Part 10

Mimnermus (England): "Out of the charnel-vault of Kingcraft and Priestcraft, Rousseau and the other great French Freethinkers saw in vision the ideal society of the future. Of this new evangel Paine was the prophet and Shelley was the poet.... In the 'Rights of Man' and the 'Age of Reason,' no less than in the 'Revolt of Islam' and 'Prometheus Unbound,' the expression glows with the solemn and majestic inspiration of prophecy."

John M. Robertson, M. P.: "The enduring popularity of the chief works of Thomas Paine is not the least remarkable fact in the history of opinion. It is given to few controversial writers to keep a large audience during a hundred years."

"In Paine's public life there are three great tidal periods--the period when he was helping more than any other to make the Revolution in America; the period when, having come to Europe, after the American Revolution, he published the 'Rights of Man' and laid in England the foundations of a new democracy in the very teeth of the great reaction of which Burke was the prophet; and lastly, the period when, after his hopes from the French Revolution had substantially failed, and he expected death as his own meed, he wrote his 'Age of Reason,' significantly making his last blow the most deadly of all his strokes at the reign of tradition."

New York World: "The man whose 'Common Sense,' by Washington's testimony, 'worked a powerful change in the minds of men' toward American independence; who in the 'Rights of Man' demolished Burke's attack on the French Revolution so completely that the British government resorted to its suppression, and who in France set the world aflame with persecution mania by the 'Age of Reason,' certainly made good in three countries his title to literary rank and political power." "The three mightiest contributions of political and religious freedom which mankind had known came from the brain of Thomas Paine. What he wrote changed the whole civilized world."--_L. K. Washburn_.

Rev. E. P. Powell (referring to the "Crisis"): "Words of fire and logic that rang like a berserker's sword on his shield."

"The 'Crisis' is contained in sixteen numbers. They comprise a truer history of that event [American Revolution] than does any professed history of it yet written. They comprise the soul of it."--_Calvin Blanchard._

"Of utterances by the pen none have achieved such vast results as Paine's 'Common Sense' and his first 'Crisis.'"--_Dr. Conway_.

In addition to his three literary masterpieces and the "Crisis" Paine wrote many remarkable books and pamphlets, the more important of which are the following: "Public Good," Philadelphia, 1780; "Letter to Abbé Raynal," Philadelphia, 1782; "Dissertation on Government," Philadelphia, 1786; "Prospects on the Rubicon," London, 1787; "Address of Société Républicaine," Paris, 1791; "Address to the Adressers," London, 1792; "Plea for Life of Louis Capet," "French Constitution of '93," Paris, 1793; "On First Principles of Government," Paris, 1795; "Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance," published in all the languages of Europe. 1796; "Agrarian Justice," "Letter to Camille Jordan, Paris, 1797; "Essay on Dreams," "Examination of Prophecies," New York, 1807; "Reply to Bishop of Llandaff," New York, 1810; "Miscellaneous Poems,"'London, 1819.

"These [Paine's books] were battles, victories--the simplest, yet the grand and notorious facts of that wondrous war and age."--_T. B. Wakeman_.

M. de Bonneville, the noted French journalist and Revolutionary leader, and the almost constant companion of Paine during the ten or more years that he resided in Paris, says: "All his pamphlets have been popular and powerful. He wrote with composure and steadiness, as if under the guidance of a tutelary genius. If, for an instant, he stopped, it was always in the attitude of a man who listens. The Saint Jerome of Raphael would give a perfect idea of his contemplative recollection, to listen to the voice from on high which makes itself heard in the heart."

"When the old traditions of prejudice have passed, away, Paine's name will have its due place not only in our political but in our literary history, as that of a man of native genius whose prose bears being read beside that of Burke on the same theme, and who found in sincerity the secret of a nobler eloquence than his antagonists could draw from their stores of literature or the fountain of their ill-will."--_John M. Robertson_.

"He was a great writer. Cobbett knew it, Hazlitt knew it, and Landor knew it."--_George W. Foote_.

