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.
I have gone back to Rights of Man and compared it carefully with The Workers Charter. I would find it hard to believe that this new work, coming on the centenary of Paine’s, was merely coincidence and of no further significance.
Rights Of Man Centenary And The Pope Read Post »
Holt was a strong opponent of the slave trade and gave extensive and prominent coverage to parliamentary debates about it. Notice was also taken of the activities of radical organisations, among them a commemorative celebration held in London by the Revolution Society.
Daniel Holt The Newark Radical, Publisher And Paineite Martyr Read Post »
The influence of Paine’s political thought on the Irish rebels cannot be underestimated. In the Ireland of 1790 many minds were fixed upon the French Revolution. For Burke, Ireland was either a strong dike to keep Jacobinism out or a broken bank to let it in.
Thomas Paine, Wolfe Tone And Ireland Read Post »
Paine: Hello Burkie, it’s a long time since we last met on planet earth, how have you been getting on in purgatory? Burke: Well bless my soul, it’s old Paine from cloud nine. They are not letting me out from purgatory yet, I got a pass for this meeting celebrating my bicentenary.
Burke And Paine In Dialogue Read Post »
The author acknowledges Burke to have been a ‘great man’ but one who was ‘scarcely rational about human rights’, who resorts to sneering when he fails to have better of an argument. ‘This man’ concludes the author, ‘must have had a large mental block’.
BOOK REVIEW: Debate Aborted. Burke, Priestley. Paine And The Revolution In France Read Post »
The author of Rights of Man suffered the condescension of posterity in many ways. He had known virtually every leading contemporary political figure in America, France and England, and yet not one of them publicly praised him after his death.
Democracy, War And The Rights Of Man Read Post »
The Rights of Man won an audience in the 1790’s because the Federalists in power moved away from accommodation towards coercion. Federalists strung the “strings” which Rights of Man could “vibrate”.
“Rights of Man” in America Read Post »
The propaganda directed against Paine, linked as it was with efforts to counteract early favourable reactions to the French Revolution, included in its scope misrepresentations of earlier periods when the continuous struggle for human rights similarly found expression in public unrest.
Thomas Paine And The Myth Of Magna Carta Read Post »
Paine’s Rights of Man was “the Koran” of Belfast, Theobald Wolfe Tone learned in October 1791 when he went north from Dublin to found the first Society of United Irishmen. Edmund Burke, an Irishman, lost the loyalty of his radical countrymen to Paine.
Thomas Paine And The United Irishmen Read Post »
Perhaps the point made in this book which struck me with most force occurred when the author was discussing the controversy between Burke and Paine. Paine refers to the view of some individuals he does not name who considered Burke “a madman.”
BOOK REVIEW: Paine Read Post »
Paine’s Rights of Man was prosecuted for libel not so much because of its contents but because, rather than confining his audience to ‘the judicious reader’, he had addressed ‘the lowest orders of the people – people who…cannot from their education or situation in ‘life, be supposed to understand the. subject on which he writes.’
The 1790’s: Paine And The Age Of Reason Read Post »
