Part 4

"Some writers have denied his political services, and have declared it impossible that a stranger at the outbreak of the Colonial struggle, he could have influenced public opinion in America; but such should remember that the contemporaries of Paine--and worthy men many of them certainly were who associated with Paine--judged differently, and not only freely circulated his writings but gave expression to their worth,... besides conferring on him the degree of M. A. (Pennsylvania University), and membership in their choicest literary association, the American Philosophical Society."--_McClintock and Strong's Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Cyclopedia_.

"Let it not be supposed that Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Randolph, and the rest were carried away by a meteor. Deep answers only unto deep."--_Dr. Conway_.

Drake's Dictionary of American Biography: "His powerful exertions to promote the independence of America constitutes a high claim upon the gratitude of his adopted country."

Ignatius Donnelly: "Paine did a great work during the Revolutionary war in behalf of liberty and deserves to be forever remembered."

McClintock and Strong's Biblical Theological and Ecclesiastical Encyclopedia, to quote again from this standard Christian authority, says: "The truth cannot be withheld that Thomas Paine was one of the most powerful actors in the Revolutionary drama.... His services to his adopted country should not be forgotten."

"As the Tyrtaeus of the Revolution, and it is no exaggeration to style him such, we owe everlasting gratitude to his name and memory."--_Rev. Solomon Southwick._

John Spencer Bassett: "History cannot forget that he was an important promoter of the Revolution."

"Paine's brawny arm applied the torch which set the country in a flame, to be extinguished only by the relinquishment of British supremacy; and for this, irrespective of his motives and character, he merits the gratitude of every American."--_Gen. William A. Stokes._

"No man rendered grander, service to this country, and no man ought to be more cherished or remembered than Thomas Paine."--_Rev. Minot J. Savage, D. D._

Paul Allen: "Those who regard the independence of the United States as a blessing will never cease to cherish the remembrance of Thomas Paine."

"To the welfare of Thomas Paine the Americans are not nor can they be indifferent."--_James Monroe._

Hon. Elizur Wright: "It was Thomas Paine, more than any other man, or any other thing, who turned the current of history in the New World."

Rev. John Snyder: "Paine did more than any other single man to create this nation. I simply speak what will some day be the sober judgment of history."

"There was no man in the Colonies who contributed so much to bring the open Declaration of Independence to a crisis as Thomas Paine."--_William Howitt._

"He did more for the American cause and for American independence than any other man."--_Sir Hiram Maxim._

"Like a magnificent dream the figure of this republic arose in his brain.... The result was victory; and Thomas Paine, the dreamer, the writing soldier, had done more than any other man to make this country free, and to give it a place among the nations of the world."--_Marshall J. Gaumn._

"He was the real founder of the American republic."--_Henry Frank._

"He wrote the word 'Independence,' and created the greatest nation in the world."

Hon. John W. Hoyt, LL.D.: "Thomas Paine inspired the Revolution by his spirit, maintained it when in the darkest hours of the battle it seemed that the spark of liberty would go out."

Dr. J. R. Monroe: "With the wand of his genius he turned aside the scroll that concealed the future of our country, and by the inspiring picture he thus presented our disheartened and hard-pressed forefathers were nerved to press forward, to brave every peril, to dare every danger, to defy every death, till tyranny was throttled and man was free."

Rev. Martin K. Schermerhorn: "When our children's children shall celebrate America's _second_ centennial a hundred years from now, they will write in largest letters upon their national banner this sentence which all intelligent American citizens will then enthusiastically recognize and applaud: 'Thomas Paine--the Patriot... of two hundred years ago.'"

Stephen Simpson: "To the genius of Thomas Paine as a popular writer, and to that of George Washington as a prudent, skillful, and consummate general, are the American people indebted for their rights, liberty and independence."

