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PAINE, THOMAS (1737–1809)

Thomas Paine, the son of an English Quaker tradesman, became the great propagandist of the American and French revolutions. Before sailing to Philadelphia in 1774, with a letter of recommendation from BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Paine had been a corsetmaker, a privateer, a tax assessor, a songwriter, and a tobacconist. In Philadelphia, he became editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine, crusading for abolition of slavery, proscription of dueling, greater rights for women, and easier availability of divorce.

Paine became the spokesman for the AMERICAN REVOLUTION when, in January 1776, he published a pamphlet called Common Sense. The pamphlet sharply attacked "the constitutional errors of the English form of government," including monarchy and CHECKS AND BALANCES. Paine declared that "the constitution of England is so complex, that the nation may suffer for years together without being able to discover in which part the fault lies." He argued for minimal government: "Society is in every state a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil." Paine concluded Common Sense with a proposal for a "Continental Charter" of government based on large and equal REPRESENTATION and featuring a presidency rotated among the provincial delegations.

Between 1776 and 1783, Paine published a series of thirteen essays called The Crisis, chronicling "the times that try men's souls." Although in Common Sense he had denounced the English constitution, by the time he wrote The Crisis #7 in 1778, Paine had come to wonder "whether there is any such thing as the English constitution?" The Crisis #13, published in 1783, presented an argument for a strong and permanent national union, because "we have no other national SOVEREIGNTY than as the United States."

As the CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1787 met, however, Paine was en route to Europe to promote a scheme for building iron bridges. The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 found him in Paris. He became a French citizen and a member of the revolutionary Convention; he was the principal author of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. When Edmund Burke denounced the French Revolution, Paine responded with The Rights of Man, the nearest thing he ever wrote to a systematic treatise on politics. Not an originator of ideas but a popularizer, Paine grounded his case for the revolution in the concepts of NATURAL RIGHTS and SOCIAL COMPACT."Every civil right," he wrote, "has for its foundation some natural right pre-existing in the individual, but to the enjoyment of which his individual power is not, in all cases, sufficiently competent."

In 1792 the French revolutionary government fell into the hands of a radical faction; Paine was imprisoned and only narrowly escaped the guillotine. During his year in prison he wrote The Age of Reason, an apology for deism and religious rationalism with an anti-Christian tenor.

Paine's release from prison was arranged by the American ambassador, JAMES MONROE. For nearly a decade Paine remained in France as a journalist and political commentator. In 1802 he returned to America where he wrote polemical articles for the newspapers in support of THOMAS JEFFERSON'S Republican party until his death in 1809.