Tag: Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine, The Father Of The U.S.of A.

Professor’s Classroom

Subject:  American History

Today we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the birth of the United States of America….there is only one person that we should thank for the DoI as well as the name of this country…Thomas Paine.

Why would anyone make such a claim?  That is an easy one to answer…Thomas Paine was the FIRST person to envision a United States of America.  There were many signers and orators of the time, but only one man can truly be called the Father of the United States of America.

As I have said he was the first person to use the term United States of America, he made the idea more palatable to the average colonialists.  And in doing so made the Revolution possible for without his input through his pamphlet , “Common Sense” the revolution would have failed for the only ones that really wanted a break from Mother England was the wealthy and the elites of the time.

His influence was felt on other issues of the day and some of them were not that popular with the elites, especially the ones on slavery, women and the poor.

He proposed the Abolition of Negro Slavery; proposed Arbitration for International Peace; advocated Justice for Women; pointed out the Reality of Human Brotherhood; suggested International Copyright; invented a suspension bridge and smokeless candle; proposed the Education of Children of the Poor at public expense; suggested a Great Republic of All Nations of the world.  He urged the Purchase of the great Louisiana Territory.  He proposed pension payments or Old Age Pensions.  He also suggested protection for dumb animals.  We have honored him when we have adopted these sane propositions.

But let us be honest, before the arrival of Thomas Paine, reconciliation with England was the rule of the day.  There was little thought of independence in those days, but rather to gain some sort of recognition from the English crown.  Even the hero of every American, Thomas Jefferson, was hesitant to call for separation from England.

He even wrote it in a letter to John Randolph in 1775:

“Believe me , dear sir, there is not in the British Empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain more than I…..It is neither our wish or our interest to separate from her (England).  ……Let them name their terms and let them be just….”

This was written to the person a mere two months before the publishing of Common Sense.  Jefferson became a convert to the independence thing after seeing and hearing the impact of the writings of Thomas Paine.  Independence in Jefferson’s mind was the worst possible solution to the problems the colonies were having with Mother England.

And everybody’s first American hero, George Washington was not an independence minded person….in a letter to his friend, Jonathan Boucher on the possibility of conflict with England:

If you ever hear of my joining any such measures, you have my leave to set me down for everything wicked.

Almost nowhere in the Colonies was there a call for independence from England until Paine published “Common Sense” and after the “Founding Fathers” saw the impact it had on the population, did they become a convert to the thought of independence.

Then when the Continental Army was in retreat and dangerously close to collapse Washington asked Paine to use his skills as a writer to help raise support and moral….once again Paine came to the rescue and wrote a series of pamphlets which would later be known as “The Crisis”.  (BTW, United States of America was used for the first time in “The Crisis, essay 2”)   With the publication of the series, new life was pumped into the movement and the army.

And yes, I will always trumpet the issues in Thomas Paine’s honor……why?….for one I think that he was the person that originated the Declaration of Independence (DoI).  Jefferson may have wrote it but the ideas were Paine’s and not Jefferson and the bunch.  Think I am wrong?  Read Common Sense and then read the DoI…the original version, for the final version was only about 75% of the original….the DoI is a condensed version of Common Sense.  Jefferson was a pragmatist not an idealist….Jefferson lacked the passion of an idealist, as a matter of fact, during the time when the people we lathering up for independence Jefferson did NOT write a thing either in favor of independence or in opposition…the pragmatic thing to do would have tried to force England into conciliation with the colonies.  That idea NEVER entered Paine’s mind, he was for independence first and foremost.

If anyone deserves the title father of this country, then it should be Thomas Paine.  Unfortunately, Washington had been saddled with that title because he was the general that lead American rag tag forces to victory.  History tries to avoid the fact that it was Paine that urged the Continental Congress to appoint Washington as the commanding general of the army, when others were in the running.  So the “historical” father of the country owes his station and his legacy to Paine and in no small way.

Thomas Paine is the father of the United States of America, because it was his IDEA that lead to the independence from the British Empire….who knows where the US would be today if it had not been for that idea.  The best we have ever done for this man was a stamp with his likeness….he deserves more recognition than that….more truth needs to be taught to our children about the REAL history of the beginning of this country.  When a short history of the “Founding Fathers” is taught, the Big 6 are usually taught, Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, John not Samuel, Madison and Franklin..others are left out of the lesson…that should be rectified and then maybe Paine would take his rightful place as the original “Founding Father”.



