Who was Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine by Auguste Millière (1880) after an engraving by William Sharp (1792)
Thomas Paine, author of The Rights of Man, wrote the first drafts of both the American and French constitutions. He coined the phrase The United States of America; was a Founding Father of the American and the French Republics and his concept of human rights is in The American Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. Despite all of his achievements it’s doubtful many remember him, indeed many have never heard of him.
Born on 29 January 1736 Paine’s foray into Revolutions started in 1774 when he was sacked for petitioning Parliament for better pay and working conditions for his fellow excise officers. After meeting Benjamin Franklin in London, Paine was convinced America should fight for independence from England. Inspired by his contemporary John Wilkes, who invented the slogan ‘no taxation without representation’, he emigrated to America to see what he could do. Franklin gave him a letter of introduction which described him as a worthy young man. Paine was indeed worthy but was not young. He was almost forty.
Paine was airbrushed out of the bicentennials of the American and French Revolutions even though he, an Englishman, was the first to advocate American independence from England and even though, he, an Englishman, wrote the draft of the first French Constitution.
'No good deed goes unpunished' springs to mind. Does he maybe tug the conscience of both nations? Thomas Paine was the first to say Black Lives Matter. African-Americans owe a lot to this fair minded, compassionate Englishman who devoted his life fighting injustice. His condemnation of slavery resulted in his being ostracised by the powerful slave owning establishment, many of whom were freemasons, an elite club which Paine disapproved of. George Washington had more than three hundred slaves on his estate. Thomas Jefferson’s first childhood memory was being carried on a pillow by a slave to his grandfather’s plantation. Nearly all the leaders were rich merchants, investors, landowners, judges and lawyers. Thomas Paine was not.
He tried hard to abolish slavery when American Independence was won, but the pressure from slave owners was too great. In ‘African Slavery in America’ he wrote ‘...American colonists..complain...of attempts to enslave them, while they hold...hundreds of thousands in slavery, and annually enslave many thousands more…’
Persona non grata in Philadelphia, Paine left for Paris eager to observe first-hand the evolving French Revolution but very little has been written in France about his important role.
He was welcomed as a hero. Marquis de Lafayette, with whom Paine had shared experiences in the American Revolution, trusted him with the key to the Bastille as a present for President George Washington.
In England, receiving on-the-spot reports from Paine in Paris, the politician Edmund Burke published Reflections on the Revolution in France condemning it. Paine, itching for a political fight with Burke, returned to London and booked into the Angel Inn Islington to pen The Rights of Man to defend it. He estimated it would take four days, in the event he was there four months.
In London, Paine asked his American friend John Rutledge Jnr who was returning home, to deliver the Key and wrote to Washington.
... I beg leave to suggest to your Excellency the propriety of congratulating the King and Queen of France...he prides himself on being at the head of the Revolution…I should rejoice to be the direct bearer of the Marquis’s present...but I doubt I shall be able to see my much loved America till next spring...I am engaged to return to Paris when the Constitution shall be proclaimed and to carry the American Flag in the procession...
At that time, Paine worshipped Washington. He died cursing him.
The Key is still in Mount Vernon, former home of President Washington.
29 January 1791, Paine’s 54th birthday, was a double celebration. Late the previous night he finished The Rights of Man and dedicated it to George Washington. Paine advocated state grants for education, maternity benefits, child allowances, unemployment benefits and old age pensions.
Paine’s friend, William Blake, a visionary, foresaw his arrest and sent word to the Angel Inn to advise him to leave immediately. Not long after his departure the Bow Street Runners arrived with a Warrant for his arrest.
Paine took his manuscript to Joseph Johnson (mentor to Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge), asking him to get his book on the shelves by 22 February to celebrate Washington’s birthday.
Johnson received intimidatory visits from government agents so had to stop printing. Paine borrowed £40 to self-publish, took the books to Jordan’s (Fleet Street printers), asked his friend fellow radical William Godwin to take charge of distribution and left for Paris. He was indicted in absentia on charges of sedition.
His return to Paris coincided with the capture of Louis XVI. Paine was elected to the French National Convention and was granted honorary French citizenship. He voted for the Republic, but against the execution of Citizen Louis Capet saying instead he be exiled to America. He denounced the guillotine as barbarous. Well aware of the danger, he stood up in the National Assembly and said ‘Kill the King, but not the man’.
It must surely have been Robespierre Paine was referring to when he said ‘To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead’
In prison for expressing his disgust at the decision to guillotine Louis XVI, Paine rotted there in appalling conditions for almost a year. In desperation he wrote to his hero, George Washington, begging for his help. His letters were ignored even though Washington owed Paine a huge debt of gratitude. When his army was defeated Paine wrote The American Crisis to raise morale. Washington had it read to his men on Christmas Day. ‘These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman...’.
A few hours later Washington's troops crossed the Delaware River and regained the initiative.
Paine was convinced that Washington had conspired with Robespierre to have Paine imprisoned. In retaliation, he published Letter to George Washington attacking his former friend.
Every day fifty or more prisoners were taken out and guillotined. A chalk mark was put on the door of the condemned. When it was Paine’s turn for a chalk mark, his cell door was open. He was so ill he needed air. When it was closed the chalk mark was of course on the inside and was not seen by the guards. A few days later, Robespierre himself was executed.
President Jefferson invited Paine to return to the States Paine united. Seven years later, when Paine went to the polling station to vote, he was told he was not eligible.
He died ignored and forgotten. Only six people witnessed his interment including two African Americans who walked twenty-five miles to pay their respects. The English Radical politician William Cobbett said Paine’s treatment was an abomination. “Paine lies in a little hole under the grass and weeds of an obscure farm”. He took his remains to England but the government refused permission for a statue to Paine. When Cobbett died, Paine’s bones disappeared.
During WWII American airmen based near Paine’s home town of Thetford, named their B-17 bomber Thomas Paine.
Napoleon Bonaparte said a statue of gold should be erected to Paine in every city in the universe. In 1964, American philanthropist Joseph Lewis did just that.
He commissioned a gilded statue of Paine holding a copy of Rights of Man for Thetford. It bears the inscription: ‘Englishman by birth, French citizen by decree, American by adoption’.
That Thomas Paine finally has a statue is wonderful but where it is sited most definitely is not. It stands outside King’s House, King’s Street. If Citizen Paine, the worlds’ most ardent Republican had a grave he would most certainly be squirming in it.
Obelisk, Angel Square, Islington London
In 1991 an obelisk to commemorate the 200th anniversary of The Rights of Man was unveiled in Angel Square Islington north London.
Parts of this Post are taken from Essential Islington: From Boadicea to Blair by Pamela Shields
Post by Pamela Shields.
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Essential Islington: From Boadicea to Blair
