These three charges stand upon the same evidence--the word of Grant
Thorburn. If they are not all true, Mr. Thorburn stands impeached.
The charge that Mrs. Paine obtained a divorce on account of the cruelty
and neglect of her husband is utterly false. There is no such record
in the world, and never was. Paine and his wife separated by mutual
consent. Each respected the other. They remained friends. This charge
is without any foundation. In fact, I challenge the Christian world to
produce the record of this decree of divorce. According to Mr.
Thorburn, it was granted in England. In that country public records
are kept of all such decrees. I will give $1,000 if they will produce
a decree, showing that it was given on account of cruelty, or admit
that Mr. Thorburn was mistaken.
Thomas Paine was a just man. Although separated from his wife, he
always spoke of her with tenderness and respect, and frequently lent
her money without letting her know the source from whence it came. Was
this the conduct of a drunken beast?
The next is that he was a defaulter, and fled from England to America.
As I told you in the first place, he was an exciseman; if he was a
defaulter, that fact is upon the records of Great Britain. I will give
$1,000 in gold to any man who will show, by the records of England,
that he was a defaulter of a single, solitary cent. Let us bring these
gentlemen to Limerick.
And they charge that he was a drunkard. That is another falsehood. He
drank liquor in his day, as did the preachers. It was no unusual thing
for a preacher going home to stop in a tavern and take a drink of hot
rum with a deacon, and it was no unusual thing for the deacon to help
the preacher home. You have no idea how they loved the sacrament in
those days. They had communion pretty much all the time.
Thorburn says that in 1802 Paine was an "old remnant of mortality,
drunk, bloated, and half asleep." Can anyone believe this to be a true
account of the personal appearance of Mr. Paine in 1802? He had just
returned from France. He had been welcomed home by Thomas Jefferson,
who had said that he was entitled to the hospitality of every American.
In 1802 Mr. Paine was honored with a public dinner in the City of New
York. He was called upon and treated with kindness and respect by such
men as De Witt Clinton. In 1806 Mr. Paine wrote a letter to Andrew A.
Dean upon the subject of religion. Read that letter and then say that
the writer of it was an old remnant of mortality, drunk, bloated, and
half asleep. Search the files of Christian papers, from the first
issue to the last, and you will find nothing superior to this letter.
In 1803 Mr. Paine wrote a letter of considerable length, and of great
force to his friend Samuel Adams. Such letters are not written by
drunken beasts, nor by remnants of old mortality, nor by drunkards. It
was about the same time that he wrote his "Remarks on Robert Hall's
Sermons." These "Remarks" were not written by a drunken beast, but by
a clear-headed and thoughtful man.
In 1804 he published an essay on the invasion of England and a treatise
on gun-boats, full of valuable maritime information; in 1805 a treatise
on yellow fever, suggesting modes of prevention. In short, he was an
industrious and thoughtful man. He sympathized with the poor and
oppressed of all lands. He looked upon monarchy as a species of
physical slavery. He had the goodness to attack that form of
government. He regarded the religion of his day as a kind of mental
slavery. He had the courage to give his reasons for his opinion. His
reasons filled the churches with hatred. Instead of answering his
arguments they attacked him. Men who were not fit to blacken his shoes
blackened his character. There is too much religious cant in the
statement of Mr. Thorburn. He exhibits too much anxiety to tell what
Grant Thorburn said to Thomas Paine. He names Thomas Jefferson as one
of the disreputable men who welcomed Paine with open arms. The
testimony of a man who regarded Thomas Jefferson as a disreputable
person, as to the character of anybody, is utterly without value.
Now, Grant Thorburn--this gentleman who was "four feet and a half high,
and who weighed ninety-eight pounds three and one-half ounces"--says
that he used to sit nights at Carver's, in New York, with Thomas Paine.
Mrs. Ferguson, the daughter of William Carver, says that she knew
Thorburn when she saw him, but that she never saw him in her father's
house. The denial of Mrs. Ferguson enraged Thorburn, and he at once
wrote a few falsehoods about her. Thereupon a suit was commenced by
Mrs. Ferguson and her husband against Thorburn, the writer, and
Fanshaw, the publisher, of the libel. Thorburn ran away to
Connecticut. Fanshaw wrote him for evidence of what he had written.