Declaration Of Independence

Professor’s Classroom

It is the day before the 4th and there are things about the founding that I have written about on numerous occasions….and this subject is one that I have researched and researched and I am convinced that Jefferson worked from notes on the DofI……

This is a re-print from the Hammondsport Herald from July, 1906 written by Walton Williams……..

Did Thomas Paine write the Declaration Of Independence?

Ever since the Revolution there has been a tradition in certain parts of the country that the real author of the Declaration of Independence was Thomas Paine. The storm of opprobrium that beat upon Paine’s name because of his religious writings almost eradicated this tradition.

But now that there is a marked tendency to do justice to his unquestioned services to liberty, the legend has revived. It should be said in the outset that with the religious controversy concerning Paine this article has nothing to do. His writing on that subject did not appear till near the end of is life. All the most active years of his manhood were spent in the domain of politics, and the political works of which he was the author are much more numerous and voluminous than those on theology. It is beyond question that he wrought powerfully for the rights of man not only in America, but in France and England; that he risked imprisonment and even life in doing so and that the American sense of justice and fair play can be trusted to give recognition to these services on their own merit.

Passing all that by, the inquiry into the authorship of the Declaration of Independence is of sufficient interest to warrant a dispassionate investigation. Reverting to the tradition connecting Paine with that document, it is a significant fact that a newspaper of Newark, N. J., nearly a century ago threatened to divulge the name of the real author of the Declaration and there stated that he was a well known writer and used other terms in describing him that could have referred to no one else than Paine. A further fact of interest is that the friendship between Paine and Jefferson continued unbroken to the end, Jefferson sending a warship to bring Paine to this country. Another fact that may have some bearing on the matter is that Jefferson never claimed to be the author of the document until near the end of his life, which was years after Paine’s death, and even then in slightly ambiguous terms, which are capable of an interpretation that will be brought out later.

The evidence on which the claim of Paine’s authorship rests is internal, however, and must be found in the document itself. Several pamphlets and books have been written on the subject in the last thirty years. Prominent among those who had supported the Paine theory may be mentioned William Henry Burr and Van Buren Denslow, students and authors of recognized ability.

In the first draft of the Declaration occurred the words, “Scotch and foreign mercenaries.” This offended some members of the Continental Congress of Scotch extraction, and they objected so strongly that the words “Scotch and” were stricken out. Now, Jefferson not only had no antipathy against the Scotch, but was rather prejudiced in their favor, having had two Scotch tutors, so that he could scarcely have written a clause so reflecting on them, but Paine was known to dislike the Scotch, having expressed that dislike in his writings and private conversations. Nor is this the only or even the most conclusive evidence connected with this passage. Jefferson in later years in writing of it showed that he was not sufficiently familiar with this first draft of the Declaration to quote it correctly, for he gave it, “Scotch and other foreign auxiliaries.” Is it probable if he had been the author of it that he would have made the mistake of injecting the word “other” and misquoting “auxiliaries” for “mercenaries?” The very injection of “other” is significant, for Jefferson, having been born in Virginia, would naturally look on the Scotch as foreign and would therefore say “Scotch and other foreign,” etc., but the author of that passage in the original Declaration evidently had another viewpoint, for he said “Scotch and foreign mercenaries,” indicating that he did not think of the Scotch as foreigners. Now, Paine was an Englishman, and whatever his prejudice against the Scotch might have been, a prejudice somewhat common among Englishmen of that day, he would not regard them as foreigners, Scotland and England being united in a common government.

Another passage in the original Declaration of Independence censured King George for introducing the slave trade into the colonies, asserting that this traffic, which had been the reproach of “infidel” countries, was thus condoned by “a Christian king.” This passage was likewise expurgated by Congress, as it gave offense to some of the southern members. Now, while Jefferson in later life deplored the existence of slavery, it is hardly possible that at this time he would have injected such language into a state paper. Nor is it likely that he would have made the veiled thrust at Christianity contained in the sarcastic reference to “a Christian king.” That was not Jefferson’s style. But it was Paine’s style. Also the sentiments are his. Already in the Pennsylvania Magazine he had written against slavery. Jefferson, notwithstanding his advanced notions, was not without policy, and there is no policy in this paragraph. But Paine spoke his mind regardless of policy.

