History's Hit Job on Thomas Paine

History's Hit Job on Thomas Paine
By CHARLES MODIANO


"I know not whether any man in the world has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for the last 30 years than Thomas Paine."--John Adams, 1805

Given our current state of the union, this past 4th of July seemed as good a time as any to pay patriotic homage to our country's greatest American revolutionary... Thomas Paine. Unlike George Washington, there is no holiday in his honor. Unlike Thomas Jefferson, there is no memorial in the Washington mall. And unlike many other of his dead revolutionary peers, you won't find his picture in your wallet no matter how big a spender you are. And despite history's hit job on his legacy, it just doesn't get too much more American than the man who created the phrase: "United States of America"<1>. Paine was simultaneously a revolutionary during his time and 230 years ahead of his time.

Good American Revolutionary!

When it came to the American Revolution, General Washington was the fighter and Thomas Paine was the writer. John Adams stated: "Without the pen of the author of 'Common Sense,' the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain". Paine's American Crisis Papers may have been equally as inspirational in winning the war as Common Sense" was able to galvanize popular support for it. His " Rights of Man" which supported the French Revolution and, more broadly, human rights, quickly became one of the most popular books ever published. It called on Englishmen to join France and the US in a government "of the people and for the people and by the people" <2> at a time when Abraham Lincoln was not even born. Had Paine not escaped near execution in a Luxemburg jail he was committed to in 1793, he may have very well gone on to become our country's most iconic founder. While mention of Paine's 'Common Sense', and perhaps even "The Crisis Papers", can usually be found in your average 8th grade textbook, his legacy often ends right there. Perhaps intentionally so.

Bad American Revolutionary!

Some freedom fighters just don't know when to quit! Paine was a staunch and outspoken abolitionist. In this essay African Slavery in America, Paine, not one to mince words, published one of the very first articles in the US advocating the emancipation of all slaves. Its publishing date of March 8, 1775 may be just as significant as the essay itself. Paine also believed that women should be afforded equal rights and participation in the political process. And unlike many other founders, by 1795 Paine had come to advocate universal suffrage <3>. Paine was a free thinker and philosopher whose writings supported every forthcoming freedom movement (Civil War, Women's Suffrage, Civil Rights, etc.) on American soil. While he was initially beloved for his role in the American Revolution, he was essentially told to go back to his corner the more he kept talking all crazy about freedom for ALL its citizens. And when he openly criticized Christianity (see AGE of REASON) which, in his time, formed the backbone for monarchy, slavery, and inequality, well THAT was the last straw. Ultimately, he was ostracized, his hero status withdrawn, and his accomplishments minimized in our history books in the early 1800s. By 1809 he died broke and only a handful attended his funeral....


http://www.counterpunch.org/modiano07072007.html

Yep. You bucked the religious right (or religion, anyway) at your peril, even back then.

...I knew that Mr. Paine and myself were of one accord.

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.

It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the trade of a priest for the sake of gain, and in order to qualify himself for that trade, he begins with a perjury. Can we conceive any thing more destructive to morality than this?"

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/%7Erbear/reason1.html



K&R!!! :)

on edit: added link to the "Age of Reason"

at one point, comparing his treatment then to how we should curse certain leaders today. . .


Embittered royalists in Revolutionary times
spelled out TP — for Thomas Paine — with nails
on the soles of their shoes so that at every step
they could trample his spirit. I’ve done the same
to curse a leader whose name is anathema.


And though Connell wrote this in '73 and intended the jibe for Richard Nixon, the intent holds true.

it cannot be accomplished but by a revolution in the system of governments. 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." The Rights of Man

I detest Patrick Henry the most. "Give me liberty or give me death" indeed. He was one of the biggest slaveowners in America when he said that, and wanted to write slavery explicitly into the Constitution. Sam Adams was pretty much a putz, too, though he's got a good lineup of beer. Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Washington, and the rest stole any good ideas they had from Montesquieu, Rousseau, and other Europeans, and came up with a lot of bad ideas (like the 3/5 person rule, and the 2-members-from-each-state Senate) on their own. The original "Dead White Males" indeed.