The Legacy of Thomas Paine in the Transatlantic World

Sam Edwards, Marcus Morris

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351246927
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Historiographie

As early as 1892, Moncure Conway, the author of the first scholarly Paine biography, noted that whilst Paine's life up to 1809 was certainly fascinating, his subsequent life – that is, his after life – was even more thrilling. Vilified by Theodore Roosevelt as a "filthy little atheist, " yet employed by Ronald Reagan in his campaign to make America "great again, " Paine's words and ideas have been both celebrated and dismissed by generations of politicians and presidents. An Englishman by birth, an American by adoption, and a Frenchman by decree, Paine has been invoked and appropriated by groups and individuals across the transatlantic political spectrum. This was particularly apparent following the bicentennial of Paine's death in 2009, an event that prompted new scholarship examining troublesome Tom's ideas and ideals, whilst in Thetford, Lewes and New Rochelle – his three transatlantic "homes" – he was feted and commemorated. Yet despite all this interest, the precise forms and function of Paine's post-mortem presence have still not received the attention they deserve. With essays authored by experts on both sides of the Atlantic (and beyond), this book examines the transatlantic afterlife of Thomas Paine, offering new insights into the ways in which he has been used and abused, remembered and represented, in the two hundred years since his death.

Part I

The image and idea(s) of Paine

Origins, use, and reuse

1 The image of Tom

Paine in print and portraiture

W. A. Speck

‘Never was a public character so suddenly exalted to the very pinnacle of fame, or so precipitately hurled into disgrace’ a pamphleteer observed of Tom Paine in 1794. ‘One day he was admired as a profound politician, and adored as a champion of liberty; the next day he was branded as an enemy to his king and country, a traitor, a swindler, equally destitute of principles and abilities’.¹ Paine’s image varied, and still varies, depending on the politics of the observer. By and large in the transatlantic world those on the left revere him, while those on the right revile him.² Radicals applaud him as the apostle of the welfare state whereas conservatives reject him as a revolutionary who threatened to overthrow the monarchy and the whole social order. These rival images, which are at the heart of Paine’s different legacies and will be examined in the following chapters, were formed during his lifetime in reaction to the views he promulgated in favour of the American and the French Revolutions. These images were also informed by the way Paine was projected in the press, particularly during the 1790s, and would continue to be portrayed long after his death.

Paine became a public figure relatively late in life. Although it was widely known that he was the author of The Case of the Officers of Excise, despite its appearing anonymously in 1772, it did not make his name as a major contributor to political discourse. The tract was printed in a limited edition meant for distribution to peers, members of parliament, and other influential political figures, whose support he tried unsuccessfully to obtain for a wage increase for his fellow excise officers. The circumstances in which it was printed enabled Paine to claim that it was not a regular publication, and even claim that he had not published a word before he went to America in the autumn of 1774. Despite publishing several essays in the periodical press after his arrival in Philadelphia, he did not achieve fame – or notoriety – until the publication of Common Sense in January 1776, the month in which he turned thirty-nine. Again, it appeared anonymously. It has been suggested that Paine took extra care to preserve his anonymity, having failed to do so with the Case, so that even Robert Bell, the Philadelphian bookseller who undertook to publish the first edition, was unaware of his identity. What he did know was that Paine had gone over to America from England; hence his insertion on the title page of the second edition of the words ‘by an Englishman’. This halted rumours that it had been written by an American, with leading colonial politicians such as John Adams and Benjamin Franklin being suspected of its authorship.

