|
 |
'Lead, follow, or get out of the way.' Tommy Paine is the man but what happened to his bones? ILLUSTRATION IS 1793 ENGRAVING BY WILLIAM SHARP FROM PAINTING BY GEORGE ROMNEY
|
|
|
NO PAINE, NO GAIN
Why does the man who championed freedom long before it was the in thing to do get short shrift?
BY LEN SOUSA
This year's traditional birthday of the United States left us indulging in the usual fetes and festivities we've grown accustomed to on the Fourth - friends, family, fireworks, food and basically anything else beginning with the letter F (imaginations, go wild). But every year it feels as though something - or rather someone - is missing.
Sure, we remember most of our founding fathers (two more F's). Men like General Washington, Tommy "The Pen" Jefferson, Old Man Franklin, Sam "Gimme Another" Adams and John "Bigger Is Always Better" Hancock. But one name, though associated with the nation's founding, still gets little to no popular mention in this country.
Thomas Paine, author of the well-known pamphlet "Common Sense" and the fellow who came up with that catchy phrase "The United States of America," is largely responsible for the ideology that guided the American Revolution and inspired the policies to which the new nation would adhere. Some of Paine's now famous lines include, "These are the times that try men's souls" and "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."
Though we remember a few of Paine's words and are taught his name in grade school, how much do we really know about a man who shaped this country far more than any other individual?
Paine was the first to suggest writing an American Declaration of Independence and is believed by some to have written its first draft, later revised by Thomas Jefferson. In Paine's version (still held by the John Adams family), the revolutionary thinker includes a clause to end slavery - calling it a "cruel war against human nature itself."
It's exciting to believe the Declaration's most famous words - "all men are created equal" - were originally meant exactly as read and not, as others later believed, meant to exclude slaves or those without property. One can only imagine how differently things may have been 90 years later if Jefferson (a slave owner) had kept Paine's abolitionist clause in his final version and the American Civil War was entirely avoided.
Aside from his progressive views on human rights, Paine was also a devout deist (one who uses logic and reason to believe in God but is skeptical of organized religion) who once wrote, "All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and to monopolize power and profit." Predictably, this strong stance against organized religion never sat well with those he helped inspire.
Ben Franklin especially urged Paine to burn his early draft of "The Age of Reason" before anyone else could read it. Writing to Paine, "By the argument it contains against a particular Providence, though you allow a general Providence, you strike at the foundations of all religion... He that spits against the wind spits in his own face." Clearly, Paine was never one of the boys. He ignored Franklin's friendly advice and published his treatise to much criticism in 1793.
Paine was indeed a free spirit and the 18th century's man of revolt who championed freedom long before it was the hip thing to do. The folks in France even invited him over to help inspire their famous revolution and made him an honorary French citizen. Sadly, when Paine disapproved of murdering the royal family (he favored exile), the French threw him in prison and nearly executed him before finally kicking him out of the country.
Paine was the first true American who said what he believed and believed what he said. So much so his words helped ignite two historic revolutions. But for all this, where is the father of American ideology buried? Where is his monument or great hall?
As it turns out, no one knows where he is. Two years after his death in 1809, his body was exumed and moved to England where it went missing after the English government refused to build a Paine memorial. Aside from a roadside plaque in New Rochelle, N.Y., that marks the spot where his body was once buried, and a small bust outside the Thomas Paine Memorial Museum (also in New Rochelle), there is no great tribute to this emblematic hero of the American Revolution. In our modern era of newfound American patriotism, it's certainly ironic that Paine should be so brushed aside.
Is it somehow fitting that no government monument be erected to a man who distrusted all governments? Or was it Paine's rabid deism that banished him from the memory of a supposedly secular nation? Perhaps Andrew Jackson had it right when he said, "Thomas Paine needs no monument made of hands. He has erected a monument in the hearts of all lovers of liberty."
Still, a hall would be nice.
Len Sousa is proud to live in the most Paine-like state in the country, Rhode Island. The first colony to declare independence from Britain, it was also the last to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Visit www.len-sousa.com for links about Paine and help spread the word.
|
|
 |
|
