Professor’s Classroom

Subject:  American History

Tomorrow is President’s Day, a day set aside to celebrate of several of our most influential people.  We Americans seem to want to celebrate those people that history says we owe some admiration for, for their deeds, words, etc.  But the one person that has done more in the early years of the Republic gets NO admiration or respect or acknowledgment.

Let us look at George Washington—our first president and general of the Continental Army…..but he may not have even been a footnote if not for Thomas Paine…it was he that urged the Continental Congress to appoint Washington as the commanding general of the ragtag army.  Then if he had not been the general of the army then it is feasible that he would probably not been the first president.

The DoI was the direct result of his ideas…think not?  Then read the DoI and then read Common Sense….the DoI is a condensed version of the pamphlet.  Jefferson may have hand written the DoI but the ideas were Paine’s and Paine’s alone.  Jefferson did not have the passion of an idealist, Paine did and ALL of his works and writings prove this out.

The issue of slavery—- it was Paine’s  anti-slavery writing of “African Slavery In America”  in 1775 that lead to the FIRST anti-slavery association called ” The Society for Relief of Free Negroes, Unlawfully Held in Bondage”.   It was founded in April 1775 in Philadelphia in the Sun Tavern on Second Street.  It can be said that Thomas Paine was the Father of the Abolitionist Movement and the first person in America to speak out publicly against the despicable practice of slavery.  But yet we celebrate Abraham Lincoln as the great savior of those held in bondage.

Paine also spoke out for justice for women, making him one of the first American feminist, he also championed an “old age” pension of American citizens and the education of all citizens especially the poor and he also called for a “Great Republic of All Nations” of the world, which could be the very concept of the UN.

And let us not forget, he , Paine, was the first person to call for a declaration of independence and he was the very FIRST person to use the term, United States of America.  As well as his pamphlet “Common Sense” turned the population into a radical band of revolutionaries that demanded independence from Mother England.

With ALL these accomplishments, Thomas Paine has been ignored by American historians, which is a sad indictment of the reactionary attitudes of people that read the histories.

If there is ANYONE in American History that deserves a holiday or even a little recognition it is Thomas Paine…..who, by his very nature, made the “revolution” possible as well as a wealth of other things that can be attributed to him.. je has been ignored mainly because of the assertion that he was an atheist, which is one of history’s biggest lies like the lie the church has propagated for centuries that Mary Magdaline was a whore…..both are outrageous LIES….Paine was not an atheist he was a deist, he believed in God just not the trappings that organized religion would have us believe…..we as a country owe way too much to Paine and we have given him NOTHING in return……that is a pathetic indictment of the country….