by Gary Berton

Van Buren Denslow, in his book on the great thinkers of western civilization, said of Thomas 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 indeed Paine would stand, more than any other, as the founder of the American school of political philosophy, as he certainly is the founder of the creed of American democracy”.1 This creed was formulated in Common Sense, that great declaration of independence – independence not only from a foreign power, but integral to that, from the hereditary transmission of political power. To accomplish this independence, Paine laid out the system of democratic republicanism for an oppressed world.

Viciously attacked from the first printing by the entrenched economic and political powers, both in London and in the American colonies, Common Sense still emerged as the great political manifesto of the 18th century. It marked the beginning of the era of democratic revolutions, providing its rationale and philosophy, and opening up to the masses of the disenfranchised people the world of political participation. In fact, it was Paine who later introduced democracy (literally) as a positive term and concept to the modern era.2 This era continues today.

And so do these same attacks. These attacks first came from the landed and wealthy American aristocracy who saw in Common Sense a democratic threat to their power. These aristocrats (and their admirers like John Adams) created an American myth of the founding, a myth that put the most conservative wing at the center of importance and marginalized and distorted the contributions of the true radicals. “The history of American radicalism has long been buried or blurred by a liberal-conservative consensus”.3 This conservative view of history is responsible more than anything else for the 200 years of attack and slander on Thomas Paine.

While Common Sense’s essential role of turning the country towards independence is acknowledged in the prevailing catechism of the Federalist interpretation of history its political philosophy is ignored or ridiculed. I call this catechism “Federalist” because the opposition to Paine and his philosophy was centered in the Federalist camp and the Federalist leaders are given the primary role in the founding of the country by this liberal-conservative consensus. This skewed version of history is best seen in the denial of the role Common Sense played in the creation of the Declaration of Independence. Pauline Maier in her book American Scriptures4, goes to great lengths to marginalize Common Sense and attack its significance. Maier, who greatly admires John Adams, accepts without question his every utterance, and she also adopts his prejudices. Like Adams, she appears to be obsessed with Paine and can’t understand how “History is to ascribe the American Revolution to Thomas Paine”.5

Common Sense has been marginalized and attacked for its unswerving insistence on real democracy as essential to the founding of this country. As Richard Rosenfeld says:

“Tom Paine urges freedom from Britain to secure American democracy, to achieve freedom and equality for every citizen. Freedom from Britain (independence), freedom of trade or property (free enterprise), the freedom of English subjects (“ordered liberty”), and the freedom of democracy (equality) are different “freedoms,” and Common Sense urges democratic freedom as the basis for an American Revolution.”6

This democratic basis of the American Revolution is what made Federalist John Adams choke on Common Sense, and consequently makes Maier choke as well. But even using Maier’s facts, an objective mind cannot fail to see how Common Sense gave birth to the Declaration of Independence.

There are two approaches which will demonstrate this fact – one historical, one analytical.

Historically, before Common Sense no one dared speak of independence publicly. As Paine noted at the time in Crisis III, “Independence was a doctrine scarce and rare, even towards the conclusion of the year 1775…” It was merely whispered in parlor rooms, and more often denounced as traitorous. Common Sense had the effect of producing an “almost unrivaled political somersault”7 in transforming the attitudes in America. As Washington said, it was “working a powerful change …in the minds of many men”8, not only for independence from Britain, but independence from monarchy. Gordon Wood points out a sudden and almost complete revolution in thinking towards republicanism taking place in the attitudes of the Americans in the spring of 1776.9

As Hazelton10 and Burnett11 have shown, most of the old leaders who were in the Congress during the war rewrote their own history after the fact to fit with the myths that had been created. They scurried to lay claim on the heritage of the Declaration. Some of their memoirs contain boasts exclaiming how they supported independence before Common Sense appeared, but a quick read of what they were saying at the time refutes that. No one but Paine had the courage to stand up and proclaim it, and then to defend it in a tour de force of prose. One after another “founding father” took an opposite view of independence until Common Sense appeared.

Despite John Adams’ protestations to the contrary, he never stood up and defended the necessity for independence before the appearance of Common Sense. His claim that independence was repeatedly discussed in Congress before Common Sense is his attempt to minimize Paine’s role. His dismissal of Common Sense in his memoirs as trite would be just sad if it weren’t for Pauline Maier’s use of this quote to “prove” that Common Sense should be marginalized.12 She even concludes from this lone quote that Congress “was already moving apace toward Independence”.13 Her attempts to establish Adams as the focus of all activity and wisdom requires that Paine be pushed aside, and therefore she must lay doubt on the political somersault Common Sense caused.

Maier’s own facts contradict her conclusion: “But throughout 1775 every Congressional petition, address or declaration…sought a settlement of their differences with the Mother Country not Independence”.14 And, “Even the most radical members of Congress professed a strong preference for remaining in the empire”.15 And she observes that even by June of l776, the delegates “lagged behind” the people in regards to independence.16 Maier’s conclusion that therefore Congress was already moving apace towards independence is contradicted by facts she herself supplies.

And Adams himself testifies to the importance of Common Sense in a letter in April, 1776: “…Common Sense , like a ray of revelation, has come in seasonably to clear our doubts, and to fix our choice”.17 Adams’ objection to Common Sense was not its call for independence, but rather its democratic foundation. Adams complains of Paine: “His plan is so democratical”.18 Adams knew full well the impact of Common Sense on the rapid shift towards independence, and expressed it repeatedly. His hatred for Paine, who he called the “disastrous meteor”19 of democracy, clouded his account of the period. It would seem that Maier falls under the same prejudice.

Others of the time support Adams’ opinion of the importance of Common Sense in producing an about-face in the attitude toward independence. From a Bostonian on the impact of Common Sense, “Independence a year ago could not have been publickly mentioned with impunity. Nothing else is now talked of, and I know not what can be done by Great Britain to prevent it”.20 In Maryland a letter to a newspaper said, “If you know the author of Common Sense tell him he has done wonders and worked miracles, made Tories Whigs and washed blackmoors white. He has made a great number of converts here”.21 And in South Carolina, after denouncing Gadsden for introducing a call for independence in February, having been one of the few to read Common Sense by then, the Assembly turned an about face and issued its Declaration in April after Common Sense had been circulated there.22 A similar account took place in the New York Assembly.23

Perhaps the best summation of the role Common Sense played is given by an Englishman, Sir George Trevelyan, in the 19th century:

“It would be difficult to name any human composition which has had an effect at once so instant, so extended and so lasting…It was pirated, parodied and imitated, and translated into the language of every country where the new republic had well-wishers…According to contemporary newspapers Common Sense turned thousands to independence who before could not endure the thought. It worked nothing short of miracles and turned Tories into Whigs.”24

Despite Maier’s animosity towards Paine, and repeated attempts to minimize his role, she cannot hide certain historical facts. For example, she shows how in the spring of 1776, from April to July, some 90 Declarations of Independence were spontaneously produced by towns, counties, cities and states. Her conclusion is that this is proof that the minds of the people were moving towards independence. She fails to state the obvious and fails to link the appearance of Common Sense as the cause of this effect. Certainly Paine was not writing in a vacuum, and he drew on the sentiments and potential among the people. But Maier’s ignoring Common Sense as a prime factor demonstrates prejudice overcoming sound professional judgment.

Even a cursory look at the content of these Declarations shows the underlying influence of Paine’s work. The first recurring theme in them is condemning the King. From Maryland: “..the King of Great Britain has violated his compact with this people, and that they owe no allegiance to him”.25 “America may become a free and independent state” is another typical theme.26 In Massachusetts they condemned an unfeeling king, and Virginia even uses “Tis time to part”.27 Does Maier say these are isolated cases, and that a few might have used some language from Common Sense? No, just the opposite: “the contents of the various state and local resolutions on Independence are virtually identical”.28 And: “What they said was, however, everywhere remarkably alike”.29 What force of words existed in early 1776 to create such a phenomenon? To anyone but Maier the answer is plain – Common Sense.

Here is where Maier makes her second error. Given all the weight of the evidence, how could she marginalize Common Sense? Like this: referring to all these Declarations she says, “The case was tightly argued and essentially convincing. It was not, however, the argument of Thomas Paine”.30 She says Paine attacked monarchy, but the Declarations did not, therefore Paine’s influence was marginal. According to Maier, Paine merely provoked debate, and thereafter the argument for separation turned on what the Mother country did.31 But what had Britain done between January and April to cause the fury of Declarations? She has no answer. And whatever occurrences of British tyranny existed would be magnified in the wake of Common Sense. These tyrannies had been going on for 12 years, why would they become suddenly so horrific? Weren’t the oppressive acts of the previous years more egregious? Only the radical call to revolution in Thomas Paine’s Common Sense could turn these disputes into a cry for Independence.

The obvious explanation for not condemning the monarchial system in the Declarations is that they were not the proper forum. Even Paine, in his outline of the Declaration in Common Sense, leaves no room for an attack on monarchy. That is the political philosophy behind writing the Declaration, but not its content. It was the fuel, not the fire; the cause not the effect. But the several attacks on the King in these 90 Declarations, attacks which never existed to any scale before Common Sense, demonstrate Paine’s influence. The separation would produce an independent sovereignty, and it was a separation with Britain AND their system that pervades every Declaration.

The conservative wing of the Americans who supported separation but feared democracy have always made the case (even back then) to leave the door open for a new monarchy. Adams, Maier’s hero, was the leader in this agitation, as shown when he wrote: “What do you mean …by Republican systems? . . . You seem determined not to allow a limited monarchy to be a republican system, which it certainly is, and the best that has ever been tried. . .”32 Separating Common Sense into a useful Independence pamphlet and a “disastrous meteor”, “so democratical”, was Adams’ way of diminishing Paine’s importance, and keeping monarchy alive. Unlike Adams, Paine stood for a democratic republic, and the two sides have still not reconciled, nor should they.

Now let us examine the analytical criteria for determining the role Common Sense played in the creation of the Declaration of Independence. To do that we need to see that all of Common Sense, when read cover to cover, leads up to the conclusion of declaring Independence. In fact Paine emphasized the importance of this in his Crisis 13:

“The cause of America made me an author. The force with which it struck my mind, and the dangerous condition the country appeared to me in, by courting an impossible and an unnatural reconciliation with those who were determined to reduce her, instead of striking out into the only line that could cement and save her, A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, made it impossible for me, feeling as I did, to be silent…”33

Paine concludes Common Sense with “nothing can settle our affairs so expeditiously as an open and determined declaration for independence”34 followed by four reasons. The first three formed the basis for much of the content of the arguments in favor of declarations of independence throughout America: no state could intervene as mediator, no assistance could be made, and foreign nations view us as only rebels without a declaration of independence. The fourth point reads:

“Were a manifesto to be published, and despatched to foreign courts, setting forth the miseries we have endured, and the peaceful methods which we have ineffectually used for redress; declaring at the same time, that not being able any longer to live happily or safely under the cruel disposition of the British court, we had been driven to the necessity of breaking off all connections with her; at the same time, assuring all such Courts of our peaceable disposition towards them, and of our desire of entering into trade with them; such a memorial would produce more good effects to this continent, than if a ship were freighted with petitions to Britain.”35

If we now look at the Declaration of Independence we see essentially six sections, being: introduction, the foundation for a bill of rights, a list of charges against the King(the bulk of the document), peaceful methods of redress, the necessity of separation, and the benefits of an independent state. Paine’s paragraph above outlines the last four sections of the Declaration of Independence. And it does so in the same order, using the same terminology. Quite a coincidence for a publication which only sparked a debate and did not share the arguments of the Declarations! This should lead any honest scholar of the Declaration to at least mention this paragraph, even if only to discredit it. Maier spends hundreds of pages documenting all the links to the Declaration, but has no room for this one. It is because this is the smoking gun, the part of Common Sense that obviously greatly influenced the author of the Declaration of Independence, directly or indirectly.

To be thorough let’s compare the Declaration text to the above paragraph from Common Sense. “The miseries we have endured” is plain enough: the end of the second paragraph of the Declaration says “The history of his present majesty, is a history of unremitting injuries and usurpations, among which no one fact stands single or solitary to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest…”, followed by the long list of grievances endured.

“The peaceful methods which we have ineffectually used for redress” is reflected in the Declaration in the third to last paragraph(immediately after the end of the grievance list): “In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress, in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered by repeated injuries.”

“We have been driven to the necessity of breaking off all connections with her” from the above quote from Common Sense is mirrored in the Declaration in the second to last paragraph: after a recounting of the “common” ties to be renounced forever it says “The road to happiness and to glory is open to us too; we will climb it, apart from them, and acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our eternal separation.”

And lastly, the phrase “assuring all such Courts of our peaceable disposition towards them, … would produce more good effects to this continent, than if a ship were freighted with petitions to Britain” is reflected in the last paragraph of the declaration, “…as free and independent states they shall hereafter have power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce,…” etc.

But there is more. In Maier’s analysis of Jefferson’s Declaration, she omits these last three sections for discussion. Why? If you read her book, you would think the Declaration consisted of the introduction, the bill of rights and the list of grievances alone.

There is even more content correspondence between the Declaration and Common Sense. The political philosophy of Thomas Paine reflected in Common Sense is evident throughout the central themes of the Declaration. “All men are created equal”, for example, is not unique to Paine in this era. But its application to the principles of government identical to both Common Sense and the Declaration are unique to this time. To point out that these principles appear in some other Declarations in the spring of 1776 simply reinforces the link. “Mankind being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could not be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance.. .” from Common Sense is one of the most profound and revolutionary principles of Paine, one which seeped into the subconscious of the American people. When the Declaration says, “To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.”, it echoes Common Sense’s thesis on the design and end of government.

Even smaller concepts like “he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them” from the Declaration is unique to Common Sense in origin. Uses of words such as “common blood”, “common king” and “common kindred” in the Declaration is a concept introduced by Paine in Common Sense, where he never speaks of a mother country or parent country but always America and Britain as equals. Or compare, “These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren” to similar sentiments in Common Sense such as “our affections wounded”, and “forever renounce a power in whom we have no trust”. And where else does the unique concept of labeling the King a “tyrant” come from except Common Sense – a term Adams took exception to in both documents.36 Even the phrase and concept “free and independent states” is at the end of both documents(the added appendix in Common Sense.

Upon examination, therefore, it becomes evident that the concepts and language of Common Sense pervade not only the 90 Declarations written in the spring of I776, and not only the dialogue in newspapers, journals, assemblies and taverns of the period, but also the national Declaration of Independence itself.

Far more than a treatise that stirred debate, more than the best selling piece of literature of the era, and more than a rallying cry for independence – Common Sense laid the groundwork for the official founding document of this country. All the principles of democratic republicanism and a government of laws based on a popular constitution are found in the unofficial founding document – Common Sense. It ushered in the epoch of democracy for the world, skillfully presented in sound and convincing arguments, and opened up a struggle to secure its aims that continues to this day. It was the manifesto of the American school of political philosophy, and the founding document of American democracy from which subsequent documents, from the Declaration of Independence, to the Gettysburg Address, to the Civil Rights laws of the 1960’s have their roots.

Footnotes

1. Van Buren Denslow, Modern Thinkers, Chicago: Belford, Clarke & Co., 1880, pg. 167.
2. R.R. Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolution, Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1959, pg 19.
3. Alfred Young, ed., The American Revolution, DeKalb, IL: N. Illinois U. Press, 1984, pg x. By “radical”, I take the meaning in the sense of internal radicalism – all those without power who were interested in ‘who shall rule it home’.
4. Pauline Maier, American Scripture, New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1997.
5. John Adams quote in John H. Hazelton, The Declaration of Independence: Its History, New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1906,
6. Richard Rosenfeld, American Aurora, New York: St. Martins Press, 1997, pg 268-269.
7. Nicholas Murray Butler. speech at the l50th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence banquet of the American Society in London, 7/5/26.
8. Quoted from Winthrop D. Jordan’s article, “Familial Politics” in Sept. 1973 Journal of American History, pg295.
9. Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, New York: WW Norton & Co, 1969, pg 92-93.
10. John H. Hazelton, The Declaration of Independence: Its History, New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1906.
11. Edmund C. Burnett, The Continental Congress, New York: Macmillan, 1941.
12. Maier, op. cit., pg. 33. In a petty fit to once again try and bury Paine, Adams in his Autobiography says independence “had been urged in Congress a hundred times” prior to Common Sense. No corroborating evidence has ever been developed to support this claim, and frankly all evidence suggests just the opposite, but Ms. Maier continues using it as “scripture”.
13. Maier, pg 33.
14. Maier, pg 18.
15. ibid, pg 21.
16. Maier, pg 58.
17. Hazelton, pg 50.
18. Adams in Thoughts on Govemment, quoted from Richard Rosenfeld, American Aurora, New York: St. Martin’s press, 1997, pg 278.
19. Adams quoted in Rosenfeld, pg 270.
20. In John Keane, Tom Paine: A Political Life. New York: Little Brown,1995, pg 113.
21. W.E. Woodward, Tom Paine: America’s Godfather, New York: EP Dutton, 1945, pg 80.
22. See Beard, Basic History of the United States, New York: New Home Library, 1944, pg 106; and Woodward, pgs 80-81.
23. Moncure Conway, The Life of Thomas Paine, New York: GP Putnam & Sons, 1893, Vol I, pg 62.
24. Quoted from Woodward, Pg 80.
25. Maier, pg 83.
26. ibid.
27. Maier, pg 91.
28. Maier, pg 74.
29. Maier, pg 49.
30. Maier, pg 90.
31. Maier, pg 91.
32. Rosenfeld, pg490.
33. Moncure Conway, ed, Writings of Thomas Paine, New York: AMS Press, 1967,Vol. I pg 376.
34. Conway, Vol I, pg 110.
35. Conway, Vol I, pg 11 l.
36. Maier, pg.122-123.

