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Thomas Paine’s Early Radicalism, 1768–1783
- University of Virginia Press
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49 B etween 1768 and 1783, Thomas paine’s political radicalism and revolutionary enthusiasm developed in two phases: in his experiences in the small towns and hamlets throughout Midlands england and sussex, and then in his first year in america after his arrival in philadelphia in november 1774. once in his new country, he cultivated a vision of how americans could transform their country into a genuine democratic republic. He then embarked on a quest to ensure that european nations, including Britain, followed the americans by creating their own republics. paine was among the first radical writers to demonstrate that a political career could be devoted to revolutionary change and republican democracy. His life after 1776 displayed a fabric of political engagement that commentators and historians have often neglected because of the wide gulf they detect separating his sparkling and anonymously published Common Sense from his later support of the french revolution in Rights of Man. Much of what we know of paine’s early life derives from his first biographer , George Chalmers, writing in 1791 under the pseudonym “francis oldys.”1 The British Crown hired him to counter the argument and conclusions in Rights of Man by publishing a scurrilous personal attack on paine. a scot who worked for the Board of Trade, Chalmers was living in Maryland when the americans declared their independence. on his return to Britain, he hated all things american and all men who supported the separation of the colonies from the empire. His biography focused on paine’s wandering lifestyle , his failed marriages, his inability to hold a job, his poor personal habits, Thomas Paine’s Early Radicalism, 1768–1783 Y ja c k f r U c H t m a n j r . 50 jack frUcHtman jr. and his unsuccessful career as an excise-tax collector. The important point is that the British government so feared paine in 1791 that it tried to undermine his radicalism by revealing him as an idle, miserable, and malodorous drunkard . Contemporary commentators and biographers typically appreciate Common Sense as a precursor to the more radical Rights of Man. They argue that the subject of Common Sense was american independence, while the focus of Rights of Man was global revolution and change. Bernard Bailyn reminds us of the centrality of Common Sense as “a superbly rhetorical and iconoclastic pamphlet whose slashing attack upon the english monarchy—the one remaining link, in early 1776, between england and the colonies—and upon the concept of balance in the constitution made it an immediate sensation.”2 But still it was about america, even if its radicalism cannot be overstated, as Harvey Kaye argues: While “americans . . . turned Thomas paine into a radical , a patriot, and a writer, . . . paine . . . turned americans into revolutionaries .” But even Kaye argues that Common Sense was merely a manifesto for “a democratic america,” and nowhere else.3 other contemporaries have made this distinction between the two works. Craig nelson argues that Rights of Man made paine responsible for “the birth of modern nations,” while eric foner concludes that it made him “one of the creators of the secular language of revolution.” john Keane tells us that as a result of his european exploits after 1789, the “democratic republican” paine “made more noise in the world and excited more attention than . . . wellknown european contemporaries.” These contemporaries included some of the shining luminaries of the enlightenment: adam smith, jean-jacques rousseau, Voltaire, immanuel Kant, Madame de staël, edmund Burke, and even the obscure Milanese political economist pietro Verri. Meantime, Bernard Vincent sees paine in the 1790s as the “prophet and crusader of the republic in a universe peopled by monarchs,” while jean Lessay terms him a “professor of revolutions” and Maurice ezran finds him to have been a “fighter in two revolutions,” with the second one in france being far more important. Mark philp refers to paine in the same period as “the first international revolutionary,” which is undoubtedly correct, and ian dyck argues that paine thought his radicalism in france was so universal that he was simply a “citizen of the world.” isaac Kramnick’s formulation for paine is that his revolutionary fervor, again while in france after 1789, made him a “radical liberal.”4 some, like Gordon Wood, are skeptical of paine’s influence, arguing that he was “a man out of joint with his times, and he has remained so ever since.” Wood nonetheless finds paine to be “america’s first modern intellec- [18.234...