Mrs. Hypatia Bradlaugh-Bonner: "With Washington he played the foremost part in the American Revolution. If Washington was the sword and the strong arm, Paine was the heart and brains of that great struggle. He was the mouth-piece of the aspirations of a continent. He dared to utter the thoughts that lay concealed in the secret hearts of the people. He sounded the demand for the Independence of the Continent. He bound together the separate colonies, and proclaimed 'The Free and Independent States of America.'"

Thomas Paine was the creator of this great Republic. He was the real father of our country; Washington was its foster father. Paine's pen transformed a petty rebellion into a mighty revolution and made a rebel chief the triumphant defender of a new-born nation. Washington's fame is secure. His right to a place in the pantheon of earth's immortals will never be denied. And when the clouds of prejudice are dispelled, as they will be, Paine's name will shine with a splendor unsurpassed, never to be obscured again.

THE "RIGHTS OF MAN" AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

Thomas H. Dyer, LL.D.: "An active agent in the French Revolution."

"One of those celebrated foreigners whom the nation ought with eagerness to adopt."--_Madame Roland._

M. Cheslay: "He defended in London the principles of the French Revolution."

Brockhaus' Konversatjons-Lexikon: "After he returned to England in 1791 he published his 'Rights of Man.' (translated into many languages) in which he defended the French Revolution against the assaults of Burke."

Porter C. Bliss: "Published, in 1791-92 his 'Rights of Man' [two parts], a vindication of the French Revolution, in reply to Burke, which gave him immense popularity in France and led to a bestowal of citizenship and his election to the French National Convention."

"He was made a French Citizen by the same decree with Washington, Hamilton, Priestley and Sir James Mackintosh."--_Joel Barlow_.

Nelson's Encyclopedia: "The book was dedicated to Washington, was translated into French and made a, great impression." (The second part was dedicated to Lafayette.)

Edmund Gosse, LL.D.: "The circulation was so enormous that it had a distinct effect in coloring public opinion."

Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography: "His 'Rights of Man,' if the undenied statement as to its circulation (a million and a half of copies is correct) was more largely read in England and France than any other political work ever published."

Chamber's Encyclopedia: "The most famous of all the replies to Burke's 'Reflections on the French Revolution.' A million and a half copies were sold in England alone."

John Hall (London, January, 1792): "Burke's publication has produced nearly fifty different answers. Nothing has ever been so read as Paine's answer."

Edward Baines, LL.D.: "Editions were multiplied in every form and size; it was alike seen in the hands of the noble and the plebeian, and became, at length, translated into the various languages of Europe."

Paris Moniteur (Nov. 8, 1792): "That which will astonish posterity is that at Stockholm, five months after the death of Gustavus, and while the northern Powers are leaguing themselves against the liberty of France, there has been published a translation of Thomas Paine's 'Rights of Man,' the translator being one of the King's secretaries."

The following is a summary of Paine's political philosophy as presented in the "Rights of Man":

1. Government is the organization of the aggregate natural rights which individuals are not competent to secure individually, and therefore surrender to the control of society in exchange for the protection of all rights.

2. Republican government is that in which the welfare of the whole nation is the object.

3. Monarchy is government, more or less arbitrary, in which the interests of an individual are paramount to those of the people generally.

4. Aristocracy is government, partially arbitrary, in which the interests of a class are paramount to the people generally.

5. Democracy is the whole people governing themselves without secondary means.

6. Representative government is the control of a nation by persons elected by the whole nation.

7. The Rights of Man mean the right of all to representation.

Paine advocated a republic (2.) with a representative government (6.). The first real republic with a representative government of importance established in the world was in the United States of America, of which, when religious prejudice passes away, Thomas Paine will be recognized as the founder.

Professor J. B. Bury, LL.D.: "His 'Rights of Man' is an indictment of the monarchical form of government, and a plea for representative democracy."

Terrible but truthful is Paine's indictment of monarchy: "All the monarchical governments are military. War is their trade; plunder and revenue their objects. While such governments continue, peace has not the absolute security of a day. What is the history of all monarchical governments but a disgustful picture of human wretchedness, and the accidental respite of a few years repose. Wearied with war and tired with human butchery, they sat down to rest and called it peace."