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Dr. Polin is Professor Emeritus of Government and Politics, St. John’s University, New York, and Mrs. Polin is his co-reseorcher and co-author of a work nearing completion on American political thought.

Quo warranto?

By what warrant, right, or authority may a government perform such acts and functions as make law, tax, regulate industry and education, try, fine, imprison, and even execute; and such additional duties as maintain armed forces, enter into treaties, make war and peace, set standards of measurement, license medical practice, erect roads and bridges, control the traffic that travels over them or through the air, conduct elections, and grant or recognize citizenship?

A simple answer that states the encompassing principle that can legitimate a government’s exercise of such numerous and varied powers was penned by Thomas Jefferson in the dictum in the Declaration of Independence that, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

The means of giving consent in a proper way for a government to have widely known, proper powers, limitations, and duties is Thomas Paine’s concern in his treatment 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 accorded with what he advocated in Rights of Man (1791-92).

Paine takes care to eliminate from consideration, therefore, any consideration that a governmental contract could be the basis of a valid constitution or legitimate government. A governmental contract was one that followed the rationale of a feudal relationship contract: between unequals and often entered into under duress; Paine argued especially against its usual provision of translatio: translation or permanent alienation (transfer from) of a title (i.e., legal ownership of a property). Here Paine was reaffirming that our God-given natural rights and liberty cannot be alienated from us. Paine therefore responds energetically to Edmund Burke’s obsequiouslv employed illustration in his Reflections on the Revolution in France ( 1790) that recounted use of translatio (permanent and unlimited transfer) to vest the British monarch with assertions of sovereignty in a declaration by Parliament to William of Orange and Mary in 1688:

“The Lords Spirirual and Temporal, do, in the name of the people aforesaid.- (meaning the people of England then living) “most humbly and faithfully submit themselves, their heirs and posterities for EVER.” He also quotes a clause of another act of Parliament made in the same reign, the terms of which, he says, “bind us,” (meaning the people of that day) “our heirs and posterity, to them, their heirs and posterity, to the end of time.”

Paine indignantly retorts:

“Every age and government must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave, is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow.”

What Thomas Paine favors as the basis of a constitution is a social contract, an agreement among “We, the People” as equals, to set up an arrangement or constitution that is limited in kinds and duration of grant of power: i.e., it is predicated on the principle of concessio (concession of limited extent of power that is conditional and therefore withdrawable when performance is not satisfactory). Paine regarded the recent American state and Federal constitutions as examples of social compacts and proper constitutions that enabled their governments to exercise their powers justly because limited in substance and as to due process, including method of amendment.

Paine stipulated prior adoption by the people-not the government – as a necessary authorization for institution or alteration of a constitution. Thus, he agreed with Alexander Hamilton’s statement in Federalist No. 22 that, “The streams of national power ought to flow immediately from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority.” Paine presented the same idea but required the sequence of popular action beforehand:

A constitution is a thing antecedent to a government, and a government is only the creature of a constitution. The constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of the people constituting a government.

Paine reiterates: “A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government; and government without a constitution, is power without a right.”

For Paine, a constitution should provide the fundamental rules according to which the government is organized and operates as it decides on policies, maintains public order and safety, and protects liberty. He succinctly states: “The American Constitutions were to liberty, what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax.”

Paine’s definition of a constitution, is not as inclusive, flexible, or authoritative as the standard one by Lord Bolingbroke (Viscount Henry St. John) in his 1733 work, A Dissertation upon Parties. Bolingbroke properly allowed for traditional, unwritten, or partially written, constitutions as well as written ones of the type Paine demanded. Paine, instead, was a more tendentious polemicist who wanted to show that the British monarchical government was exercising unconsented-to power in ways dangerous to her own and other peoples; and he also wished there to be an order of procedure that would be more likely to produce: (1) the consent of the people as a whole to a constitution; and(2) a definite, widely known description of the limits as well as powers of the government, so that the people would be more secure from and better served by it.

We should not conclude without asking when would Thomas Paine have been satisfied with a constitution? Paine himself gives us an answer:

When it shall be said in any country in the world, “My poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am a friend of its happiness” – when these things can be said, then may that country boast of its constitution and its government.

Finally, we should ask what most motivated Thomas Paine in developing his socio-politico-economic agenda? Clearly, the goals he set in his statement about the kind of constitution and country he wanted, were understood by him not to be fully achievable in his lifetime; but he felt compelled to declare them in order to encourage mankind to persist in the brave new era of the Enlightenment to make a better world by following deistic-Quaker religious principles. The central purpose of these teachings was to help one another, especially when in need.

In a footnote to his “Observations on the Declaration of Rights” (1791), Paine writes of an original pactum divinum (“a covenant with the Lord”) that antedates and outranks all other pacts and authority of government: “a compact between God and man, from the beginning of time.” In accordance with this covenant, we are commanded by God to love and serve one another and to keep also God’s other commandments. Thus, the much misrepresented Paine, although by no means saintly in attitude or behavior, was in fact sincerely devout in the best sense of the word: doing God’s will. Paine’s political thought and life of action should therefore be understood as deriving mostly from his religious faith and faithfulness to the word of God as he was taught and perceived it:

It is time that because of his wise words and brave deeds, Thomas Paine should be regarded as “a son of the commandments” that constitute “a covenant with the Lord.”

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by Gary Berton, with Notes by Dr. Cazenave 

2022 Thomas Paine Symposium Talk

Dr. Noel Cazenave, Professor of Sociology at University of Connecticut, has been researching for a book on Kindness Wars: The History and Political Economy of Human Caring. During his research of Enlightenment thinkers he came to Thomas Paine, and was impressed by his orientation towards the well-being of humanity. He also came across Thomas Jefferson, and immediately formed an opposite opinion, that although he shared a lot of political goals with Paine, he also had no Kindness in his world view. 

I was honored that he contacted me about Paine, and wanted to hear more. We decided we could collaborate on an article about the comparison between the two historical figures who influenced the world on this question of kindness. This is a very brief summary of where we are on this narrow topic.

In examining 21 Enlightenment thinkers, Dr. Cazenave separated them into 3 categories, British Conservatives, Christian Benevolents and Secular Progressives. Both Toms fit into the last. Class plays a major role: Paine from the lower classes, Jefferson from the inherited planter class. 

Paine’s argument for independence was linked to the cause of humanity for justice and equality. “My country is the world; my religion is to do good.” He criticized Rousseau that although Rousseau possessed benevolent sentiments, but “having raised this animation, they do not direct its operation, and leave the mind in love with an object, without describing the means of possessing it.” For Paine, sentiments won’t abolish aristocracy and privilege, or defend the poor, the homeless, the children, and proposed concrete ways of kindness toward humanity which slowly have minimally been addressed if not universally enacted. Even his guaranteed minimal income concept is still a far-off goal, and the economist Thomas Piketty recently outlined the hope of humanity as resting on this concept. Paine called for aggressive political change, and with it a change in thinking. 

But Jefferson is another question. The self- possessed contradiction of Jefferson is almost frightening. Although Franklin probably had more to do with the preamble of the Declaration than Jefferson, the “all men are created equal” gets contradicted by Jefferson in his slavery clause written by a slave-owner, and his clause about savages which shows he didn’t think they were “men”. Relatively few people are aware, however, that Jefferson would become one of that new nation’s earliest and most influential theoreticians of white supremacy, and even fewer people know of the major kindness-theory-related contradictions within the Declaration of Independence, itself. 

In 1807 Jefferson as President told his Secretary of War that if the assimilation of indigenous people don’t conform to the white society, “If we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down until that tribe is exterminated.” With America’s indigenous people, like its African slaves, depicted as an existential threat to “white” American colonists, in-group empathy bias was mobilized for a remarkable lack of empathy and kindness for those deemed to be racial outsiders. 

Jefferson was one of this nation’s most influential crafters of racist theory and ideologies. We can see this in his Notes on the State of Virginia; ironically Jefferson introduces his racism theory in a section of the book in which he touts the progressive changes he proposed to the Virginia legislature; including his unsuccessful effort to get it to gradually abolish slavery. Here Jefferson used what he argued was the inferiority of Africans as a race to explain why the Virginia slaves did not seem to benefit from the state’s progressive laws by making significant accomplishments in the arts and sciences. Jefferson’s reliance on genocide as the ultimate solution to his racial fears was evident again when he concluded that “the real distinctions which nature has made,” along with other factors like “white” prejudice and “black” resentment “of the injuries they have sustained,” prevent the two races from living together amicably without “the extermination of the one or the other race.” In making his case, Jefferson’s argument was anything but color-blind, for as he put it “The first difference which strikes us is that of colour.” After wrapping his racist theory in a thin and pretentious veneer of scientific speculation as to the possible origins of “the black of the negro,” Jefferson lays out his aesthetic argument for the importance of “colour, figure, and hair” and other physical differences. After surmising that this inferiority causes African slaves to be less able to achieve in the arts and sciences like painting, sculpture, poetry, even when granted the opportunity to do so, Jefferson concluded “as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.” And finally, Jefferson made it clear that this conclusion had implications beyond their ability to make significant contributions in the arts and science, when he surmised that due to that “unfortunate difference of colour, and perhaps of faculty” both their emancipation and their assimilation were unwise because if they were freed and allowed to remain in America that would risk “staining the blood of his master.” 

In the book by Tyler Stovall, “White Freedom”, Jefferson, like Voltaire, Kant, Hume and other Enlightenment figures, freedom was not meant to be universal, but reserved for rational white men who owned property which he describes as “white freedom”. He concludes not only that “slavery and reason were not so much paradoxical as complementary and mutually reinforcing” but that, indeed, “race and racial difference played a seminal role in the modern concepts of liberty.” 

Enter sociologist Pierre van den Berge: racism didn’t develop despite the commitments to liberty and freedom, it developed because of it. He answered the question of how slavery is justified in a society built on the assumptions that all human beings are created equal while developing racist ideology: people of African descent were not sufficiently human. And Jefferson was the most influential person to promote this duality. The ideal of equality was not only NOT inconsistent with racism, but it enabled, as it does today, the ability to separate the Africans from full humanity. So the ideal of America has an exception, and once created it bleeds into other “not fully white” peoples, and excluding them in varying degrees. You might say that is better than nothing, but in fact, it created a racist system by using fake science to justify inequality. 

Voltaire, Kant, Mill, and Hume, all considered liberals in thought, are also guilty of this dichotomy among classification of human status. Voltaire even invested in the slave trade, even as his thinking evolved more progressively. And Hume identified “Negroes” as a species inferior to whites. 

But this duality, or caste system of ranking humans, is ended by Paine among widely read Enlightenment figures. After writing the first work that was a collaboration with Benjamin Franklin in 1762, Franklin returned to America for a year or two; it was at this time that he changed his views of slavery, and I will surmise it was his close contact with Paine. Paine had declared he would be too emotional to write on abolition of slavery. He did write in private letters against it, and he wrote with Joseph Priestley in favor of the Slave Trade Act in London in 1792. But on his death bed, he couldn’t contain himself and let Jefferson know about the abomination of the existence and tolerance toward slavery anywhere, but particularly in America, who claimed that all men are created equal. The “Slave Letter” as we call it is the strongest, clearest expression against the abomination, with its contradiction to American creed, and it was the first to call for reparations to begin reversing it. Like much of Paine’s work and ideology he was too far ahead of his time, and he still is. Racism from the white supremacists in the intellectual class infected the country, as did the inherited mentality of British colonialism. A sort of free pass to commit atrocities based on the supposition that whites are superior, the others are subhuman. This ideology remains with us today, and is vying once again for complete power in the growing fascist movement in America, and other countries. 

Paine makes his case for the inalienability of human rights through his argument that while civil rights are based on an individual’s membership in society, natural rights are rooted in mere human existence, and that consequently “every civil right grows out of a natural right.” Consistent with this conceptualization of civil rights as natural rights, in stark contrast to Burke’s insistence that it was God who determined one’s social status and people have no right to change it, Paine argued that, indeed, people are entitled to improve their lives and circumstances, however not at the expense of the public. 

And Paine’s “Slave Letter”, called as such because Paine took the identity of a slave in it to channel his emotions, and even make them focused and more powerful. Paine’s kindness toward humanity, especially towards the disenfranchised on many levels, sets him apart in the Enlightenment spectrum of thought in the 18th century, and presents a different philosophy long suppressed in our philosophical political heritage. 

Paine remains the beacon for another path, still not travelled. Despite the friendship established over many years and discussion and correspondence, the two Toms held opposite positions on equality and kindness, on ALL men are created equal, and a path forward towards true equality – the only basis of democracy. Jefferson turned a blind eye, 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.

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If I were granted three wishes, the first would be to be free of the physical ailments and afflictions which blight my life. The second would be to write like Christopher Hitchens and the third would be to write like Thomas Paine Although in our youth we were in rival Trotskyist groups, Hitchens and I share a number of heroes on the Left, the Pole Jacek Kuron, the Trinidadian CLR James and the Russian Victor Serge. We share an interest in George Orwell, although Orwell’s class origins are nearer to those of Hitchens than to mine. And for both of us Thomas Paine is a hero of heroes. 

Both Hitchens and Paine are in that fine tradition of English radical dissent which blasts the pretensions of autocratic rulers and canting priests. Both men were far from teetotal, it was exciting to see the allegedly alcoholic Hitchens lambastes the teetotal Catholic turned advocate of political Islam George Galloway MP. It would have been fascinating to down a glass or two with both men and talk long into the night. 

In his autobiography Hitch 22 Hitchens says little about Paine. He writes: “….I read Thomas Paine saying that to have played a part in two revolutions was to have lived to some purpose. This was the sort of eloquence I wish I could have commanded…” The idea of a time before kings and lords and bishops and priests, says Hitchens, can be found in Paine. 

Paine is dealt with at greater length in God Is Not Great, a work which ranks beside Paine’s Age of Reason as a demolition of religious orthodoxy. Hitchens writes of Paine, “…his memory has outlasted the calumnious rumour that he begged to be reconciled with the church at the end. (The mere fact that deathbed repentances were sought by the godly, let alone subsequently fabricated, speaks volumes about the bad faith of the faith-based).” He reveals that the Calvinist Abolitionist John Brown kept Paine’s works in his camp. 

The magnum opus by Hitchen’s on Paine is Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man. Perhaps The Independent was indulging in hyperbole when it called Hitchens “a Tom Paine for our troubled times”, but there can be no doubt that he writes eloquently and sympathetically about his subject. 

Although he only got a third class degree from Oxford, his days were spent advocating socialism and his nights partying and swilling champagne with the middle class, Hitchens has a good knowledge of radical history. He writes at length about the Sheffield file maker and poet Joseph Mather. At a time when what Hitchens calls the “Hanoverian usurpation which endures on the British throne to this day” was adopting God Save The King as the national anthem, Mather penned a parody which began ” God save great Thomas Paine.” It is, says Hitchens, taught in no school and sung in no assembly. 

Hitchens discusses the tree of liberty, which Paine’s friend Thomas Jefferson held should be watered with the blood of tyrants. As a radical symbol particularly among the United Irishmen, Rights of Man was translated into Gaelic. He writes that Bums wrote a poem dedicated to the Tree of Liberty, and states that Bums best known poem For ‘a’ That “breathes with a mighty scorn for the conceits of heredity and the heredity principle, so comprehensively lampooned by Paine.” Bums wrote “The rank is but the guinea’s stamp, the man’s the gold for ‘a that.” Paine would have echoed this sentiment. 

Of Rights of Man itself Hitchens writes that it is “both a trumpet of inspiration and a carefully wrought blueprint for a more rational and decent ordering of society, both domestically and on the international scene.” 

Hitchens reminds us, as Paine stated, that monarchy has a tendency to over breed and inbreed. The spare children which are many are maintained at the public expense. Hitchens compares Burke’s “tear stained” evocation of Marie Antoinette with the hysteria surrounding the mysterious death of Diana Spencer, also in Paris. Hitchens asks ” which European royal house since 1791 has not lamented , like our very own Windsor’s, the ghastly problem of what to do with the proliferating, subsidized and under- achieving offspring? ” Perhaps they should be sent to doss under London Bridge on one of the government’s make work schemes. 