Thorburn replied that what he had written about Mrs. Ferguson could not
be proved. Fanshaw then settled with the Fergusons, paying them the
amount demanded.
In 1859 the Fergusons lived at 148 Duane Street, New York. In The
Commercial Advertiser of New York, in 1830, appeared the written
acknowledgement of this same little Grant Thorburn that he did, on the
22d of August, 1830, at half-past 6 in the morning, take four bottles
of cider from the cellar of Mr. Comstock.
Mr. Comstock says that Thorburn was arrested, and that when brought
before him he pleaded guilty and threw himself upon his (Comstock's)
mercy.
The Philadelphia Tract Society gave Thorburn $100 to write his
recollections of Thomas Paine.
Let us dispose of this four feet and a half of wretch. In October,
1877, I received the following letter from James Parton:
"Newburyport, Mass., Oct 27, 1877.--My dear Sir: Touching Grant
Thorburn, I personally knew him to have been a liar. At the age of 92
he copied with trembling hand a piece from a newspaper and brought it
to the office of The Rome Journal as his own. It was I who received it
and detected the deliberate forgery..... James Parton"
So much for Grant Thorburn. In my judgment, the testimony of Mr.
Thorburn should be thrown aside as utterly unworthy of belief.
The next witness is the Rev. J.D. Wickham, D.D., who tells what an
elder in his church said. This elder said that Paine passed his last
days on his farm at New Rochelle, with a solitary female attendant.
This is not true. He did not pass his last days at New Rochelle,
consequently, this pious elder did not see him during his last days at
that place. Upon this elder we prove an alibi. Mr. Paine passed his
last days in the City of New York, in a house upon Columbia Street.
The story of the Rev. J.D. Wickham, D.D., is simply false.
The next competent false witness was the Rev. Charles Hawley, D.D., who
proceeds to state that the story of the Rev. J.D. Wickham, D. D., is
corroborated by older citizens of New Rochelle. The names of these
ancient residents are withheld. According to these unknown witnesses,
the account given by the deceased elder was entirely correct. But as
the particulars of Mr. Paine's conduct "were too loathsome to be
described in print," we are left entirely in the dark as to what he
really did.
While at New Rochelle, Mr. Paine lived with Mr. Purdy, Mr. Dean, with
Capt. Pelton, and with Mr. Staple. It is worthy of note that all of
these gentlemen give the lie direct to the statements of "older
residents" and ancient citizens spoken of by the Rev. Charles Hawley,
D.D., and leave him with the "loathsome particulars" existing only in
his own mind.
The next gentleman brought upon the stand is W.H. Ladd, who quotes from
the memoirs of Stephen Grellett. This gentleman also has the
misfortune to be dead. According to his account, Mr. Paige made his
recantation to a servant girl of his by the name of Mary Roscoe. Mr.
Paine uttered the wish that all who read his book had burned it. I
believe there is a mistake in the name of this girl. Her name was
probably Mary Hinsdale, as it was once claimed that Paine made the same
remark to her.
These are the witnesses of the church, and the only ones you bring
forward to support your charge that Thomas Paine lived a drunken and
beastly life, and died a drunken, cowardly, and beastly death. All
these calumnies are found in a life of Paine by James Cheetham, the
convicted libeler already referred to. Mr. Cheetham was an enemy of the
man whose life he pretended to write. In order to show you the
estimation in which this libeler was held by Mr. Paine, I will give you
a copy of a letter that throws light upon this point:
"Oct. 27, 1807.--Mr. Cheethan: Unless you make a public apology for
the abuse and falsehood in your paper of Tuesday, Oct. 27, respecting
me, I will prosecute you for lying.--Thomas Paine"
In another letter, speaking of this same man, Mr. Paine says: "If an
unprincipled bully can not be reformed, he can be punished." Cheetham
has been so long in the habit of giving false information, that truth
is to him like a foreign language. Mr. Cheetham wrote the life of Mr.
Paine to gratify his malice and to support religion. He was prosecuted
for libel--was convicted and fined. Yet the life of Paine, written by
this liar, is referred to by the Christian world as the highest
authority.