This is his conception of an ideal government:

"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 the friend of its happiness,'---when these things can be said, then may that country boast of its constitution and its government."

"The political events of our own day--of the present hour--point to the time when the ambitions and the wars of monarchy will be at an end, and when republican peace will reign throughout the world. Then shall the dream of Thomas Paine, the world's greatest citizen of the world, be realized."--_Marshall J. Gaitvin._

Washington Irving: "A reprint of Paine's 'Rights of Man,' written in reply to Burke's pamphlet on the French Revolution, appeared [in America] under the auspices of Mr. Jefferson."

In introducing Paine's work to the American people Jefferson, then Secretary of State, said: "I have no doubt our citizens will rally a second time round the standard of 'Common Sense.'"

The Builders of the Nation: "At this time the Republican party as it was called, accepted the views of Jefferson, and as he openly accepted Paine's 'Rights of Man' it followed that the advanced views contained in that book grew to be held measurably as the party tenets of his followers."

Prof. E. D. Adams, Ph. D.: "As a cult [democracy], the theory undoubtedly first found adequate expression amongst us in the writings of Thomas Paine.... In these two books ['Common Sense' and 'Rights of Man'] Paine was then the first to state the ideal of democracy, as it later came to be accepted in America under the leadership of Jefferson."

In a letter to Monroe, referring to the censure he had received for his endorsement of Paine's book, Jefferson says: "I certainly merit the same, for I profess the same principles."

In a letter to Paine (June 19, 1792,) Jefferson says: "Our good people are firm and unanimous in their principles of Republicanism, and there is no better proof of it than that they love what you write and read it with delight."

James Madison declared the "Rights of Man" to be "a written defense of the principles on which that [our] Government is based."

For our so-called Jeffersonian Democracy we are indebted to Thomas Paine. He formulated its principles. Jefferson, Madison and others of his disciples popularized them.

After commending the "Rights of Man" Richard Henry Lee wrote: "I sincerely regret that our country could not have offered sufficient inducements to have retained as a permanent citizen a man so thoroughly republican in sentiment and fearless in the expression of his opinions."

In his book, one of the most brilliant volumes ever penned, Burke, long the friend of popular government, defended royalty and aristocracy. He sought to arouse the sympathies of Europe in behalf of royalty and aristocracy in France which were tottering to their fall, a disaster which endangered their existence everywhere. The book was circulated by tens of thousands. Captivated by its marvelous beauty a reaction in favor of despotism was setting in when Paine's immortal work appeared. The glowing rhetoric of Burke went down before the merciless logic of Paine.

Burke is filled with sorrow for the French king and nobles whose rule and privileges have been abolished or restricted, but expresses none for the millions who for centuries have been persecuted, impoverished and imprisoned by the ruling classes. In words that come from the heart of the author and which reach the hearts of the people, Paine answers him:

"Not one glance of compassion, not one commiserating reflection, that I can find throughout his book, has he bestowed on those that lingered out the most wretched of lives; a life without hope, in the most miserable of prisons. It is painful to behold a man employing his talents to corrupt himself. Nature has been kinder to Mr. Burke than he has been to her. He is not affected by the reality of distress touching upon his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird. Accustomed to kiss the aristocratic hand that hath purloined him from himself, he degenerates into a composition of art, and the genuine soul of nature forsakes him. His hero or his heroine must be a tragedy-victim, expiring in show, and not the real prisoner of misery, sliding into death in the silence of a dungeon."

Referring to this intellectual combat William Cobbett, one of England's most distinguished political writers, writing more than a quarter of a century after Paine's reply to Burke, says: "As my Lord Grenville introduced the name of Burke, suffer me, my Lord, to introduce that of a man who put this Burke to shame, who drove him off the public stage to seek shelter in the pension list, and who is now named fifty million times where the name of the pensioned Burke is mentioned once."

