Thomas Paine's Birthday

Tom Paine and Revolutionary America – Eric Foner

Not a biography, this book explains the political and intellectual contexts that influenced the author of the influential pamphlet Common Sense. Although not a long book, it covers a lot of ground: the complex political atmosphere of Philadelphia just before the war and then in the early national era, new and amended political ideas, religion and  conflicting economic interests fought in the stale arguments we hear still today.

Like thinkers such as John Adams and James Madison, Paine disliked the idea of political parties, believing that The People’s interests were complementary, i.e., what was economically good for bankers would be good for bakers. He believed in the high-minded revolutionary ideal that envisioned a harmonious social order ruled by the impartial pursuit of the common good.

Foner says that Paine appealed to famers, merchants, and artisans due to his use of direct "language of common speech:"

Paine's invention of a new political language and his creation of one of the first designs of an iron bridge went hand in hand; they symbolize the twofold nature of the revolution to which he was committed and the modern world which he helped to usher in.

Foner also discusses the fall-out caused by the pamphlet The Age of Reason, a blistering attack on Christianity. As Benjamin Franklin once wrote to him, "He who spits in the wind spits in his own face…if men are wicked with religion, what would they be without it?" Whatever its merits, the charge of atheism is one reason we Americans then and now do not consider Paine a founder.

Not wanting to be associated with a so-called atheist, Paine’s friends broke off relations. His end at aged 72 in 1809 was sad indeed. In his biography of Albert Gallatin, Henry Adams writes that Paine was very fond of Kitty Nicholson, who became Mrs. Few. Paine’s anti-Christianity views estranged them, leading to this sad deathbed scene:

When confined to his bed with his last illness he [Paine] sent for Mrs. Few, who came to see him, and when they parted she spoke some words of comfort and religious hope. Poor Paine only turned his face to the wall, and kept silence.

Paine died poor and alone and probably ravaged by alcohol. He requested to be buried in a Quaker cemetery. They refused for fear of the grave becoming a tourist attraction. He was buried on his New Rochelle, NY farm, but two years later his remains were disinterred to be taken back to England for a memorial service and burial. After this plan failed, the bones were put in a trunk on somebody’s farm. Then the remains disappeared.

Well-written, the edition 0195021827 has black and white reproductions of broadsides and title-pages that give the book an unexpected visual appeal, at least for those of us readers who think printing design and typography went downhill during the nineteenth century.