CHAPTER XXXII.

ORIGIN OF REPUBLICANISM AND HATRED OF MONARCHY IN AMERICA--THOMAS PAINE: A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE, CHARACTER, AND WRITINGS, AND THEIR EFFECTS.

No social or political phenomenon in the history of nations has been more remarkable than the sudden transition of the great body of the American colonists, in 1776, from a reverence and love of monarchical institutions and of England, in which they had been trained from their forefathers, to a renunciation of those institutions and a hatred of England. Whatever influence the oppressive policy of the British Administration may have had in producing this change, was confined to comparatively few in America, was little known to the masses, and had little influence over them. This sudden and marvellous revolution in the American mind was produced chiefly by a pamphlet of forty pages, written at the suggestion of two or three leaders of the American revolutionists, over the signature of "An Englishman." This Englishman was no other than Thomas Paine, better known in after years as Tom Paine, "the blasphemous infidel and beastly drunkard," as the New York Observer, in answer to a challenge, proved him to be beyond the possibility of successful contradiction. Tom Paine was of a Quaker family; was a staymaker by trade, but an agitator by occupation. He had obtained an appointment as exciseman, but was dismissed from his office, and emigrated to America in 1774. He somehow obtained an introduction to Dr. Franklin in London, who gave him a letter of introduction to a gentleman in Philadelphia, through whom he procured employment in the service of a bookseller. Beginning forthwith to write for a leading newspaper on the agitated questions of the day, his articles attracted attention and procured him the acquaintance of some influential persons, and he at length became editor of the "Pennsylvania Magazine." He was the master of a singularly attractive, lucid, and vituperative style, scarcely inferior to that of Junius himself. At the suggestion of Franklin and one or two other leaders of the revolution, he wrote a pamphlet of forty pages in favour of Independence, entitled "Common Sense," and over the signature of "An Englishman," yet bitter against England and English institutions. It was addressed to the inhabitants of America, and was arranged under four heads: first, "Of the origin and design of government in general, with concise remarks on the English Constitution;" secondly, "Of monarchy and hereditary succession;" thirdly, "Thoughts on the present state of military affairs;" fourth, "Of the present ability of America, with some miscellaneous reflections." Mr. Frothingham says: "The portion on Government has little of permanent value; the glance at the English Constitution is superficial; and the attack on Monarchy is coarse. The treatment of the American question under the two last heads gave the pamphlet its celebrity."

Mr. Gordon says that "No publication so much promoted the cause of Independence as that. The statements which are now adopted were then strange, and Paine found difficulty in procuring a publisher to undertake it."

Dr. Ramsay says: "The style, manner, and language of Thomas Paine's performance were calculated to interest the passions and to rouse all the active powers of human nature. With the view of operating on the sentiments of religious people, Scripture was pressed into his service; and the powers and name of a king were rendered odious in the eyes of numerous colonists who had read and studied the history of the Jews, as recorded in the Old Testament. Hereditary succession was turned into ridicule. The absurdity of subjecting a great continent to a small island on the other side of the globe was represented in such striking language as to interest the honour and pride of the colonists in renouncing the government of Great Britain. The necessity, the advantage and practicability of independence were forcibly demonstrated.

"Nothing could be better timed than this performance. It was addressed to freemen, who had just received convincing proof that Great Britain had thrown them out of her protection, and engaged foreign mercenaries to make war upon them, and seriously designed to compel their unconditional submission to her unlimited power. It found the colonists most thoroughly alarmed for their liberties, and disposed to do and suffer anything that promised their establishment. In union with the feelings and sentiments of the people, it produced surprising effects. Many thousands were convinced, and were led to approve and long for a separation from the mother country. Though that measure, a few months before, was not only foreign to their wishes, but the object of their abhorrence, the current suddenly became so strong in its favour that it bore down all opposition. The multitude was hurried down the stream; but some worthy men could not easily reconcile themselves to the idea of an eternal separation from a country to which they had long been bound by the most endearing ties. * * The change of the public mind of America respecting connection with Great Britain is without a parallel. In the short space of two years, nearly three millions of people passed over from the love and duty of loyal subjects to the hatred and resentment of enemies."