George Brandes: "One of the largest figures in our literary history."

Mrs. M. E. Cadwallader: "His writings have become classics. They Will live when those who vilified him are forgotten."

Pittsburgh Press: "The science of criticism, like the spectrum analysis which reveals the composition of the stars, points unerringly to Thomas Paine as the only man who could have indited that greatest of literary masterpieces, the Declaration of Independence."

That the Declaration of Independence is, in its entirety, the work of Paine probably can not be proven. That he had much to do with its composition, however, can scarcely be doubted. The circumstances attending its adoption warrant the assumption, and the style of the document confirms it. Knowing the marvelous power of Paine's pen, knowing that with it he had led the people to demand independence, to suppose that he would not be consulted, that his services would not be solicited in regard to its preparation is incredible. Had he been a member of the Continental Congress he certainly would have been selected to draft the document. He was the soul of the movement and its literary leader. The historian Gaspey says: "The Government took no steps of importance without consulting him." The fact that his name was not mentioned in connection with its authorship at the time argues nothing. Had he written every word of it neither he nor the Committee could with propriety have divulged its authorship. The authorship of state papers and other public documents is assumed by, and credited to, the officials issuing them and not to the persons who may have been employed to draft them.

"There is much evidence, both internal and external, in the Declaration, that some other person than Jefferson was the writer. There is much evidence, internal and external, that the author was Thomas Paine."--_W. M. van der Weyde_.

A noted writer, Albert Payson Terhune, presents the following as the principal arguments that have been adduced in support of Paine's authorship of the Declaration of Independence:

"The Declaration's first draft contained the phrase: 'Scotch and foreign mercenaries.' Jefferson was fond of the Scotch, and had two Scotch tutors; whereas Paine openly hated Scotland and its people.

"The first draft contained the word 'hath' This word is said to be found nowhere else in Jefferson's writings, while it abounds in Paine's.

"There was also in this draft a sharp rebuke to the British king for his introducing slavery into his provinces. Jefferson was a slave-holder; Paine hated slavery.

"That Jefferson, an owner of slaves, should have declared 'all men to be equal' and 'entitled to liberty,' has always seemed inconsistent.

"Though unjust taxation was one of the Revolution's chief causes, it receives very slight mention in the Declaration. Jefferson was supposedly a foe to such taxation. Paine considered the taxation problem merely as a side issue.

"Paine's notions concerning government as set forth in his 'Common Sense' are largely embodied in the Declaration.

"Jefferson's style of writing was easy and graceful. Paine's was forceful, terse, pointed. The Declaration is couched far more in the latter style than in the former.

"Phrases and words dear to Paine are scattered broadcast through the document.

"The expression 'Nature and Nature's God' fit in with Paine's favorite theory that God was to be found in Nature."

"Almost a century ago an American newspaper claimed to have proof that Jefferson did not write the Declaration, and strongly hinted that Paine wrote it.

"Jefferson, it is said, never formally claimed the authorship until after Paine's death, and was always reticent on the subject."

Walton Williams: "Ever since the Revolution there has been a tradition in certain parts of the country that the real author of the Declaration of Independence was Thomas Paine. The storm of opprobrium that beat upon Paine's name because af his religious writings almost eradicated this tradition."

Jefferson lived fifty years after the Declaration appeared. During all this time--and his silence is significant--he never claimed the authorship of the document except in the epitaph which he is said to have prepared for his tombstone. He was its accredited author and in an official sense was its author, and in this sense the claim made in his epitaph is admissible.

Nearly seventy years ago George M. Dallas, then Vice President of the United States, and an admirer of Jefferson, contended that Paine wrote the Declaration.

"Whoever may have written the Declaration, Paine was its author."--_William Cobbett._

New York Sun: "In addition to his great responsibility for the literary form of the Declaration of Independence, he contributed to literature a number of phrases which have held a place."

"His phrase, 'These are the times that try men's souls,' illuminates that gigantic struggle [American Revolution] and has become one of the shibboleths of liberty."--_Michael Monahan_.