Lord John Morley: "Thomas Paine replied to them [Burke's 'Reflections'] with an energy, courage and eloquence worthy of his cause in the 'Rights of Man.'"

"In brilliant rhetoric Burke argued its [Natural Rights] dangerous and baseless nature.. Paine in his even more brilliant 'Rights of Man,' answered Burke."--_Encyclopedia of Social Reform._

Thomas Campbell: "He strongly answered at the bar of public opinion all the arguments of Burke. I do not deny that fact; and I should be sorry if I could be blind, even with tears in my eyes for Mackintosh, to the services that have been rendered to the cause of truth by the shrewdness and courage of Thomas Paine."

(Great events inspire great works. Three of the masterpieces of literature were inspired by the French Revolution, Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the French Revolution" condemning it, and Sir James Mackintosh's "Vindiciæ Gallicæ" and Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man" defending it.)

Dictionary of National Biography (England): "Paine is the only English writer who exposes with uncompromising sharpness the abstract doctrines of political rights held by the French Revolutionists."

Charles James Fox: "It ['Rights of Man'] seems as clear and as simple as the first rules of arithmetic."

Manchester Constitutional Society (March 13, 1792): "A work of the highest importance to every nation under heaven, but particularly to this, as containing excellent and practical plans for an immediate and considerable reduction of the public expenditure; for the prevention of wars; for the extension of our manufactures and commerce; for the education of the young; for the comfortable support of the aged; for the better maintenance of the poor."

Sheffield Society for Constitutional Information (March 14, 1792): "We have derived more true knowledge from the two works of Thomas Paine, entitled 'Rights of Man,' Parts First and Second, than from any other author. The practice as well as the principle of government is laid down in those works in a manner so clear and irresistibly convincing."

James Anthony Froude: "Copies of Paine's 'Rights of Man' were sown broadcast [in Ireland]."

"Protestant Belfast had declared itself a disciple of Paine."

"The Irish patriots were red republicans... anxious to establish in Ireland the principles of Paine."

"Paine," says his biographer, Dr. Conway, "held a supremacy in the constitutional clubs of England and Ireland equal to that of Robespierre over the Jacobins of Paris."

William Pitt (to Lady Hester Stanhope, who had quoted from the "Rights of Man"): "Paine is quite in the right, but what am I to do?"

Sir James Mackintosh: "His bold speculations and fierce invectives indicated the approach of social confusion."

Prof. G. P. Gooch, M.A.: "The 'Rights of Man,' compelled attention not less by the novelty of its ideas than by its consummate pamphleteering skill.... The alarm increased when it was known that the book was selling by tens of thousands."

Diccionaris Enciclopedico (Spain): "The friends of the Government burned Paine in effigy in the streets of London. Later he was proclaimed the great apostle of liberty and the father of the Revolution."

Gouverneur Morris: "Bonnville is here [Paris]. He is just returned from England. He tells me that Paine's book works mightily in England."

Louis Blanc: "The militia were armed, in the southeast of England troops received orders to march to London, the meeting of Parliament was advanced forty days, the Tower was reinforced by a new garrison, in fine there was enrolled a formidable preparation of war--against Thomas Paine's book on the 'Rights of Man.'"

H. D. Traill, D.C.L.: "Paine's book on the 'Rights of Man' was known to have an enormous circulation, and he was prosecuted for it under the proclamation of May, 1792. Paine's counsel argued in vain that it had never been held criminal to express opinions on the problems of political philosophy.... Paine was condemned."

"He was defended by Erskine, who was then in the zenith of his glory as an advocate, in a speech of marvelous power and eloquence."--_Hon. E. B. Washburne._

J. Redman ("London, Tuesday, Dec. 18, 1792, 5 P.M."): "Mr. Paine's trial is this instant over. Erskine shone like the morning star. The instant Erskine closed his speech the venal jury [it was a packed jury] interrupted the Attorney General, who was about to make reply, and without waiting for any answer, or any summing up by the Judge, pronounced him guilty. Such an instance of infernal corruption is scarcely upon record."