The American press and all the American historians of that day speak of the electric and marvellous influence of Tom Paine's appeal against kings, against monarchy, against England, and in favour of American independence.

The following remarks of the London Athenæum are quoted by the New York Observer of the 10th of April, 1879:

"A more despicable man than Tom Paine cannot be found among the ready writers of the eighteenth century. He sold himself to the highest bidder, and he could be bought at a very low price. He wrote well; sometimes as pointedly as Junius or Cobbett (who had his bones brought to England). Neither excelled him in coining telling and mischievous phrases; neither surpassed him in popularity-hunting. He had the art, which was almost equal to genius, of giving happy titles to his productions. When he denounced the British Government in the name of 'Common Sense,' he found willing readers in the rebellious American colonists, and a rich reward from their grateful representatives. When he wrote on behalf of the 'Rights of Man,' and in furtherance of the 'Age of Reason,' he convinced thousands by his title-pages who were incapable of perceiving the inconclusiveness of his arguments. His speculations have long since gone the way of all shams; and his charlatanism as a writer was not redeemed by his character as a man. Nothing could be worse than his private life; he was addicted to the most degrading vices. He was no hypocrite, however, and he cannot be charged with showing that respect for appearances which constitute the homage paid by vice to virtue. Such a man was well qualified for earning notoriety by insulting Washington. Only a thorough-paced rascal could have had the assurance to charge Washington with being unprincipled and unpatriotic."

FOOTNOTES:

The pamphlet was called "Common Sense," and was written by Thomas Paine, an Englishman, who held and expressed extreme opinions upon the "Rights of Man." He had been a staymaker in England, and was ruined; when, in the winter of 1774, by Franklin's advice, he came to America and rapidly grasped and comprehended the position of affairs. (Elliott's History of New England, Vol. II., Chap, xxviii., p. 383.)

Referring to this demagogue of the American and French Revolution, his American biographer, Cheetham, says: "All sects have had their disgraceful members and offspring. Paine's father, a peaceful and industrious Quaker, connects him with the exemplary sect of the Friends. He received his education at the Grammar School of his native place, Thetford, in Norfolk, but attained to little beyond the rudiments of Latin. His first application to business was in the trade of his father, that of staymaker, which he followed in London, Dover, and Sandwich, where he married; afterwards he became a grocer and an exciseman, at Lewes, in Sussex. This situation he lost through some misdemeanor. After this, however, so well were the public authorities of his native country disposed to serve him, that one of the Commissioners of Excise gave him a letter of recommendation to Dr. Franklin, then a colonial agent in London, who recommended him to go to America. At this period he had first exercised his talents as a writer by drawing up a pamphlet recommending the advance of the salaries of excisemen.