As to the personal habits of Mr. Paine, we have the testimony of
William Carver; with whom he lived; of Mr. Jarvis, the artist, with
whom he lived; of Mr. Purdy, who was a tenant of Paine's; of Mr. Buyer,
with whom he was intimate; of Thomas Nixon and Capt. Daniel Pelton,
both of whom knew him well; of Amasa Woodsworth, who was with him when
he died; of John Fellows, who boarded at the same house; of James
Wilburn, with whom he boarded; of B.F. Haskins, a lawyer, who was well
acquainted with him, and called upon him during h is last illness; of
Walter Morton, President of the Phoenix Insurance Company; of Clio
Rickman, who had known him for many years; of Willet and Elias Hicks,
Quakers, who knew him intimately and well; of Judge Hertell, H.
Margary, Elihu Palmer and many others. All these testified to the fact
that Mr. Paige was a temperate man. In those days nearly everybody
used spirituous liquors. Paine was not an exception, but he did not
drink to excess. Mr. Lovett, who kept the City Hotel, where Paine
stopped, in a note to Caleb Bingham declared that Paine drank less than
any boarder he had.
Against all this evidence Christians produce the story of Grant
Thorburn, the story of the Rev. J.D. Wickham, that an elder in his
church told him that Paine was a drunkard, corroborated by the Rev.
Charles Hawley, and an extract from Lossing's history to the same
effect. The evidence is overwhelmingly against them. Will you have the
fairness to admit it? Their witnesses are merely the repeaters of the
falsehoods of James Cheetham, the convicted libeler.
After all, drinking is not as bad as lying. An honest drunkard is
better than a calumniator of the dead. "A remnant of old mortality
drunk, bloated, and half-asleep," is better than a perfectly sober
defender of human slavery. To become drunk is a virtue compared with
stealing a babe from the breast of its mother. Drunkenness is one of
the beatitudes, compared with editing a religious paper devoted to the
defense of slavery upon the ground that it is a divine institution. Do
you think that Paine was a drunken beast when he wrote "Common Sense,"
a pamphlet that aroused three millions of people, as people were never
aroused by words before? Was he a drunken beast when he wrote the
"Crisis?" Was it to a drunken beast that the following letter was
addressed:
"Rocky Hill, September 10, 1783.--I have learned, since I have been at
this place, that you are at Bordentown. Whether for the sake of
retirement or economy, I know not. Be it for either, or both, or
whatever it may, if you will come to this place and partake with me, I
shall be exceedingly happy to see you at it. Your presence may remind
Congress of your past services to this country; and if it is in my
power to impress them, command my best exertions with freedom, as they
will be rendered cheerfully by one who entertains a lively sense of the
importance of your works, and who, with much pleasure, subscribes
himself your sincere friend.--George Washington"
Do you think that Paine was a drunken beast when the following letters
were received by him:
"You express a wish in your letter to return to America in a national
ship. Mr. Dawson, who brings over the treaty, and who will present you
with this letter, is charged with orders to the Captain of the Maryland
to receive and accommodate you back, if you can be ready to depart at
such a short warning. You will, in general, find us returned to
sentiments worthy of former times; in these it will be your glory to
have steadily labored, and with as much effect as any man living. That
you may live long to continue your useful labors, and reap the reward
in the thankfulness of nations, is my sincere prayer. Accept the
assurances of my high esteem and affectionate attachment.--Thomas
Jefferson"
"It has been very generally propagated through the continent that I
wrote the pamphlet "Common Sense." I could not have written anything
in so manly and striking a style.--John Adams"
"A few more such flaming arguments as were exhibited at Falmouth and
Norfolk, added to the sound doctrine and unanswerable reasoning
contained in the pamphlet "Common Sense," will not leave numbers at a
loss to decide on the propriety of a separation.--George Washington"
"It is not necessary for me to tell you how much all your countrymen--I
speak of the great mass of the people--are interested in your welfare.
They have not forgotten the history of their own revolution, and the
difficult scenes through which they passed; nor do they review its
several stages without reviving in their bosoms a due sensibility of
the merits of those who served them in that great and arduous conflict.
The crime of ingratitude has not yet stained, and I trust never will
stain, our national character. You are considered by them as not only
having rendered important services in our revolution, but as being on a
more extensive scale the friend of human right and a distinguished and
able advocate in favor of public liberty. To the welfare of Thomas
Paine, the Americans are not, nor can they be, indifferent.--James
Monroe"
"No writer has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of style, in
perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple and
unassuming language.--Thomas Jefferson"
Was it in consideration of the services of a drunken beast that the
Legislature of Pennsylvania presented Thomas Paine with L500 sterling?
