Paine, Thomas

PAINE, THOMAS (1737–1809). Revolutionary pamphleteer and democratic thinker, Thomas Paine contributed directly to the making of the American Revolution, the politics of the French Revolution, and the formation of the English labor movement in the Industrial Revolution. To this day, Paine’s words are drawn upon for political inspiration and his legacy is claimed by American and British political actors left and right.

English-born, Paine was the son of a Quaker and staymaker from whom he learned the craft of corset-making and the Friends’ dissenting and egalitarian traditions. As a young man, Paine worked as an artisan, a privateer, a preacher, and an excise officer. He also developed an interest in politics and science. However, dogged by personal tragedy and business failures, he emigrated to America in 1774.
Settling in Philadelphia, Paine was soon engaged as editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine. This brought him to the attention of several of the leading radicals of the Continental Congress who persuaded him to write on the question of American independence. In January 1776, Paine published Common Sense, in which he called upon Americans to make their rebellion into a revolution entailing not just a break with Britain but a struggle against the tyranny of hereditary privilege and for a democratic republic. He wrote clearly and directly, speaking not only to colonial elites but just as much to farmers and the (white) working classes, especially artisans and mechanics. Common Sense sold almost 150,000 copies (for which Paine refused any royalties).

During the ensuing years, Paine served in a variety of capacities. However, his major contribution was a series of pamphlets collectively known as The American Crisis (1776–1783). Intended to rally and maintain Americans’ commitment to the Revolution, the very first paper commenced with words which continue to resonate: “These are the times that try men’s souls....”

Following the revolutionary years Paine continued to write. But increasingly he applied himself to scientific and technical matters, which instigated a return to Europe. Yet he was soon involved again in radical politics. In response to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), he authored The Rights of Man (1791–1792), in which he defended the right of all peoples in every generation to reconstruct their polities in favor of liberty, equality, and democracy.

Prosecuted by English authorities, Paine took refuge in France, where he was elected to the National Convention but was later jailed for opposing the execution of the king. While imprisoned he wrote The Age of Reason (1794), a radical critique of organized religion (with Christianity the principal target) that was to serve as a primer for nineteenth-century freethinkers, and, after his release, Agrarian Justice (1795), wherein he laid the groundwork for a social-democratic vision of the welfare state.

In 1802 Paine returned to America, where he was all but ignored for his denunciation of organized religion. On his death he was buried on his farm north of New York, but a decade later the English radical William Cobbett arranged for his remains to be returned to England. His coffin was lost en route.

Foner, Eric. Tom Paine and Revolutionary America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.

Hawke, David Freeman. Paine. New York: Harper and Row, 1974.

Keane, John. Tom Paine: A Political Life. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995.

Foot, Michael, and Isaac Kramnick, eds. The Thomas Paine Reader. New York: Viking Penguin, 1987.