Chapter 5 of the book by Hitchens discusses Paine’s The Age of Reason, which he sees as a counterpart and completion. Paine 

wrote “The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall.” Hitchens recounts that when Paine was writing part one of the book he did not have access to a Bible. Hitchens writes: “Paine was an engineer and amateur scientist, and stood on tiptoe to see as far as he could over the existing horizon.” 

Hitchens writes that “Paine was a leading member of that British radical tradition that saw wars and armies as additional burdens on the people, and as reinforcements of existing autocracies. What better way for a ruling class to claim and hold power than to pose as the defenders of the nation? And what better way to keep unschooled and unemployed serfs in line than give the king’s shilling and put them into uniform… ” Hitchens seemed to endorse this view. He was on the 1966 CND march from Aldermaston. I too was on that march. He came into politics because of his opposition to the Vietnam war being recruited into the International Socialists, the forerunner of today’s Socialist Workers’ Party. The SWP is now an apologist for political Islam. 

Yet by the time of the First Gulf War despite his obvious detestation of George Bush we find Hitchens quoting his fellow Marxist Fred Halliday “You can oppose war, but only by leaving Kuwait in the hands of Saddam…you can be anti-imperialist but you will have to decide if imperialism is worse than fascism” as his defence of what was in essence an imperialist adventure. If Iraq grew carrots rather than produce oil, the West would not have been interested. 

Although he had broken with organised socialism, Hitchens still claimed to be a Marxist; still admired Che and Lenin. He had become an apologist for Western imperialism which differs from Saddam and his Ba’ath Party which disgraces the name of socialism as America disgraces the word democracy, only in quantity not in kind. It is as if Paine had joined the Church of Rome on the grounds it was somewhat better than Lutheranism! 

Hitchens was a man of many unresolved contradictions. How anyone could find Mrs Thatcher sexy is beyond me. And there are far better examples of the distillers’ art than Walker’s Black Label. But if his writing about Paine encourages people to read Paine’s works he will have earned his redemption. 

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Image above is the front page of the September 9, 1788 letter from Library of Congress

THOMAS PAINE was a pioneer in the use of iron for bridge building. Thomas Jefferson shared his interest and both corresponded on the subject. From a letter from Paine to Jefferson, from London, September 9, 1788: 

The model has the good fortune of pressing in England the reputation which it received from the Academy of Sciences (Paris). It is a favourite hobby horse with all who have seen it, and everyone who has talked with me on the subject advised me to endeavour to obtain a Patient, as it is only by that means that I can secure to myself the direction and management. This is the only step I took in the business. 

Last Wednesday I received a Patent for England, the next day a Patent for Scotland, and I am to have one for Ireland. As I had already the opinion of the scientific judges both in France and England on the model, it was also necessary that I should have that of practical Iron men who must finally be the executors of the work. There are several capital Iron works in this country, the principal of which are those in Shropshire, Yorkshire, and Scotland. The Iron works in Yorkshire belonging to the Walkers near to Sheffield are the most eminent in England in the point of establishment and property. The proprietors are reputed to be worth two hundred thousand pounds and consequently capable of giving energy to any great undertaking. 

A friend of theirs who had seen the model wrote to them on the subject, the two of them came from London last Friday to see it and talk with me on the business. Their opinion is very decided that it can be expected either in wrought or cast Iron, and I am to go down to their works next week to erect an experimental arch. This is the point I am now got to, and until now I had nothing to inform you of. 

If arches can be extended in the proportion the model promises, the construction in certain situations, without regard to cheapness or dearness, will be valuable in all countries. 

Paine replies to a letter from Jefferson on February 16, 1789: 

My intention at the time of writing to you was to construct an experimental arch of 250 feet, but in the first place, the season was too far advanced to work out of doors and an arch of that extent could not be worked within doors, and nextly, there was a prospect of a real Bridge being wanted on the spot 90 feet extent. The person who appeared disposed to erect a bridge is Mr.Foljambe nephew to the late Sir George Saville, and a member of the late Parliament for Yorkshire. He lives about three miles from the works, and the River Don runs in front of his house, over which there is an old ill constructed bridge which he wants to remove. These circumstances determined me to begin an arch 90 feet with an elevation of 5 feet. This extent I could manage within doors by working half the arch at a time. A great part of our time, as you will naturally suppose, was taken up in preparations, but after we began to work we went on rapidly, and that without any mistake, or anything to alter or amend. The foreman of the works is a relation of the proprietors, and excellent mechanic, and who fell into all my ideas with great ease and penetration. I attended at the works till one half the rib, 45 feet, was completed and framed horizontally together and came up to London at the meeting of Parliament on the 4th of December. 

In point of elegance and beauty it far exceeded my expectations and is certainly beyond anything I ever saw. My model and myself had may visitors while I was at the works. This bridge I expect will bring forth something greater, but in the meantime I feel like a bird from it’s nest and wishing most anxiously to return. Therefore, as soon as I can bring anything to bear, I shall dispose of the contract and bid adieu. I can very truly say that my mind is not at home. 

July 13, 1789 letter to Jefferson discussing costs and constructional matters and asking a favour. 

I am to undertake all expense from that time and to complete the expecting. We intend first to exhibit it and afterwards put it up to sale, or dispose of it by private contract, and after paying the expenses of each party the remainder to be equally divided, one half theirs, the other mine. My principle object in this plan is to open the way for a bridge over the Thames. 

I shall now have occasion to draw upon some funds I have in America. I have one thousand dollars stock in the bank at Philadelphia, and two years interest due on it last April. £180 in the hands of General Morris, £40 with Mr.Constable of New York, a house at Bordentown,’ and a farm in New Rochelle. The stock and interest in the bank which Mr.Willing manages for me is the easiest negotiated. I shall be very glad if you can manage this matter for me, by giving credit for two hundred pounds on London, and receiving that amount of Mr.Willing. I am not acquainted with the method of negotiating money matters, but if you can accommodate me in this, and will direct me how the transfer is to be made, I shall be much obliged to you. Please direct to me under cover to Mr.Trumbull. I have some thoughts of coming over to France for two or three weeks, as I shall have little to do here until the bridge is ready for erecting. 

On September 15, 1789, Paine expresses his gratitude to Jefferson: 

When I left Paris I was to return with the model, but I could now bring over a complete Bridge. Though I have a slender opinion of myself for executive business, I think, upon the whole that I have managed this matter tolerably well. With no money to spare for such an undertaking I am sole patentee here, and connected with one of the first and best established houses in the nation. But absent from America, I feel a craving desire to return and I can scarcely forbear weeping at the thoughts of you going and my staying behind. Accept, my dear Sir, my most heartily thanks for your many services and friendship. Remember me with an overflowing affection to my dear America, the people and the place.

I shall be very glad to hear from you when you arrive. 

I remain yours affectionately, 

– THOMAS PAINE

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Reprinted from an unborn source

THE tale of the recent discovery of the portrait of the celebrated propagandist, Thomas Paine, painted by the “Patriot-Artist,” Colonel Trumbull, for Thomas Jefferson—a picture which dropped out of sight over a century ago—is worth telling in some detail. 

The little portrait was first and last publicly exhibited in Boston two years after Jefferson’s death, appearing in “A Catalogue of the Second Exhibition in the Athenaeum Gallery Consisting of Specimens by American Artists . . . May 1828”, under the notice, “The following are a part of the Collection formed by the late PRESIDENT JEFFERSON . . . [and] are for sale . . . [Item] 316—Thomas Paine,—an original on wood,— Trumbull.” It then faded into oblivion. When the writer’s The Works of Colonel Joint Trumbull, Artist of the American Revolution, was published in 195o by the Yale University Press, it contained the fol- lowing unsatisfactory entry: “THOMAS PAINE (I737-1809), Revolutionary pamphleteer, author of Common Sense; on wood, before 1809, once belonging to Thomas Jefferson; unlocated.” 

The Editor of “The Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, Julian P. Boyd of Princeton, was responsible for the first clue to the lost portrait. In March 1955, he brought to the writer’s attention both sides of correspondence which established the date of the sitting and reaffirmed the connection of the three principals, Paine, Trumbull, and Jefferson. The first letter (now in the Pierpont Morgan Library) was written by the Colonel from London to Jefferson in Paris, 19 December 1788: 

By the Diligence which leaves town tomorrow morning, you will receive a Box cont’g your Harness & Saddles. The Box likewise contains what further’ Books of your list Payne has been able to procure . . . a little case with two pictures, one of which I hope you will do me the honor to accept, & the other I beg you to be so good as offer to Miss Jefferson:—I almost dispair of its meeting her approbation, but it is all I can do until I have the happiness to see you again:—you would have rec’d both long since for the Vexation I have had with my larger picture, which has left me little Spirits to attend to anything else. .. .

Jefferson replied (letter now in the Princeton University Library) to Trumbull on 12 January 1789: 

Thank you a thousand for the portrait of Thomas Paine, which is a perfect likeness, and to deliver you for the other, on the part of my daughter. 

The “larger picture,” which was causing such vexation, was, most probably, the “Declaration of Independence,” for which the preliminary sketch was prepared in September, 1786. The artist referred to this subject in these words: 

I resumed my labors, however, and went on with my studies of other subjects of the Revolution, arranging carefully the composition for the Declaration of Independence, and preparing it for receiving the portraits, as I might meet with the distinguished men, who were present at that illustrious scene. . . . In the autumn of 1787, I again visited Paris, where I painted the portrait of Mr. Jeffer- son in the original small Declaration of Independence. (The Autobiography of Colonel John Trumbull, Patriot-Arlin (New Haven. Yale University Press, 1953) pp. 146-147. 152.)

From this original portrait in the “Declaration” the artist promptly made three replicas, all in miniature: the first, for Miss Jefferson, which has descended in the family and is now owned by the Estate of Mrs. Edmund Jefferson Burke and is on loan at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the second for Mrs. John Barker Church, daughter of Philip Schuyler, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and a third for Jefferson’s friend Mrs. Richard (Maria Had-field) Cosway, wife of the miniaturist, left by her to the Collegio Maria S. S. Bambina at Lodi, Italy. The first of these, one of the two pictures in the “little case” sent to Jefferson in December, 1788, for his daughter, offered, therefore, the best stylistic parallel for its companion, the lost Paine miniature. It should be noted that the present to Miss Jefferson was apparently painted rapidly and on an oblong piece of mahogany upon which the oval was inscribed. This is rather unusual; the sixty Trumbull miniatures at Yale are all cut in oval shape.

In 1947, through the good offices of Alexander Wahl, Director of the New York Historical Society, Mrs. Arthur M. Greenwood brought to the writer’s attention a loosely painted miniature, oval on a rectangular piece of mahogany, said to be of Trumbull’s friend and companion-in-arms, Philip Schuyler. It was published in the Works (on p. 68), under “Unidentified Men” as a “Miniature of an Unknown Man” (Possibly Phillip Schuyller; Estate of Dr. Arthur M. Gleenway, Marlboro. Mass.”  (containing a mistake in transcription, for the name was Greenwood). And there the matter rested. 

When the Trumbull-Jefferson correspondence was brought to the writer’s attention, he searched his files of “Unidentified Men” and was immediately struck by the stylistic affinity to the “Unknown Gentleman,” from the collection of the late Dr. and Mrs. Arthur M. Greenwood of “Time Stone Farm” (built in 1702), Marlboro, Massachusetts. The miniature had been acquired before 1912 by Dr. Greenwood from a family living in Concord, Massachusetts, who had kept it for years in a button box. Sometime in the past both eyes had been mutilated—done, possibly, by a child or by one who might have hated the rabble-rousing radical, atheistic Paine.

The writer, doubting the Schuyler attribution (Trumbull’s one miniature of Schuyler, painted in 1792 at Philadelphia, is now in the New York Historical Society), turned to the study, at the Frick Art Reference Library, of every known portrait of Tom Paine. The Greenwood miniature came closest to the destroyed portrait of Paine painted by George Romney in 1791-92, known through the fine engraving of 1793 by William Sharp. He next appealed to Colonel Richard Gimbel, United States Air. Force, Retired, Curator of Aeronautical Literature at the Yale University Library, a great collector of Paine’s work. After studying abundant prints, photographs of portraits, Paine’s death mask, and even caricatures, and comparing them with the borrowed Greenwood miniature, the Paine attribution was more or less convincing. It should be mentioned, parenthetically, that Paine left America for England in 1787 and that it is a simple matter to get artist and sitter together during that and the ensuing year, and that all of Trumbull’s miniatures, with but one exception are painted in oils on wood (mahogany).

Still unsatisfied, Colonel Gimbel and the writer went to the Boston Museum and there laid the Jefferson family miniature alongside the still questionable Paine. They fitted like two peas in a pod. Both were painted on rectangular pieces of mahogany, (unusual for Trumbull), which appeared to come from the same plank, though the Greenwood one was on a slightly smaller piece. The painted ovals, however, were identical in size, 4 and ? inches by 3 and ¾ inches. 

Even the character of the stains on the backs were the same for both. Stylistically, both were identical, the pigment and the manner of handling it coinciding exactly, except that the Jefferson had been cleaned and newly varnished and the other was dirty, dry, and mutilated. Both were painted in a more sketchy manner than Trumbull ordinarily employed, but then both were intended as presents and were not to be incorporated in historical compositions (as were the sixty at Yale), which were ultimately destined to be engraved. The crackling on the surfaces of both—unusually large—was the same. Both were examined under the ultra-violet light—from the front, back, and sides; similitude was conclusively demonstrated. Greatly enlarged photographs were also studied. The writer is convinced that the Greenwood miniature—in oils on mahogany—is not only the work of Colonel Trumbull, but is the missing portrait of the political agitator, Colonel Gimbel concurring fully in this last. The “perfect likeness,” as Jefferson put it, of Tom Paine, which disappeared in 1828, has been found.

The little unframed miniature, which has the appearance of never having been framed, has been recently lent by Mrs. Greenwood to Colonel Gimbel. It is now on exhibition at the Yale Library, with the 1828 Boston Athenaeum catalogue and photostats of the letters in question, together with a small selection of Tom Paine’s celebrated pamphlets from the Gimbel Collection. Colonel Trumbull, who was born at Lebanon, Connecticut, on 6 June 1756, was a proud, punctilious, and somewhat vain man, concerned alike with his mortal and posthumous fame. It is pleasing that the discovery of the charming little portrait of Tom Paine, long hidden away in a button box, coincides with the coming celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of the “Patriot-Artist.”

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In 1738, Pope Clement XIII issued an Encyclical, In Eainente, in which “for the sake of the peace and safety of civil governments and the spiritual safety of souls,” he condemned Freemasonry and other secret societies. At first sight, this seemed an odd thing to do as many Catholics, including such prominent figures as Francois, the holy Roman Emperor were Freemasons. However, in a letter which was not published until 1962,¹ the pope stated that he not only thought that the masterminds behind Freemasonry were the same as those behind the Lutheran Reformation, but also that Freemasons denied the divinity of Jesus. The pope may well have been paranoid, but it remains a fact that within little more than half a century all the old powers of Europe, both spiritual and temporal, would be under threat from new social forces, forces which would be anti-clerical and atheist, revolutionary and republican. And as in sore recent times these forces organised themselves into political parties so in the late 18th century they found their expression in conspiratorial secret societies. In 1751, throughout the 19th century, and even as late as 1917 the popes would condemn such societies.

One such society which to this day still excites much speculation was the Bavarian Illuminati. Founded on May 1, 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, a professor of religious law at the University of Ingolstadt, it originally had only five members; by 1780 it had sixty members in five cities, Weishaupt had become a mason in Munich in 1777 and two years later had control of the Lodge of Theodore of Good Counsel there.

However, it was the recruitment in 1780 of Adolf Francis, Baron Knigge, which enabled the Illuminati to expand its influence. Within a few months of his joining membership was 300 and by 1784 had grown to 3,000. At a masonic congress in Wilhelmsbad in 1782, Knigge recruited most of the delegates thus blocking an attempt by the Strict Observance sect, which had connections with the Jacobites, to take over. While the Illuminati maintained all the ritualistic trappings and mumbo-jumbo of masonry, their real aim was the overthrow of the feudal state and the Roman Catholic church which they saw as stumbling blocks to progress. According to the Catholic writer on occult matters, Montague Summers, a number of masons, including Illuminati member Christian Bode, who was recruited in 1782 by Knigge, met in Frankfurt in 1786 to plot the deaths of Louis XVI of France and Gustavus III of Sweden. The Austrian publication, Veiner Zeitschrift, further accused Bode of secret meetings with Mirabeau, who in 1791 would become President of the French Assembly. The fact that as late as 1946 Summers could attack Weishaupt as ‘one of the greatest criminals and most evil minds known in the history of the human race’, shows how much Catholicism feared and hated such societies as the Illuminati.² This hatred is echoed by such right-wing pseudohistorians and conspiracy theorists as Nesta Webster and Gary Allen.³

According to John Robison, himself a Mason, the Illuminati ‘abjured Christianity, advocated sensual pleasure, believed in annihilation, and called patriotism and loyalty narrow-minded prejudices incompatible with universal benevolence’. Furthermore, ‘they accounted all princes usurpers and tyrants, and all privileged orders as their abbetors; they meant to abolish the laws which protected property…and to prevent for: the future and such accumulation, they intended to establish universal liberty and equality, the imprescriptible rights of man…’⁴ No wonder, then, they should attract the unfriendly attention of both church and state.

