Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Today is the birthday of one of our most important and all too often overlooked founding fathers, Thomas Paine. He was born on Jan. 29, 1737. Paine was a truly remarkable man who had a major role in both the American and French revolutions. His pamphlet Common Sense, published in January 1776, was the spark that ignited the revolutionary fires in the American colonies. It was the best-selling work of the entire 1700s in America with some 500,000 copies sold.
Paine also wrote the famous Crisis pamphlets to boost morale for the revolutionary war, the first of which begins:
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. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.
Paine also wrote The Rights of Man, a book that defended the French revolution and answered Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. The publication of that book led to his being tried in England, in absentia, for sedition (as though his role in the American revolution had not already made him seditious in the eyes of King George).
He was named to the National Convention of France in 1792, but he quickly fell out of favor with Robespierre and the Jacobins after he argued against executing Louis XVI. In 1793, he was expelled from the National Assembly, arrested and imprisoned. It was in prison in France that he began writing The Age of Reason, an attack on Christianity and the validity of the Bible that all but destroyed his reputation in America as well.
Thomas Paine was a tireless advocate of liberty and one of our most brilliant thinkers. He leaves behind a legacy of standing up to tyranny and risking his life to do so. He should be celebrated far more than he is.
Comments
Thanks for the reminder, Ed. For those interested in the most complete collection of Paine available, the Library of America volume is indispensible. It should be noted that in regards to the religious views he presents The Age of Reason Paine was a confirmed Deist, and promoted Deism and attacked Atheism (as it was understood then) with as much invective as he attacked Theism -- much in the way Emerson later would do, in a manner more palatable to the American sensibility. Paine's intellect was as complex as his argument was subtle and his rhetoric uncompromising; perhaps the most fully representative of the Enlightenment intellectuals.
Posted by: Geoffrey Alexander | January 29, 2008 12:59 PM
Thomas Paine is one of my favorites as well. He had true power with words. He also gave all of the profits of his pamphlets to the revolution. He therefore spent most of his life in relative poverty.
Jim51
Posted by: Jim51 | January 29, 2008 1:20 PM
One of my favs since junior high. A true American and Human hero. My office looks out over Thomas Paine Square in lower Manhattan.
Posted by: DrSteveB | January 29, 2008 2:09 PM
Gosh. As I read that quotation I found myself saying "This guy wrote more hooks than Lennon and McCartney!" No less than seven memorable phrases compacted into eighty-four words. He was born in my hometown of Thetford, England, where he is much remembered and there is a statue of him there in a prominent public place (http://www.aoqv41.dsl.pipex.com/album/thetford/paine1.htm). Happy Birthday, Mr P!
Posted by: Stephen Llewellyn | January 29, 2008 2:35 PM
I've hade The Age of Reason on my to-be-read shelf for years. Time to take it down and read it!
Posted by: pablo | January 29, 2008 3:01 PM
It should also be noted that although Paine was America's first best selling author he didn't make a dime from it as he wanted his work to reach the widest audience possible. He ended up having to beg the newly formed American gov't for some kind of finanical assistance for his war service (having been both a writer and a soldier.)
It can't be understated what the impact of Common sense and The American Crisis was. Washington read the passage Ed quotes to his troops on Christmas eve 1776 at a moment when many revolutionaries had pretty much lost all hope.
Depite having put his life on the line for liberty in three countries across two continents, only six people saw fit to attend his funeral. An obituary read, "He had lived long, did some good and much harm."
