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Speaker 1: On this episode of This World. The lives of these

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Speaker 1: men are essential to understand the American form of government

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Speaker 1: and our ideals of liberty. The Founding Fathers all played

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Speaker 1: key roles in securing American independence from Great Britain and

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Speaker 1: in the creation of the government of the United States

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Speaker 1: of America. And now the life of Thomas Paine. Although

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Speaker 1: Thomas pain is now considered an American hero, at the

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Speaker 1: time of his death only six people attended his funeral,

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Speaker 1: and papers wrote negatively about him. He was not popular

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Speaker 1: and his reputation had been destroyed. His obituary ended with quote,

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Speaker 1: he had lived long, did some good and much harm.

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Speaker 1: And yet Pain was extraordinarily important in the American Revolution

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Speaker 1: and was really very different from the Founding Fathers. As

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Speaker 1: you'll see, He's a man who had a very complicated life,

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Speaker 1: very complicated beliefs, was deeply opposed to the British government,

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Speaker 1: and was enormously helpful to George Washington. But in the

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Speaker 1: end he was more of an opponent to order than

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Speaker 1: he was an advocate of a new order. Paine was

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Speaker 1: born on January twenty ninth, seventeen thirty seven, in the

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Speaker 1: small village of Thetford in Norfolk, England, to Joseph Payne

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Speaker 1: and Francis Cock Payne. He was an only child. His

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Speaker 1: father was a staymaker, a maker of whale boned components

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Speaker 1: for women's courses. Payne attended seven years of formal education

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Speaker 1: at the Thetford Grammar School. He left school around the

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Speaker 1: age of twelve or thirteen and began an apprenticeship with

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Speaker 1: his father. He worked the trade for six years before

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Speaker 1: running away from home to seek an adventure at sea.

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Speaker 1: The first time he tried to run away, his father

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Speaker 1: stopped him. On a November morning in seventeen fifty six,

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Speaker 1: at the age of sixteen, he attempted to join the

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Speaker 1: British privateer Terrible, but his father found him in London

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Speaker 1: and talked him out of joining the crew. Payne later wrote,

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Speaker 1: quote from this adventure, I was happily prevented by the

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Speaker 1: affectionate and moral remonstrance of a good father, who, from

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Speaker 1: his own habits of life, being of the Quaker profession,

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Speaker 1: must begin to look upon me as lost. In April

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Speaker 1: seventeen fifty seven, he joined the crew of the privateer

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Speaker 1: The King of Prussia, where he spent six months at sea.

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Speaker 1: Little is known about Paine's experience on the voyage or

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Speaker 1: what he did, because he barely mentioned it in his writings.

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Speaker 1: In seventeen fifty nine he married Mary Lambert. She and

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Speaker 1: their child died in less than a year later in childbirth.

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Speaker 1: In seventeen sixty eight, Pain began work as an excise

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Speaker 1: officer on the Sussex coast. He was a tax collector.

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Speaker 1: Pain married Elizabeth Olive in seventeen seventy one. Pain served

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Speaker 1: as a tax collector for a short period, but in

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Speaker 1: seventeen seventy two Pain published his first piece, Quote Case

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Speaker 1: of the Officers of Excise, which he personally distributed to

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Speaker 1: members of Parliament, urging them to improve wages and working

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Speaker 1: conditions for England's excise men, that is, England's tax collectors.

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Speaker 1: This probably cost him his job. Officially, the reason he

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Speaker 1: was fired was from neglecting his duties as a tax

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Speaker 1: collector while going to London to lobby for higher pay

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Speaker 1: for tax collectors. In this piece, his first real effort

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Speaker 1: at public advocacy, he wrote, quote, an augmentation of salary

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Speaker 1: sufficient to enable them to live honestly and competently would

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Speaker 1: produce more good effect than all the laws the land

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Speaker 1: can enforce the generality of such frauds, as the officers

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Speaker 1: have been detected and have peered of a nature as

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Speaker 1: remote from inherent dishonesty as a temporary illness is from

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Speaker 1: an incurable disease surrounded with want, children and despair. What

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Speaker 1: can the husband of the father do? And no laws

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Speaker 1: compel like nature, no connections bind like blood. With an

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Speaker 1: addition of salary, the excise would wear a new aspect

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Speaker 1: and recover its former constitution. Languor and neglect would give

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Speaker 1: place to care and cheerfulness. Men of reputation and abilities

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Speaker 1: would seek after it, and, finding a comfortable maintenance, would

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Speaker 1: stick to it. The unworthy and the incapable would be rejected,

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Speaker 1: the power of superiors be re established, and laws and

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Speaker 1: instructions receive new force. The officers would be secured from

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Speaker 1: the temptations of poverty and the revenue from the evils

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Speaker 1: of it. The cure would be as extensive as the complaint,

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Speaker 1: and new health out root the present corruptions pain. You

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Speaker 1: can already see in this very first pamphlet, his first

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Speaker 1: effort at public advocacy. He's already mastered the ability to