One of the most surprising things about the Declaration of Independence is that it makes but slight reference to the subject of taxation, despite the fact that the first troubles between the colonists and the mother country had been over the stamp act and “no taxation without representation” had become the American rallying cry. Jefferson had no peculiar bias that would have caused him to make so notable an omission, but Paine had. He regarded the taxation issue as trivial and as being too mercenary to be worthy of so much attention. These sentiments are freely expressed in his writings. Liberty and independence were the great shibboleths with him, and these are always the keynotes sounded in the Declaration. Moreover, the ideas throughout the document are those of Paine. His ideas of government, as embodied in his “Common Sense,” ideas which were then considered peculiar, are found in the Declaration of Independence. His theories as to equality, as to the rights of man and as to the right of rebellion not only in this particular instance, but generally, are all stated in that instrument. Not only so, but the methods of expression are startlingly like those in his published works. The style is not the scholarly, easy and pleasing one of Jefferson, but the terse, epigrammatic, forceful one of Paine.

The manner of piling up the indictments against the king, charge upon charge, until they became a very mountain of evidence, is the well known method of Paine, not that of Jefferson. The employment of certain words in peculiar ways, such as “decent,” “equal,” “rights,” “happiness” and many more found in the document, is significant, for these were stock words with Paine, and he used them in just the ways they were used here. The reference to “nature and nature’s God” is in perfect keeping with Paine’s well known deistical notions and startlingly calls to mind his eloquent apostrophe to the revelation of God found in nature. There are three references to the Creator in the Declaration, and they are all very like Paine, who thoroughout his political works is constantly making similar utterances. Jefferson, while a deist also, hardly ever makes a mention of God in his political writings.

Most of the above considerations are urged by Denslow and Burr, but there is one little piece of evidence that seemingly has escaped these authors which to the writer seems the most conclusive of all. It is the use of the word, “hath,” which occurs in the preamble of the document. Scholarly Jefferson in all his writing is never known to have employed this archaic verb ending, while Thomas Paine used it frequently and in just such a connection as it is found in here. That may seem a small thing, but it is just such a clew as a detective selects to work out a case. It is like the bone of a prehistoric monster from which the scientist constructs the entire skeleton.

The most probable theory of the writing of this most famous of political manifestoes is as follows: After the publication of Common Sense, which had fired the colonies for separation, Paine urged the step in season and out of season. What more natural than that he should have framed a paper that could be adopted by Congress as its reasons for independence? After writing such paper he would naturally read it to some of his cronies. Two of his most familiar friends were Jefferson and Franklin. When these two were appointed on the committee, what more probable than that they should have gone to Paine to get the draft. Using this as a basis, Jefferson could have written the copy presented to Congress. Some words he would doubtless change. Probably he would frame introductory and closing sentences. This theory would be in keeping with Jefferson’s own utterances on the subject. It was years after that he made the first reference to the matter. Then he only said: “The committee for drawing the Declaration of Independence desired me to do it. It was accordingly done, and, being approved by them I reported it to the House on Friday, the 28th of June.” It was not till just before his death that he said, “I wrote it.” In a manual sense that was doubtless true. The opening and closing sentences and certain alterations he may have actually originated, but as to the main body of the document it can be said as it was said of old: “The hand is the hand of Esau, but the voice is the voice of Jacob.” The hand is the hand of Jefferson, but the voice is the voice of Thomas Paine.

The fact that Paine never claimed the authorship is in perfect keeping with his character. He was ever a most secretive man. Most of his works at this stage in his career were anonymous. Common Sense was published anonymously, and The Crisis practically so. His contributions to the Pennsylvania Magazine were signed by fictitious names and initials. Many letters he is known to have written and others that are believed to be his he never acknowledged to the time of his death.

Moreover, to have made this claim in relation to the Declaration of Independence would have embarrassed his friend, Jefferson, which, both for personal and political reasons, he would have been unwilling to do.

Comment:  Anyone that has read my stuff on this subject will know that I believe he did and that Jefferson put it down off of notes…..Jefferson, IMO, was a pragmatist not an idealist and was not capable of such an idealistic piece of work………

Who Was America’s First Feminist?

Professor’s Classroom

Subject:  Women’s Studies/American History

It is March and that would make it Women’s History Month…..what better time than now to try and right a historical wrong?  I do not want to take anything away from the people that worked long and hard as suffragist  and feminists, they tolled long and hard to help women get their deserved place in history and in society.  Women like Clara Barton, Susan B. Anthony, Helen Keller, all women that gave their all for the cause…..

