PAINE'S  ANTI-SLAVERY  AND  ANTI-SLAVE  TRADE  STANCE

 

by  Irwin  Spiegelman

  

                                 Collected here are seven public writings attributed to Paine by Moncure Conway,1 one attributed to Paine by

                                 John Keane,2 to which Joyce Chumbley alerted us, three private letters by Paine and one unpublished poem

          attributed to Paine by A. Owen Aldridge.3  They demonstrate Paine's fierce, unequivocal opposition to slavery and the slave trade, as one

          would expect from the author of Rights of Man. A short discussion of some dissent to these attributions will follow the list.

 

     In chronological order, Paine's public anti-slavery writings, attributed to him by Moncure Conway, include:

 

1.   African Slavery in America, signed Justice and Humanity, in the Pennsylvania Journal, March 8, 1775 (Philip Foner, The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine, volume 2, page 15, 1945, New York: The Citadel Press, referred to in all the following as P. Foner, CW 2).4  Conway writes (The Life of Thomas Paine, volume 1, page 51):   Every argument and appeal, moral, religious, military, economic, familiar in our subsequent anti-slavery struggle, is here stated with eloquence and candor.

 

2.   A Serious Thought, signed Humanus, in the Pennsylvania Journal, October 18, 1775 (P. Foner, CW 2, page 19).  A quote:

       …ever since the discovery of America she [Britain] has employed herself in the most horrid of all traffics, that of human flesh, unknown to the most

       savage nations, has yearly (without provocation and in cold blood) ravaged the hapless shores of Africa, robbing it of its unoffending inhabitants to

       cultivate its dominions in the West…

 

3.   The Forester's Letter, Number 3, signed Forester, in the Pennsylvania Journal, April 24, 1776 (P. Foner, CW 2, page 74).  The footnote, page 82:  Forget not the hapless African -- Author

 

4.   The anti-slavery clause, in the draft of the Declaration of Independence but dropped in the final document (and attributed to Thomas Jefferson), June, 1776. An excerpt:  He [his present majesty, George III] has waged cruel War against human Nature itself, violating its most Sacred Right of Life and Liberty in the Persons of a distant People who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into Slavery in another Hemisphere or to incur miserable Death in their Transportation thither (Joseph Lewis, Thomas Paine, Author of the Declaration of Independence, 1947, page 95)5

 

5.   The second preamble to the Pennsylvania Gradual Abolition Act, unsigned, adopted March 1, 1780.  An excerpt:   We esteem it a peculiar blessing granted to us, that we are enabled this day to add one more step to universal civilization by removing, as much as possible, the sorrows of those who have lived in undeserved bondage…(P. Foner, CW 2, page 22)

 

6.   To the French Inhabitants of Louisiana, a pamphlet signed Common Sense, September 22, 1805.  An excerpt:  ….you petition for power, under the name of right, to import and enslave Africans! Dare you put up a petition to heaven for such a power, without fearing to be struck from the earth by its justice?  Why, then, do you ask it of man against man?  Do you want to renew in Louisiana the horrors of Domingo? (italics in original) (P. Foner, CW 2, page 968)

 

7.   The Declaration of Rights, attached to the rejected draft of a French Constitution, 1793, item number 20, which reads:  Every man may engage his services and his time; but he cannot sell himself;  His person is not an alienable property.  Paine was one of the nine members appointed to the Constitution drafting committee which included Condorcet, Danton and Brissot. Paine was the chief author, in Conway's view.1

 

8.   Old Truths and Established Facts, Being an Answer to a Very New Pamphlet, Indeed, by Vindex. Responding  to a Very New Pamphlet, Indeed, by Truth, Vindex denounced, "that horrid traffick in human kind, which in  spite of the boasted refinements and the  extensive philanthropy of the enlightened age, remains, though I  trust not indelibly, to be its disgrace."  According to John Keane, Vindex is Paine. (page 342, also footnote 214, on page 792)2

 

 

    The three private letters include:

 

1.   Letter to Benjamin Rush, March 8, 1789.  An excerpt: I despair of seeing an abolition of the infernal traffic in Negroes. We must push that matter further on your side of the water. I wish a few well instructed could be sent among their brethren in bondage; for until they are enabled to take their own part, nothing will be done.(P. Foner, CW 2, page 1286)

 

2.   Letter to Thomas Jefferson, January 1 , 1805, on US policy toward the victorious slave revolt in Santo Domingo.  An excerpt:  But if a way could be found out  to bring about a  peace between France and Domingo  through the mediation and  under the guarantee of the United States, it would be beneficial to all parties  ….And when we have gained their [the Haitian government led by Touissant l'Overture] confidence by acts of justice and friendship, they will listen  to our advice in matters of Civilization and Government, and prevent the danger of their becoming pirates, which I think they will be, if driven to desperation.

(P. Foner, CW 2, page 1454)

 

3.   Letter to Thomas Jefferson, January 25, 1805, on immigration to the Louisiana territory, including Black populations.   An excerpt:  …bringing poor Negroes to work the lands in a state of slavery and wretchedness, is, besides the immorality of it, the certain way of preventing population and consequently of preventing revenues. (P. Foner, CW 2, page 1458)

 

          Here is the third stanza of a poem, attributed to Paine, discovered by Aldridge,3 at the Morgan Library, New York City:   

See Afric's wretched Offspring torn

From all that human heart holds dear,

See Millions doomed in Chains to Mourn,

Unpitied even, by a Tear.