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Speaker 1: write clearly. He's already mastered the ability to present a

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Speaker 1: case in an orderly structured way. While Pain was busy lobbying,

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Speaker 1: he and his wife fell apart. In seventeen seventy four,

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Speaker 1: Pain and his wife signed a formal separation agreement. It's

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Speaker 1: unclear why they signed the separation agreement, but Pain never

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Speaker 1: remarried nor have any children. At some point in seventeen

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Speaker 1: seventy four, it's not clear whether this was before or

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Speaker 1: after he separated from his wife, he met Benjamin Franklin

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Speaker 1: in London. Franklin had become the lobbyist for the then

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Speaker 1: province of Pennsylvania went to London. In fact, it was

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Speaker 1: in London that Franklin realized he'd never be accepted by

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Speaker 1: the British aristocracy. And was said that he went to

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Speaker 1: London as an Englishman and he returned as an American.

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Speaker 1: But one of the key things was that in seventeen

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Speaker 1: seventy four Franklin met Thomas Payne and Franklin advised him

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Speaker 1: to emigrate to America. He gave him a letter of

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Speaker 1: introduction to bring with him, addressed to ben Franklin's son

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Speaker 1: in law, Richard Bach. Franklin was thirty eight at the time.

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Speaker 1: In the September thirtieth, seventeen seventy four letter, Franklin wrote,

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Speaker 1: quote the bearer, mister Thomas Paine is very well recommended

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Speaker 1: to me as an ingenious, worthy young man. He goes

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Speaker 1: to Pennsylvania with a view of settling there. I request

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Speaker 1: you to give me your best advice and countenance, as

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Speaker 1: he is quite a stranger there. If you can put

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Speaker 1: him in a way of obtaining employment as a clerk,

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Speaker 1: or assistant tutor in a school, or assistant surveyor, all

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Speaker 1: of which I think him very capable, said, he may

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Speaker 1: procure a subsistence, at least to him. It can make

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Speaker 1: acquaintance and obtain a knowledge of the country. You will

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Speaker 1: do well, and which oblige your affectionate father, My love

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Speaker 1: to Sally and the boys. Three months later, Paine was

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Speaker 1: on a ship to America, almost dying of scurvy. After

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Speaker 1: arriving in Philadelphia, Pain became the managing editor of Philadelphia Magazine.

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Speaker 1: Paine edited the magazine from February seventeen seventy five to

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Speaker 1: May seventeen seventy six. Pain was a major contributor to

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Speaker 1: the magazine, writing under the pseudonyms Amicus and Atlanticus. On

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Speaker 1: January twenty fourth, seventeen seventy five, before he became the

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Speaker 1: managing editor of Philadelphia Magazine, Paine wrote his first essay

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Speaker 1: on the importance of the press. This is pain quote.

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Speaker 1: The press has not only a great influence over our

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Speaker 1: manners and morals, but contributes largely to our pleasures. And

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Speaker 1: a magazine, when properly enriched, is very conveniently calculated for

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Speaker 1: this purpose. Voluminous works weary the patients, But here we

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Speaker 1: are invited by conciseness and variety. As I have formerly

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Speaker 1: received much pleasure from perusing these kind of publications, I

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Speaker 1: wish the present success and have no doubt of seeing

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Speaker 1: a proper diversity blended to agreeable together, so as to

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Speaker 1: furnish out an oleo worthy of the company for whom

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Speaker 1: it is designed. I consider a magazine as a kind

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Speaker 1: of beehive, which both allures the swarm and provides room

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Speaker 1: to store their suites. Its division in cells gives every

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Speaker 1: bee a province of its own. And although they all

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Speaker 1: produce home, I'm sorry. And although they all produce honey,

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Speaker 1: yet perhaps they differ in their taste for flowers, and

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Speaker 1: extract with great dexterity from one then from another. Thus

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Speaker 1: we are not all philosophers, all artists, nor all poets.

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Speaker 1: Thus was Pain describing his belief in the written word

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Speaker 1: and the importance of the written word. Pain was vocally

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Speaker 1: against slavery. On March eighth, seventeen seventy an anti slavery

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Speaker 1: essay written by Pain was published in both the Pennsylvania

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Speaker 1: Journal and the Weekly Adviser. A few weeks later, on

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Speaker 1: April fourteenth, seventeen seventy five, the first anti slavery society

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Speaker 1: in America was formed in Philadelphia, with Pain as one

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Speaker 1: of the founding members. No notice, he's only been there

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Speaker 1: a very short time already. He's active as a citizen,

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Speaker 1: he's active as a writer. He's obviously a very engaged,

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Speaker 1: very energitic person. In his March eighth, seventeen seventy five essay,

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Speaker 1: Pain wrote, quote two Americans, that some desperate wretches should

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Speaker 1: be willing to steal enslave men by violence and murder

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Speaker 1: for gain is rather lamentable than strange, but that many civilized,

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Speaker 1: nay Christianize people should approve and be concerned in the