As the influence of the Illuminati grew, complaints were made that it was subversive of political and religious authority and was attempting to influence education and the press. In October 1783 a former member, Joseph Utzschneider sent a letter denouncing the Illuminati to the Duchess Maria Anna, who in turn aroused the suspicions of the monarch, Carl Theodore. In April 1784 Knigge withdrew from the Illuminati and in June of that year Carl Theodore issued an edict outlawing all secret societies in his realm. This was followed in 1785 by a further edict bantling the Illuminati and offering rewards for those willing to inform on it. In July of that year a member named Lanz was killed by lightning and the police found on his body incriminating papers which they placed in the hands of Carl Theodore. Raids on the homes of members uncovered more °subversive° documents. Many former members now turned state’s evidence and gave lurid accounts of the organisation’s activities which further fueled the fear and hate of the ruling powers.

Veishaupt had already fled in 1785 to Gotha where he attempted to defend himself against the charges of procuring an abortion for his sister-in-law., Bode attempted to carry on, but in 1787 the Duke of Bavaria issued a final edict. However, as late as 1790 the police were still harassing people they thought to be members of the organisation. Officially the days of the Illuminati were done,but according to some sources it was reorganised as the German Union and members of it were to play a leading role in the events of 1789 which led to the downfall of the Capetian dynasty in France and plunged Europe into an epoch of war and revolution.

It should not be forgotten that 1776, the year the Illuminati was founded, was a year of revolution in America. While the charges of belonging to the Illuminati made against them by their opponents were unfounded, it cannot be denied that many of the American revolutionaries were active Freemasons. Jefferson, for example, praised Weishaupt’s ‘rationalistic philosophy” and said that had he written in America he would have had no need to act conspiratorially. Franklin had become a Mason in 1731 and had helped with the initiation of Voltaire into the Lodge of the Nine Sisters in Paris. Washington was initiated into a Virginia lodge in 1752, and was a close friend of fellow-Mason, Lafayette, who played a leading role in both the American and French Revolutions. It should also be noted that the Great Seal of the United States and the Illuminati symbol are almost identical.

However, it was in the French Revolution that masons, some of them like Mirabeau with links with the Illuminati, were most active, the Jacobin Club appears to have its origins in part in Mirabeau’s Lodge of Philalthes, while Lafayette was a member of the political committee of the Social Contract Lodge. Other members of the Illuminati such as Clootz, Zimmermann and Buonarroti, a leading figure in Babeuf’s, Society of Equals, were in the vanguard of the spread of revolutionary ideas in France and beyond. It was during the French Revolution that popular societies such as the Cercle Sociale, to which Karl Marx paid homage, began to criticise capitalism, just then coming into being, In doing so they echoed Weishaupt’s attack on ‘the mercantile tribe’. It would, however, be wrong to see the French revolutionary movement as merely a Masonic conspiracy. If Masonry had never existed the popular masses would still have fought to break out of the straight-jacket of feudal society.

As the 18th century gave way to the 19th, those in revolt against the old order in Europe and beyond continued to form Mason-like secret political societies. In 1809 in Geneva, Buonarroti formed the first international secret political society, the Sublime Maitres Parfaits, and the following year, Father Hidalgo, both a Jesuit and a Mason, who was fond of quoting Voltaire and decorating his churches with the Illuminati symbol, led the revolt of the people of Mexico against Spain under the slogan of ‘Long Live Our Lady of Guadeloupe and death to bad government” (it was under the banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe that the Zapatistas would fight a century later). In Russia, Masons were organising secret societies which would become the Decesbrist movement, which in 1825 would attempt to overthrow the tsar. In Poland under the flag of National Freemasonry the foundations for the long struggle against Russian domination were being laid.

In Britain the radical poet Burns joined the Scottish Masons, while the early trade unions, forbidden by law from organising openly, adopted much of the secrecy and ritual of masonry. To this day, branches of the National Union of Miners are known as lodges.

In Italy, the Carbonari, denounced by Pius VII in 1821, were struggling for national liberation. Members of this society addressed each other as Good Cousin and took as their symbol a red, blue and black tricolour. In 1820 they attempted uprisings all over Italy. When these failed their Grand Lodge moved to Paris where it helped work towards the revolution of July 1830, Mazzini joined the Carbonari in 1827.

Attempts have been made to link Marx with the Illuminati via the League of the Just, a secret society founded by German exiles in Paris. Among its members were Carl Schapper and Heinrich Bauer, After an unsuccessful revolt, these two moved to London where they formed the Communist Workers’ Educational Society. This eventually became the Communist League for which Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto. There is no mention of the Illuminati in the work of Marx, but Trotsky in his autobiography describes them as “forerunners of the revolution’.⁵

It is with the formation of the Communist League that there begins the type of mass working class politics we know today. However, secret political societies continued to be active, the Philadelphians, for example, helped found the First International,⁶ and the banners of the Masons flew beside the red flag during the Paris Commune. Many socialist leaders, including Proudhon, Allende and Attlee, were also Masons. Although today Masonry is mostly a reactionary society of the rich and corrupt, we all owe a debt to the radical pioneers who organised clandestinely, not because they had awful occult secrets to hide, but because given the circumstances of their time it was the only way they could.

References

1. Peyrefitte, R. ‘La Lettre Secret’. Le Syabolisse. Paris. April-June, 1967.
2. Summers, M. Witchcraft and Black Magic. Rider & Co., London, 1946.
3. See the forger’s, The French Revolution, and the latter’s, None Dare Call It Conspiracy.
4. Robison, J. Proofs of a Conspiracy. First published in Scotland in 1794. The current edition is by Western Islands Press, Belmont, Mass., USA.
5. Trotsky, Leon. My Life, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1975.
6. See B. Nicolaevsky, ‘Secret Societies and the First International’ in M. Drachkovitch (ed.), The Revolutionary Internationals 1861-1943. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1968. The Philadelphians had links with Bradlaugh who was an active Mason.

The post The Illuminati: Secret Societies In 18th Century Radical Politics appeared first on .

Image above and transcript below from the original letter at the Library of Congress

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New York Partition Street No 63

July 8th, 1808.

Dear Sir

On the 21st Jany I presented a Memorial to Congress and after waiting a considerable time and hearing nothing of it, I wrote to George Clinton Junior who presented the Memorial to Congress desiring some information of it. In his answers of March 19 he says, “I am desired by Mr. Holmes Chairman of the Committee of Claims to inform you That the business of the Memorial is progressing and that as soon as they received certain information from the President and Vice President a report would be made.”— No report however has been made, and I write this letter to request you to inform Mr. Holmes or the Committee of Claims have made any application to you on this subject.

I now pass on from this disagreeable affair to what I like much better – Public Affairs. The british Ministry have outschemed themselves. It is not difficult to see what the motive and object of that Ministry were in issuing the orders of Council. They expected those orders would force all the Commerce of the United States to England and then by giving permission to such Cargoes as they did not want for themselves to depart for the Continent of Europe, to raise a revenue out of those Countries and America. But instead of this they have lost revenue, that is they lost the revenue they used to receive from American imports, and instead of gaining all the commerce they have lost it all.

This being the case with the british Ministry it is natural to suppose they would be glad to tread back their steps if they could do it without too much exposing their ignorance and obstinacy. The Embargo law empowers the President to suspend its operation whenever he shall be satisfied that our ships can pass in safety. It therefore includes the Idea of empowering him to use means for arriving at that event. Suppose the President were to authorize Mr. Pinckney to propose to the british Ministry that the United States would negociate with France for rescinding the Milan Decree, on Condition the english Ministry would rescind their orders of Council and in that case the United States would recall their Embargo. France and England stand now at such a distance that neither can propose any thing to the other, neither are there any neutral powers to act as mediator. The U. S. is the only power that can act.

Perhaps the british Ministry, if they listen to the proposal will want to add to it the Berlin decree which excludes english Commerce from the Continent of Europe; but this we have nothing to do with, neither has it any thing to do with the Embargo. The british orders of Council and the Milan decree are parallel cases, and the cause of the Embargo.

Yours in friendship

Thomas Paine

PAINE WRITINGS LEGEND

Major Works
American Revolution
American Politics & Government
Essays
English Affairs
French Revolution
Other
Poetry
Religion
Letters
Recently Discovered
Works Removed

1772

To Oliver Goldsmith December 21, 1772

Case of the Excise Officers

1775

A Serious Thought

Liberty Tree

An Occasional Letter on the Female Sex

Farmer Short’s Dog Porter: A Tale

Reflections on Unhappy Marriages

Reflections on Titles

The Dream Interpreted

Duelling

Cupid and Hymen

African Slavery in America

To Honorable Benjamin Franklin Esqr. March 4th, 1775

Reflections on the Life and Death of Lord Clive

An Account of the Burning of Bachelors’ Hall

The Death of General Wolfe

Useful and Entertaining Hints

New Anecdotes of Alexander the Great

A Dialogue between General Wolfe and General Gage

The Magazine in America

The Snowdrop and the Critic

1776

The Crisis I

To Anonymous August 16, 1776

Dialogue between the Ghost of General Montgomery and an American Delegate

Four Letters on Interesting Subjects

A Fifth Forester Letter

The Forester’s Letters

Epistle to Quakers

Common Sense

1777

To Timothy Matlack Oct. 30, 1777

The Crisis IV

To William Bingham July 16, 1777

To Honorable Benjamin Franklin, LL.D. July 9th, 1777

To Richard Henry Lee July 1, 1777

To Honorable Benjamin Franklin LL.D. June 20th, 1777

Candid and Critical Remarks on a Letter Signed Ludlow

The Crisis III

To the People

Retreat across the Delaware

The Crisis II

1778

To Henry Laurens December 15, 1778

The Affair of Silas Deane

A Serious Address To The People Of Pennsylvania On The Present Situation Of Their Affairs

The Crisis VII

To Benjamin Franklin October 24, 1778

The Crisis VI

To his Excellency George Washington June 5th, 1778

To Henry Laurens Spring 1778

To the Honorable Benjamin Franklin, Esqr. May 16, 1778

To the Honorable Benjamin Franklin May 16, 1778

To Henry Laurens April 11, 1778

The Crisis V

1779

To the Printer of the Pennsylvania Packet

To the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania October 11, 1779

To the Supreme Executive Council of the State of Pennsylvania September 28th, 1779

To his Excellency Joseph Reed, Esq. Sept. 18th, 1779

To the Honorable Henry Laurens September 14, 1779

Peace and the Newfoundland Fisheries

To the Honorable Congress of the United States June 17, 1779

To the Continental Congress May 25, 1779

To Hon. John Jay May 20, 1779

To the Hon. John Jay April 23, 1779

To the Honorable Congress of the United States April 21, 1779

To the Honorable Congress of the United States April 3, 1779

To the Honorable Congress of the United States March 30, 1779

Response to *Observations on the American Revolution*

To Benjamin Franklin March 4, 1779

To his Excellency George Washington January 31, 1779

To Major-General Greene January 31, 1779

To the Honorable Henry Laurens January 17, 1779

To the Honorable Henry Laurens January 14, 1779

To the Congress of the United States January 8, 1779

To the Congress of the United States January 7, 1779

To the Honorable Congress of the United States January 6, 1779

To M. Gerard January 2, 1779

1780

Public Good

To the Honorable Members of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania November 3rd, 1780.

The Crisis Extraordinary

To Major-General Nathanael Greene September 9, 1780

The Crisis IX

To the Honorable Joseph Reed June 4, 1780

To Blair McClenaghan May, 1780

Emancipation of Slaves

The Crisis VIII

The American Philosophical Society

1781

To his Excellency George Washington November 30, 1781

To Honorable Robert Morris November 26, 1781

To Jonathan Williams, Merchant November 26, 1781

To Colonel [John] Laurens October 4, 1781

To the Honorable Robert Morris, Esqr. September 20, [1781]

To his Excellency Thomas McKean [August or September, 1781]

To Benjamin Franklin May 28, 1781

To James Hutchinson March 11th, 1781

To Major-General Nathanael Greene January 10, 1781

To Benjamin Franklin (May) 1781

1782

Six Letters to Rhode Island

To Robert Morris December 7, 1782

Letter to the Abbe Raynal

To Robert Morris November 20, 1782

The Crisis XII

Epitaph on General Charles Lee

To his Excellency George Washington September 7, 1782

To Robert Morris September 6, 1782

A Supernumerary Crisis

The Crisis XI

Response to an Accusation of Bribery

The Necessity of Taxation

To his Excellency George Washington March 17th, 1782

To Honorable Robert Morris March 17th, 1782

The Crisis X

To Honorable Robert Morris, Esq. March 1782

To Robert Morris February 20, 1782

To Honorable Robert Morris, Esq. January 24, 1782

1783

A Supernumerary Crisis II

To James Duane December 3, 1783

To Robert Morris October 14, 1783

To George Washington October 13, 1783

To his Excellency George Washington October 2, 1783

Hail Great Republic!

To a Committee of the Continental Congress October, 1783

To his Excellency George Washington September 21, 1783

The Address of the Citizens of Philadelphia

To his Excellency George Washington July 22, 1783

To W. Wallace Junior June 30th, 1783

To his Excellency Elias Boudinot June 20th, 1783

To Doctor Benjamin Rush June 13th, 1783

To his Excellency Elias Boudinot June 7th, 1783

The Crisis XIII

To Robert Morris January 23, 1783

1784

To Honorable General Irwin, Vice-President November 27th, 1784

To His Excellency George Washington April 28, 1784

To General Lewis Morris February 16th, 1784

1785

To His Excellency Benjamin Franklin December, 31 1785

To Mr. Claypoole (Pennsylvania Packet) December, 1785

To the Congress of the United States September 28, 1785

To the Congress of the United States September 27, 1785

To Honorable Benjamin Franklin, ESQ., September 23, 1785

To Temple Franklin Sept. 23, 1785

To a Committee of Congress September 1785

To the Continental Congress August 13, 1785

1786

To George Clymer, Esquire Nov 19th, 1786

To the Honarable Thomas Fitzsimmons November 19th, 1786

Attack On Paper Money Laws

To John Hall September 22, 1786

On the Affairs of The State

To Daniel Clymer, Esqr. September 1786

To His Excellency Benjamin Franklin, Esquire June 6th, 1786

To a Member of the Pennsylvania Council June, 1786

Dissertations on Government

To Mr Henry Claypoole (Pennsylvania Packet) January, 1786

1787

To George Clymer, Esquire December 29, 1787

To the Right Honorable the Marquis of Lansdowne Sept. 21, 1787

Prospects on the Rubicon

To George Clymer August 15, 1787

To The Royal Academy of Sciences July 21, 1787

To Benjamin Franklin June 22, 1787

To His Excellency Benjamin Franklin March 31, 1787

The Society for Political Inquiries

1788

Some Of The Letters Paine Wrote To Jefferson During 1788–1789 Concerning The Iron Bridge

To Thomas Jefferson December 16, 1788

To Thomas Jefferson September 15, 1788

To Thomas Jefferson September 9, 1788

To Thomas Jefferson September 7, 1788

Specification of Thomas Paine

To Thomas Jefferson May, 1788

To Thomas Jefferson February 19, 1788

1789

Some Of The Letters Paine Wrote To Jefferson During 1788–1789 Concerning The Iron Bridge

To George Washington, 16 October 1789

To Thomas Jefferson September 18, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson September 15, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson July 13, [1789]

To Thomas Jefferson June 18, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson June 17, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson May 1789

To Anonymous May 1, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson April 10, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson February 26th, 1789 & March 12, 1789

To Benjamin West March 8, 1789

To Thomas Walker, Esqr. February 26th, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson February, 16th, 1789

To Kitty Nicholson Few January 6, 1789

To Anonymous [1789]

To Thomas Jefferson [1789]

1790

To Thomas Jefferson September 28, 1790

To William Short June 28, 1790

To William Short June 23 and 25, 1790

To William Short June 22, 1790

To William Short June 4, 1790

To William Short June 1, 1790

To His Excellency George Washington May 31, 1790

To His Excellency George Washington May 1790

To Anonymous April 16, 1790

To Benjamin Rush March 16, 1790

1791

To John Hall November 25, 1791

Thoughts on the Establishment of a Mint in the United States

To William Short November 2, 1791

Address and Declaration

To His Excellency George Washington July 21, 1791

To Abbe Sieyes July 8, 1791

To Messiurs Condorcet, Bonneville, and Lanthenas 1 June, 1791.