Almost every timeline that I see about women’s rights there seems to be a consensus that Abigail Adams, wife of Founder Father John Adams, told her husband while he and the others were working on the Declaration of Independence  in 1776 to, “Remember the Ladies”….she is usually the first entry in the timeline on the fight for women rights…….

Actually, there was another about two years before Abigail’s now famous line……in 1774,  a man, not a normal man but rather an idealists that led the charge to independence as well as the fight against slavery and the first person in the Colonies that called for the rights that women truly deserved….that man was Thomas Paine…..

He wrote an essay entitled:  “An Occasional Letter On The Female Sex”:

Society, instead of alleviating their condition, is to them the source of new miseries. More than one half of the globe is covered with savages; and among all these people women are completely wretched. Man, in a state of barbarity, equally cruel and indolent, active by necessity, but naturally inclined to repose, is acquainted with little more than the physical effects of love; and, having none of those moral ideas which only can soften the empire of force, he is led to consider it as his supreme law, subjecting to his despotism those whom reason had made his equal, but whose imbecility betrayed them to his strength. “Nothing” (says Professor Miller, speaking of the women of barbarous nations) “can exceed the dependence and subjection in which they are kept, or the toil and drudgery which they are obliged to undergo. The husband, when he is not engaged in some warlike exercise, indulges himself in idleness, and devolves upon his wife the whole burden of his domestic affairs. He disdains to assist her in any of those servile employments. She sleeps in a different bed, and is seldom permitted to have any conversation or correspondence with him.”

The above is a portion of the essay that Paine wrote in 1774 for the Pennsylvania Magazine…..

Paine was a staunch supporter of human rights…..he opposed slavery in ALL forms…..and he especially found that women were treated more like property than equals….that they had NO voice and NO station other than arm candy and as a baby factory….he deplored the treatment of women and was one of the first, if not the first, to speak out in women’s defense…….

We as a country owe Thomas Paine a great deal….more than we could ever repay him for….his service to this country goes almost totally ignored….a sad fact that I attempt to rectify……I take every opportunity to point out the accomplishments of Thomas Paine because the US owes him a large debt that we have yet to pay….

When we celebrate Women’s History Month…let us look to Thomas Paine as the First feminist, who took on the establishment on the behalf of women….GIVE THE MAN HIS DUE!

Who Really Deserves A Holiday?

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….

Thank You, Thomas Paine

We as a people and a country could NEVER thank this patriot enough for his contributions! He is truly the “Father of the American Revolution”.

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the death of Thomas Paine (June 8, 1809). The English pamphleteer, revolutionary, radical, inventor, and intellectual. He lived and worked in Britain until age 37, when he emigrated to the British American colonies, in time to participate in the American Revolution. His principal contribution was the powerful, widely-read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), advocating colonial America’s independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and of The American Crisis (1776–1783), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series.

The strength of Common Sense was not in the originality of its ideas, but rather in the simplicity of its style.[ Paine was a pioneer in a new style of political writing suitable to the kind of democratic society he envisioned. Common Sense rendered complex ideas intelligible to average readers, with clear, concise writing unlike the formal, learned style favored by many of Paine’s contemporaries.

He was, in my opinion, the first blogger. He is also a largely forgotten Founding Father. History has not been kind to this extraordinary man. Without Paine’s input with his pamphlet “Common Sense” the revolution that the rich elite had started would have failed. Paine made it understandable to the masses, thus they became the power behind the revolution. He took the abstract theories and made them simple and easy for the normal colonial to understand. Without his capability of the written word all would have been lost in the revolt against England. All those wealthy land owners would have been hanged and the rule of the day would have stayed around for many more years.

When I was a young boy of about 12 years old, my grandfather gave me a copy of Common Sense, and to say that it changed my life would be an understatement. At first, it was just words, but as time moved on I started seeing what Thomas Paine was saying and from about 14 or 15 I became the radical independent I am today. His style of writing inspired me in my later years to try and write in a style where normal, average Americans can understand complicated political theories. I have refused to cloud things up with words no normal individual would use, that is Paine’s influence.

The United States cannot do enough to thank this patriot for his contribution to the establishment of this country. But for some reason he has been left out of the history books, with the exception of his “Common Sense”. I have even gone so far as to suggest that Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence from notes given to him by Paine. I do not think that Jefferson was capable of writing such a document on his own.

On this day, the day of his death, all I can really say is THANK YOU, THOMAS PAINE! We owe you so much and gave you so little….I am sorry.