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Speaker 1: savage practice is surprising and still persisted, though it has

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Speaker 1: been so often proved contrary to the light of nature,

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Speaker 1: to every principle of justice and he humanity, and even

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Speaker 1: good policy by a succession of eminent men in several

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Speaker 1: late publications. Our traders in men and unnatural commodity must

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Speaker 1: know the wickedness of the slave trade if they attend

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Speaker 1: to reasoning or the dictates of their own heart, such

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Speaker 1: as shun and stifle. All these willfully sacrificing conscience and

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Speaker 1: the character of integrity to that golden idol. So here

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Speaker 1: we are with Pain. Already the pamphleteer argue in favor

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Speaker 1: of freedom over slavery, But now comes the moment that

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Speaker 1: makes Pain a historic figure of the first order, and

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Speaker 1: that truly makes him one of the great leaders of

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Speaker 1: the American Revolution. Pain publishes Common Sense anonymously on January tenth,

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Speaker 1: seventeen seventy six, as quote by an Englishman, due to

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Speaker 1: fears that it could be considered treason. Remember, you're dealing

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Speaker 1: with King, who is basically a monarch imposed by God.

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Speaker 1: Any direct criticism King can be translated into treason, into

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Speaker 1: a failure to be a loyal citizen. That's why so

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Speaker 1: much of eighteenth century dialogue will refer back. For example,

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Speaker 1: to the Roman Republic, or will have some other reference point.

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Speaker 1: Everybody knows it's written about the present, but you can't

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Speaker 1: say it directly. So here's pain as an englishman, worried

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Speaker 1: that if people know he wrote it, he might be

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Speaker 1: considered a traitor. And remember he's writing this in January

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Speaker 1: seventeen seventy six, before the Americans have declared their independence.

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Speaker 1: So as an Englishman, he writes so brilliantly that in

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Speaker 1: the first three months Common Sense sold one hundred and

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Speaker 1: twenty thousand copies. By the end of the revolution, five

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand copies were sold. Since the estimated population of

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Speaker 1: the colonies of the time, excluding Native Americans and African

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Speaker 1: American slaves, was two point five million, and estimated twenty

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Speaker 1: percent of the colonists owned a copy. After its publication,

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Speaker 1: many American newspapers praised the piece. So here's a document

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Speaker 1: which is sweeping across the country, being very widely read,

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Speaker 1: and it is shaping people's thinking about this historic moment.

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Speaker 1: This is a moment of indecision. Nobody's yet really thought

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Speaker 1: clearly about declaring independence. They know they're mad at the

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Speaker 1: English government, they know they feel cheated by Parliament they

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Speaker 1: know that the arrogance of the government is driving of

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Speaker 1: nuts because they're such a deep sense of freedom thereafter all,

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Speaker 1: thousands of miles away, they're on the edge of a continent.

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Speaker 1: They're earning that with their own hard work. They're taking

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Speaker 1: their own risks with Indians. I mean, from a standpoint

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Speaker 1: of the Americans, London has become a place which is

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Speaker 1: despotism rather than a place which is protecting them. And

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Speaker 1: so pain is here beginning to explain to them how

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Speaker 1: to think about where they are now. The Pennsylvania Evening

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Speaker 1: Posts on February thirteenth, seventeen seventy six says, quote, if

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Speaker 1: you know the author of common sense, tell him he's

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Speaker 1: done wonders and worked miracles, made Torris whigs, and washed

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Speaker 1: Blackamore's white. He has made a great number of converts here.

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Speaker 1: His style is plain and nervous, his facts are true,

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Speaker 1: his reasoning just and conclusive. I might point out that

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Speaker 1: Whigs were the loyal opposition to the government, and so

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Speaker 1: to be a wig was in fact to be critical

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Speaker 1: of the established government, and has been pointed out by

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Speaker 1: many historians. The Americans who decided to rebel were essentially

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Speaker 1: in the Whig tradition. They were very close to the

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Speaker 1: English Whigs in their thinking and in their sense of identity.

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Speaker 1: So when the pennsylvani Evening Post says that he has

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Speaker 1: made Torries whigs, that is saying, basically, he's converting people

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Speaker 1: from defending the established government of England into being critics

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Speaker 1: of the government of England. The New York Journal on

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Speaker 1: March seventeen, seventeen seventy six says, quote, in your famous

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Speaker 1: pamphlet entitled Common Sense, by which I am convinced the

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Speaker 1: necessitive independence to which I was before a verse, you

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Speaker 1: have given liberty to every individual to contribute materials for

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Speaker 1: that great building, the Grand Charter of American Liberty. Now

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Speaker 1: think about this. Here's this englishman who's come over, and

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden he captures, He articulates the spirit

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Speaker 1: of the age. He gives words to people, people who

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Speaker 1: had sort of thought about it, but they didn't know

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Speaker 1: how to say it. And suddenly he becomes the catalyst

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Speaker 1: for several hundred thousand Americans to begin to move towards independence.

