Before the Committee
The absence of surviving proto-drafts of the Declaration ofIndependence should not foreclose inquiry into its earliest stages of formation.
Declaration of Independence
Common Sense Was Not Enough
Common Sense moved many towards declaring independence from Britain. But the Pennsylvania Assembly was controlled by those advocating continued dependence on Britain.
Thomas Paine and the Declaration of Independence
Van Buren Denslow said of Paine: “If a set of opinions could be entitled to a place among political philosophers by reasons of millions having come to believe in and praise them, then Paine would stand, more than any other, as the founder of the American school of political philosophy.”
Thomas Paine and the Declaration of Independence Read Post »
Paine’s Anti-Slavery Legacy
Thomas Paine’s strong antislavery stand was hardly appreciated and often unknown to those “in the trenches,” the 19th century abolitionists who were actually fighting the peculiar institution in antebellum America. Reasons for this ignorance can easily be found.
Thomas Paine’s View of Constitutions
Paine purposed to realize for every individual, as much as possible, the God-given natural rights and liberty of mankind. Such a goal for any nation, Paine believed, is best and most easily accomplished through the agency of a constitution that by its sequence of adoption and substantive content.
A Tale of Two Toms: Jefferson and Paine’s Radically Different Visions of America
Jefferson turned a blind eye to slavery, rooted in fake subjective science, while Paine saw humanity as one whole: “The world is my country, my religion is to do good.” In this sense, Kindness in Paine’s writings is the end product of the Enlightenment, waiting for realization.
A Tale of Two Toms: Jefferson and Paine’s Radically Different Visions of America Read Post »
THE WHIG SOCIETY IN AMERICA
Little has been written about the political party formed after Paine’s return from the battlefield in January 1777, the Whig Society. The Society was perhaps the first revolutionary party in modern history.
Speech at the Juneteenth Event at the Thomas Paine Memorial Building June 19, 2021
Paine is the benchmark, the inspiration, the guide, the inspirer of the secular democratic trend in world history. His legacy is all around us: in Black Lives Matter, in separation of church and state, in the sanctity of government for, of and by the people, in civil and human rights.
Speech at the Juneteenth Event at the Thomas Paine Memorial Building June 19, 2021 Read Post »
Lewis Lapham Speech at the 2012 International Conference for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona College
The sale of 150,000 copies within a matter of months furnished Thomas Jefferson with the proof of a national resolve that encouraged him to fit Paine’s reasoning to the writing of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776.
Paine’s Personal Involvement In The American War Of Independence And The French Revolution, And Other Countries Influenced By His Ideas
It is well known that Paine came close to losing the fight to establish democracy within the ruling circles in the American Colonies, because of the wish of John Adams, an American Federalist Congressman, who wanted to have a monarchy in the new United States of America. Paine would never have accepted this, because, to him, democracy was everything.
Was the Declaration of Independence Ghost-Written?
With the evidence presented, it is not inconceivable that Paine, with remarkable perception and clearheaded purpose, wrote the original draft of the Declaration of Independence. In view of his denunciation of slavery, literary style and similarity of his essay to the deflated clause, the theory of his authorship is plausible.
Was the Declaration of Independence Ghost-Written? Read Post »
Discovering A New Letter By Thomas Paine, And Its Relationship With The Declaration Of Independence
I did not think I should discover additional facts to further lend support to my thesis. I am happy to have found this evidence, which irrefutably proves Paine’s direct connection with the Declaration of Independence, that I am constrained to make it the subject of this special article.