Rights of Man Appendix

Rights of Man Part the First

1792

To Citizen Le Brun December 4, 1792

On the Propriety of Bringing Louis XVI to Trial

To the English Attorney General (Archibald MacDonald) November 11, 1792

To the French National Convention October 22, 1792

An Essay for the Use of New Republicans

To Benjamin Mosley October 1, 1792

Address to the People of France

Letter Addressed to the Addressers

To The Sheriff of the County of Sussex

Letters to Onslow Cranley

Letters on the Prosecution of Rights of Man

Answer to Four Questions

To the Chairman of the Society for Promoting Constitutional Knowledge (2)

To the English Attorney-General

To the Chairman of the Society for Promoting Constitutional Knowledge

To J.S. Jordan February 16, 1792

To George Washington February 13, 1792

To Thomas Jefferson February 13, 1792

Rights of Man Author’s Notes

Rights of Man Part the Second

1793

The Age of Reason — Part I

To Thomas Jefferson October 20, 1793

To Citizen Barrere September 5, 1793

Citizen of America to Citizens of Europe

To George Jacques Danton May 6, 1793

To Thomas Jefferson April 20, 1793

To Doctor James O’Fallon February the 17, 1793

Shall Louis XVI be Respited?

To John King January 3, 1793

Observations on the Situation of the Powers

Plan of a Declaration

To Citizen Barrere 1793

1794

The New Covenant

To James Monroe November 2, 1794

To James Monroe October 20, 1794

To James Monroe October 13, 1794

To James Monroe October 4, 1794

To James Monroe [October 1794]

To James Monroe September 14, 1794

To James Monroe August 25, 1794

To James Monroe August 18, 1794

To James Monroe August 16, 1794

To the French National Convention August 7, 1794

Forgetfulness

To Gouverneur Morris February 24, 1794

From the Castle in the Air

1795

To Daniel Isaacs Eaton December 4, 1795

To Gilbert Wakefield, A.B. November 19, 1795

The Age of Reason — Part II

To James Madison September 24, 1795

To Bache August 5, 1795

The Constitution of 1795

Observations on Jay’s Treaty

Dissertation on the First Principles of Government

To Samuel Adams March 6, 1795

To James Monroe [1795]

1796

To James Monroe August 15, 1796

To a French Minister August 13, 1796

Contentment

Letter to George Washington

The Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance

Letters on the Bank

Agrarian Justice

1797

To Citizen Barras December 29, 1797

The Eighteenth Fructidor

The Recall of Monroe

Prosecution of the Age of Reason

To M. Tallyrand [1797]

Worship and Church Bells

To Thomas Jefferson May 14, 1797

Age of Reason Letters

To James Madison April 27, 1797

To Thomas Jefferson April 1, 1797

To Anonymous March 4, 1797

To Colonel John Fellows January 20, 1797

To M. Tallyrand [September 1797]

1798

To Citizen President Spring 1798

To the Council of the Five Hundred January 28, 1798

1799

Notes On Thomas Muir, 1765-1799  

To General Brune November, 1799

Star in the East

1800

What is Love?

To Thomas Jefferson October 6, 1800

To Thomas Jefferson October 4, 1800

To Thomas Jefferson October 1, 1800 – No. 2

To Thomas Jefferson October 16, 1800

To Thomas Jefferson October 1, 1800 – No. 1

To Anonymous July 1800

To Citizen Skipwith Spring 1800

1801

To Thomas Jefferson November 4, 1801

On the Means of generating Motion for Mechanical Uses

To Thomas Jefferson June 25, 1801

To Thomas Jefferson June 9, 1801

The Existence of God

1802

To Thomas Jefferson Dec 25, 1802

To the Citizens of the United States

To Madame Bonneville November 15, 1802

To Thomas Jefferson November, 1802

To Consul Roth July 8, 1802

An Essay on Dream

To Thomas Jefferson March 17, 1802

To Elihu Palmer February 21, 1802, since the Fable of Christ

1803

To Elisha Babcock 1803-10-10

To Thomas Jefferson September 23, 1803

To James Madison August 6, 1803

To Thomas Jefferson August 2, 1803

To John C. Breckenridge Aug. 2, 1803

To Charles W. Peale July 29th, 1803

Lines, Extempore

To James Monroe July, 1803

The Construction of Iron Bridges

Of Caine And Abel

Of the Old and New Testament

To Thomas Clio Rickman March 8, 1803

Reply to the Bishop of Llandaff

From Mr. Paine to Mr. Jefferson

To Thomas Jefferson January 12, 1803

To Samuel Adams January 1, 1803

To the Editor of the National Intelligencer January 1, 1803

Examination of the Prophesies

My Private Thoughts on a Future State

1804

Connecticut has no Constitution

To the French Inhabitants of Louisiana

Of the Sabbath Day in Connecticut

To the Members of the Society

To Elisha Babcock 1804-08-27

Nonsense from New York

Remarks on Gouverneur Morris’s Funeral Oration on General Hamilton

To the people of Connecticut

To Col. John Fellows July 9, 1804

To Mr. Hyer March 24, 1804

To the People of England on the Invasion of England

To Citizen Skipwith March 1, 1804

Prospect Papers

1805

To Thomas Jefferson September 30, 1805

To the Citizens of Pennsylvania on the Proposal for Calling a Convention

To John Fellows July 31, 1805

Another Callender

To John Fellows July 9, 1805

Remarks on English Affairs

To Elisha Babcock July 2, 1805

On the Origin of Freemasonry

Constitutions, Governments, and Charters

To John Fellows April 22, 1805

To Thomas Jefferson April 20, 1805 – No. 2

To Thomas Jefferson April 20, 1805 – No. 1

To Mr. Hulbert of Sheffield March 12, 1805

To Thomas Jefferson January 25, 1805

To Thomas Jefferson January 1, 1805

1806

Thomas Paine On Yellow Fever 

Remarks on the Political and Military Affairs of Europe

Liberty of the Press

A Challenge to the Federalists

To Andrew Dean, August 15, 1806

The Cause of the Yellow Fever

To William Duane April 23, 1806

To Anonymous March 20, 1806

To John Inskeep February 10, 1806

To Thomas Jefferson January 30, 1806

1807

To James Monroe, December 30, 1807

Cheethem and his Tory Paper

On the Question Will There be War?

Of the Comparative Powers and Expense of Ships of War

To Joel Barlow May 4, 1807

To George Clinton May 4, 1807

To James Madison May 3, 1807

Three Letters to Morgan Lewis

Of Gunboats

Of the English Navy

1808

To Thomas Jefferson July 8, 1808

To the People of New York

To the Honorable Speaker of the House of Representatives, March 7, 1808

To the Honorable Speaker of the House of Representatives, February 28, 1808

To the Honorable Senate of the United States, January 21, 1808

1809

The Will of Thomas Paine

Predestination

The post Predestination appeared first on .

First page above. All pages and transcript below from the original letter at the Library of Congress

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NEW ROCHELLE,

Dear Sir

I have not seen nor heard anything respecting the subject I wrote to you upon and also to the vice-president after his arrival at Washington. His letter, however, is on a different subject, and which I introduce without meaning that the one should interfere with the other.

The affairs of Europe are now reaching a crisis that merits and demands the attention of the United States. If ever a law of Nations shall be established and the freedom and safety of the seas secured it must be in a Crisis like the present. In the course of this letter I intend to make you an offer on this subject, but I will first detail, as concisely as I can, my opinion of the present state of things and their probable event.

Bonaparte has done what required no gift of prophecy to foresee; that is, that he would attack the Austrians before the Russians arrived; and secondly, that if he defeated the Austrians the Russians would not fight.

At the time of beginning this letter we have news from Paris to the 20th Novr and from Bordeaux to the 26. Bonaparte was then on the point of entering Vienna. This I think will terminate the War on the Continent. The question in this case will be, What will Bonaparte do with respect to England? Will he make a general peace by a congress for the purpose that shall include England, or will he make a continental peace and leave England out?

My opinion is that he will do the latter and I hope he will. This is what he did in the last treaty of peace with Austria and what is best for him to do now. The matters he has to settle with England, in whatever way it may be done, whether by a descent or by harassing the english Government out by continual alarms and expence, are of a nature different to the affairs of the Continent and ought not to be blended with them. The one regards the Sea; the other the land. But I think England will try to make it a congressional affair and that Harronby is gone to the Continent to lie by for that purpose. It is the last use the english Government can make of the Coalition it has been at the expence of raising.

But the case with Bonaparte will be, that if he defeats the present Coalition which I have every moral certainty that he will, and dictate a peace to Austria, for he cares nothing about Russia, he will have it more in his power to act against England than he had before. Pitt is a poor short sighted politician — a man of expedients instead of system. It is easy to see that this Coalition was formed to ward off from England the meditated invasion, but then Pitt ought to have taken into the calculation what the event and consequences would be if it failed. It was a measure of great and certain expence with uncertain and shadowy prospects of advantage, and very perilous consequences if it miscarried. A General is a fool and a politician is the same, who fights a battle he might avoid, and where the disasters if he is beaten far outweighs the advantages if he succeeds. This inclines me sometimes to think that the plan, in forming this coalition, was not actual war, but that it was to hang on the rear of Bonaparte and to harass, alarm and frighten him into a peace that England should dictate. If this was the scheme Mack was a fit instrument of intrigue for the purpose, but if it was actual war he was the poorest creature they could chuse; and in either case, it shews that Pitt was not a Judge of the Character and Constitution of his enemy, for Bonaparte is not a man to be frightened or cajoled or deterred from the pursuance of his object by apprehension of danger and difficulties. I think he will be at Boulogne again in the Spring and put the english Government in a terrible fright. He will then have no enemy hanging on his rear.

I am not certain if you know that the plan for a descent upon England by gunboats was proposed by myself. I wrote the whole plan at Mr. Skipwith’s house in the Country and shewed it first to Mr. Monroe. Lathenas a friend of ours and member of the convention translated it into french and I sent it with the original in english to the directory who immediately set about building the boats. They then appointed Bonaparte commander in chief of the Army of England (l’armie d’angleterre) and by an agreement between him and me at his own house I was to accompany him. I know his opinion upon that expedition. He puts the whole upon landing. His expression to me was, “only let us land.” If he makes the descent I think he will give the command of it to his brother-in-law Murat and that he is training him up for the purpose. Nelson’s victory, as the english papers call it, will have no influence on the campaign nor on the descent. It never was intended to employ ships of the line on that expedition.

I have already spoken my opinion of what Bonaparte will do with respect to peace, that is, he will make a continental peace and leave England out, I have some lights to go by in forming this opinion.

As Bonaparte paid me the compliment of supposing that I knew more about England and the plans and politics of its government than people in france generally did, he sent a person to me when the last treaty of peace with Austria was to begin, with the following question, Whether in negotiating a treaty of peace with Austria it will be policy in france to enter into a treaty of peace with England? I gave him my answer fully and explicitly in the negative with the reasons upon which that decision was founded and I sent you a copy of that answer with several other papers, by the return of the vessel that brought Mr. Elsworth to france. I suppose Bonaparte had a mind to hear how I would answer the question, but had formed his own conclusion before he sent it. Be this however as it may I gave him several reasons which could not occur to him from the want of the local knowledge of England I possessed myself.

After the treaty of Peace with Austria was concluded, and the war with England still continuing I wrote and published my plan of an Unarmed Neutrality for the protection of Commerce. I had thrown out some general outlines of this plan in a publication of mine on the events of 18 Brumaire 1796 but in that which I published in 1801, of which I sent you a manuscript copy in English I reduced it to a regular System. My letters to you which accompanied the plan showed the progress it was making, which the assassination of Paul of Russia put a stop to. I had sent him two copies in french by the hands of a person who was going to Petersburgh and who desired to be the bearer of them.

Bonaparte has declared in several of his proclamations that his object, so far as respects foreign commerce, is the freedom and safety of the Seas, and as it is an object that suits with the greatness of his ambition, and with the temper of his genius which is cast for great exploits, and also with the interest of france, I believe him. This also is an object that merits the attention of the United States; but before I speak more particularly to this point I will state the situations Bonaparte will soon be in and out of which his future politics will grow.

In the first place; infering what he will do, from what he has done, he will make a continental peace and undertake England afterwards. In this case he will either dictate a peace on his own terms, or make a descent, and the conduct itself of the english Government demonstrates that it looks on a descent as a practicable thing.

If he make a descent and succeed he will hold the power of both Nations, by Sea and land in his own hands, and very probably will annihilate the present Government of England and form a new one, and put one of his brothers or his brother in law, Murat, at the head of it. This will put an end to naval wars, and consequently to the pretence of capturing Vessels of Commerce, and so far the world will be the better for it. The dynasty of the Guelphs have continued ninety two years which is somewhat longer than the Dynasty of the Stuarts continued.

If instead of a descent he makes a treaty of peace the question is, how is the freedom of the Seas to be made secure? The short answer is, that inability to do mischief is the best security against mischief.

In the second part of Rights of Man I spoke of france and England coming to an agreement to reduce the Navies of both Nations and to oblige all other Nations to do the same, and in the appendix to my letter to the Abbe Raynal 1782 (I have not the work by me) I have spoken of the folly of increasing Navies.

Every victory at Sea is a victory of loss. The Nation who loses the ships in an Action is eased of the expence of supporting them, and the Nation who takes them is additionly burthened with it. I observed that the annual Naval expences of England in her last war increased as her naval conquests increased. The last naval estimate for that year that I saw was upwards of fourteen millions sterling, which is equal to the amount of all the land-tax in England for seven years. The annual land-tax in England is two millions sterling stationary. Every county pays its annual quota of that sum.

This proposal for a mutual reduction of Navies was popular in England because I applied it as one of the principal means for reducing taxes. There ought to be no such Vessels as Ships of the line, and the number of frigates should be limited. It is because one Nation has ships of the line that another Nation has them; whereas if neither had them the balance would be even and the world’s high way, the Ocean, be less interrupted. This would be the best naval victory that Bonaparte could make and the world would be the better for it.

In the treaty of Peace between france and England in 1783 one of the Articles was that only six ships of the line should be kept in Commission by either Nation and Commissioners were appointed by each party to see the Article carried into execution. Why not go the whole length and say there shall be no ships of the line in existence, and that the number of frigates shall be limited. If a measure of this kind could be carried a law of nations could the more easily be established because the means of violating that law would be very much lessened. The rights of the seas ought to be under the guarantee of all Nations.

You will know by the month of April or May what the state of things are between france and England, for in the event either of a treaty of Peace if it includes the freedom of the Seas and the abolition of all assumed sovereignty over them or of a successful descent upon England, the United States cannot consistently remain a silent inactive spectator. They must do something to meet the new order of circumstances and to give them some claim to be heard on the subject of rights. I was pleased at the bill brought in by Mr. Wright respecting the impressments.

Congress have now before them a Memorial from the Merchants of New York. It seems to me to have been extorted from them by their losses rather than by their patriotism. However, as far as it goes it affords ground for Congress to act upon. There is nothing will make an impression on the government of England but a suspension of Commerce with that Country; a non-importation; and I am persuaded Congress would do right to pass an Act for this purpose empowering the executive to put it in execution when he shall judge proper, and to send information of it to the American Minister at London to be communicated to the english Government. It ought also to be sent to the American Minister at Paris. Bonaparte will then see we are taking measures that are in concert with his declarations, and it is always good policy to stand well with the conquerer if it can be done on a good principle.

If he makes a descent and succeed (and it is as probable he will be in London in six months as it was six months ago that he would be in Vienna, and that his brother George will have to run for it as his brother Francis has done) he will have it in his power to make his own law of nations, in doing which he ought to remember, I hope, at least he will not forget, that he owes the project of a descent to an American Citizen.

I have now given you a summary of some of the principal matters that have come to my knowledge while in france, and in which I have been an actor, and I have also stated to you my opinion of the consequences that will follow. I think you will find it proper, perhaps necessary, to send a person to france in the event either of a treaty of peace or of a descent, and I make you an offer of my services on that occasion to join Mr. Monroe. I do this because I do not think there is a person in the United States that can render so much service on the business that will come on as myself; and as I have had a considerable, I might say, a principle, share in bringing forward the great matters that now occupy the Theatre of Politics it will be agreeable to me to have some share in the conclusion of them; for though we cannot now make Countries free, it will be a great point gained to make the Seas free.

We have no news yet (Janry 27) of the entry of Bonaparte into Vienna. The latest news is that by the highland Mary of Norfolk. I think that when he enters Vienna he will make a handsome proclamation to the people of that City, and as it will be republished and read by the people of England he may make it serve the purpose of a proclamation to them. I expect he will curtail the Austrian Emperor’s dominions and disable him from breaking any more treaties, and then he will considerably enlarge his kingdom of Italy out of the territories he relinquished to Austria at the last peace.

If Bonaparte succeed in a descent (and all things are now possible) he will put an end to the english east-india company. In that case will he throw the trade open or will he make a monopoly of it for france and his new government of England? I think he will let Holland in for a share, but will he let the United States in is a matter worth thinking about, and also the west india trade. If reports of him are true he will not make peace with England without shutting her and Russia out of the Mediterranean. In the new order of things which the present war has provoked into existence many new circumstances will arise which by being foreseen may be guarded against or turned to advantage. – As I think that letters from a friend and to a friend have some claim to an answer it will be agreeable to me to receive an answer to this, but without any wish that you should commit yourself, neither can you be a judge of what is proper or necessary to be done till about the month of april or may. In the meantime you have my offer – please to present my respects to Governor Clinton.