"No life was ever attuned to a nobler sentiment--'Where liberty is not there is my home.'"--_Dr. Lucy Waite_.

"'The world is my country, to do good my religion." Was ever nobler thought conceived than this?"--_Eva Ingersoll Brown_.

"Had Paine given to the world nothing more than that matchless phrase which he adopted as his motto, 'The world is my country; to do good is my religion,' I should still feel that he was indeed entitled to a supernal position in the galleries of Fame."--_Elbert Hubbard_.

"A jewel which sparkles forever on the outstretched forefinger of Time."--_George W. Foote._

Peter Eckler: "Paine's political and religious writings exerted an immense influence in America, England and France during his life, and since his death that beneficent influence has increased and extended throughout the civilized world."

Horace Seaver: "Paine's writings are a noble monument to the loftiness of his aims, the brilliancy of his genius, the wealth of benevolence in his heart, and the breadth and power of his intellect."

Horace Traubel: "He will always stand there, immortal in history, a contemporary giant in whose aggressiveness and fortitude political literature discovered a new epoch. He will ever be ranked with the masters in theological innovation."

General Nathaniel Greene: "Your fame for your writings will be immortal."

REFORMS AND INVENTIONS.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox: "Paine was not only a great author and statesman, but he was distinctly a pioneer, an originator, an inventor and creator. To him we are indebted for many of the world's greatest ideas and reforms."

Winwood Reade: "One of Thomas Paine's first productions was an article against slavery."

Universal Cyclopedia: "Published in Bradford's _Pennsylvania Journal [Magazine]_ in March, 1775, an article entitled 'African Slavery in America,' which probably hastened the first American Anti-Slavery Society, April 14, 1775."

Referring to this article Dr. Conway, one of the apostles of anti-slavery, says: "It is a most remarkable article. Every argument and appeal, moral, religious, military, economic, familiar in our subsequent anti-slavery struggle is here found stated with eloquence and clearness."

In the very month that Paine lay down in his last illness there was born the man who was to complete the work he had begun. On the first of January, 1863, Abraham Lincoln pronounced the doom of slavery. In this essay of Paine and in the Emancipation Proclamation of Lincoln we have the beginning and the end--the prologue and the epilogue--of the Anti-Slavery drama in America.

"It is a significant fact that a paragraph in favor of the abolition of slavery in America, which is surmised to haye been inserted through Paine's influence, in the Declaration of Independence was struck out.... Had Paine's humane suggestion been adopted the United States would have been saved the agony and bloody sweat of the Civil. War."--_Hector Macpherson, Scotland_.

"In sorrow and bitterness and bloodshed Lincoln wrought the cure for the evil which Paine tried peacefully to prevent."--_Mrs. Bradlaugh-Bonner, England_.

George W. Foote: "In America the first to publicly demand the liberation of the slaves was Thomas Paine. Paine also partly drafted and signed the Act of Pennsylvania abolishing slavery--the first of its kind in the whole of Christendom."

Paine was not only the first to advocate the abolition of domestic slavery in America, he was also a pioneer in the movement which secured the abolition of the slave trade in America and Great Britain.

When Louisiana demanded statehood with "the right to continue the importation of slaves," from Paine came this stinging rebuke: "Dare you put up a petition to Heaven for such power, without fearing to be struck from the earth by its justice? Why, then, do you ask it of man against man? Do you want to renew in Louisiana the horrors of Domingo?"

Alfred E. Fletcher: "Paine was the first man in America to demand freedom for the slave, to urge international arbitration, justice for women and more rational ideas as to marriage and divorce."

"In his August (1775) number _[Pennsylvania Magazine]_ is found the earliest American plea for woman."--_Dr. Conway_.

"His pen is unmistakable in 'Reflections on Unhappy Marriages' (June 1775)."--_Ibid_.

"The first man in history to speak in clear cut tones for the rights of woman."--_Josephine K. Henry_.