Did the State of New York feel indebted to a drunken beast, and confer
upon Thomas Paine an estate of several hundred acres? Did the Congress
of the United States thank him for his services because he had lived a
drunken and beastly life? Was he elected a member of the French
convention because he was a drunken beast? Was it the act of a drunken
beast to put his own life in jeopardy by voting against the death of
the King? Was it because he was a drunken beast that he opposed the
"Reign of Terror "--that he endeavored to stop the shedding of blood,
and did all in his power to protect even his own enemies? Do the
following extracts sound like the words of a drunken beast:
"I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties
consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our
fellow creatures happy.
"My own mind is my own church.
"It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful
to himself.
"Any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child can not be a
true system.
"The work of God is the creation which we behold.
"The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system.
"It is with a pious fraud as with a bad action--it begets a calamitous
necessity of going on.
"To read the Bible without horror, we must undo everything that is
tender, sympathizing, and benevolent in the heart of man.
"The man does not exist who can say I have persecuted him, or that I
have, in any case, returned evil for evil.
"Of all the tyrants that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion is the
worst.
"The belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.
"My own opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in doing
good, and endeavoring to make their fellow-mortals happy, will be happy
hereafter.
"The intellectual part of religion is a private affair between every
man and his Maker, and in which no third party has any right to
interfere. The practical part consists in our doing good to each other.
"No man ought to make a living by religion. One person can not act
religion for another--every person must act for himself.
"One good school-master is of more use than a hundred priests. Let us
propagate morality, unfettered by superstition.
"God is the power, or first cause; nature is the law, and matter is the
subject acted upon.
"I believe in one God and no more, and I hope for happiness beyond this
life.
"The key of happiness is not in the keeping of any sect, nor ought the
road to it to be obstructed by any.
"My religion, and the whole of it, is the fear and love of the Deity,
and universal philanthropy.
"I have yet, I believe, some years in store, for I have a good state of
health and a happy mind. I take care of both, by nourishing the first
with temperance and the latter with abundance.
"He lives immured within the Bastille of a word."
How perfectly that sentence describes the orthodox. The Bastille in
which they are immured is the word "Calvinism."
"Man has no property in man."
"The world is my country, to do good my religion."
I ask again whether these splendid utterances came from the lips of a
drunken beast?
"Man has no property in man."
What a splendid motto that would make for the religious newspapers of
this country thirty years ago. I ask, again, whether these splendid
utterances came from the lips of a drunken beast?
Only a little while ago--two or three days--I read a report of an
address made by Bishop Doane, an Episcopal Bishop in apostolic
succession--regular line from Jesus Christ down to Bishop Doane. The
Bishop was making a speech to young preachers--the sprouts, the
theological buds. He took it upon him to advise them all against early
marriages. Let us look at it. Do you believe there is any duty that
man owes to God that will prevent a man marrying the woman he loves?
Is there some duty that I owe to the clouds that will prevent me from
marrying some good, sweet woman? Now, just think of that! I tell you,
young man, you marry as soon as you can find her and support her. I
had rather have one woman that I know than any amount of gods that I am
not acquainted with. If there is any revelation from God to man, a
good woman is the best revelation he has ever made; and I will admit
that that revelation was inspired.
Now, on the subject of marriage, let me offset the speech of Bishop
Doane by a word from this "wretched infidel:"
"Though I appear a sorry wanderer, the marriage state has not a
sincerer friend than I. It is the harbor of human life, and is, with
respect to the things of this world, what the next world is to this.
It is home, and that one word conveys more than any other word can
express. For a few years we may glide along the tide of a single life,
but it is a tide that flows but once, and, what is still worse, it ebbs
faster than it flows, and leaves many a hapless voyager aground. I am
one, you see, that has experienced the fall I am describing. I have
lost my tide; it passed by while every throb of my heart was on the
wing for the salvation of America, and I have now, as contentedly as I
can, made myself a little tower of walls on that shore that has the
solitary resemblance of home."
I just want you to know what this dreadful infidel thought of home. I
just wanted you to know what Thomas Paine thought of home. Then here
is another letter that Thomas Paine wrote to congress on the 21st day
of January, 1808, and I wanted you to know those two.