See Asia and her fertile plains

Where once the Bramin dwelt serene,

Now ravaged for the thirst for Gain,

Till Famine ends the dismal Scene.

 

                                                                              Continued on page 12, Paine's Anti-Slavery Stance

 

         Bulletin of Thomas Paine Friends, vol. 8, no. 1, March 2007   3

Thomas Paine Friends,  Inc.   

          185 Middle Street

   Amherst  MA  01002-3011

            

          

 

 Independence Is My Happiness…             

 My Country  Is  The World,

 My Religion Is To Do Good 

  Rights  of  Man,  part  2,  1792

 

 

B  U  L  L  E  T  I  N

                                         Newsletter   Of,   By,   For    Thomas   Paine   Friends,   Inc.

            Volume  8   Number  1                                                                                                                                         March   2007

 

MEMBERSHIPS   &   RENEWALS

The  Date  on  the  Mail  Label  above  is  the  Membership  Renewal  Date.

Please  Renew  If  Renewal  Date  Has  Passed  or  Is  Soon  Approaching. 

Dues  Are  $10  per  Year.  The   Newsletter  is  a   Membership   Benefit.

 

THANKS  TO  ALL  MEMBERS  and  SUPPORTERS  OF  THOMAS  PAINE  FRIENDS.

 

---

…Paine's Anti-Slavery Stance (by I. Spiegelman), from page 3

 

 

Dissenting Views on the Anti-Slavery Writings Attributed to Paine

  

     The above list of anti-slavery writings attributed by Conway to Paine, except for the Declaration of Rights, was compiled by James V. Lynch.6 He argues that only To the Inhabitants of Louisiana and the third Forester Letter are certainly by Paine and that A Serious Thought might well be. The rest, he concludes, should not be assigned to Paine, including the longest essay, African Slavery in America, which is also rejected by Aldridge3 and by Eric Foner,7 who writes in 1995, "There is no evidence that Paine wrote the essay…. although it is attributed to him," and in 1999, "No conclusive evidence confirms that a March, 1775 essay condemning slavery was written by Paine, although he later supported abolition in Pennsylvania."

 

     Aldridge and Lynch, specifically, reject Benjamin Rush's recollection that Paine was the author because of minor errors in a letter by Rush written many years later to James Cheetham, as well as on stylistic features claimed by Lynch to be foreign to Paine. However, most other authors from Conway1 to Nelson8 assign the work to Paine. A reply to Lynch by Irwin Spiegelman is in manuscript form.9

  

   Lynch concludes [on p. 197]6 that, "Paine's abolitionist reputation, nevertheless, is founded on no substantial evidence….Of the two anti-slavery essays attributed to him, only one resembles his writing style and neither stands out as an abolitionist tract."  Spiegelman produces a detailed rebuttal to these assertions.

 

   Thomas Paine Friends will try to obtain the required permissions to post on its website both the Lynch article and the relevant pages from Aldridge. Spiegelman's full article, Reply to Lynch,9 will soon be on the Articles link of the TPF website. It will be useful to read Aldridge's comments on African Slavery in America, the Lynch article and the Spiegelman reply to it all together on the TPF Website, which will allow full and open discussion of the authorship of these important works attributed by Conway to Thomas Paine.   [www.thomaspainefriends.org ]

 

 

1   Moncure Daniel Conway, The Life of Thomas Paine, two volumes, 1892, New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons

2   John Keane, Tom Paine, A Political Life, 1995, Boston: Little, Brown & Co. (page 342 and footnote 214, on page 792)

3    A. Owen Aldridge, Thomas Paine's American Ideology, 1984, Newark: University of Delaware Press (page 291 and pages 289-290)

4   Philip Foner, The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine, 1945, New York: The Citadel Press (volume 2, page 15)

5   Joseph Lewis, Thomas Paine, Author of the Declaration of Independence, 1947, NewYork: Freethought Press Association (page 95)

6   James V. Lynch, The Limits of Revolutionary Radicalism: Tom Paine and Slavery, 1999, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 123

7  Eric Foner, editor, Thomas Paine's Collected Writings, 1995, New York: The Library of America, "Chronology," by Eric Foner (page 835);  and

    Eric Foner, Biography of Thomas Paine, In: American National Biography, Garrity and Carnes, editors, (volume 16, page 925), 1999, New York 

8   Craig Nelson, Thomas Paine, Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Birth of Modern Nations, 2006, New York, Viking Penguin

9   Irwin Spiegelman, A Reply to James V. Lynch's The Limits of Revolutionary Radicalism: Tom Paine and Slavery, 2000, in manuscript.  A short summary

     is found in Bulletin of ThomasPaine Friends, volume 12, number 2, page 4, November 2000, entitled, Thomas Paine Unfairly  Attacked: the Defamation

     of Paine and What We Can Do About It

 

 

A note regarding US abolition of the slave-trade. The US Constitution contains language that the slave-trade will end by 1808, and the document signed by President Thomas Jefferson on March 2, 1807 was the implementation. Some illegal slave trade into the US undoubtedly continued despite the law. Certainly, transfer of slaves from one state into another continued although such state-to-state slave movement was also to stop according to the law.  [US Constitution, Article I, Section 9]  -- Martha Spiegelman

 

 

 

 

12   Bulletin of Thomas Paine Friends, vol. 8, no. 1, March 2007