Writings of Thomas Paine

Editor’s Preface

Of all the leading figures of the American Revolution, there was no one quite like Thomas Paine.

Born in England in 1737, Paine first became involved in political matters as a young man in a minor government office.  His first published work, a pamphlet entitled The Case of the Officers of Excise, argued for better pay and working conditions for government tax officers--an ironic topic, given the events that would follow in Paine’s life.

In 1774, while living in London, Paine was introduced to the American inventor Benjamin Franklin and, inspired by Franklin’s description of life in the colonies, sailed to Philadelphia in November.  He became the editor of Pennsylvania magazine.

By 1775, colonial resentment at the arbitrary authority of the English government seethed, and after the battles of Lexington and Concord, open rebellion was imminent.  The growing revolutionary movement, however, still had no unifying goal.  Some colonials wanted direct representatives in Parliament; others wanted autonomy and home rule under the British Crown.  It was during this time, in January 1776, that Thomas Paine published (anonymously) a short booklet titled Common Sense, which proposed the goal that only a few had seriously considered before—independence from Britain and the establishment of a new nation.

The effect was like an atomic bomb, and Common Sense started, virtually single-handedly, the movement for American independence.  Within six months, over 100,000 copies of the booklet had been printed, the colonies had declared their independence, and the American Revolution began in earnest.

If Paine’s views on independence proved to be wildly popular, however, most of his other views were not.  Paine was a man far ahead of his time, and many of his “radical” ideas shocked even his fellow revolutionaries.  At a time when slavery was unquestioned and African-Americans were considered nothing more than property, Paine argued for the abolition of slavery.  When women were viewed as little better than property, Paine made the case for full female citizenship and equality, including the right of women’s suffrage. When most Americans viewed the huge disparity between rich and poor as part of the “natural order of things”, Paine argued for the redistribution of wealth, for full social and political equality, and for safeguards to protect the poor from the rich (a view which particularly horrified the wealthy elite who made up the Continental Congress—and who would go to write a Constitution which reserved the right to vote solely for white male property-owners, less than five percent of the American population).  And when most Americans viewed religion and churches as central parts of their lives, Paine attacked the hypocrisy of the church and openly argued for freethinking.

Paine’s radical views on wealth, slavery, the role of women, and religion, made him a pariah among the leaders of the Revolution. His political writings remained popular with the people, however, and soon after the Revolutionary War broke out, Paine published a widely-read series of pamphlets under the title The Crisis, urging the colonists to actively fight for independence—at a time when Washington’s Continental Army, the hope of the Revolution, was broken and starving at Valley Forge.  “These are the times,” Paine wrote, “that try men’s souls.”

In 1777, Paine was appointed to the Continental Congress’s committee on foreign affairs.  After a conflict with the powerful Robert Morris, however, he was expelled from the Continental Congress--but was then appointed to travel to France in 1781 as part of Benjamin Franklin’s diplomatic effort to enlist French support against Britain.  Paine successfully negotiated a number of loans to the Continental Government, and returned to live in New Jersey.

After the Revolution, Paine left the United States to live quietly in London.  The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, however, again sparked the revolutionary in him, and he traveled to France, where he would spend most of the later part of his life. Although he didn’t speak any French, Paine threw himself into the Revolution—he was granted honorary French citizenship and was elected to the revolutionary National Assembly.  His pamphlet The Rights of Man was widely circulated in France.  When he opposed the excesses and dictatorial methods of Robespierre and the Jacobins, Paine was arrested, and a law was passed excluding foreigners from the Assembly.  While in prison awaiting execution, Paine wrote The Age of Reason, a scathing criticism of Christianity and the churches. He also wrote a bitter letter to President Washington, accusing the US government of betraying and abandoning him.

Only a quirk of fate spared Paine from death at the guillotine.  The night before a number of executions were to be carried out, the jailer placed a chalk mark on the cell doors of the condemned.  By happenstance, the door to Paine’s cell was open at the time, and the jailer placed his chalk mark on the inside of the door—where it was overlooked the next day while the door was closed.  After the fall of Robespierre, Paine was released and returned to the French National Assembly. True to form, he was one of only three Assembly members who voted against the French Constitution of 1795, because it did not allow for universal suffrage. 