Yours in friendship

Thomas Paine

New Rochelle N.Y. Janry 30 ’06

Thomas Jefferson

President of the United States

PAINE WRITINGS LEGEND

Major Works
American Revolution
American Politics & Government
Essays
English Affairs
French Revolution
Other
Poetry
Religion
Letters
Recently Discovered
Works Removed

1772

To Oliver Goldsmith December 21, 1772

Case of the Excise Officers

1775

A Serious Thought

Liberty Tree

An Occasional Letter on the Female Sex

Farmer Short’s Dog Porter: A Tale

Reflections on Unhappy Marriages

Reflections on Titles

The Dream Interpreted

Duelling

Cupid and Hymen

African Slavery in America

To Honorable Benjamin Franklin Esqr. March 4th, 1775

Reflections on the Life and Death of Lord Clive

An Account of the Burning of Bachelors’ Hall

The Death of General Wolfe

Useful and Entertaining Hints

New Anecdotes of Alexander the Great

A Dialogue between General Wolfe and General Gage

The Magazine in America

The Snowdrop and the Critic

1776

The Crisis I

To Anonymous August 16, 1776

Dialogue between the Ghost of General Montgomery and an American Delegate

Four Letters on Interesting Subjects

A Fifth Forester Letter

The Forester’s Letters

Epistle to Quakers

Common Sense

1777

To Timothy Matlack Oct. 30, 1777

The Crisis IV

To William Bingham July 16, 1777

To Honorable Benjamin Franklin, LL.D. July 9th, 1777

To Richard Henry Lee July 1, 1777

To Honorable Benjamin Franklin LL.D. June 20th, 1777

Candid and Critical Remarks on a Letter Signed Ludlow

The Crisis III

To the People

Retreat across the Delaware

The Crisis II

1778

To Henry Laurens December 15, 1778

The Affair of Silas Deane

A Serious Address To The People Of Pennsylvania On The Present Situation Of Their Affairs

The Crisis VII

To Benjamin Franklin October 24, 1778

The Crisis VI

To his Excellency George Washington June 5th, 1778

To Henry Laurens Spring 1778

To the Honorable Benjamin Franklin, Esqr. May 16, 1778

To the Honorable Benjamin Franklin May 16, 1778

To Henry Laurens April 11, 1778

The Crisis V

1779

To the Printer of the Pennsylvania Packet

To the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania October 11, 1779

To the Supreme Executive Council of the State of Pennsylvania September 28th, 1779

To his Excellency Joseph Reed, Esq. Sept. 18th, 1779

To the Honorable Henry Laurens September 14, 1779

Peace and the Newfoundland Fisheries

To the Honorable Congress of the United States June 17, 1779

To the Continental Congress May 25, 1779

To Hon. John Jay May 20, 1779

To the Hon. John Jay April 23, 1779

To the Honorable Congress of the United States April 21, 1779

To the Honorable Congress of the United States April 3, 1779

To the Honorable Congress of the United States March 30, 1779

Response to *Observations on the American Revolution*

To Benjamin Franklin March 4, 1779

To his Excellency George Washington January 31, 1779

To Major-General Greene January 31, 1779

To the Honorable Henry Laurens January 17, 1779

To the Honorable Henry Laurens January 14, 1779

To the Congress of the United States January 8, 1779

To the Congress of the United States January 7, 1779

To the Honorable Congress of the United States January 6, 1779

To M. Gerard January 2, 1779

1780

Public Good

To the Honorable Members of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania November 3rd, 1780.

The Crisis Extraordinary

To Major-General Nathanael Greene September 9, 1780

The Crisis IX

To the Honorable Joseph Reed June 4, 1780

To Blair McClenaghan May, 1780

Emancipation of Slaves

The Crisis VIII

The American Philosophical Society

1781

To his Excellency George Washington November 30, 1781

To Honorable Robert Morris November 26, 1781

To Jonathan Williams, Merchant November 26, 1781

To Colonel [John] Laurens October 4, 1781

To the Honorable Robert Morris, Esqr. September 20, [1781]

To his Excellency Thomas McKean [August or September, 1781]

To Benjamin Franklin May 28, 1781

To James Hutchinson March 11th, 1781

To Major-General Nathanael Greene January 10, 1781

To Benjamin Franklin (May) 1781

1782

Six Letters to Rhode Island

To Robert Morris December 7, 1782

Letter to the Abbe Raynal

To Robert Morris November 20, 1782

The Crisis XII

Epitaph on General Charles Lee

To his Excellency George Washington September 7, 1782

To Robert Morris September 6, 1782

A Supernumerary Crisis

The Crisis XI

Response to an Accusation of Bribery

The Necessity of Taxation

To his Excellency George Washington March 17th, 1782

To Honorable Robert Morris March 17th, 1782

The Crisis X

To Honorable Robert Morris, Esq. March 1782

To Robert Morris February 20, 1782

To Honorable Robert Morris, Esq. January 24, 1782

1783

A Supernumerary Crisis II

To James Duane December 3, 1783

To Robert Morris October 14, 1783

To George Washington October 13, 1783

To his Excellency George Washington October 2, 1783

Hail Great Republic!

To a Committee of the Continental Congress October, 1783

To his Excellency George Washington September 21, 1783

The Address of the Citizens of Philadelphia

To his Excellency George Washington July 22, 1783

To W. Wallace Junior June 30th, 1783

To his Excellency Elias Boudinot June 20th, 1783

To Doctor Benjamin Rush June 13th, 1783

To his Excellency Elias Boudinot June 7th, 1783

The Crisis XIII

To Robert Morris January 23, 1783

1784

To Honorable General Irwin, Vice-President November 27th, 1784

To His Excellency George Washington April 28, 1784

To General Lewis Morris February 16th, 1784

1785

To His Excellency Benjamin Franklin December, 31 1785

To Mr. Claypoole (Pennsylvania Packet) December, 1785

To the Congress of the United States September 28, 1785

To the Congress of the United States September 27, 1785

To Honorable Benjamin Franklin, ESQ., September 23, 1785

To Temple Franklin Sept. 23, 1785

To a Committee of Congress September 1785

To the Continental Congress August 13, 1785

1786

To George Clymer, Esquire Nov 19th, 1786

To the Honarable Thomas Fitzsimmons November 19th, 1786

Attack On Paper Money Laws

To John Hall September 22, 1786

On the Affairs of The State

To Daniel Clymer, Esqr. September 1786

To His Excellency Benjamin Franklin, Esquire June 6th, 1786

To a Member of the Pennsylvania Council June, 1786

Dissertations on Government

To Mr Henry Claypoole (Pennsylvania Packet) January, 1786

1787

To George Clymer, Esquire December 29, 1787

To the Right Honorable the Marquis of Lansdowne Sept. 21, 1787

Prospects on the Rubicon

To George Clymer August 15, 1787

To The Royal Academy of Sciences July 21, 1787

To Benjamin Franklin June 22, 1787

To His Excellency Benjamin Franklin March 31, 1787

The Society for Political Inquiries

1788

Some Of The Letters Paine Wrote To Jefferson During 1788–1789 Concerning The Iron Bridge

To Thomas Jefferson December 16, 1788

To Thomas Jefferson September 15, 1788

To Thomas Jefferson September 9, 1788

To Thomas Jefferson September 7, 1788

Specification of Thomas Paine

To Thomas Jefferson May, 1788

To Thomas Jefferson February 19, 1788

1789

Some Of The Letters Paine Wrote To Jefferson During 1788–1789 Concerning The Iron Bridge

To George Washington, 16 October 1789

To Thomas Jefferson September 18, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson September 15, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson July 13, [1789]

To Thomas Jefferson June 18, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson June 17, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson May 1789

To Anonymous May 1, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson April 10, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson February 26th, 1789 & March 12, 1789

To Benjamin West March 8, 1789

To Thomas Walker, Esqr. February 26th, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson February, 16th, 1789

To Kitty Nicholson Few January 6, 1789

To Anonymous [1789]

To Thomas Jefferson [1789]

1790

To Thomas Jefferson September 28, 1790

To William Short June 28, 1790

To William Short June 23 and 25, 1790

To William Short June 22, 1790

To William Short June 4, 1790

To William Short June 1, 1790

To His Excellency George Washington May 31, 1790

To His Excellency George Washington May 1790

To Anonymous April 16, 1790

To Benjamin Rush March 16, 1790

1791

To John Hall November 25, 1791

Thoughts on the Establishment of a Mint in the United States

To William Short November 2, 1791

Address and Declaration

To His Excellency George Washington July 21, 1791

To Abbe Sieyes July 8, 1791

To Messiurs Condorcet, Bonneville, and Lanthenas 1 June, 1791.

Rights of Man Appendix

Rights of Man Part the First

1792

To Citizen Le Brun December 4, 1792

On the Propriety of Bringing Louis XVI to Trial

To the English Attorney General (Archibald MacDonald) November 11, 1792

To the French National Convention October 22, 1792

An Essay for the Use of New Republicans

To Benjamin Mosley October 1, 1792

Address to the People of France

Letter Addressed to the Addressers

To The Sheriff of the County of Sussex

Letters to Onslow Cranley

Letters on the Prosecution of Rights of Man

Answer to Four Questions

To the Chairman of the Society for Promoting Constitutional Knowledge (2)

To the English Attorney-General

To the Chairman of the Society for Promoting Constitutional Knowledge

To J.S. Jordan February 16, 1792

To George Washington February 13, 1792

To Thomas Jefferson February 13, 1792

Rights of Man Author’s Notes

Rights of Man Part the Second

1793

The Age of Reason — Part I

To Thomas Jefferson October 20, 1793

To Citizen Barrere September 5, 1793

Citizen of America to Citizens of Europe

To George Jacques Danton May 6, 1793

To Thomas Jefferson April 20, 1793

To Doctor James O’Fallon February the 17, 1793

Shall Louis XVI be Respited?

To John King January 3, 1793

Observations on the Situation of the Powers

Plan of a Declaration

To Citizen Barrere 1793

1794

The New Covenant

To James Monroe November 2, 1794

To James Monroe October 20, 1794

To James Monroe October 13, 1794

To James Monroe October 4, 1794

To James Monroe [October 1794]

To James Monroe September 14, 1794

To James Monroe August 25, 1794

To James Monroe August 18, 1794

To James Monroe August 16, 1794

To the French National Convention August 7, 1794

Forgetfulness

To Gouverneur Morris February 24, 1794

From the Castle in the Air

1795

To Daniel Isaacs Eaton December 4, 1795

To Gilbert Wakefield, A.B. November 19, 1795

The Age of Reason — Part II

To James Madison September 24, 1795

To Bache August 5, 1795

The Constitution of 1795

Observations on Jay’s Treaty

Dissertation on the First Principles of Government

To Samuel Adams March 6, 1795

To James Monroe [1795]

1796

To James Monroe August 15, 1796

To a French Minister August 13, 1796

Contentment

Letter to George Washington

The Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance

Letters on the Bank

Agrarian Justice

1797

To Citizen Barras December 29, 1797

The Eighteenth Fructidor

The Recall of Monroe

Prosecution of the Age of Reason

To M. Tallyrand [1797]

Worship and Church Bells

To Thomas Jefferson May 14, 1797

Age of Reason Letters

To James Madison April 27, 1797

To Thomas Jefferson April 1, 1797

To Anonymous March 4, 1797

To Colonel John Fellows January 20, 1797

To M. Tallyrand [September 1797]

1798

To Citizen President Spring 1798

To the Council of the Five Hundred January 28, 1798

1799

Notes On Thomas Muir, 1765-1799  

To General Brune November, 1799

Star in the East

1800

What is Love?

To Thomas Jefferson October 6, 1800

To Thomas Jefferson October 4, 1800

To Thomas Jefferson October 1, 1800 – No. 2

To Thomas Jefferson October 16, 1800

To Thomas Jefferson October 1, 1800 – No. 1

To Anonymous July 1800

To Citizen Skipwith Spring 1800

1801

To Thomas Jefferson November 4, 1801

On the Means of generating Motion for Mechanical Uses

To Thomas Jefferson June 25, 1801

To Thomas Jefferson June 9, 1801

The Existence of God

1802

To Thomas Jefferson Dec 25, 1802

To the Citizens of the United States

To Madame Bonneville November 15, 1802

To Thomas Jefferson November, 1802

To Consul Roth July 8, 1802

An Essay on Dream

To Thomas Jefferson March 17, 1802

To Elihu Palmer February 21, 1802, since the Fable of Christ

1803

To Elisha Babcock 1803-10-10

To Thomas Jefferson September 23, 1803

To James Madison August 6, 1803

To Thomas Jefferson August 2, 1803

To John C. Breckenridge Aug. 2, 1803

To Charles W. Peale July 29th, 1803

Lines, Extempore

To James Monroe July, 1803

The Construction of Iron Bridges

Of Caine And Abel

Of the Old and New Testament

To Thomas Clio Rickman March 8, 1803

Reply to the Bishop of Llandaff

From Mr. Paine to Mr. Jefferson

To Thomas Jefferson January 12, 1803

To Samuel Adams January 1, 1803

To the Editor of the National Intelligencer January 1, 1803

Examination of the Prophesies

My Private Thoughts on a Future State

1804

Connecticut has no Constitution

To the French Inhabitants of Louisiana

Of the Sabbath Day in Connecticut

To the Members of the Society

To Elisha Babcock 1804-08-27

Nonsense from New York

Remarks on Gouverneur Morris’s Funeral Oration on General Hamilton

To the people of Connecticut

To Col. John Fellows July 9, 1804

To Mr. Hyer March 24, 1804

To the People of England on the Invasion of England

To Citizen Skipwith March 1, 1804

Prospect Papers

1805

To Thomas Jefferson September 30, 1805

To the Citizens of Pennsylvania on the Proposal for Calling a Convention

To John Fellows July 31, 1805

Another Callender

To John Fellows July 9, 1805

Remarks on English Affairs

To Elisha Babcock July 2, 1805

On the Origin of Freemasonry

Constitutions, Governments, and Charters

To John Fellows April 22, 1805

To Thomas Jefferson April 20, 1805 – No. 2

To Thomas Jefferson April 20, 1805 – No. 1

To Mr. Hulbert of Sheffield March 12, 1805

To Thomas Jefferson January 25, 1805

To Thomas Jefferson January 1, 1805

1806

Thomas Paine On Yellow Fever 

Remarks on the Political and Military Affairs of Europe

Liberty of the Press

A Challenge to the Federalists

To Andrew Dean, August 15, 1806

The Cause of the Yellow Fever

To William Duane April 23, 1806

To Anonymous March 20, 1806

To John Inskeep February 10, 1806

To Thomas Jefferson January 30, 1806

1807

To James Monroe, December 30, 1807

Cheethem and his Tory Paper

On the Question Will There be War?

Of the Comparative Powers and Expense of Ships of War

To Joel Barlow May 4, 1807

To George Clinton May 4, 1807

To James Madison May 3, 1807

Three Letters to Morgan Lewis

Of Gunboats

Of the English Navy

1808

To Thomas Jefferson July 8, 1808

To the People of New York

To the Honorable Speaker of the House of Representatives, March 7, 1808

To the Honorable Speaker of the House of Representatives, February 28, 1808

To the Honorable Senate of the United States, January 21, 1808

1809

The Will of Thomas Paine

Predestination

The post Predestination appeared first on .

Image above and transcript below from the original letter at the Library of Congress

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New Rochelle (N.Y) Sep 30 ’05

Dear Sir

I write you this letter entirely on my own account, and I begin it without ceremony.

In the year 84 or 5 a motion was made in the legislature of Virginia for making an acknowledgement to me for voluntary services during the revolution. The bill, as I am informed, for that purpose, passed two readings and was lost on the third reading by three votes. The acknowledgement proposed to be given was a tract of land, called, as I have been told, the secretary’s tract, which I suppose is since disposed of, but I wish the matter to be brought over again and I think it ought to be.

After the State of Rhode Island had refused complying with the five per cent duty recommended by Congress and the State of Virginia had repealed the Act she had passed to grant it, I saw no possibility of going on otherwise than by authorizing Congress to make laws for the Union in all cases that were to extend equally over all the states, and I wrote to Chancellor Livingston, minister for foreign affairs, and Robert Morris minister of finance in the winter of 81-2 on the subject. The proposal in the letter, was, to add a continental legislature to Congress. The Idea took with them at once. But as this would be called encreasing the power of Congress, and as I intended taking up the subject when I should see the Country wrong enough to be put right, it was best, on that account, to leave it to the States individually to make me what acknowledgement they pleased, and it was on this ground that the state of New York made me a present of a farm worth at that time about a thousand pound (York currency) and the state of Pennsylvania voted me five hundred pounds, but the state of Virginia having negatived the grant she had proposed to make me, on the recommendation of Genl Washington, the matter went no further with any of the States.

