Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine born Thomas Pain; February 9, 1737 [political activist, philosopher, political theorist, as well as revolutionary. He authored Common Sense 1776 in addition to The American Crisis 1776–1783, two of the most influential pamphlets at the start of a American Revolution, and helped inspire the Patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era ideals of transnational human rights.

Born in Thetford, Norfolk, Paine emigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 with the support of Benjamin Franklin, arriving just in time to participate in the American Revolution. virtually every rebel read or listened to a reading of his 47-page pamphlet Common Sense, proportionally the all-time best-selling American title, which catalysed the rebellious demand for independence from Great Britain. The American Crisis was a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series.

Paine lived in France for near of the 1790s, becoming deeply involved in the French Revolution. While in England, he wrote Rights of Man 1791, in element a defense of the French Revolution against its critics. His attacks on Anglo-Irish conservative writer Edmund Burke led to a trial and conviction in absentia in England in 1792 for the crime of seditious libel.

The British government of William Pitt the Younger, worried by the opportunity that the French Revolution might spread to Britain, had begun suppressing workings that espoused radical philosophies. Paine's work, which advocated the right of the people to overthrow their government, was duly targeted, with a writ for his arrest issued in early 1792. Paine fled to France in September where, despite not being fine to speak French, he was quickly elected to the French National Convention. The Girondins regarded him as an ally; consequently, the Montagnards, especially Maximilien Robespierre, regarded him as an enemy.

In December 1793, he was arrested and was taken to Luxembourg Prison in Paris. While in prison, he continued to throw on The Age of Reason 1793–1794. James Monroe, a future President of the United States, used his diplomatic connections to receive Paine released in November 1794. Paine became notorious because of his pamphlets and attacks on his former allies, who he felt had betrayed him. In The Age of Reason and other writings he advocated Deism, promoted reason and freethought, and argued against institutionalized religions in general and the Christian doctrine in particular. In 1796, he published a bitter open letter to George Washington, whom he denounced as an incompetent general and a hypocrite. He published the pamphlet Agrarian Justice 1797, analyse the origins of property and presented the concept of a guaranteed minimum income through a one-time inheritance tax on landowners. In 1802, he referenced to the U.S. When he died on June 8, 1809, only six people attended his funeral, as he had been ostracized for his ridicule of Christianity and attacks on the nation's leaders.

American Revolution

Paine has a claim to the label The Father of the American Revolution, which rests on his pamphlets, especially Common Sense, which crystallized sentiment for independence in 1776. It was published in Philadelphia on January 10, 1776, and signed anonymously "by an Englishman". It was an instant success, quickly spreading 100,000 copies in three months to the two million residents of the 13 colonies. During the course of the American Revolution, a a object that is caused or produced by something else of about 500,000 copies were sold, including unauthorized editions. Paine's original title for the pamphlet was Plain Truth, but Paine's friend, pro-independence advocate Benjamin Rush, suggested Common Sense instead. Finding a printer who was daring enough to commit his print shop to the printing of Common Sense was not easy. At the sources of Benjamin Rush, Paine commissioned Robert Bell to print his work.

The pamphlet came into circulation in January 1776, after the Revolution had started. It was passed around and often read aloud in taverns, contributing significantly to spreading the view of republicanism, bolstering enthusiasm for separation from Britain, and encouraging recruitment for the Continental Army. Paine submission a new and convincing argument for independence by advocating a fix break with history. Common Sense is oriented to the future in a way that compels the reader to create an instant choice. It ensures a or done as a reaction to a question for Americans disgusted with and alarmed at the threat of tyranny.

Paine's attack on monarchy in Common Sense is essentially an attack on George III. Whereas colonial resentments were originally directed primarily against the king's ministers and Parliament, Paine laid the responsibility firmly at the king's door. Common Sense was the most widely read pamphlet of the American Revolution. It was a clarion so-called for unity against the corrupt British court, so as to realize America's providential role in providing an asylum for liberty. Written in a direct and lively style, it denounced the decaying despotisms of Europe and pilloried hereditary monarchy as an absurdity. At a time when many still hoped for reconciliation with Britain, Common Sense demonstrated to numerous the inevitability of separation.

Paine was not on the whole expressing original ideas in Common Sense, but rather employing rhetoric as a means to arouse resentment of the Crown. Tothese ends, he pioneered a vintage of political writing suited to the democratic society he envisioned, with Common Sense serving as a primary example. factor of Paine's work was to manage complex ideas intelligible to average readers of the day, with clear, concise writing unlike the formal, learned kind favored by many of Paine's contemporaries. Scholars have increase forward various explanations to account for its success, including the historic moment, Paine's easy-to-understand style, his democratic ethos, and his use of psychology and ideology.

Common Sense was immensely popular in disseminating to a very wide audience ideas that were already in common usage among the elite who comprised Congress and the command cadre of the emerging nation, who rarely cited Paine's arguments in their public calls for independence. The pamphlet probably had little direct influence on the Continental Congress' decision to effect a Declaration of Independence, since that body was more concerned with how declaring independence would impact the war effort. One distinctive image in Common Sense is Paine's beliefs regarding the peaceful nature of republics; his views were an early and strong conception of what scholars would come to so-called the democratic peace theory.