The first edition with Paine’s name on the title page did not appear until 1792, but Paine’s authorship of Common Sense was well enough known as early as the Spring of 1776 for some ‘private gentlemen’ to send him 108 dollars to compensate him for losses he claimed to have incurred from its publication.³ It was also well known in England; William Godwin acknowledged it in a very curious work he published in 1784: The herald of literature or a review of the most considerable publications that will be made in the course of the ensuing winter. One of the works anticipated by Godwin was ‘Reflections upon the present state of the United States of America by Thomas Paine’. In his review, or rather preview, of this imaginary publication, Godwin observed that in America Paine

is the best of all their political writers. His celebrated pamphlet of Common Sense appeared at a most critical period, and certainly did important service to the cause of independency. His style is exactly popular oratory. Rough, negligent and perspicuous, it presents us occasionally with the boldest figures and the most animated language. It is perfectly intelligible to persons of all ranks, and it speaks with energy to the sturdy feelings of uncultivated nature.

In his ‘review’ of the fictitious ‘Reflections upon the present state of the United States of America’ Godwin employed an alleged quotation from it – an interesting attempt to imitate Paine’s style: ‘America has but one enemy, and that is England. Of the English it behoves us always to be jealous’. He introduces Paine’s ‘reflections’ with the words ‘Mr Paine has thought fit to offer some advice to his countrymen in this present juncture’.⁴

Paradoxically, Paine was regarded as an American by the British, by ‘his countrymen’ Godwin clearly meant Americans, while the inhabitants of the colonies that became the United States considered him to be English⁵; Bell, the publisher of Common Sense, was not alone in calling him an Englishman. Paine was plagued by questions regarding his national identity for the rest of his life. Indeed, as many of the following chapters show, this would plague his legacy too, with questions of nationality continually raised. Even when he considered himself to be an American citizen, following the declaration of the independence of the United States, there were many who continued to call him English. Meanwhile, the British claimed he was American, and continued to do so for many generations. In 1791, an anonymous tract, Defence of the Rights of Man, referred to Paine as ‘our American author’.⁶ A British Freeholder’s Address to his Countrymen on Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, published the same year, described him as ‘a foreign emissary … a demi-savage intruder … this American interloper who wants to cram French cookery down English throats’.⁷ Another response to Rights of Man denounced Paine as ‘the American Spy’.⁸ Thus, the contest over Paine’s nationality that so significantly impacted his legacy was just as fiercely fought during his lifetime, and contemporary designations informed later views.

While Godwin clearly admired Paine’s pamphlet, there were also several hostile responses to Common Sense. Charles Inglis entered the lists early in Philadelphia. His tract, The true interest of American impartially stated in certain strictures on a pamphlet intitled Common Sense by an American, is dated 12 February 1776. Inglis denounced the author of Common Sense for giving ‘vent to his own private resentment and ambition’. ‘He unites the violence and rage of a republican’, he asserted, ‘with all the enthusiasm and folly of a fanatic’.⁹ William Smith, a leading Anglican divine in Philadelphia, wrote a series of eight letters in the City’s newspapers under the pseudonym ‘Cato’ which castigated Paine’s advocacy of independence for Britain’s American colonies. The fourth and fifth letters directly addressed Paine’s pamphlet; Smith dismissed the opening paragraphs of Common Sense as ‘the strangest medley of inconsistencies and contradictions which were perhaps ever offered to the Common Sense of any people’.¹⁰

The debate provoked by the pamphlet, which foreshadowed many of the debates over and developments in Paine’s legacy, was expressed in printed words. No graphic depiction of Paine appears to have been published either in America or Britain at the time. As Harry Dickinson observes, ‘the first satirical print showing Paine as an important figure’ was in The Repeal of the Test Act: A Vision, an engraving by James Sayers published on 16 February 1790. This associated Paine with the radical dissenting clergymen Joseph Priestley, Richard Price, and Theophilus Lindsey. Priestley, Price, and Lindsey are depicted together in a pulpit in a church whose congregation includes radical political figures, such as the Whig politician Charles James Fox. Among these figures is Paine, who occupies a prominent position at the front of the church dressed in the outfit of an officer of excise. The clergy are espousing political doctrines which could lead to a revolution in England either like that in France, which Price had extolled in a sermon on 5 November 1789, or that in America, which Paine had championed. The latter association is emphasised by an American flag fluttering at the back of the church to which Priestley, who had also supported the colonies’ bid for independence, is pointing.¹¹