Within a few years, Paine was actively opposing the growing power being gathered by Napoleon Bonaparte, calling him a “charlatan”.  He likely would have ended up in a French prison again, had the American President Thomas Jefferson not invited him back to the United States.  He returned to the US in 1802, where he found that his radical views still made him an outcast.  When he died in 1809, only six people attended his funeral.  Even today, he remains the only major figure of the American Revolution to have no monument anywhere in Washington DC.

Common Sense

Introduction

Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

As a long and violent abuse of power, is generally the Means of calling the right of it in question (and in Matters too which might never have been thought of, had not the Sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry) and as the King of England hath undertaken in his OWN RIGHT, to support the Parliament in what he calls THEIRS, and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpation of either.

In the following sheets, the author hath studiously avoided every thing which is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof. The wise, and the worthy, need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious, or unfriendly, will cease of themselves unless too much pains are bestowed upon their conversion.

The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested. The laying a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censure, is the AUTHOR.

P.S. The Publication of this new Edition hath been delayed, with a View of taking notice (had it been necessary) of any Attempt to refute the Doctrine of Independance: As no Answer hath yet appeared, it is now presumed that none will, the Time needful for getting such a Performance ready for the Public being considerably past.

Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the DOCTRINE ITSELF, not the MAN. Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any Party, and under no sort of Influence public or private, but the influence of reason and principle.

Philadelphia, February 14, 1776

Of The Origin And Design Of Government In General. With Concise Remarks On The English Constitution

Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. WHEREFORE, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows, that whatever FORM thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.

In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end of government, let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest, they will then represent the first peopling of any country, or of the world. In this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought. A thousand motives will excite them thereto, the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and his mind so unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek assistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires the same. Four or five united would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness, but one man might labour out of the common period of life without accomplishing any thing; when he had felled his timber he could not remove it, nor erect it after it was removed; hunger in the mean time would urge him from his work, and every different want call him a different way. Disease, nay even misfortune would be death, for though neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from living, and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said to perish than to die.

Thus necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our newly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessings of which, would supersede, and render the obligations of law and government unnecessary while they remained perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but heaven is impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably happen, that in proportion as they surmount the first difficulties of emigration, which bound them together in a common cause, they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other; and this remissness will point out the necessity of establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue.

Some convenient tree will afford them a State-House, under the branches of which, the whole colony may assemble to deliberate on public matters. It is more than probable that their first laws will have the title only of REGULATIONS, and be enforced by no other penalty than public disesteem. In this first parliament every man, by natural right, will have a seat.

But as the colony increases, the public concerns will increase likewise, and the distance at which the members may be separated, will render it too inconvenient for all of them to meet on every occasion as at first, when their number was small, their habitations near, and the public concerns few and trifling. This will point out the convenience of their consenting to leave the legislative part to be managed by a select number chosen from the whole body, who are supposed to have the same concerns at stake which those who appointed them, and who will act in the same manner as the whole body would act, were they present. If the colony continues increasing, it will become necessary to augment the number of the representatives, and that the interest of every part of the colony may be attended to, it will be found best to divide the whole into convenient parts, each part sending its proper number; and that the ELECTED might never form to themselves an interest separate from the ELECTORS, prudence will point out the propriety of having elections often; because as the ELECTED might by that means return and mix again with the general body of the ELECTORS in a few months, their fidelity to the public will be secured by the prudent reflection of not making a rod for themselves. And as this frequent interchange will establish a common interest with every part of the community, they will mutually and naturally support each other, and on this (not on the unmeaning name of king) depends the STRENGTH OF GOVERNMENT, AND THE HAPPINESS OF THE GOVERNED.

Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. freedom and security. And however our eyes may be dazzled with show, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and of reason will say, it is right.

I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered; and the easier repaired when disordered; and with this maxim in view, I offer a few remarks on the so much boasted constitution of England. That it was noble for the dark and slavish times in which it was erected, is granted. When the world was overrun with tyranny the least remove therefrom was a glorious rescue. But that it is imperfect, subject to convulsions, and incapable of producing what it seems to promise, is easily demonstrated.