"I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy," wrote Paine in The Age of Reason. The "harm" he did was dedicating his life to that and this principle:
"Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to person or place; the world is my country, and my religion is to do good." - The Rights of Man
Posted by: Hume's Ghost | January 29, 2008 4:20 PM
"I have the advantage of some experience; it is near twenty years that I have been engaged in the cause of liberty, having contributed something to it in the revolution of the United States of America. My language has always been that of liberty and humanity, and I know by experience that nothing so exalts a nation as the union of these principles, under all circumstances. I know that the public mind of France, and particularly that of Paris, has been heated and irritated by the dangers to which they have been exposed; but could we carry our thoughts into the future, when the dangers are ended, and the irritations forgotten, what today seems an act of justice may then appear an act of vengeance. My anxiety for the cause of France has become for the moment concern for its honor. If, on my return to America, I should employ myself on a history of the French Revolution, I had rather record a thousand errors dictated by humanity, than one inspired by a justice too severe." - Thomas Paine's speech to National Convention is defense of Louis XVI's life
Posted by: Hume's Ghost | January 29, 2008 4:25 PM
"This pamphlet for the greater good would all but destroy Paine's American reputation, and its drafting would offer a profound insight into the author's very character. If there is any moment in his life that reveals Paine as the Enlightenment's most adamantine evangelist, it is this. For exactly what kind of man, with dozens of friends either imprisoned or dead by guillotine or by their own hand, with his own life directly imperiled, and expecting at any moment the knock at the door and the presentation of the warrant - just what kind of human being would write a book under such conditions, and call it The Age of Reason?" - Craig Nelson, Thomas Paine
Posted by: Hume's Ghost | January 29, 2008 4:29 PM
One of the first works Paine published in the colonies was the abolitionist pamphlet African Slavery in America. He didn't believe in half-measures when it comes to liberty.
Posted by: Mister DNA | January 29, 2008 5:28 PM
Thanks for keeping alive the memory. A hero. The Rights of Man and Common Sense sit in front of me now - Tom Paine is the main inspiration for my entire blog!
Paine was also a designer of bridges ... as I just said yesterday: skyscrapers divide people, bridges connect people.
Posted by: R N B | January 29, 2008 5:35 PM
Those opening lines of "The Crisis" are among the most inspirational words ever written. It is one of the few passages that make me shudder a little every time I hear it. I revere many of Founders for many different reasons, but Paine holds a special place in my heart.
Posted by: Mr. Upright | January 29, 2008 5:45 PM
Those who want to keep Paine's memory alive might find this of interest.
http://www.bank-of-wisdom.com/bustdisplay.php?bust=Paine
Posted by: Hume's Ghost | January 29, 2008 5:59 PM
And one of the all time quotes
"To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture. Enjoy, sir, your insensibility of feeling and reflecting. It is the prerogative of animals. And no man will envy you these honors, in which a savage only can be your rival and a bear your master."
I'm a huge admirer of Paine, if you can't tell.
Posted by: Hume's Ghost | January 29, 2008 6:02 PM
This is probably my all-time favorite Paine quote:
Posted by: Mister DNA | January 29, 2008 6:16 PM
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil"
Posted by: R N B | January 29, 2008 6:28 PM
To nearly all the previous commentors on this thread, especially Hume's Ghost and Mister DNA,
Wow! One of the best "let us not forget" threads I've seen anywhere. It's stuff like this that has me addicted to this blog.
Posted by: Michael Heath | January 29, 2008 6:49 PM
I can't believe that of all the statues and national monuments in Washington DC that none exist in Tom Paine's honor.
But that bronze Chester A. Arthur pigeon magnet in front of the capitol building?
That got that, you betcha!
Posted by: CHV | January 29, 2008 8:49 PM
Sorry, meant to say "they got that."
My typo.
Posted by: CHV | January 29, 2008 8:50 PM
My Great Great Grandfather was a big fan too. His son was named Thomas Paine Whittle.
Posted by: DingoJack | January 29, 2008 10:50 PM
"I can't believe that of all the statues and national monuments in Washington DC that none exist in Tom Paine's honor."
"Thomas Paine needs no monument made by hands. He has erected a monument in the hearts of all lovers of liberty." - Andrew Jackson
Myself, I'd like to see a statue.
Posted by: Hume's Ghost | January 30, 2008 12:00 AM
With a little quote mining, I found another one that is pertinent today.
"He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death."
Posted by: bernarda | January 30, 2008 9:16 AM
I forgot to mention how absurd it is how little Paine is esteemed (relative to the other founders) considering he's the one who first envisioned the United States of America (and coined the phrase in The Crisis).
Posted by: Hume's Ghost | January 30, 2008 2:50 PM
infidels.org has a collection of his works online.
Recommended: "The Age of Reason", "An Essay on Dream" and "Examination of the Prophecies"
Posted by: David Ratnasabapathy | January 30, 2008 8:45 PM