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Remembering the Paine Its time to see the reasons why we know Thomas Paine to part of our revolution, but not that well known amongst the average student. The rise and fall of this man can be an example to all of us If you read and learn from his endeavors. There was a lot of tension building up during the 1 ass’s and sass’s between Great Britain and America and something had to be done about It. Is It worth the risk declaring independence from the most powerful and feared country in the world.
Our forefathers were in a confusing situation and had to come up with something to do to love the problem. In our history classes we always hear about all these founding fathers for what they did founding this country. Of course we all know improvement for today’s learning can be Increased and with this paper I hope to shed some light on why. After my research and findings there Is more to the life of Thomas Paine that isn’t in our current textbooks. Over the last 20 years there has been a resurgence of interest in both Thomas Paine and his life.
This new social interest from American citizens is more in tune with his works, and his underdog status is welcome by many. You will see a very interesting story of the rise and fall of a very smart, influential man in a critical time during our American history. He will always be remembered as a radical speaker and writer that have a lot of scholars today parallels him for what he said and wrote. Even some of our best presidents have used Is writings in speeches such as Ronald Reagan.
Lately Paine has been said to be “Americas’ first modern intellectual”, and is the subject of many novels in the last 4 years that have been published. The most commonly known knowledge of Thomas Paine is his birth n 1737 in Defrost, England, the great influence on the American Revolution, and the writing of the Common Sense pamphlet in 1776. I think the story of Thomas Paine will take you on a crazy reallocates ride, but you will see the rise and fall very apparent and very unnecessary. Intuition down his odd yet enlightened road to French citizenship, his time in a French prison, and the short period of time little over a year which elapsed between his trip to the Americas, and the writing of Common Sense. Paine has definitely proven that you can have both necessity and perseverance. Growing up the son of a poor corset maker, and for most of his young life he lived in a very poor household. The road leading him to the man we read about today Is full of dilapidating Jobs and endeavors, including a seaman, attempts at teacher, and a tobacco shop owner and at various times an “excise man. Many of his employment roads were a complete failure, but would start to explain why he is who he is later on in life. All these experiences would mold his disgust with England and its way of life. After getting a divorce and remarrying Paine was getting to a point where he was red of disappointment and failure. Yet on the recommendation of a new friend and colleague from America he decided to Sal west to the colonies, In hope of escaping his family he arrived in America in 1774. After reaching America Paine began to look for a Job.
Only having a couple of letters of recommendation and the help of his new friend he was asked to be the publisher for the Philadelphia Times. His time with his new Job we start to get a clear picture of what Thomas Paine was made of a hard worker, a radical thinker and definitely not afraid to say what he thinks and feels. He also starts to make a name for himself with his influential topics and writings that lead him to writing his most famous book. In 1776 Paine published the Common Sense pamphlet, but what I found interesting was he did not sign his name on the book.
The book basically demands independence from England and the establishment of a strong American union, the pamphlet found overwhelming approval and support with the colonists in America. With the revelation of its author the pamphlet continued its wave of success, having much support from the likes of many founding fathers. What made this book so incredible is it was published at a mime when a young America needed direction and helped the cause to start a revolution amongst the people that would prove to be exactly what we needed to become what we are today.
In December of that year Paine quickly followed up with the first in a series of pamphlets entitled The Crisis. It started with, “These are the times that try men’s souls… Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered. ” Washington found this to be so strong he read to his troops in the middle of winter during the war. From that point on Paine was definitely heading towards being a staple in the American Revolution. Thomas Paine became even more known to the people when he was in the American army and would speak to the soldier in the winter times of 1776 and 1777.
After the winter Paine was asked to be the Secretary of Foreign Affairs to the Congressional Committee. To this point Thomas Paine has done a lot for his new country and made many things in his life right, but his eventual down fall would come because of his blunt onions and radical thoughts on many topics that would cause him to have many enemies. After being fired and stripped of many things he was left with very little. Just like in England he found himself a failure and with thing to his name.
Many years following the revolution Thomas Paine still had many that held him in such high regard that they decided to give him land and money for all the great things he did for this new and free America. Despite all the new money and land in his life, Paine found ways to disturb his own situation, first by going to France in support of it’s revolution, and then finding himself an outlaw in England after he had published his two part “Rights of Man” in 1791 and 1792. While reading of his past on August 26, 1972, Thomas Paine became a French citizen, and quickly positioned himself in the limelight surrounding France’s Revolution.
He won wide support, and gained a seat in the National Convention. From their Thomas Paints honesty earned him enemies when he criticized the amount of blood France’s Revolution was enduring. Again we see he lost his power, being quickly stripped of his position, citizenship, and any immunity. Finding himself in prison for over 10 months. Even after all this his reputation and having big friends in high places came to his recur. Sending Monroe the American minister to have him set free and made n American citizen he was brought back to America.
After all this Thomas Paine would continue to erode his reputation and stain his historical relevance, rather then published ” The Pain of Reason” which was printed in two parts. The first was printed months before going to Jail and the second was after he was able to finish following his release. This book would later become known as the atheist bible because it was Pain’s own religious beliefs that upset a lot of people. Pain’s disgust with many churches and their writings would eventually make him one of the most hated men.
The hate became such a problem that even his friends deserted him or left him to be destroyed in the papers. After all this Paine would quickly realize all his work was forgotten or overlooked but his “Atheist Bible”, and even with that he would realize they were angry towards his writings in this bible. After all this we don’t see much from Paine other than and attempt on his life in 1804 and died in 1812. He died the same way he began alone, poor and nothing to his name. Its crazy to think that someone that did so much for a country could fall so far from grace.
Even worse his cagey would not get much help when Theodore Roosevelt who would refer to him as the dirty little atheist. Which didn’t make much sense to me because of how much Paine did for our country and its rough beginning. If you were to sit in on a class today going over the revolution, you would not see much on or about Thomas Paine other than he wrote Common Sense. There is no mention of his personal contributions to fighting the war and maintaining the government. Not a word of how he gave his last penny to the cause of the revolution and then found himself begging for more.
Here we have a man who helped ignite the flame of revolution that brought about the United States of America, downgrade to a man that wrote a book. Thomas Paine will always be a big part of our American history and he should never be forgotten. Of course he brought a lot of this upon himself with his personality and brutal honesty. Thomas Paine gave his all for our America, always going honestly and openly about his work, and in the end sacrificing his own life so that the truth might be heard. He will always be remembered as the guy who wrote Common Sense, but he was so much more with a closer look.