....Talking with Thomas, from page 8

 

JAC: The good news is that change has come without revolution. We had an election! Not completely without tampering and fraud, but with such a huge citizen turnout, that we changed the regime, not the presidency but at least the congressional leadership.

TP: The silent vote, or the simple yea or nay, is more powerful than the bayonet, and decides the strength of numbers without a blow.[21]

JAC: It's time the people took their civic responsibility seriously.

TP: The guilt of government is the crime of a whole country.[22]

JAC: Yes, and many of us are ready to speak out, even more than ever before.

TP: Silence becomes a kind of crime when it operates as a cover or an encouragement to the guilty.[23]

JAC: We want peace!

TP: If peace can be procured with more advantage than even a conquest can be obtained, he must be an idiot indeed that hesitates.[24]

JAC: Yes, well.

TP: If those to whom power is delegated do well, they will be respected; if not, they will be despised.[25]

JAC: The Bush Administration is despised all over the world.

TP: It is sometimes of advantage to the people of one country, to hear what those of other countries have to say respecting it.[26]

JAC: We want peace and an end to the war, but we also want accountability.

TP: The abuse of any power always operates to call the right of that power into question.[27]

JAC: We want investigations into the defrauding of the American people by the Bush Administration with its lies and misinformation. We want impeachment and conviction for high crimes and misdemeanors.

TP: There are such things as national sins, and though the punishment of individuals may be reserved for another world, national punishment can only be inflicted in this world.[28]

JAC: No, Thomas, there are other means of dealing with individual war criminals now on a global scale. There is the International Criminal Court (ICC), and although the US has until now refused to join the international community in adhering to its justice, and the government has done everything it can, including bilateral agreements with individual countries, to immunize Americans from its jurisdiction (as though USers should be above the law), there will be somewhere in the world where the Bush Administration offenders will be put on trial for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Also, we want reparations to be paid to the people of the world injured by the United States of America. (We think you, Thomas, would approve.)

TP: When one villain is suffered to escape, it encourages another to proceed, either from a hope of escaping likewise, or an apprehension that we dare not punish.[29]

JAC: If you were here now, Thomas, you would be our leading blogger (don't ask) on the Internet (don't ask). Basically, I mean you would be our leading citizen investigative and analytical journalist. People all over the world are trying to emulate you and your common sense right now, and they have a global audience through the World Wide Web (don't ask).

TP: Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have the consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. Tis dearness only that gives us every thing its value.[30]

JAC: Hey, I've got that quote on the front of my tee-shirt! Please, Thomas, give us a few last words.

TP: Wrongs cannot have a legal descent.[31]

 

It is time that nations should be rational, and not be governed like animals for the pleasure of their riders.[32]

 

All countries have sooner or later been called to their reckoning; the prouder empires have sunk when the balance was struck.[33]

 

The true greatness of a nation is founded on the principles of humanity.[34]

 

Let a single idea begin and a thousand will soon follow.[35]

21 To the Citizens of Pennsylvania on the Proposal for Calling a Convention, 1805
22 To the Earl of Shelburne, 1782

23 Pennsylvania Packet, January 23, 1779
24 The American Crisis, 1778
25  Rights of Man, I, 1791

26 Rights of Man, I, 1791
27 Attack on Paper Money Laws, 1786
28 The American Crisis, 1777

29 The American Crisis, 1777
30 The American Crisis, 1776
31 Rights of Man, I, 1791

32 Rights of Man, II, 1792
33 Dissertation on First Principles of Government, 1795

34 Prospects on the Rubicon, 1787
35 Dissertation on First Principles of Government, 1795

      (Admission by JAC: I didn't really write a computer program that magically gave me, from cyberspace, all these quotes from Thomas Paine. I used the marvelous collection compiled by John P. Kaminski, Citizen Paine; Thomas Paine's Thoughts on Man, Government, Society, and Religion, 2005, Oxford UK: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers)                                                                                -- December 2, 2006

 

 

 

....My Pen and My Soul, from page 5

 

 

(3) A most remarkable feature of Vickers' book is that it stimulates new research by Paine's scholars and historians. Here are some of my hints to the point.

   a) Vickers presents an original investigation of Paine's writings before 1776 with an obvious aim: to find out any background or roots to explain the sudden and overwhelming success of Common Sense. But the purpose has not been achieved. Paine was about forty when he wrote his Common Sense, a work of genius. And this work has almost nothing in common with Paine's previous writings. Great works of genius, especially a political writing, cannot appear that way. So Paine's case still seems to be unique in the world history. In my opinion, the mystery of Common Sense's appearance has not yet been solved.