"Today we dare to affirm that women as well as men have rights. Paine was the pioneer of this thought."--_Alice Hubbard._

Hon. Robert A. Dague: "If I am asked to whom are women indebted for the enlarged liberty they now enjoy, my answer is, to Thomas Paine, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony, and to the Universalists, Unitarians, Spiritualists and Agnostics."

London Daily News: "He was always a man of peace, and to him is due the first project of international arbitration. He was the first publicist in America to declare for the emancipation of slaves, the first to champion the cause of woman, to insist upon the rights of animals, and to expose the criminal folly of dueling."

"He condemned dueling, and the deliberate or thoughtless ill-treatment of animals. He spoke up against negro slavery quite as emphatically as against hereditary privileges and religious intolerance. He advocated international arbitration; international and internal copyright."--_Sir George Trevelyan_.

George H. Putxam: "Paine wrote on the necessity of a copyright law in 1782, a year before Noah Webster canvassed the legislatures of the New England states in behalf of such a law.... In 1792, as a member of the French Convention, Paine made a statement of the principles of international copyright of the author's right in literary work."

Nannie McCormick Coleman: "In 1783, while a member of Congress, Hamilton urgently sought to have a [Constitutional] Convention called. In the same year... Thomas Paine contributed addresses to the public to the same effect."

Paine proposed a constitutional government and a constitutional convention as early as 1776.

Referring to our Constitutional Convention Prof. Alexander Johnston of Princeton University says: "Thomas Paine had suggested it as long ago as his 'Common Sense' pamphlet: 'Let a continental conference to be held to frame a continental charter.'"

Not only was Paine the first to propose a constitutional government for the United States, the framers of the Constitution adopted to a large extent his political ideas. Referring to the principles advocated in his "Dissertation on Government" Dr. Conways says: "In the next year those principles were embodied in the Constitution; and in 1792, when a State pleaded its sovereign right to repudiate a contract the Supreme Court affirmed every contention of Paine's pamphlet, using his ideas and sometimes his very phrases."

Bankers' Magazine: "The Bank of North America, at Philadelphia, organized to assist the government during the War of Independence, is admitted to be the first bank in the United States, but it is not generally known that Thomas Paine was the man in whose brain the bank was born and who was the first subscriber to its stock."

Columbia Encyclopedia: "Paine was chosen by Napoleon to introduce a popular form of government into Britain after the Frenchman should have invaded and conquered the island."

William Milligan Sloane, LL. D.: "Thomas Paine exercised his power as a pamphleteer on the theme of England's approaching bankruptcy, while the public crowded one of the theatres [in Paris] to stare at stage pictures representing the invasion of England."

Paine prepared plans for this invasion which were adopted by the French Directory. Two hundred and fifty gun-boats were speedily built for the purpose. Then Napoleon abandoned the expedition against England for the one against Egypt.

Paine's approval of this proposed invasion of England was not inspired by a spirit of revenge because of his persecution by the English Government, but by a sincere love of its people, seeing in it the only means of delivering them from the intolerable tyranny of George III. and his Ministry. Napoleon at this time had not manifested that insatiable thirst for blood which at a later period made him the scourge of Europe.

James A. Edgerton, A. M.: "Thomas Paine first suggested American Independence. He first suggested the Federal Union of the States. He first proposed the abolition of negro slavery. He first suggested [in Christendom] protection for dumb animals. He first suggested equal rights for women. He first proposed old age pensions. He first suggested the education of poor children at public expense. He first proposed arbitration and international peace. He suggested a great republic of all the nations of the world."

To the claims made in behalf of Paine by Mr. Edgerton and others the following may be added: He was one of the founders, if not the real founder, of modern journalism. He labored to provide better facilities for the education of young women. His contributions to hygienic science were invaluable. His knowledge of astronomy was profound; he affirmed the belief that the fixed stars were suns twenty years before Herschel. His views regarding taxation were wise and just. He was an advocate of land reform. He was recognized as the ablest authority of his time on paper money. He was one of the framers of the Constitution of Pennsylvania.