I suggest another Idea, which is, that as only two of the states have made me any acknowledgement, that Congress take up the subject for the whole (I suppose the two States who have made me an acknowledgement will not object to this) and grant me a tract of land that I can make something of. Had it not been for the economy and extreme frugality with which I have lived I should at this time of life be in an unpleasant situation. But I wish you to be assured that whatever event this proposal may take it will make no alteration in my principles or my conduct. I have been a volunteer to the world for thirty years without taking profits from anything I have published in America or in Europe. I have relinquished all profits that those publications might come cheap among the people for whom they were intended.

Yours in friendship

Thomas Paine

P. S. If any further explanation be wanted I will communicate it

PAINE WRITINGS LEGEND

Major Works
American Revolution
American Politics & Government
Essays
English Affairs
French Revolution
Other
Poetry
Religion
Letters
Recently Discovered
Works Removed

1772

To Oliver Goldsmith December 21, 1772

Case of the Excise Officers

1775

A Serious Thought

Liberty Tree

An Occasional Letter on the Female Sex

Farmer Short’s Dog Porter: A Tale

Reflections on Unhappy Marriages

Reflections on Titles

The Dream Interpreted

Duelling

Cupid and Hymen

African Slavery in America

To Honorable Benjamin Franklin Esqr. March 4th, 1775

Reflections on the Life and Death of Lord Clive

An Account of the Burning of Bachelors’ Hall

The Death of General Wolfe

Useful and Entertaining Hints

New Anecdotes of Alexander the Great

A Dialogue between General Wolfe and General Gage

The Magazine in America

The Snowdrop and the Critic

1776

The Crisis I

To Anonymous August 16, 1776

Dialogue between the Ghost of General Montgomery and an American Delegate

Four Letters on Interesting Subjects

A Fifth Forester Letter

The Forester’s Letters

Epistle to Quakers

Common Sense

1777

To Timothy Matlack Oct. 30, 1777

The Crisis IV

To William Bingham July 16, 1777

To Honorable Benjamin Franklin, LL.D. July 9th, 1777

To Richard Henry Lee July 1, 1777

To Honorable Benjamin Franklin LL.D. June 20th, 1777

Candid and Critical Remarks on a Letter Signed Ludlow

The Crisis III

To the People

Retreat across the Delaware

The Crisis II

1778

To Henry Laurens December 15, 1778

The Affair of Silas Deane

A Serious Address To The People Of Pennsylvania On The Present Situation Of Their Affairs

The Crisis VII

To Benjamin Franklin October 24, 1778

The Crisis VI

To his Excellency George Washington June 5th, 1778

To Henry Laurens Spring 1778

To the Honorable Benjamin Franklin, Esqr. May 16, 1778

To the Honorable Benjamin Franklin May 16, 1778

To Henry Laurens April 11, 1778

The Crisis V

1779

To the Printer of the Pennsylvania Packet

To the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania October 11, 1779

To the Supreme Executive Council of the State of Pennsylvania September 28th, 1779

To his Excellency Joseph Reed, Esq. Sept. 18th, 1779

To the Honorable Henry Laurens September 14, 1779

Peace and the Newfoundland Fisheries

To the Honorable Congress of the United States June 17, 1779

To the Continental Congress May 25, 1779

To Hon. John Jay May 20, 1779

To the Hon. John Jay April 23, 1779

To the Honorable Congress of the United States April 21, 1779

To the Honorable Congress of the United States April 3, 1779

To the Honorable Congress of the United States March 30, 1779

Response to *Observations on the American Revolution*

To Benjamin Franklin March 4, 1779

To his Excellency George Washington January 31, 1779

To Major-General Greene January 31, 1779

To the Honorable Henry Laurens January 17, 1779

To the Honorable Henry Laurens January 14, 1779

To the Congress of the United States January 8, 1779

To the Congress of the United States January 7, 1779

To the Honorable Congress of the United States January 6, 1779

To M. Gerard January 2, 1779

1780

Public Good

To the Honorable Members of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania November 3rd, 1780.

The Crisis Extraordinary

To Major-General Nathanael Greene September 9, 1780

The Crisis IX

To the Honorable Joseph Reed June 4, 1780

To Blair McClenaghan May, 1780

Emancipation of Slaves

The Crisis VIII

The American Philosophical Society

1781

To his Excellency George Washington November 30, 1781

To Honorable Robert Morris November 26, 1781

To Jonathan Williams, Merchant November 26, 1781

To Colonel [John] Laurens October 4, 1781

To the Honorable Robert Morris, Esqr. September 20, [1781]

To his Excellency Thomas McKean [August or September, 1781]

To Benjamin Franklin May 28, 1781

To James Hutchinson March 11th, 1781

To Major-General Nathanael Greene January 10, 1781

To Benjamin Franklin (May) 1781

1782

Six Letters to Rhode Island

To Robert Morris December 7, 1782

Letter to the Abbe Raynal

To Robert Morris November 20, 1782

The Crisis XII

Epitaph on General Charles Lee

To his Excellency George Washington September 7, 1782

To Robert Morris September 6, 1782

A Supernumerary Crisis

The Crisis XI

Response to an Accusation of Bribery

The Necessity of Taxation

To his Excellency George Washington March 17th, 1782

To Honorable Robert Morris March 17th, 1782

The Crisis X

To Honorable Robert Morris, Esq. March 1782

To Robert Morris February 20, 1782

To Honorable Robert Morris, Esq. January 24, 1782

1783

A Supernumerary Crisis II

To James Duane December 3, 1783

To Robert Morris October 14, 1783

To George Washington October 13, 1783

To his Excellency George Washington October 2, 1783

Hail Great Republic!

To a Committee of the Continental Congress October, 1783

To his Excellency George Washington September 21, 1783

The Address of the Citizens of Philadelphia

To his Excellency George Washington July 22, 1783

To W. Wallace Junior June 30th, 1783

To his Excellency Elias Boudinot June 20th, 1783

To Doctor Benjamin Rush June 13th, 1783

To his Excellency Elias Boudinot June 7th, 1783

The Crisis XIII

To Robert Morris January 23, 1783

1784

To Honorable General Irwin, Vice-President November 27th, 1784

To His Excellency George Washington April 28, 1784

To General Lewis Morris February 16th, 1784

1785

To His Excellency Benjamin Franklin December, 31 1785

To Mr. Claypoole (Pennsylvania Packet) December, 1785

To the Congress of the United States September 28, 1785

To the Congress of the United States September 27, 1785

To Honorable Benjamin Franklin, ESQ., September 23, 1785

To Temple Franklin Sept. 23, 1785

To a Committee of Congress September 1785

To the Continental Congress August 13, 1785

1786

To George Clymer, Esquire Nov 19th, 1786

To the Honarable Thomas Fitzsimmons November 19th, 1786

Attack On Paper Money Laws

To John Hall September 22, 1786

On the Affairs of The State

To Daniel Clymer, Esqr. September 1786

To His Excellency Benjamin Franklin, Esquire June 6th, 1786

To a Member of the Pennsylvania Council June, 1786

Dissertations on Government

To Mr Henry Claypoole (Pennsylvania Packet) January, 1786

1787

To George Clymer, Esquire December 29, 1787

To the Right Honorable the Marquis of Lansdowne Sept. 21, 1787

Prospects on the Rubicon

To George Clymer August 15, 1787

To The Royal Academy of Sciences July 21, 1787

To Benjamin Franklin June 22, 1787

To His Excellency Benjamin Franklin March 31, 1787

The Society for Political Inquiries

1788

Some Of The Letters Paine Wrote To Jefferson During 1788–1789 Concerning The Iron Bridge

To Thomas Jefferson December 16, 1788

To Thomas Jefferson September 15, 1788

To Thomas Jefferson September 9, 1788

To Thomas Jefferson September 7, 1788

Specification of Thomas Paine

To Thomas Jefferson May, 1788

To Thomas Jefferson February 19, 1788

1789

Some Of The Letters Paine Wrote To Jefferson During 1788–1789 Concerning The Iron Bridge

To George Washington, 16 October 1789

To Thomas Jefferson September 18, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson September 15, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson July 13, [1789]

To Thomas Jefferson June 18, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson June 17, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson May 1789

To Anonymous May 1, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson April 10, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson February 26th, 1789 & March 12, 1789

To Benjamin West March 8, 1789

To Thomas Walker, Esqr. February 26th, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson February, 16th, 1789

To Kitty Nicholson Few January 6, 1789

To Anonymous [1789]

To Thomas Jefferson [1789]

1790

To Thomas Jefferson September 28, 1790

To William Short June 28, 1790

To William Short June 23 and 25, 1790

To William Short June 22, 1790

To William Short June 4, 1790

To William Short June 1, 1790

To His Excellency George Washington May 31, 1790

To His Excellency George Washington May 1790

To Anonymous April 16, 1790

To Benjamin Rush March 16, 1790

1791

To John Hall November 25, 1791

Thoughts on the Establishment of a Mint in the United States

To William Short November 2, 1791

Address and Declaration

To His Excellency George Washington July 21, 1791

To Abbe Sieyes July 8, 1791

To Messiurs Condorcet, Bonneville, and Lanthenas 1 June, 1791.

Rights of Man Appendix

Rights of Man Part the First

1792

To Citizen Le Brun December 4, 1792

On the Propriety of Bringing Louis XVI to Trial

To the English Attorney General (Archibald MacDonald) November 11, 1792

To the French National Convention October 22, 1792

An Essay for the Use of New Republicans

To Benjamin Mosley October 1, 1792

Address to the People of France

Letter Addressed to the Addressers

To The Sheriff of the County of Sussex

Letters to Onslow Cranley

Letters on the Prosecution of Rights of Man

Answer to Four Questions

To the Chairman of the Society for Promoting Constitutional Knowledge (2)

To the English Attorney-General

To the Chairman of the Society for Promoting Constitutional Knowledge

To J.S. Jordan February 16, 1792

To George Washington February 13, 1792

To Thomas Jefferson February 13, 1792

Rights of Man Author’s Notes

Rights of Man Part the Second

1793

The Age of Reason — Part I

To Thomas Jefferson October 20, 1793

To Citizen Barrere September 5, 1793

Citizen of America to Citizens of Europe

To George Jacques Danton May 6, 1793

To Thomas Jefferson April 20, 1793

To Doctor James O’Fallon February the 17, 1793

Shall Louis XVI be Respited?

To John King January 3, 1793

Observations on the Situation of the Powers

Plan of a Declaration

To Citizen Barrere 1793

1794

The New Covenant

To James Monroe November 2, 1794

To James Monroe October 20, 1794

To James Monroe October 13, 1794

To James Monroe October 4, 1794

To James Monroe [October 1794]

To James Monroe September 14, 1794

To James Monroe August 25, 1794

To James Monroe August 18, 1794

To James Monroe August 16, 1794

To the French National Convention August 7, 1794

Forgetfulness

To Gouverneur Morris February 24, 1794

From the Castle in the Air

1795

To Daniel Isaacs Eaton December 4, 1795

To Gilbert Wakefield, A.B. November 19, 1795

The Age of Reason — Part II

To James Madison September 24, 1795

To Bache August 5, 1795

The Constitution of 1795

Observations on Jay’s Treaty

Dissertation on the First Principles of Government

To Samuel Adams March 6, 1795

To James Monroe [1795]

1796

To James Monroe August 15, 1796

To a French Minister August 13, 1796

Contentment

Letter to George Washington

The Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance

Letters on the Bank

Agrarian Justice

1797

To Citizen Barras December 29, 1797

The Eighteenth Fructidor

The Recall of Monroe

Prosecution of the Age of Reason

To M. Tallyrand [1797]

Worship and Church Bells

To Thomas Jefferson May 14, 1797

Age of Reason Letters

To James Madison April 27, 1797

To Thomas Jefferson April 1, 1797

To Anonymous March 4, 1797

To Colonel John Fellows January 20, 1797

To M. Tallyrand [September 1797]

1798

To Citizen President Spring 1798

To the Council of the Five Hundred January 28, 1798

1799

Notes On Thomas Muir, 1765-1799  

To General Brune November, 1799

Star in the East

1800

What is Love?

To Thomas Jefferson October 6, 1800

To Thomas Jefferson October 4, 1800

To Thomas Jefferson October 1, 1800 – No. 2

To Thomas Jefferson October 16, 1800

To Thomas Jefferson October 1, 1800 – No. 1

To Anonymous July 1800

To Citizen Skipwith Spring 1800

1801

To Thomas Jefferson November 4, 1801

On the Means of generating Motion for Mechanical Uses

To Thomas Jefferson June 25, 1801

To Thomas Jefferson June 9, 1801

The Existence of God

1802

To Thomas Jefferson Dec 25, 1802

To the Citizens of the United States

To Madame Bonneville November 15, 1802

To Thomas Jefferson November, 1802

To Consul Roth July 8, 1802

An Essay on Dream

To Thomas Jefferson March 17, 1802

To Elihu Palmer February 21, 1802, since the Fable of Christ

1803

To Elisha Babcock 1803-10-10

To Thomas Jefferson September 23, 1803

To James Madison August 6, 1803

To Thomas Jefferson August 2, 1803

To John C. Breckenridge Aug. 2, 1803

To Charles W. Peale July 29th, 1803

Lines, Extempore

To James Monroe July, 1803

The Construction of Iron Bridges

Of Caine And Abel

Of the Old and New Testament

To Thomas Clio Rickman March 8, 1803

Reply to the Bishop of Llandaff

From Mr. Paine to Mr. Jefferson

To Thomas Jefferson January 12, 1803

To Samuel Adams January 1, 1803

To the Editor of the National Intelligencer January 1, 1803

Examination of the Prophesies

My Private Thoughts on a Future State

1804

Connecticut has no Constitution

To the French Inhabitants of Louisiana

Of the Sabbath Day in Connecticut

To the Members of the Society

To Elisha Babcock 1804-08-27

Nonsense from New York

Remarks on Gouverneur Morris’s Funeral Oration on General Hamilton

To the people of Connecticut

To Col. John Fellows July 9, 1804

To Mr. Hyer March 24, 1804

To the People of England on the Invasion of England

To Citizen Skipwith March 1, 1804

Prospect Papers

1805

To Thomas Jefferson September 30, 1805

To the Citizens of Pennsylvania on the Proposal for Calling a Convention

To John Fellows July 31, 1805

Another Callender

To John Fellows July 9, 1805

Remarks on English Affairs

To Elisha Babcock July 2, 1805

On the Origin of Freemasonry

Constitutions, Governments, and Charters

To John Fellows April 22, 1805

To Thomas Jefferson April 20, 1805 – No. 2

To Thomas Jefferson April 20, 1805 – No. 1

To Mr. Hulbert of Sheffield March 12, 1805

To Thomas Jefferson January 25, 1805

To Thomas Jefferson January 1, 1805

1806

Thomas Paine On Yellow Fever 

Remarks on the Political and Military Affairs of Europe

Liberty of the Press

A Challenge to the Federalists

To Andrew Dean, August 15, 1806

The Cause of the Yellow Fever

To William Duane April 23, 1806

To Anonymous March 20, 1806

To John Inskeep February 10, 1806

To Thomas Jefferson January 30, 1806

1807

To James Monroe, December 30, 1807

Cheethem and his Tory Paper

On the Question Will There be War?

Of the Comparative Powers and Expense of Ships of War

To Joel Barlow May 4, 1807

To George Clinton May 4, 1807

To James Madison May 3, 1807

Three Letters to Morgan Lewis

Of Gunboats

Of the English Navy

1808

To Thomas Jefferson July 8, 1808

To the People of New York

To the Honorable Speaker of the House of Representatives, March 7, 1808

To the Honorable Speaker of the House of Representatives, February 28, 1808

To the Honorable Senate of the United States, January 21, 1808

1809

The Will of Thomas Paine

Predestination

The post Predestination appeared first on .

Images above and transcript below from the original letter at the Library of Congress

---

New Rochelle (N.Y.) April 20 1805

Dear Sir

I wrote you on 1st Janry from N Rochelle mentioning my intention of spending part of the Winter at Washington; but the severity of the Winter and the bad condition of the roads and rivers prevented me and I stayed at N. York. I wrote you from that place a second letter of more than nine pages on a variety of subjects accompanied with a Hamburgh Gazette and a letter from a revolutionary sergeant at Kentucky. On the 10th February which I judge was about a fortnight after my second letter was sent. I recd a letter from you of the fifteenth Janry acknowledging the receipt of my first letter of Jany 1st but of the second letter enclosing the Hamburgh Gazette and also proposals from a Hamburgh merchant to bring German redemptioners to New Orleans I have heard nothing. I did not put the letter into the post office myself but I sent it by a friend who assures me he delivered it.

The enclosed half sheet marked No. 1 is part of a letter which I began the latter part of last summer but as I then intended to make further experiments I suspended finishing it, for I do not permit the whole of my mind, nor ever did, to be engaged or absorbed by one object only. When I was in france and in England since the year 1787, I carried on my political productions, religious publications, and mechanical operations all at the same time, without permitting one to disturb or interfere with the other.

