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October 12, 2006

Was Thomas Paine Too Much of a Freethinker for the Country He Helped Free?

I have always felt that Tom Paine was the voice of the American Revolution, far more so than Jefferson, Adams, Jay, Hamilton, Madison, and the other, better known founders. Far many more people read Paine's work Common Sense than say, the newspaper, magazine, and subscription letters-of-correspondence works of the other better known founders. So why hasn't Paine received his due?

"Thomas Paine is,"says Jill Lepore writing in the bookreview section of the New Yorker website, "at best, a lesser Founder. In the comic-book version of history that serves as our national heritage, where the Founding Fathers are like the Hanna-Barbera Super Friends, Paine is Aquaman to Washington’s Superman and Jefferson’s Batman; we never find out how he got his superpowers, and he only shows up when they need someone who can swim. For all that, Paine’s contributions to the nation’s founding would be hard to overstate. “Common Sense” made it possible to declare independence. 'Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain,' Adams himself wrote."

Good point. If Paine had stayed in America and kept writing instead of decamping after America's victory (as Trotsky and Che Guevara both did as well) for France where he became caught up in their revolution. Paine went on to be elected to the French National Assembly, arrested, imprisoned, and was very nearly executed as a counter-revolutionary. Then he returned to America. Go figure?

Wondering what might have been is usually a waste of time, but in Paine's case, I dunno..? At least he didn't end up dead like Che and Trotsky both did. Had Paine stayed and wrote he might have had a bigger impact on American society. Or not.

Posted by Ali Massoud at October 12, 2006 01:36 PM

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