Not only was Paine the real founder of our Republic; he was largely instrumental in securing for it the greatest of its subsequent acquisitions of territory. He shares with Jefferson the honor of being the first to propose the purchase from Napoleon of the province of Louisiana, an empire in extent--reaching from Florida to the Pacific and to what is now British Columbia, a distance of three thousand miles--a territory three times as large as the original United States of America and from which have been formed, wholly or in part, eighteen of the most important states in the Union.

Nearly half a century before Comte, Paine taught the Religion of Humanity.

"In 1778 he wrote his sublime sentence about the 'Religion of Humanity.'"--_Dr. Conway_.

"I have discovered that Paine not only wrote those words, 'the Religion of Humanity,'... but he was the real author by this discovery of all laws of social science which is called sociology, now the queen of the sciences.... If Paine was the real leader in that discovery he stands by the side of Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, Comte, Spencer and Ward, and the beneficent results and glory of this discovery, and its discoverer, are beyond the words of any mind at present to describe."--_Prof. T. B. Wakeman_.

"That his Religion of Humanity took the deistical form was an evolutionary necessity."--_Dr. Conway_.

"The prophet of the Religion of Humanity and the precursor of our modern Monism."--_Prof. Ernst Haeckel_.

"How few there are who realize that Thomas Paine anticipated Spencer's thought [equal liberty] by many decades, that, more briefly and graphically, he formulated the only principle that can weave enduring order and peace into the fabric of society."--_Edwin C. Walker_.

Leonard Abbott: "Paine's mind was germinal: in it were the seeds of all modern religious, economical, and political movements."

William H. Maple: "The light of truth fell in such grand refulgence upon this man as to enable him to utter truisms enough to furnish texts for reformers for a thousand years to come."

"The moral originality and courage of his teaching in every direction is astonishing."--_John M. Robertson_.

Stephen Pearl Andrews: "The true chief-priest of humanity is the man who solves the greatest obstacles in the progress of mankind; and you must not be surprised if I rank Thomas Paine not only as a priest, but as perhaps the real chief-priest, or pontifex-maximus of his age."

Joel Barlow: "The biographer of Thomas Paine should not forget his mathematical acquirements and his mechanical genius. His invention of the iron bridge, which led him to Europe in 1787, has procured him a great reputation in that branch of science in France and England."

M. Chaptal: "They [plans for iron bridge over Seine] will be of the greatest utility to us when the new kind of construction goes to be executed for the first time.... You have rights of more than one kind to the gratitude of nations."

International Encyclopedia: "In 1787 Paine went to France, where he exhibited his bridge to the Academy of Science in Paris. He also visited England, and was lionized in London by the party of Burke and Fox. He set up the model of his bridge in Addington Green, and huge crowds went to see it."

"This [model of iron bridge] was publicly exhibited in Paris and London and attracted great crowds."--_Encyclopedia Britannica_.

Sir Ralph Milbank: "With respect to the bridge over the river Wear at Sunderland, it certainly is a work well deserving admiration both for its structure, durability, and utility, and I have good grounds for saying that the first idea was taken from Mr. Paine's bridge exhibited at Paddington."

Mr. Foljambe, M. P.: "I saw the rib of your [Paine's] bridge. In point of elegance and beauty it far exceeded my expectations and is certainly beyond anything I ever saw."

George Stephenson: "If we are to consider Paine as its [the iron bridge's] author, his daring in engineering certainly does full justice to the fervor of his political career."

When the building of the Brooklyn bridge was celebrated the Rev. Robert Collyer called attention to the fact that to Thomas Paine belonged the credit of inventing the iron bridge and deplored the ignorance and prejudice which had caused the speakers to ignore it.

Sir Richard Phillips: "In 1778 Thomas Paine proposed, in America, this application of steam [the steamboat]."

Watson's Annals of Philadelphia: "In June, 1785, John Fitch called on the ingenious William Henry, Esq., of Lancaster, to take his opinion of his draughts, who informed him that he (Fitch) was not the first person who had thought of applying steam to vessels, for that Thomas Paine, author of 'Common Sense,' had suggested the same to him (Henry) in the winter of 1778."