Absolute governments (tho’ the disgrace of human nature) have this advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springs, know likewise the remedy, and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures. But the constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together without being able to discover in which part the fault lies; some will say in one and some in another, and every political physician will advise a different medicine.

I know it is difficult to get over local or long standing prejudices, yet if we will suffer ourselves to examine the component parts of the English constitution, we shall find them to be the base remains of two ancient tyrannies, compounded with some new republican materials.

FIRST —The remains of monarchial tyranny in the person of the king. SECONDLY —The remains of aristocratical tyranny in the persons of the peers. THIRDLY —The new republican materials in the persons of the commons, on whose virtue depends the freedom of England.

The two first, by being hereditary, are independent of the people; wherefore in a CONSTITUTIONAL SENSE they contribute nothing towards the freedom of the state.

To say that the constitution of England is a UNION of three powers reciprocally CHECKING each other, is farcical, either the words have no meaning, or they are flat contradictions.

To say that the commons is a check upon the king, presupposes two things:

FIRST —That the king is not to be trusted without being looked after, or in other words, that a thirst for absolute power is the natural disease of monarchy.

SECONDLY —That the commons, by being appointed for that purpose, are either wiser or more worthy of confidence than the crown.

But as the same constitution which gives the commons a power to check the king by withholding the supplies, gives afterwards the king a power to check the commons, by empowering him to reject their other bills; it again supposes that the king is wiser than those whom it has already supposed to be wiser than him. A mere absurdity!

There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required. The state of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly; wherefore the different parts, by unnaturally opposing and destroying each other, prove the whole character to be absurd and useless.

Some writers have explained the English constitution thus: The king, say they, is one, the people another; the peers are a house in behalf of the king, the commons in behalf of the people; but this hath all the distinctions of a house divided against itself; and though the expressions be pleasantly arranged, yet when examined, they appear idle and ambiguous; and it will always happen, that the nicest construction that words are capable of, when applied to the description of some thing which either cannot exist, or is too incomprehensible to be within the compass of description, will be words of sound only, and though they may amuse the ear, they cannot inform the mind, for this explanation includes a previous question, viz. HOW CAME THE KING BY A POWER WHICH THE PEOPLE ARE AFRAID TO TRUST, AND ALWAYS OBLIGED TO CHECK? Such a power could not be the gift of a wise people, neither can any power, WHICH NEEDS CHECKING, be from God; yet the provision, which the constitution makes, supposes such a power to exist.

But the provision is unequal to the task; the means either cannot or will not accomplish the end, and the whole affair is a felo de se; for as the greater weight will always carry up the less, and as all the wheels of a machine are put in motion by one, it only remains to know which power in the constitution has the most weight, for that will govern; and though the others, or a part of them, may clog, or, as the phrase is, check the rapidity of its motion, yet so long as they cannot stop it, their endeavours will be ineffectual; the first moving power will at last have its way, and what it wants in speed, is supplied by time.

That the crown is this overbearing part in the English constitution, needs not be mentioned, and that it derives its whole consequence merely from being the giver of places and pensions, is self-evident, wherefore, though we have been wise enough to shut and lock a door against absolute monarchy, we at the same time have been foolish enough to put the crown in possession of the key.

The prejudice of Englishmen in favour of their own government by king, lords, and commons, arises as much or more from national pride than reason. Individuals are undoubtedly safer in England than in some other countries, but the WILL of the king is as much the LAW of the land in Britain as in France, with this difference, that instead of proceeding directly from his mouth, it is handed to the people under the more formidable shape of an act of parliament. For the fate of Charles the First hath only made kings more subtle —not more just.

Wherefore, laying aside all national pride and prejudice in favour of modes and forms, the plain truth is, that IT IS WHOLLY OWING TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE, AND NOT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE GOVERNMENT, that the crown is not as oppressive in England as in Turkey.

An inquiry into the CONSTITUTIONAL ERRORS in the English form of government is at this time highly necessary; for as we are never in a proper condition of doing justice to others, while we continue under the influence of some leading partiality, so neither are we capable of doing it to ourselves while we remain fettered by any obstinate prejudice. And as a man. who is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge a wife, so any prepossession in favour of a rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning a good one.