The piece No. 2 is part of a third letter which I began after the receipt of yours of Janry 15th. This confusion and interference of dates arise from the uncertainty I am in with respect to the fate of my second letter.

I intend continuing my letters addressed To the Citizens of the United States. The last, No. 7, published the summer before the last was chiefly on the Affairs of New Orleans. I distinguish those letters from others of a less public Character, as the remarks on Gouverneur Morris’s funeral Oration on Hamilton. That on the Ana Memorial, & the piece to Hulbert.

The reflections which Hulbert threw out with respect to your letter to Mr. Dawson arose from some half equivocal qualifying paragraphs which appeared I believe in the National Intelligencer before my arrival. Dr. Eustis wrote me from Washington more than two years ago. “Those paragraphs and which are supposed to be under Mr. Jefferson’s direction, have embarrassed Mr. Jefferson’s friends in Massachusetts. They appeared like a half denial of the letter or as if there was something in it not proper to be owned, or that needed an apology.” — I was most offended by one which I saw while in Paris and which determined me not to come by a national ship. It was copied from the National Intelligencer, a Baltimore federal paper and introduced into that paper with the words in capitals “Out at Last.” It owned the receipt of a letter from me in which I pressed a wish to return by a national ship and the paragraph concluded thus – “permission was given,” as if the giving it was an Act of Charity, or of great diversion at least had the appearance of apologizing. Hulbert introduced the subject of the letter by way of convicting you of something you had appeared to disown, or given cause to your friends to disown. I have given Hulbert the (illegible) he deserved, and you the credit the letter merits, but had no equivocation been made about the letter Hulbert could not have made the use of it he did.

Yours in friendship

Thomas Paine

Thomas Jefferson

President of the United States

PAINE WRITINGS LEGEND

Major Works
American Revolution
American Politics & Government
Essays
English Affairs
French Revolution
Other
Poetry
Religion
Letters
Recently Discovered
Works Removed

1772

To Oliver Goldsmith December 21, 1772

Case of the Excise Officers

1775

A Serious Thought

Liberty Tree

An Occasional Letter on the Female Sex

Farmer Short’s Dog Porter: A Tale

Reflections on Unhappy Marriages

Reflections on Titles

The Dream Interpreted

Duelling

Cupid and Hymen

African Slavery in America

To Honorable Benjamin Franklin Esqr. March 4th, 1775

Reflections on the Life and Death of Lord Clive

An Account of the Burning of Bachelors’ Hall

The Death of General Wolfe

Useful and Entertaining Hints

New Anecdotes of Alexander the Great

A Dialogue between General Wolfe and General Gage

The Magazine in America

The Snowdrop and the Critic

1776

The Crisis I

To Anonymous August 16, 1776

Dialogue between the Ghost of General Montgomery and an American Delegate

Four Letters on Interesting Subjects

A Fifth Forester Letter

The Forester’s Letters

Epistle to Quakers

Common Sense

1777

To Timothy Matlack Oct. 30, 1777

The Crisis IV

To William Bingham July 16, 1777

To Honorable Benjamin Franklin, LL.D. July 9th, 1777

To Richard Henry Lee July 1, 1777

To Honorable Benjamin Franklin LL.D. June 20th, 1777

Candid and Critical Remarks on a Letter Signed Ludlow

The Crisis III

To the People

Retreat across the Delaware

The Crisis II

1778

To Henry Laurens December 15, 1778

The Affair of Silas Deane

A Serious Address To The People Of Pennsylvania On The Present Situation Of Their Affairs

The Crisis VII

To Benjamin Franklin October 24, 1778

The Crisis VI

To his Excellency George Washington June 5th, 1778

To Henry Laurens Spring 1778

To the Honorable Benjamin Franklin, Esqr. May 16, 1778

To the Honorable Benjamin Franklin May 16, 1778

To Henry Laurens April 11, 1778

The Crisis V

1779

To the Printer of the Pennsylvania Packet

To the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania October 11, 1779

To the Supreme Executive Council of the State of Pennsylvania September 28th, 1779

To his Excellency Joseph Reed, Esq. Sept. 18th, 1779

To the Honorable Henry Laurens September 14, 1779

Peace and the Newfoundland Fisheries

To the Honorable Congress of the United States June 17, 1779

To the Continental Congress May 25, 1779

To Hon. John Jay May 20, 1779

To the Hon. John Jay April 23, 1779

To the Honorable Congress of the United States April 21, 1779

To the Honorable Congress of the United States April 3, 1779

To the Honorable Congress of the United States March 30, 1779

Response to *Observations on the American Revolution*

To Benjamin Franklin March 4, 1779

To his Excellency George Washington January 31, 1779

To Major-General Greene January 31, 1779

To the Honorable Henry Laurens January 17, 1779

To the Honorable Henry Laurens January 14, 1779

To the Congress of the United States January 8, 1779

To the Congress of the United States January 7, 1779

To the Honorable Congress of the United States January 6, 1779

To M. Gerard January 2, 1779

1780

Public Good

To the Honorable Members of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania November 3rd, 1780.

The Crisis Extraordinary

To Major-General Nathanael Greene September 9, 1780

The Crisis IX

To the Honorable Joseph Reed June 4, 1780

To Blair McClenaghan May, 1780

Emancipation of Slaves

The Crisis VIII

The American Philosophical Society

1781

To his Excellency George Washington November 30, 1781

To Honorable Robert Morris November 26, 1781

To Jonathan Williams, Merchant November 26, 1781

To Colonel [John] Laurens October 4, 1781

To the Honorable Robert Morris, Esqr. September 20, [1781]

To his Excellency Thomas McKean [August or September, 1781]

To Benjamin Franklin May 28, 1781

To James Hutchinson March 11th, 1781

To Major-General Nathanael Greene January 10, 1781

To Benjamin Franklin (May) 1781

1782

Six Letters to Rhode Island

To Robert Morris December 7, 1782

Letter to the Abbe Raynal

To Robert Morris November 20, 1782

The Crisis XII

Epitaph on General Charles Lee

To his Excellency George Washington September 7, 1782

To Robert Morris September 6, 1782

A Supernumerary Crisis

The Crisis XI

Response to an Accusation of Bribery

The Necessity of Taxation

To his Excellency George Washington March 17th, 1782

To Honorable Robert Morris March 17th, 1782

The Crisis X

To Honorable Robert Morris, Esq. March 1782

To Robert Morris February 20, 1782

To Honorable Robert Morris, Esq. January 24, 1782

1783

A Supernumerary Crisis II

To James Duane December 3, 1783

To Robert Morris October 14, 1783

To George Washington October 13, 1783

To his Excellency George Washington October 2, 1783

Hail Great Republic!

To a Committee of the Continental Congress October, 1783

To his Excellency George Washington September 21, 1783

The Address of the Citizens of Philadelphia

To his Excellency George Washington July 22, 1783

To W. Wallace Junior June 30th, 1783

To his Excellency Elias Boudinot June 20th, 1783

To Doctor Benjamin Rush June 13th, 1783

To his Excellency Elias Boudinot June 7th, 1783

The Crisis XIII

To Robert Morris January 23, 1783

1784

To Honorable General Irwin, Vice-President November 27th, 1784

To His Excellency George Washington April 28, 1784

To General Lewis Morris February 16th, 1784

1785

To His Excellency Benjamin Franklin December, 31 1785

To Mr. Claypoole (Pennsylvania Packet) December, 1785

To the Congress of the United States September 28, 1785

To the Congress of the United States September 27, 1785

To Honorable Benjamin Franklin, ESQ., September 23, 1785

To Temple Franklin Sept. 23, 1785

To a Committee of Congress September 1785

To the Continental Congress August 13, 1785

1786

To George Clymer, Esquire Nov 19th, 1786

To the Honarable Thomas Fitzsimmons November 19th, 1786

Attack On Paper Money Laws

To John Hall September 22, 1786

On the Affairs of The State

To Daniel Clymer, Esqr. September 1786

To His Excellency Benjamin Franklin, Esquire June 6th, 1786

To a Member of the Pennsylvania Council June, 1786

Dissertations on Government

To Mr Henry Claypoole (Pennsylvania Packet) January, 1786

1787

To George Clymer, Esquire December 29, 1787

To the Right Honorable the Marquis of Lansdowne Sept. 21, 1787

Prospects on the Rubicon

To George Clymer August 15, 1787

To The Royal Academy of Sciences July 21, 1787

To Benjamin Franklin June 22, 1787

To His Excellency Benjamin Franklin March 31, 1787

The Society for Political Inquiries

1788

Some Of The Letters Paine Wrote To Jefferson During 1788–1789 Concerning The Iron Bridge

To Thomas Jefferson December 16, 1788

To Thomas Jefferson September 15, 1788

To Thomas Jefferson September 9, 1788

To Thomas Jefferson September 7, 1788

Specification of Thomas Paine

To Thomas Jefferson May, 1788

To Thomas Jefferson February 19, 1788

1789

Some Of The Letters Paine Wrote To Jefferson During 1788–1789 Concerning The Iron Bridge

To George Washington, 16 October 1789

To Thomas Jefferson September 18, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson September 15, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson July 13, [1789]

To Thomas Jefferson June 18, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson June 17, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson May 1789

To Anonymous May 1, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson April 10, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson February 26th, 1789 & March 12, 1789

To Benjamin West March 8, 1789

To Thomas Walker, Esqr. February 26th, 1789

To Thomas Jefferson February, 16th, 1789

To Kitty Nicholson Few January 6, 1789

To Anonymous [1789]

To Thomas Jefferson [1789]

1790

To Thomas Jefferson September 28, 1790

To William Short June 28, 1790

To William Short June 23 and 25, 1790

To William Short June 22, 1790

To William Short June 4, 1790

To William Short June 1, 1790

To His Excellency George Washington May 31, 1790

To His Excellency George Washington May 1790

To Anonymous April 16, 1790

To Benjamin Rush March 16, 1790

1791

To John Hall November 25, 1791

Thoughts on the Establishment of a Mint in the United States

To William Short November 2, 1791

Address and Declaration

To His Excellency George Washington July 21, 1791

To Abbe Sieyes July 8, 1791

To Messiurs Condorcet, Bonneville, and Lanthenas 1 June, 1791.

Rights of Man Appendix

Rights of Man Part the First

1792

To Citizen Le Brun December 4, 1792

On the Propriety of Bringing Louis XVI to Trial

To the English Attorney General (Archibald MacDonald) November 11, 1792

To the French National Convention October 22, 1792

An Essay for the Use of New Republicans

To Benjamin Mosley October 1, 1792

Address to the People of France

Letter Addressed to the Addressers

To The Sheriff of the County of Sussex

Letters to Onslow Cranley

Letters on the Prosecution of Rights of Man

Answer to Four Questions

To the Chairman of the Society for Promoting Constitutional Knowledge (2)

To the English Attorney-General

To the Chairman of the Society for Promoting Constitutional Knowledge

To J.S. Jordan February 16, 1792

To George Washington February 13, 1792

To Thomas Jefferson February 13, 1792

Rights of Man Author’s Notes

Rights of Man Part the Second

1793

The Age of Reason — Part I

To Thomas Jefferson October 20, 1793

To Citizen Barrere September 5, 1793

Citizen of America to Citizens of Europe

To George Jacques Danton May 6, 1793

To Thomas Jefferson April 20, 1793

To Doctor James O’Fallon February the 17, 1793

Shall Louis XVI be Respited?

To John King January 3, 1793

Observations on the Situation of the Powers

Plan of a Declaration

To Citizen Barrere 1793

1794

The New Covenant

To James Monroe November 2, 1794

To James Monroe October 20, 1794

To James Monroe October 13, 1794

To James Monroe October 4, 1794

To James Monroe [October 1794]

To James Monroe September 14, 1794

To James Monroe August 25, 1794

To James Monroe August 18, 1794

To James Monroe August 16, 1794

To the French National Convention August 7, 1794

Forgetfulness

To Gouverneur Morris February 24, 1794

From the Castle in the Air

1795

To Daniel Isaacs Eaton December 4, 1795

To Gilbert Wakefield, A.B. November 19, 1795

The Age of Reason — Part II

To James Madison September 24, 1795

To Bache August 5, 1795

The Constitution of 1795

Observations on Jay’s Treaty

Dissertation on the First Principles of Government

To Samuel Adams March 6, 1795

To James Monroe [1795]

1796

To James Monroe August 15, 1796

To a French Minister August 13, 1796

Contentment

Letter to George Washington

The Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance

Letters on the Bank

Agrarian Justice

1797

To Citizen Barras December 29, 1797

The Eighteenth Fructidor

The Recall of Monroe

Prosecution of the Age of Reason

To M. Tallyrand [1797]

Worship and Church Bells

To Thomas Jefferson May 14, 1797

Age of Reason Letters

To James Madison April 27, 1797

To Thomas Jefferson April 1, 1797

To Anonymous March 4, 1797

To Colonel John Fellows January 20, 1797

To M. Tallyrand [September 1797]

1798

To Citizen President Spring 1798

To the Council of the Five Hundred January 28, 1798

1799

Notes On Thomas Muir, 1765-1799  

To General Brune November, 1799

Star in the East

1800

What is Love?

To Thomas Jefferson October 6, 1800

To Thomas Jefferson October 4, 1800

To Thomas Jefferson October 1, 1800 – No. 2

To Thomas Jefferson October 16, 1800

To Thomas Jefferson October 1, 1800 – No. 1

To Anonymous July 1800

To Citizen Skipwith Spring 1800

1801

To Thomas Jefferson November 4, 1801

On the Means of generating Motion for Mechanical Uses

To Thomas Jefferson June 25, 1801

To Thomas Jefferson June 9, 1801

The Existence of God

1802

To Thomas Jefferson Dec 25, 1802

To the Citizens of the United States

To Madame Bonneville November 15, 1802

To Thomas Jefferson November, 1802

To Consul Roth July 8, 1802

An Essay on Dream

To Thomas Jefferson March 17, 1802

To Elihu Palmer February 21, 1802, since the Fable of Christ

1803

To Elisha Babcock 1803-10-10

To Thomas Jefferson September 23, 1803

To James Madison August 6, 1803

To Thomas Jefferson August 2, 1803

To John C. Breckenridge Aug. 2, 1803

To Charles W. Peale July 29th, 1803

Lines, Extempore

To James Monroe July, 1803

The Construction of Iron Bridges

Of Caine And Abel

Of the Old and New Testament

To Thomas Clio Rickman March 8, 1803

Reply to the Bishop of Llandaff

From Mr. Paine to Mr. Jefferson

To Thomas Jefferson January 12, 1803

To Samuel Adams January 1, 1803

To the Editor of the National Intelligencer January 1, 1803

Examination of the Prophesies

My Private Thoughts on a Future State

1804

Connecticut has no Constitution

To the French Inhabitants of Louisiana

Of the Sabbath Day in Connecticut

To the Members of the Society

To Elisha Babcock 1804-08-27

Nonsense from New York

Remarks on Gouverneur Morris’s Funeral Oration on General Hamilton

To the people of Connecticut

To Col. John Fellows July 9, 1804

To Mr. Hyer March 24, 1804

To the People of England on the Invasion of England

To Citizen Skipwith March 1, 1804

Prospect Papers

1805

To Thomas Jefferson September 30, 1805

To the Citizens of Pennsylvania on the Proposal for Calling a Convention

To John Fellows July 31, 1805

Another Callender

To John Fellows July 9, 1805

Remarks on English Affairs

To Elisha Babcock July 2, 1805

On the Origin of Freemasonry

Constitutions, Governments, and Charters

To John Fellows April 22, 1805

To Thomas Jefferson April 20, 1805 – No. 2

To Thomas Jefferson April 20, 1805 – No. 1

To Mr. Hulbert of Sheffield March 12, 1805

To Thomas Jefferson January 25, 1805

To Thomas Jefferson January 1, 1805

1806

Thomas Paine On Yellow Fever 

Remarks on the Political and Military Affairs of Europe

Liberty of the Press

A Challenge to the Federalists

To Andrew Dean, August 15, 1806

The Cause of the Yellow Fever

To William Duane April 23, 1806

To Anonymous March 20, 1806

To John Inskeep February 10, 1806

To Thomas Jefferson January 30, 1806

1807

To James Monroe, December 30, 1807

Cheethem and his Tory Paper

On the Question Will There be War?

Of the Comparative Powers and Expense of Ships of War

To Joel Barlow May 4, 1807

To George Clinton May 4, 1807

To James Madison May 3, 1807

Three Letters to Morgan Lewis

Of Gunboats

Of the English Navy

1808

To Thomas Jefferson July 8, 1808

To the People of New York

To the Honorable Speaker of the House of Representatives, March 7, 1808

To the Honorable Speaker of the House of Representatives, February 28, 1808

To the Honorable Senate of the United States, January 21, 1808

1809

The Will of Thomas Paine

Predestination

The post Predestination appeared first on .