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Speaker 1: The New London Gazette, published in Connecticut on March twenty second,

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Speaker 1: seventeen seventy six, says quote to the author of the

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Speaker 1: pamphlet and titled common Sense, Sir, in declaring your own

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Speaker 1: you have declared the sentiments of millions. Your production may

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Speaker 1: justly be compared to a land flood that sweeps all

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Speaker 1: before it. We were blind, but on reading these enlightening works,

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Speaker 1: the scales have fallen from our eyes. Now. It's just

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Speaker 1: remarkable that he has had that kind of an impact,

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Speaker 1: and of course, as a part of that process. That's

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Speaker 1: why I say that in many ways he's one of

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Speaker 1: the founding fathers, even though culturally and an income and

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Speaker 1: in stature he doesn't really quite fit with them. He's

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Speaker 1: more of a rabble rouser, more of an outsider, more

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Speaker 1: of a radical, as you'll see in a minute. But

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Speaker 1: he's now established a believability a connection with probably close

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Speaker 1: to a million Americans out of a population of about

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Speaker 1: two and a half million. However, the revolution doesn't go well.

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Speaker 1: July fourth is terrific. Everybody is excited. They pass the

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Speaker 1: Eclatian independence. They've already created an army in Massachusetts, and

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Speaker 1: to unify the country, they sent a Virginian, George Washington,

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Speaker 1: to head up the army in Massachusetts. Washington as soon

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Speaker 1: as he gets a copy of the declaration as it

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Speaker 1: read to the troops, Washington understands the importance of morale,

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Speaker 1: the importance of propaganda, the importance of getting people that

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Speaker 1: are said what they're doing. And yet, despite their great

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Speaker 1: victory in Boston, driving the British out of the city,

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Speaker 1: they fall on hard times. The British have the power

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Speaker 1: of the oce because the Royal Navy dominates, they move

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Speaker 1: their military. Washington marches down to Brooklyn, his army begins

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Speaker 1: to be shattered. He barely survives thanks to a providential

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Speaker 1: fog coming in so people can't even see what's happening,

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Speaker 1: and they manage to get their army across from Brooklyn

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Speaker 1: to Manhattan, when if the weather had been clear, the

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Speaker 1: Royal Navy would have sunk the entire American army. He

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Speaker 1: loses Fort Washington, about three thousand troops surrendering, and his

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Speaker 1: army gradually shrinks from a high point of thirty thousand

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Speaker 1: in September down to about twenty five hundred effectives by Christmas,

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Speaker 1: and people are defeated. Despondent, demoralized, Washington, on the long

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Speaker 1: march across New Jersey, runs into Paine, who has signed

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Speaker 1: up as a rifleman, and he says, I don't need

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Speaker 1: you as a rifleman. If I need a new pamphlet,

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Speaker 1: I need an explanation. You've got to tell us now,

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Speaker 1: why has this become so hard? And so the man

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Speaker 1: who wrote common sense and helped the country decide it

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Speaker 1: wanted to be independent, goes to Philadelphia, goes back to writing,

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Speaker 1: and produces the crisis entitled the American Crisis. And it

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Speaker 1: begins with some of the most amazing words ever written,

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Speaker 1: and I am quoting pain. These are the times that

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Speaker 1: try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot

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Speaker 1: will in this crisis shrink from the service of their country.

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Speaker 1: But he that stands it now deserves the love and

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Speaker 1: thanks of man and woman. Tyranny like hell, is not

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Speaker 1: easily conquered. Yet we have this consolation with us that

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Speaker 1: the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. So

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Speaker 1: here's this great pamphleteer coming back once again, saying, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I help convince you you ought to be independent. Now

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Speaker 1: I'm going to convince you got to stick with it.

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Speaker 1: As Washington and the extraordinary, courageous last throw of the dice,

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Speaker 1: takes his troops to cross the Delaware on Christmas night

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Speaker 1: in a snowstorm with large blocks of ice in the river,

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Speaker 1: gets them to march eight miles in the dark to

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Speaker 1: surprise eight hundred professional German soldiers who collapse and are captured.

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Speaker 1: As the men are getting on the boat to cross

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Speaker 1: the river, Washington has the officers reading the crisis to

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Speaker 1: remind them, this is why we're here, this is what

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Speaker 1: we're trying to do. Yes, it's hard, but we can

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Speaker 1: do it. So Payne has two great impacts. His first

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Speaker 1: great impact is getting people to decide that they want

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Speaker 1: to be independent. His second great impact is convincing them

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Speaker 1: to keep working and to keep fighting. Now, in this period,

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Speaker 1: Paine is actually serving serve as a war correspondent. He's

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Speaker 1: reporting to the country and he actually wrote sixteen articles

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Speaker 1: sitting around the campfire about what's going on. During the

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Speaker 1: retreat of Washington's forces from New York through New Jersey

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Speaker 1: in December seventeen seventy six, Payne wrote an account which

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Speaker 1: was published in the Pennsylvania Journal only in January twenty ninth,

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Speaker 1: seventeen seventy seven. This is after he's written the crisis.