   b) Vickers deals with the problem of Paine's contribution to the Declaration of Independence. In her opinion, the claims that it was Paine, not Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence, once in abundance, have now rightfully been dismissed as false (p. 136)  There is no evidence that Paine had

any part in the actual drafting of the Declaration, and a great deal of evidence that proves that Jefferson acted alone.  (p. 171, note 17)   The historian offers her own version of Paine's contribution to the Declaration of Independence:  By rallying the American people to the cause of Independence, Paine did in fact create a support base which Continental Congressmen could use to urge the matter forward. Those in Congress who had consistently ignored the minority radical faction were no longer able to do so after Common Sense; the American people demanded revolution and their representatives were forced to respond. That response led, ultimately, to the Declaration of Independence. (p. 137)  Surely one may consent with her view. Nevertheless, Vickers' assertion that in this way by studying the political context of America, the nagging question of Paine's role in the Declaration of Independence has also (hopefully) found resolution (p. 130) is at least dubious.

     None of the well-known Paine scholars has ever tried to solve such an enigma: How does it happen that the Declaration of Independence corresponds exactly (only the introductory part excluded) to the plan of it laid out in Common Sense. Here is the extract : Were a manifesto to be published, and dispatched to foreign courts, setting forth (1) the miseries we have endured, (2) and the peaceful methods which we have ineffectually used for redress; (3) declaring at the same time, that not being able any longer to live happily or safely under the cruel disposition of the British court, we had been driven to the necessity of breaking off all connections with her; (4) at the same time assuring all such courts of our peaceful disposition towards them, (5) and of our desire of entering into trade with them [3].  Jefferson's Declaration of Independence keeps to Paine's plan in strict sequence. This is an unexplained phenomenon up to the present, and still leaves open whether Paine had a specific role in the drafting.

   c) The following is one more specification to the point concerning Paine's input to the cause of Independence. To Vickers' regret, Paine never had a chance to write his history of American Revolution (p. 130), and therefore we would never know what he considered significant about his contribution to the cause of Independence. (p. 131)  But Paine did have a clear view of his input to the great cause. In his address "To the Citizens of the United States" in 1805 he clarified the problem:  The independence of America would have added but little to her own happiness, and been of no benefit to the world, if her government had been formed on the corrupt models of the old world.  It was the opportunity of beginning the world anew, as it were; and of bringing forward a new system of government in which the rights of all men should be preserved that gave value to independence. The pamphlet Common Sense . . .embraced

both those objects. Mere independence might at some future time, have been effected and established by arms, without principle, but a just system of government could not. In short, it was the principle, at that time, that produced the independence; for until the principle spread itself abroad among the people, independence was not thought of, and America was fighting without an object. Those who know the circumstances of the times I speak of, know this to be true. (Italics, Paine)[4]

     Here Paine formulates the principle that makes the core of modern democracies:  a new system of government in which the rights of all men should be preserved and proclaims himself the forerunner of the "system" that begins "the world anew."  In my opinion, this extract is of great importance and

deserves more attention of historians and Paine scholars.

 

 

Conclusion

     Vickers' book is that of a genuine historian. Through her painstaking analysis of Paine's life, works and the voluminous literature on the subject in the broad interdisciplinary context, the pivot of Paine's mentality has been distinguished, his intellectual personality is adequately presented.  Her book stands out for its depth, originality, academic preciseness. As she puts it, her study is an attempt to finally bring closure to the way studies of Paine had proceeded in the past in order to encourage a more accurate, interdisciplinary approach in the future. Hopefully new avenues of Paine's role in history may be explored as the old questions need no longer occupy scholars' attention. (p. 129)  I agree with the author. The first intellectual biography of Thomas Paine by a talented young historian Vikki J. Vickers is an evident success.

[Editor's note: The term, intellectual biography, has currency lately, for instance, referring to a biography of philosopher William James (by Robert D. Richardson, 2006, New York: Houghton Mifflin) where reviewer, Denis Donoghue, quotes Richardson writing that an intellectual biography "seeks to understand [a] life through his work, not the other way around. It is primarily narrative, aiming more to present his life rather than to analyze or explain it." See: Harper's Magazine, January 2007, page 88.]

 

3 Th. Paine, The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine, edited by Philip S. Foner, 1969, New York: Citadel Press, I: 39

4 Th. Paine, "To the Citizens of the United States," Letter VIII, June 5, 1805; In: P. Foner, The Complete Writings, 1969, II: 956