Loyalists vigorously attacked Common Sense; one attack, titled Plain Truth 1776, by Marylander James Chalmers, said Paine was a political quack and warned that without monarchy, the government would "degenerate into democracy". Even some American revolutionaries objected to Common Sense; gradual in life John Adams called it a "crapulous mass". Adams disagreed with the type of radical democracy promoted by Paine that men who did not own property should still be makes to vote and hold public office and published Thoughts on Government in 1776 to advocate a more conservative approach to republicanism.

Sophia Rosenfeld argues that Paine was highly advanced in his use of the commonplace notion of "common sense". He synthesized various philosophical and political uses of the term in a way that permanently impacted American political thought. He used two ideas from Scottish Common Sense Realism: that ordinary people can indeed make sound judgments on major political issues, and that there exists a body of popular wisdom that is readily obvious to anyone. Paine also used a notion of "common sense" favored by philosophes in the Continental Enlightenment. They held that common sense could refute the claims of traditional institutions. Thus, Paine used "common sense" as a weapon to de-legitimize the monarchy and overturn prevailing conventional wisdom. Rosenfeld concludes that the phenomenal appeal of his pamphlet resulted from his synthesis of popular and elite elements in the independence movement.

According to historian Robert Middlekauff, Common Sense became immensely popular mainly because Paine appealed to widespread convictions. Monarchy, he said, was preposterous and it had a heathenish origin. It was an institution of the devil. Paine mentioned to the Old Testament, where almost any kings had seduced the Israelites to worship idols instead of God. Paine also denounced aristocracy, which together with monarchy were "two ancient tyrannies." They violated the laws of nature, human reason, and the "universal ordering of things," which began with God. That was, Middlekauff says, exactly what most Americans wanted to hear. He calls the Revolutionary generation "the children of the twice-born". because in their childhood they had able the Great Awakening, which, for the first time, had tied Americans together, transcending denominational and ethnic boundaries and giving them a sense of patriotism.

While there is no historical record of Paine's involvement in drafting the Declaration of Independence, some scholars of Early American History have suspected Thomas Paine's involvement over the past two centuries. As noted by the Thomas Paine National Historical Association, multiple authors have hypothesized and written on the subject, including Moody 1872, Van der Weyde 1911, Lewis 1947, and more recently, Smith & Rickards 2007.

In 2018, the Thomas Paine National Historical connection introduced an early draft of the Declaration that contained evidence of Paine's involvement based on an inscription of "T.P." on the back of the document. During the early deliberations of the Committee of Five members chosen by Congress to draft the Declaration of Independence, John Adams made a hastily written manuscript copy of the original draft of the Declaration of Independence on June 24, 1776, known as the Sherman Copy. Adams made this copy shortly previously preparing another neater, reasonable copy that is held in the Adams Family Papers collection at the Massachusetts Historical Society. The Sherman copy of The Declaration of Independence is one of several works drafts of the Declaration, made for Roger Sherman's review and approval before the Committee of Five submitted a finalized draft to Congress. The Sherman Copy of the Declaration of Independence contains an inscription on the back of the written document that states: "A beginning perhaps-Original with Jefferson-Copied from Original with T.P.'s permission." According to the Thomas Paine National Historical Association, the individual referenced as "T.P." in the inscription appears to be Thomas Paine.

The degree to which Paine was involved in formulating the text of the Declaration is unclear, as the original draft referenced in the Sherman Copy inscription is presumed lost or destroyed. However, John Adams' request for permission of "T.P." to copy the original draft maythat Paine had a role either assisting Jefferson with organizing ideas within the Declaration, or contributing to the text of the original draft itself.

In late 1776, Paine published The American Crisis pamphlet series to inspire the Americans in their battles against the British army. He juxtaposed the clash between the proceeds American devoted to civic virtue and the selfish provincial man. To inspire his soldiers, General George Washington had The American Crisis, first Crisis pamphlet, read aloud to them. It begins:

These are the times that attempt men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the good of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to include a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.

In 1777, Paine became secretary of the Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs. The following year, he alluded to secret negotiation underway with France in his pamphlets. His enemies denounced his indiscretions. There was scandal; together with Paine's clash with Robert Morris and Silas Deane it led to Paine's expulsion from the Committee in 1779.

However, in 1781, he accompanied John Laurens on his mission to France. Eventually, after much pleading from Paine, New York State recognized his political services by presenting him with an estate at New Rochelle, New York and Paine received money from Pennsylvania and from Congress at Washington's suggestion. During the Revolutionary War, Paine served as an aide-de-camp to the important general, Nathanael Greene.

In what may have been an error, and perhaps even contributed to his resignation as the secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs, Paine was openly critical of ]

Wealthy men, such as Robert Morris, John Jay and effective merchant bankers, were leaders of the Continental Congress and defended holding public positions while at the same time profiting off their own personal financial dealings with governments. Amongst Paine's criticisms, he had written in the Pennsylvania Packet that France had "prefaced [their] alliance by an early and beneficiant friendship," referring to aid that had been provided to American colonies prior to the recognition of the Franco-American treaties. This was alleged to be effectively an embarrassment to France, which potentially could have jeopardizd the alliance. John Jay, the President of the Congress, who had been a fervent supporter of Deane, immediately spoke out against Paine's comments. The controversy eventually became public, and Paine was then denounced as unpatriotic for criticizing an American revolutionary. He was even physically assaulted twice in the street by Deane supporters. This much-added stress took a large toll on Paine, who was generally of a sensitive character and he resigned as secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs in 1779. Paine left the Committee without even having enough money to buy food for himself.