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Speaker 1: After he's helped the Americans decide they are going to

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Speaker 1: keep fighting and they're going to state it. But here's

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Speaker 1: what he writes. I'm quoting pain now from the Pennsylvania Journal.

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Speaker 1: Fort Washington being obliged to surrender by a violent attack

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Speaker 1: made by the whole British army on Saturday, the sixteenth

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Speaker 1: of November, the generals determined to evacuate Fort Lee, which,

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Speaker 1: being principally intended to preserved the communication with Fort Washington,

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Speaker 1: was becoming a manner useless. The stores were ordered to

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Speaker 1: be removed, and great part of them was immediately sent off.

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Speaker 1: The enemy, knowing the divided state of her army and

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Speaker 1: that the terms of the soldiers enlistments would soon aspire,

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Speaker 1: conceived the design of penetrating into the Jerseys, and hoped,

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Speaker 1: by pushing their successes, to be completely victorious. Accordingly, on

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Speaker 1: Wednesday morning, the twentieth November, it was discovered that a

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Speaker 1: large body of British and Hessian troops had crossed the

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Speaker 1: North River and landed about six miles above the fort.

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Speaker 1: As our force was inferior to that of the enemy,

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Speaker 1: the fort unfinished and on a narrow neck of land.

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Speaker 1: The garrison was ordered to march for Hackensack Bridge, which,

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Speaker 1: though much nearer the enemy than the fort, they quietly

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Speaker 1: suffered our troops to take possession of. The principal loss

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Speaker 1: suffered at Fort Lee was that of the heavy cannon,

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Speaker 1: the greatest part of which was left behind. Our troops

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Speaker 1: continued at Hackensack Bridge and town that day and half

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Speaker 1: of the next, when the inclemency of the weather the

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Speaker 1: want of quarters an approach of the enemy obliged them

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Speaker 1: to proceed to Aquaconock and from thence to Newark, a

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Speaker 1: party being left at Aquaconack to observe the motions of

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Speaker 1: the enemy. At Newark, our little army was reinforced by

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Speaker 1: Lord Sterling's and Colonel Hans brigades, which had been stationed

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Speaker 1: at Brunswick. Three days after our troops left Hackensack, a

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Speaker 1: body of the enemy crossed the Passaic above Aquacnack and

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Speaker 1: made their approaches slowly towards Newark, and seemed extremely desirous

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Speaker 1: that we should leave the town without their being put

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Speaker 1: to the trouble of fighting for it. The distance from

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Speaker 1: Newark to Aqucnack is nine miles, and they were three

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Speaker 1: days in marching that distance from Newark. Our retreat was

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Speaker 1: to Brunswick, and it was hoped that the assistance of

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Speaker 1: the Jersey militia would enable General Washington to make the

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Speaker 1: banks of the Raretan the bounds of the enemy's progress.

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Speaker 1: But on the first of December the army was greatly

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Speaker 1: weakened by the experts in terms of enlistments of the

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Speaker 1: Maryland and Jersey flying camp and the militia not coming

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Speaker 1: in so soon as was expected. Another retreat was the

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Speaker 1: necessary consequence. Our army reached Trenton on the fourth of December,

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Speaker 1: continued there till the seventh, and then on the approach

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Speaker 1: of the enemy, it was thought proper to pass the Delaware.

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Speaker 1: Now that was the sort of description for the whole

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Speaker 1: country of the way in which Washington's army is shrinking

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Speaker 1: and getting to a point where it almost ceases to exist.

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Speaker 1: In fact, at one point, in designing a very daring strategy,

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Speaker 1: Washington reassures his generals by pointing out that if the

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Speaker 1: army totally collapses, the revolution will be over. If the

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Speaker 1: revolution is over, every general at that meeting will be hung.

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Speaker 1: And therefore they have nothing to fear, because they have

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Speaker 1: nothing to lose. Has remarkable courage on the part of Washington,

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Speaker 1: and it was a remarkable intelligence by Washington to recognize

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Speaker 1: that Pain really was a person who could help understand

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Speaker 1: what's going on. Pain writes The Crisis four and September

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Speaker 1: seventeen seventy seven, which opens with the following, I think

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Speaker 1: this is useful to us today because it's as true

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Speaker 1: for us today as it was in seventeen seventy seven.

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Speaker 1: Pain wrote, those who expect to reap the blessings of

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Speaker 1: freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.

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Speaker 1: And near the closed States, we fight not to enslave,

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Speaker 1: but to set a country free and to make room

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Speaker 1: upon the earth for honest men to live in. Now,

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Speaker 1: I think that's probably as good a capture of what

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Speaker 1: America is all about and of what we in our

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Speaker 1: generation also have to do. And in that sense, if

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Speaker 1: you allow him to, Pain talks to our generation fully

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Speaker 1: as much as he wrote for the founding father's generation.

