into ten territories; each of which was to be erected into a constitutional state, when it arrived at a certain population mentioned in the act; and in the mean time, an officer appointed by the President, as the governor of Louisiana now is, presided, as governor of the western territory over all such parts as have not arrived at the maturity of statehood. Louisiana will require to be divided into twelve States or more; but this is a matter that belongs to the purchaser of the territory of Louisiana, and with which the inhabitants of the town of N-Oleans have no right to interfere; and beside this it is probable that the inhabitants of the other territory would choose to be independent of New Orleans. They might apprehend, that on some speculating pretence, their produce might be put in requisition, and a maximum price put on it; a thing not uncommon in a French government — as a general rule, without refining upon sentiment, one may put confidence in the justice of those who have no inducement to do us injustice; and this is the case Congress stands in with respect to both territories, and to all other divisions that may be laid out, and to all inhabitants and settlers of whatever nation they may be.

There can be no such thing as what the memorial speaks of, that is, of a governor appointed by the President, who may have no interest in the welfare of Louisiana. He must, from the nature of the case, have more interest in it than any other person can have. He is entrusted with the care of an extensive tract of country, now the property of the United States by purchase. The value of those lands will depend on the encreasing prosperity of Louisiana, its agriculture, commerce, and population. You have only a local and partial interest in the town of New Orleans or its vicinity; and if, in consequence of exploring the country, new seats of commerce should offer, his general interest would lead him to open them, and your partial interest to shut them up.

There is probably some justice in your remark as it applies to the governments under which you formerly lived. Such governments always look with jealousy, and an apprehension of revolt, on colonies encreasing in prosperity and population and they send governors to keep them down. But when you argue from the conduct of governments distant and despotic, to that of domestic and free government, it shews you do not understand the principles and interest of a republic, and to put you right is friendship; we have had experience and you have not.

The other case to which I alluded as being founded in direct injustice, is that in which you petition for power, under the name of rights, to import and enslave Africans!

*Dare you put up a petition to Heaven for such a power, without fearing to be struck from the earth by its justice?

*Why then do you ask it of man against man?

Do you want to renew in Louisiana the horrors of Domingo?

COMMON SENSE.

OF THE SABBATH-DAY IN CONNECTICUT

from the September 15, 1804 Prospect.

(Editor’s Note: This article has not been edited for accuracy, as it is not Paine’s work.)

Sample of testing: (IMAGE: On the Sabbath W.png)

The word Sabbath, means REST; that is, cessation from labor, but the stupid Blue Laws (They were called Blue Laws because they were originally printed on blue paper.-Author.) of Connecticut make a labor of rest, for they oblige a person to sit still from sunrise to sunset on a Sabbath-day, which is hard work. Fanaticism made those laws, and hypocrisy pretends to reverence them, for where such laws prevail hypocrisy will prevail also.

One of those laws says, “No person shall run on a Sabbath-day, nor walk in his garden, nor elsewhere; but reverently to and from meeting.” These fanatical hypocrites forgot that God dwells not in temples made with hands, and that the earth is full of His glory.

One of the finest scenes and subjects of religious contemplation is to walk into the woods and fields, and survey the works of the God of the Creation. The wide expanse of heaven, the earth covered with verdure, the lofty forest, the waving corn, the magnificent roll of mighty rivers, and the murmuring melody of the cheerful brooks, are scenes that inspire the mind with gratitude and delight.

But this the gloomy Calvinist of Connecticut must not behold on a Sabbath-day. Entombed within the walls of his dwelling, he shuts from his view the Temple of Creation. The sun shines no joy to him. The gladdening voice of nature calls on him in vain. He is deaf, dumb and blind to everything around that God has made. Such is the Sabbath-day of Connecticut.

From whence could come this miserable notion of devotion? It comes from the gloominess of the Calvinistic creed. If men love darkness rather than light, because their works are evil, the ulcerated mind of a Calvinist, who sees God only in terror, and sits brooding over the scenes of hell and damnation, can have no joy in beholding the glories of the creation. Nothing in that mighty and wondrous system accords with his principles or his devotion.

He sees nothing there that tells him that God created millions on purpose to be damned, and that the children of a span long are born to burn forever in hell. The creation preaches a different doctrine to this. We there see that the care and goodness of God is extended impartially over all the creatures He has made. The worm of the earth shares His protection equally with the elephant of the desert. The grass that springs beneath our feet grows by His bounty as well as the cedars of Lebanon.

Everything in the creation reproaches the Calvinist with unjust ideas of God, and disowns the hardness and ingratitude of his principles. Therefore he shuns the sight of them on a Sabbath-day.

AN ENEMY TO CANT AND IMPOSITION.

To THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY, STYLING ITSELF THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY

(Editor’s Note: This article has not been edited for accuracy, as it is not Paine’s work.)

Sample of testing: (IMAGE: To Members of Society W. png)

The New York Gazette of the sixteenth (August) contains the following article-“On Tuesday, a committee of the Missionary Society, consisting chiefly of distinguished Clergymen, had an interview, at the City Hotel, with the chiefs of the Osage tribe of Indians, now in this city (New York) to whom they presented a Bible, together with an address, the object of which was to inform them that this good book contained the will and laws of the GREAT SPIRIT.”

It is to be hoped some humane person will, on account of our people on the frontiers, as well as of the Indians, undeceive them with respect to the present the missionaries have made them, and which they call a good book, containing, they say, the will and laws of the GREAT SPIRIT. Can those missionaries suppose that the assassination of men, women and children, and sucking infants, related in the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, etc., and blasphemously said to be done by the command of the Lord, the Great Spirit, can be edifying to our Indian neighbors, or advantageous to us?

Is not the Bible warfare the same kind of warfare as the Indians themselves carry on, that of indiscriminate destruction, and against which humanity shudders? Can the horrid examples and vulgar obscenity with which the Bible abounds improve the morals or civilize the manners of the Indians? Will they learn sobriety and decency from drunken Noah and beastly Lot; or will their daughters be edified by the example of Lot’s daughters?

Will the prisoners they take in war be treated the better by their knowing the horrid story of Samuel’s hewing Agag in pieces like a block of wood, or David’s putting them under harrows of iron?

Will not the shocking accounts of the destruction of the Canaanites, when the Israelites invaded their country, suggest the idea that we may serve them in the same manner, or the accounts stir them up to do the like to our people on the frontiers, and then justify the assassination by the Bible the missionaries have given them? Will those missionary societies never leave off doing mischief?

In the accounts which this missionary committee give of their interview, they make the chief of the Indians to say, that, “as neither he nor his people could read it, he begged that some good white man might be sent to instruct them.”

It is necessary the general Government keep a strict eye over those missionary societies, who, under the pretense of instructing the Indians, send spies into their country to find out the best lands. No society should be permitted to have intercourse with the Indian tribes, nor send any person among them, but with the knowledge and consent of the Government.

The present Administration has brought the Indians into a good disposition, and is improving them in the moral and civil comforts of life; but if these self-created societies be suffered to interfere, and send their speculating missionaries among them, the laudable object of government will be defeated. Priests, we know, are not remarkable for doing anything gratis; they have in general some scheme in everything they do, either to impose on the ignorant, or derange the operations of government.

From Richard Gimbel’s pamphlet New Political Writings by Thomas Paine

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 Hamilton8 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.

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