"His age at this time was thirty-seven. His first engagement in Philadelphia was with Mr. Aitkin, a respectable bookseller, who, in January, 1775, commenced the 'Pennsylvania Magazine,' the editorship of which work became the business of Mr. Paine, who had a salary of £50 currency a year. When Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, suggested to Paine the propriety of preparing the Americans for a separation from England, it seems that he seized with avidity the idea, and immediately commenced his famous pamphlet on that subject, which being shown in MS. to Doctors Franklin and Rush and Mr. Samuel Adams, was, after some discussion, entitled, at the suggestion of Dr. Rush, 'Common Sense.' For this production the Legislature of Pennsylvania voted him £500. Shortly afterwards Paine was appointed Secretary to the Committee of the United States on Foreign Affairs. His business was merely to copy papers, number and file them, and generally do the duty of what is now called a clerk in the Foreign Department. But in the title-page of his 'Rights of Man,' he styles himself 'Secretary for Foreign Affairs to the Congress of the United States in the Late War.' While in this office, he published a series of appeals on the struggle between Great Britain and the colonies. In 1777 he was obliged to resign his secretaryship on account of a quarrel with Silas Deane, American agent in France. The next year, however, he obtained the appointment of Clerk to the Assembly of Pennsylvania; and in 1785, on the rejection of a motion to appoint him historiographer to the United States, the Congress granted him three thousand dollars, and the Legislature of New York granted him an estate of 500 acres of highly cultivated land, the confiscated property of a Loyalist. Having no more revolutionary occupation in the United States, he embarked for France in 1787, with a letter of recommendation from Dr. Franklin to the Duke de la Rochefoucault. From Paris he went to London, where, the following year, he was arrested for debt, but was bailed by some American merchants. He went to Paris in 1791 to publish, under the name of 'Achilles Du Chatellet,' a tract recommending the abolition of royalty. He again returned to London and wrote the first part of his 'Rights of Man,' in answer to Mr. Burke's 'Reflections on the French Revolution.' The second part was published early in 1792. He was ordered to be arrested and prosecuted for his seditious and blasphemous writings, but escaped to France, and was elected a member of the French National Convention--grateful for the honour which the bloody anarchists had conferred upon him by electing him a member of their order. His conduct, however, offended the Jacobins, and towards the close of the year 1793 he was excluded from the convention, was arrested and committed to the prison of the Luxembourg. Just before his confinement he had finished the first part of his 'Age of Reason,' and confided it to the care of his friend Joel Barlow for publication. He was now taken ill, to which circumstance he ascribed his escape from the guillotine; and on the fall of Robespierre was released. In 1795 he published, at Paris, the second part of his 'Age of Reason.' He returned to America in 1802, bringing with him a woman named Madame Bonneville, whom he had seduced away from her husband, with her two sons, and whom he seems to have treated with the utmost meanness and tyranny. His friend and American biographer, Mr. Cheetham, in continuation, gives the following account of Paine's arrival at New York in 1802: 'The writer,' says Mr. Cheetham, 'supposing him (Paine) to be a gentleman, was employed to engage a room for him at Lovett's hotel, New York. On his arrival, in 1802, about ten at night, he wrote me a note, desiring to see me immediately. I waited on him at Lovett's, in company with Mr. George Clinton, jun. We rapped at the door. A small figure opened it within, meanly dressed, having an old top-coat, without an under one; a dirty silk handkerchief loosely thrown around his neck, a long beard of more than a week's growth, a face well carbuncled as the setting sun, and the whole figure staggering under a load of inebriation. I was on the point of inquiring for Mr. Paine, when I noticed something of the portraits I had seen of him. We were desired to be seated. He had before him a small round table, on which were a beefsteak, some beer, a pint of brandy, a pitcher of water and a glass. He sat eating, drinking, and talking with as much composure as if he had lived with us all his life. I soon perceived that he had a very retentive memory, and was full of anecdote. The Bishop of Llandaff (Dr. Watson) was almost the first word he uttered, and it was followed by his informing us that he had in his trunk a manuscript reply to the bishop's 'Apology for the Bible.' He then calmly mumbled his steak, and ever and anon drinking his brandy and beer, repeated the introduction to his reply, which occupied nearly half an hour. This was done with deliberation and the utmost clearness, and a perfect apprehension, intoxicated as he was, of all that he repeated. Scarcely a word would he allow us to speak. He always, I afterwards found, in all companies, drunk or sober, would be listened to; in his regard, there were no rights of men with him--no equality, no reciprocal immunities and obligations--for he would listen to no one.'

"On the 13th of October, 1802, he arrived at Baltimore, under the protection of Mr. Jefferson. But it appears that curiosity induced no one of distinction to suffer his approach. While at his hotel he was principally visited by the lower class of emigrants from Scotland, England, and Ireland, who had read and admired his 'Rights of Man.' With them, it appears, 'he drank grog in the tap-room morning, noon, and night, admired and praised, strutting and staggering about, showing himself to all and shaking hands with all. The leaders of the party to which he had attached himself paid him no attention.'"

Paine's subsequent years, until his miserable death in 1809, were characterized by the lowest degradation, blasphemy, drunkenness, and filthiness, which rendered him unfit for any human society, as his biographies, written even by his friends, abundantly testify.

Those who knew Paine in his earlier years were, of course, not responsible for the depravity and degradation of his subsequent years; but from the beginning he was an infidel and an enemy of all settled government.

Such was the author of American republicanism and of American hatred to England, to all British institutions, to all monarchy, and the advocate of the abolition of kings.]