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Speaker 1: You know. In seventeen seventy seven, Congress appointed Pain as

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Speaker 1: Secretary to the Committee for Foreign Affairs. He held that

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Speaker 1: till early seventeen seventy nine, when he was forced to

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Speaker 1: resign as a result of what was called the Silas

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Speaker 1: Dean affair. Silas Dean was a member of the Early

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Speaker 1: Continent of Congress who was sent by Congress to France

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Speaker 1: to obtain financial and military assistance. He successfully obtained and

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00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:21,639
Speaker 1: sent arms from France to America, but upon his return

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Speaker 1: to the States, he was accused of embezzlement and disloyalty

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Speaker 1: because of accusations that he charged France for the supplies

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Speaker 1: that were intended as gifts. These accusations were never proven,

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Speaker 1: but they ruined Dean's political career. Paine publicly denounced Dean's

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Speaker 1: private arms dealing in France, but in doing so revealed

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Speaker 1: secret negotiations with France, which led to his dismissal as

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Speaker 1: Secretary to the Committee for Foreign Affairs later that year.

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Speaker 1: He was appointed Clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly. In March

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Speaker 1: of seventeen eighty, while Clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly, Payne

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Speaker 1: wrote the preamble to the Act for the Great Actual

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Speaker 1: Abolition of Slavery, which was the first legislative measure for

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Speaker 1: the emancipation of slaves in America. Paine originally hoped this

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Speaker 1: act would immediately abolish slavery, but because of opposition. He

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Speaker 1: was forced to write a compromise which outlined the gradual

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Speaker 1: emancipation of slaves and said the Act specified that every

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Speaker 1: child born into slavery after passing the Act would be

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Speaker 1: free upon reaching the age of twenty eight. The bill

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00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:28,400
Speaker 1: passed with a vote of thirty four to twenty one.

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Speaker 1: So pain has had an experience both of being pro

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Speaker 1: freedom for the American colonies from Britain and being pro

399
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Speaker 1: freedom for the abolition of slavery. In seventeen eighty seven,

400
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Speaker 1: Paine returned to Britain, but experienced persecution for his support

401
00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:50,160
Speaker 1: of the French Revolution. The French Revolution is a much

402
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:54,119
Speaker 1: more radical a revolution than the American Revolution, and that

403
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:58,720
Speaker 1: radicalism became a huge challenge to the very fabric of

404
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Speaker 1: British society. In seventeen ninety one, Payne wrote The Rights

405
00:27:19,800 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 1: of Man in response to the English writer and politician

406
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Speaker 1: Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, which was

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00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:30,200
Speaker 1: written in seventeen ninety and Burke is proudly the most

408
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 1: famous conservative intellectual who's also a politician trying to think

409
00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:39,680
Speaker 1: through the threat of the radicalism of the French Revolution.

410
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:44,000
Speaker 1: So now Paine is writing defending the French Revolution. The

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00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:47,560
Speaker 1: Rights of Man was originally printed by Joseph Johnson and

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Speaker 1: published in February twenty first, seventeen ninety one, but it

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00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 1: was a drawn for fear of prosecution by the government.

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00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:58,400
Speaker 1: On March sixteenth, seventeen ninety one, J. S. Jordan published

415
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Speaker 1: Paine's ninety thousand word book. In the Rights of Man,

416
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Speaker 1: Pain wrote, quote, it is a perversion of terms to

417
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:09,320
Speaker 1: say that a charter gives rights. It operates by a

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00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:13,840
Speaker 1: contrary effect, that of taking rights away. Rights are inherently

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00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:17,679
Speaker 1: in all the inhabitants, but charters, by annulling those rights

420
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:21,119
Speaker 1: in the majority, leave the right by exclusion in the

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00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 1: hands of a few. They consequently are instruments of injustice.

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00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 1: The fact, therefore must be that the individuals themselves, each

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00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:33,399
Speaker 1: in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a

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00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:36,399
Speaker 1: contract with each other to produce a government. And this

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00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 1: is the only mode in which governments have a right

426
00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:42,280
Speaker 1: to arise, and the only principle in which they have

427
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 1: a right to exist. Close, of course, if you think

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00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:52,000
Speaker 1: about it, assistant direct repudiation of the entire model of kingship,

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Speaker 1: in which power goes from God to the king and

430
00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:58,320
Speaker 1: the King gives you rights. Pain is saying the opposite.

431
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:02,360
Speaker 1: He's saying, oh, no, power comes to you from God,

432
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 1: and then you get to decide whether or not you

433
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 1: want to have a contract with other people to create

434
00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 1: a government. Now this writing is so radical for that

435
00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 1: time that Pain is charged with libel. He flees to

436
00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:18,800
Speaker 1: France before being charged, and he never returns to England.