Paine's case was set for June, 1792, and he was anxious to go to trial then. At the request of the Government it was postponed till December. In the meantime Paine, having been elected to the National Convention, went to France. Had he remained in England death or a long imprisonment would have been his fate, the charge against him being high treason.

Alexander Gilchrist: "On Paine's rising to leave [he had delivered a radical address in London the night before], Blake [William] laid his hand on the orator's shoulder, saying, 'You must not go home, or you are a dead man,' and he hurried him off on his way to France.... Those were hanging days in England."

Dr. James Currie (1793): "The prosecutions that are commenced all over England against printers, publishers, etc., would astonish you; and most of these are for offenses committed months ago. The printer of the Manchester _Herald_ has had... six different indictments for selling or disposing of six different copies of Paine--all previous to the trial of Paine. The man was opulent, supposed worth £20,000; but these different actions will ruin him, as they were intended to do."

The trial of Paine was followed by a veritable reign of terror in England. Alluding to the prosecutions and persecutions of the publishers and venders of Paine's books, Buckle, in his "History of Civilization," says: "It is no exaggeration to say that for some years England was ruled by a system of absolute terror."

It was over the writings of Thomas Paine chiefly, his "Rights of Man" at first and later his "Age of Reason," that the battle for free speech and a free press in England was fought and won. In this great struggle England's gifted statesman, Charles James Fox, whom Edmund Burke describes as "the greatest debater the world ever saw," and whom Sir James Mackintosh declares to De "the most Demosthenian speaker since Demosthenes," ably and fearlessly upheld the rights of Paine and the disseminators of his writings and teachings. In this struggle the poet Shelley, too, did valiant work.

Richard Carlile: "It is not too much to say that if the 'Rights of Man' had obtained two or three years' free circulation in England and Scotland, it would have produced a similar effect to that which 'Common Sense' did in the United States."

Sir Francis Burdett: "Ministers know that a united people are not to be resisted; and it is this that we must understand by what is written in the works of an honest man too long calumniated. I mean Thomas Paine."

M. Brissot: "The grievance of the British Cabinet against France is not that Louis is in judgment, but that Thomas Paine wrote the 'Rights of Man'."

Abbe Sieyes: "His 'Rights of Man,' translated into our language, is universally known; and where is the patriotic Frenchman who has not already, from the depths of his soul, thanked him for having fortified our cause with all the power of his reason and his reputation."

"Paine's 'Rights of Man'," says Dr. Conway, "had been in every French home. His portrait, painted by Romney and engraved by Sharp, was in every cottage, framed in immortelles." Napoleon Bonaparte said: "I always sleep with the 'Rights of Man' beneath my pillow." Hon. Elihu B. Washburne, Minister of the United States to France during President Grant's administration, and later a prominent candidate for president of the United States himself, in a monograph on Thomas Paine, says: "He at once became a hero in France, and was everywhere received with enthusiasm. The doors of the _salons_ and clubs of Paris were opened to him, and he was soon recognized as one of the advanced figures in the Revolution, standing by the side of de Bonneville, Brissot and Condorcet."

It is a commonly accepted opinion that the French Revolution was inspired chiefly by the writings of Rousseau and Voltaire. Hardly less potent, however, were Paine's "Rights of Man," published at the beginning of the Revolution, and his "Common Sense," which electrified France fifteen years before. Referring to these French writings and the "Rights of Man," Dr. Conway says: "In this book the philosophy of visionary reformers took practical shape. From the ashes of Rousseau's 'Contrat Social,' burnt in Paris, rose the 'Rights of Man,' no phoenix, but an eagle of the new world, with eye not blinded by any royal sun. It comes to tell how by union of France and America--of Lafayette and Washington--the 'Contrat Social' was framed into the Constitution of a happy and glorious new earth."