The Thomas Paine Project

Thomas Paine, was a radical journalist, who advocated freedom and independence from “King George,” and began  movement that ignited the American Revolution. Tom Paine was born on January 29, 1737 in Thetford, England. Before coming to the American Colonies in 1774, Paine worked at variety of jobs including, Corset Maker, Sailor and Customs Collector—he failed at all of them. He married twice—both marriages ended in divorce.

He came to Philadelphia in 1774, where he worked as a Printer and Journalist. In 1776, he published, at his own expense, 18,000 copies of his 50-page pamphlet, “Common Sense,” which argued for a declaration of independence from Great Britain. It was widely distributed throughout the colonies, reprinted often; it eventually sold nearly half a million copies and Paine donated the proceeds to the Continental Congress.

It is probable that every literate colonist read Common Sense or knew about its contents. Fellow rebel, John Adams, said that he expected “Common Sense” to become the “common faith. Paine’s words convinced many colonists to support an American Revolution.

While serving as a foot soldier at Valley Forge, he wrote a pamphlet series, “The American Crisis,” which began with the memorable lines,

“These are the times that try men’s souls.The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

Paine’s words, literally, held together the Continental army and sustained the spirit of the Revolution.

According to British historian N.A.M. Rodger, Paine was a “political radical, a subversive, not a natural friend of respectable, slave-owning gentlemen.” He was not the type of person who would be invited to tea at Mount Vernon.

Historian Margaret Washington, described Paine as a “common man,” not of the same socio-economic class as the other founding fathers, many of whom considered the common people “rabble.”  Thomas Paine, she said, believed that the common people “were the revolution. He believed that “ordinary people could understand and participate in government.”

Paine’s “Common Sense” was a significant factor in the establishment of a government where authority was given to the people — a factor that made the American Revolution an event of “world significance.”

After the American Revolution, he lived quietly in New York until he returned to Britain in 1787. He wrote The Rights of Man (1791–92) in response to Edmund Burke’s criticism of the French Revolution. He became an honorary French citizen, was elected to the Revolutionary Convention (1792), and was imprisoned during the height of the Terror in Paris. Later he published The Age of Reason (1794, 1796) and returned to New York where he lived in obscurity until his death in 1809.

– Walter F. Wouk

For more information about Tom Paine read Tom Paine, Liberty’s Hated Torchbearer