437
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 1: So now he's moved from the heroic defender and explainer

438
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 1: of the American Revolution to an advocate of a dramatically

439
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 1: more radical French Revolution. Paine wrote Georgejacques d'Antin, who's one

440
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:36,360
Speaker 1: of the great leaders of the French Revolution on May sixth,

441
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:39,760
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety three. Did originally hope to return to America

442
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 1: in seventeen eighty eight, but the French Revolution encouraged him

443
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 1: to stay. Paine wrote, quote, I am exceeding disturbed at

444
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:53,280
Speaker 1: the distractions, jealousies, discontents, and uneasiness the reign among us,

445
00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 1: in which, if they continue, will bring ruin and disgrace

446
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:00,760
Speaker 1: on the Republic. When I left America the seventeen eighty

447
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 1: seven is my intention to return the year following. But

448
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 1: the French Revolution and the prospect that afforded of extending

449
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 1: the principles of liberty and fraternity through the greater part

450
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 1: of Europe had induced me to prolong my stale upwards

451
00:30:13,840 --> 00:30:17,920
Speaker 1: of six years. As soon as the Constitution shall be established,

452
00:30:18,160 --> 00:30:21,280
Speaker 1: I shall return to America and be the future prosperity

453
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:24,200
Speaker 1: of France. Ever so great, I shall enjoy no other

454
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:27,440
Speaker 1: part of it than the happiness of knowing it. In

455
00:30:27,520 --> 00:30:30,320
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety two, Payne actually took a seat in the

456
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:33,680
Speaker 1: National Convention. We become one of the four major writers

457
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 1: of the Constitution for the Republic of France. So here

458
00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 1: is an Englishman who helps create intellectually the American system,

459
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:48,280
Speaker 1: now is in France helping develop the French system, which

460
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:51,480
Speaker 1: is far more radical than the American system. And of course,

461
00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 1: in both cases he's opposed to Great Britain. In seventeen

462
00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 1: ninety three, as a member of the National Convention, Pain

463
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 1: urged banishment not execution, of Louis of sixteenth in his family.

464
00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:08,040
Speaker 1: In November seventeen ninety three, he was arrested and imprisoned

465
00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:11,680
Speaker 1: in Luxembourg prison for opposing the beheading of Louis of sixteen.

466
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:15,440
Speaker 1: Payne continued to write in published works while in prison.

467
00:31:15,800 --> 00:31:19,560
Speaker 1: He published The Age of Reason while in prisoned. In

468
00:31:19,600 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety four, after eleven months in prison, through the

469
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 1: intervention of James Monroe, the ambassador to France, Paine was released,

470
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:33,280
Speaker 1: narrowly escaping execution. In seventeen ninety six, Payne published open

471
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: letter of George Washington criticizing him. Paine was upset that

472
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 1: after he expressed American citizenship while being imprisoned in France,

473
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 1: Washington and his administration did nothing to help him get released.

474
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: In the letter, Payne wrote, quote, monopolies of every kind

475
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:51,840
Speaker 1: marked your administration almost in the moment of its commencement.

476
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 1: The lands obtained by the revolution were lavished upon partisans.

477
00:31:56,600 --> 00:32:00,440
Speaker 1: The interest of the disbanded soldier was sold to the speculator.

478
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 1: After fifteen years away, Paine remained in France until eighteen

479
00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 1: oh two, when President Thomas Jefferson invited him to return.

480
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:15,320
Speaker 1: On November fifteenth, eighteen oh two, The National Intelligencer in

481
00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:18,320
Speaker 1: washing d c. Published the first of many letters from

482
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:20,800
Speaker 1: pain to the Citizen of the United States about his

483
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:24,560
Speaker 1: return to the States. Payne wrote in his first letter, quote,

484
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:28,480
Speaker 1: after an absence of almost fifteen years, I am again

485
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:31,320
Speaker 1: returned to the country in whose dangers I bore my share,

486
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:34,880
Speaker 1: and to whose greatness I contributed my part. As this

487
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 1: letter is intended to announce my arrival to my friends

488
00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:40,200
Speaker 1: and my enemies. If I have any for I ought

489
00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:43,000
Speaker 1: to have none in America, and as introductory to others

490
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:45,960
Speaker 1: Tho'll occasionally follow, I shall close it by detailing the

491
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:50,080
Speaker 1: line of conduct I shall pursue. I have no occasion

492
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 1: to ask, and do not intend to accept any place

493
00:32:53,520 --> 00:32:56,040
Speaker 1: or office in the government. There is none who could

494
00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:57,680
Speaker 1: give me. There would be in any ways equal to

495
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 1: the profits I could make as an author. I have

496
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:03,200
Speaker 1: an established fame in the literary world. Could I reconcile

497
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 1: it to my principles to make money by my politics

498
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:08,640
Speaker 1: or religion? I must be, in everything what I have

499
00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 1: ever been, a disinterested volunteer. My proper sphere of action

500
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:16,719
Speaker 1: is on the common floor of citizenship, and to honest

501
00:33:16,760 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 1: men I give my hand and my heart freely. I

502
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:23,080
Speaker 1: have some manuscript works to publish, of which I shall

503
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:26,360
Speaker 1: give proper notice, and some mechanical affairs to bring forward.