Although the St James’s Chronicle for 20 February 1790 congratulated Sayers for the ‘excellent likenesses’ of individuals in the print, Paine can only be identified by his depiction as an exciseman, since his features bear no resemblance to any known portrait. The only portrait of him available to the public when The Repeal of the Test Act appeared had been painted by Charles Wilson Peale in Philadelphia in 1783. The original is now lost but James Watson created a mezzotint from it. In October 1786, Paine’s friend John Hall noted that ‘a print of Common Sense, if any of my friends want one, may be had by sending to the print shops in London, but they have put a wrong name to it, his being Thomas’.¹² Watson’s engraving was indeed titled ‘Edward Payne Esqr’! It shows Paine seated at a table upon which rests a book open at ‘In the Cause of Liberty and my Country’ – presumably America – ‘The Crisis’ and ‘Common Sense’. In another engraving of the portrait by ‘Peel of Philadelphia’ (sic) made in London in 1791, Paine is holding Rights of Man.

Figure 1.1 ‘Edward Payne Esquire’, by James Watson, 1783. Mable Brady Garvan Collection. Courtesy of Yale University Art Gallery.

While Peale’s portrait and Watson’s engraving based on it represented a favourable image of Paine, the use made of it by caricaturists was largely unfavourable, if not downright hostile. Once again, developments in Paine’s lifetime foreshadowed those after his death, with Paine’s image (and his words) used in ways unintended by the original creators. A print clearly based on the portrait appeared on 1 September 1791 with the revealing title ‘Mad Tom or the Man of Rights’.¹³ A demented Paine is depicted seated at a desk writing on a sheet of paper ‘riots’, ‘treasons’, ‘plots’, ‘conspiracies’, ‘civil war’ and, after some erasures, ‘Burk –’. He is sitting on another sheet inscribed with ‘Rights of Man’. On the floor, along with a broken sceptre and a crown, is yet another sheet with the words ‘Price Priest[ley] and Tow[ers]’ written on it. The print was attributed to ‘Hannibal Scratch’, a pseudonym of painter and caricaturist Samuel Collings. ‘Mad Tom’ was a stock character in the popular literature of the period. A cheaply produced collection of six songs published in 1775 was entitled ‘Mad Tom’s Garland’. One of the songs, ‘Old Mad Tom in Bedlam’, begins ‘I am old Mad Tom behold me, And my wits are all fled from me; I am mad I am sure, I am past all cure, yet I hope to be reclaimed’.¹⁴ Attributing views one deplored to insanity was a commonplace of political discourse in the early modern period. Jonathan Swift’s A Tale of a Tub published in 1704 was one of the more well-known examples of the genre. If Paine’s radical politics could be ascribed to madness it would make the task of dismissing them easy, without the need to refute them. And, as seen in later chapters, this was a tactic that many of Paine’s critics continued to adopt.

The notion of Paine being ‘Mad Tom’ then caught on. Isaac Cruickshank published a print ‘Mad Tom’s first practical essay on the Rights of Man’ showing Paine conspiring with Richard Sheridan and Samuel Whitbread to set fire to the House of Commons’.¹⁵ Paine also appears to be at least slightly demented in a print produced earlier in the year 1791 by James Gillray: ‘Tommy Paine the little American taylor taking the measure of the Crown for a new pair of Republican Breeches’.¹⁶ Gillray clearly had no idea what Paine looked like, for the features bear no resemblance to the Peale portrait. The rambling monologue that fills up the speech bubble, enhancing the hi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: the use and abuse of Thomas Paine in the transatlantic world
• Part I The image and idea(s) of Paine: Origins, use, and reuse
• Part II Discovering and using Paine’s radicalism
• Part III Remembering and remaking Paine
• Afterword: the struggle for Paine’s memory and the making of American democracyHarvey J. Kaye
• Index