504
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 1: They will employ all my leisure time. I shall continue

505
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 1: these letters as I see occasion, and as to the

506
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 1: low party prints that choose to abuse me, they are welcome.

507
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:38,360
Speaker 1: I shall not descend to answer them. I have been

508
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:40,600
Speaker 1: too much used to such common stuff to take any

509
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:43,160
Speaker 1: notice of it. The government of England honored me with

510
00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:46,280
Speaker 1: a thousand martyrdoms by burning me an effigy in every

511
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:49,280
Speaker 1: town in that country, and their highlans in America may

512
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:53,000
Speaker 1: do this, said a fresh I was in tell Thomas

513
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:55,720
Speaker 1: Paine thinks a lot of himself, and he sees things

514
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 1: focused on him. You can also see that he is

515
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:02,600
Speaker 1: inherently controvers cannot help himself. He has new ability to

516
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 1: addit himself to make it more acceptable. After his arrival,

517
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 1: he found that his reputation was mostly negative, with the

518
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:14,759
Speaker 1: press calling him an outrageous blasphemer, a lying, drunken, brutal infidel,

519
00:34:15,080 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 1: and a lily livered, sinful rouge, among others. Upon his

520
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:21,799
Speaker 1: return to America, Pain resided on and off at the

521
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 1: farm that the State of New York gave him in

522
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:26,719
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty four for his service in the cause of independence.

523
00:34:27,440 --> 00:34:30,280
Speaker 1: In eighteen oh five, Pain moved to New York City permanently.

524
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:34,640
Speaker 1: On June eighth, eighteen oh nine, Payne died in New

525
00:34:34,760 --> 00:34:37,280
Speaker 1: York and was buried on his farm in New Rochelle.

526
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:41,840
Speaker 1: Only six mourners were present at his funeral. At the time,

527
00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 1: he was not considered an American hero, as The New

528
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:48,879
Speaker 1: York Citizen included in his obituary, he had lived long,

529
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:52,719
Speaker 1: did some good and much harm. Years after his death

530
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty one, Thomas Jefferson wrote positively about Pain, quote,

531
00:34:58,160 --> 00:35:01,000
Speaker 1: no writer has exceeded Pain and ease, familiarity of style,

532
00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:06,320
Speaker 1: and perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple

533
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:10,080
Speaker 1: and unassuming language. And this he may be compared with

534
00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:13,960
Speaker 1: doctor Franklin. And indeed his Common Sense was for a

535
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:17,440
Speaker 1: while believed to have written by doctor Franklin and published

536
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:19,799
Speaker 1: under the borrowed name of Pain, who had come over

537
00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:23,400
Speaker 1: with him from England. I think in that sense Jefferson

538
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:28,279
Speaker 1: sort of captured it. Pain was a remarkable pamphleteer. His

539
00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 1: first two great works, Common Sense, which really moved the

540
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:38,719
Speaker 1: country towards independence, and The Crisis, which really convinced Americans

541
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:41,879
Speaker 1: we had to stick at it until we won, were

542
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:47,360
Speaker 1: historic and had an enormous impact on the American Revolution

543
00:35:48,080 --> 00:35:52,880
Speaker 1: and an entire generation of people. His passion for taking

544
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 1: on the British government led him to the much more

545
00:35:55,719 --> 00:36:01,480
Speaker 1: radical French Revolution, and his desire to continuously have a

546
00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:05,480
Speaker 1: sharp pen, which attacked much more than it might have

547
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 1: under other circumstances, ultimately isolated him. But to understand America,

548
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 1: to understand the role of the common citizen, to understand

549
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 1: how much the American Revolution was, at its heart a

550
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:23,480
Speaker 1: popular revolution of everyday people, people who'd been moved by

551
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:28,520
Speaker 1: reading a pamphlet, to be reminded that ideas matter, and

552
00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:32,239
Speaker 1: that it is the power of ideas that drives everything else.

553
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:36,160
Speaker 1: That's the legacy of Thomas Pain, and it's a legacy

554
00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:39,000
Speaker 1: worth all of us remembering and all of us teaching

555
00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:45,319
Speaker 1: others about. Thank you for listening to founding Father's Week

556
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 1: on Nutsworld. You can learn more about Thomas Pain on

557
00:36:48,640 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 1: our show page at newtsworld dot com. Newsworld is produced

558
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:56,400
Speaker 1: by Gingah three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is

559
00:36:56,480 --> 00:37:01,040
Speaker 1: Guernsey Sloan and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork

560
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:05,360
Speaker 1: for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks

561
00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:08,279
Speaker 1: to the team at Gingrish three sixty. If you've been

562
00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:11,520
Speaker 1: enjoying newtswork, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and

563
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:14,319
Speaker 1: both rate us with five stars and give us a

564
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:18,080
Speaker 1: review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now,

565
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:21,720
Speaker 1: listeners of Newsworld consign up for my three free weekly

566
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 1: columns at ginrichthree sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrich.

567
00:37:27,400 --> 00:37:28,480
Speaker 1: This is Newsworld