It is only a short one:
"To the Honorable Senate of the United States: The purport of this
address is to state a claim I feel myself entitled to make on the
United States, leaving it to their representatives in congress to
decide on its worth and its merits. The case is as follows:
"Toward the latter end of the year 1780 the continental money had
become depreciated--the paper dollar being then not more than a
cent--that it seemed next to impossible to continue the war. As the
United States was then in alliance with France it became necessary to
make France acquainted with our real situation. I therefore drew up a
letter to the Count De Vergennes, stating undisguisedly the whole case,
and concluding with a request whether France could not, either as a
subsidy of a loan, supply the United States with a million pounds
sterling, and continue that supply, annually, during the war. "I
showed this letter to Mr. Morbois, secretary of the French minister.
His remark upon it was that a million sent out of the nation exhausted
it more than ten millions spent in it. I then showed it to Mr. Ralph
Izard, member of congress from South Carolina. He borrowed the letter
of me and said: 'We will endeavor to do something about it in
congress.' Accordingly, congress then appointed John A. Laurens to go
to France and make representation for the purpose of obtaining
assistance. Col. Laurens wished to decline the mission, and asked that
congress would appoint Col. Hamilton, who did not choose to do it.
Col. Laurens then came and stated the case to me, and said that he was
well enough acquainted with the military difficulties of the army, but
he was not acquainted with political affairs, or with the resources of
the country, to undertake such a mission. Said he, 'If you will go
with me I will accept the mission.' This I agreed to do, and did do.
We sailed from Boston in the Alliance frigate February, 1781, and
arrived in France in the beginning of March. The aid obtained from
France was six millions of livres, as at present, and ten millions as a
loan, borrowed in Holland on the security of France. We sailed from
Brest in the French frigate Resolue the 1st of June, and arrived at
Boston on the 25th of August, bringing with us two millions and a half
in silver, and conveying a chip and a brig laden with clothing and
military stores.
"The money was transported with sixteen ox teams to the National bank
at Philadelphia, which enabled our army to move to Yorktown to attack
in conjunction with the French army under Rochambeau, the British army
under Cornwallis.
"As I never had a single cent for these services, I felt myself
entitled, as the country is now in a state of prosperity, to state the
case to congress.
"As to my political works, beginning with the pamphlet 'Common Sense,'
published the beginning of January 1776, which awakened America to a
declaration of independence as the president and vice-president both
know, as they were works done from principle I can not dishonor that
principle by ever asking any reward for them. The country has been
benefited by them, and I make myself happy in the knowledge of that
benefit. It is, however, proper for me to add that the mere
independence of America, were it to have been followed by a system of
government modeled after the corrupt system of the English government,
would not have interested me with the unabated ardor it did. It was to
bring forward and establish a representative system of government. As
the work itself will show, that was the leading principle with me in
writing that work, and all my other works during the progress of the
revolution, and I followed the same principle in writing in English the
'Rights of Man.'
"After the failure of the 5 percent duty recommended by congress to pay
the interest of the loan to be borrowed in Holland, I wrote to
Chancellor Livingston, then minister for foreign affairs, and Robert
Morris, minister of finance, and proposed a method for getting over the
difficulty at once, which was by adding a continental legislature which
should be empowered to make laws for the whole union instead of
recommending them. So the method proposed met with their future
probation. I held myself in reserve to take a step up whenever a
direct occasion occurred.
"In a conversation afterward with Gov. Clinton, of New York, now
vice-president, it was judged that for the purpose of my going fully
into the subject, and to prevent any misconstruction of my motive or
object, it would be best that I received nothing from congress, but to
leave it to the states individually to make the what acknowledgement
they pleased. The State of New York presented me with a farm which
since my return to America, I have found it necessary to sell, and the
State of Pennsylvania voted me L500 of their currency, but none of the
states to the east of New York, or the south of Pennsylvania, have made
me the least acknowledgment. They had received benefits from me which
they accepted, and there the matter ended. This story will not tell
well in history. All the civilized world knows I have been of great
service to the United States, and have generously given away that which
would easily have made me a fortune. I much question if an instance is
to be found in ancient or modern times of a man who had no personal
interest in the case to take up that of the establishment of a
representative government and who sought neither place nor office after
it was established; that pursued the same undeviating principles that I
had for more than thirty years, and that in spite of dangers,
difficulties, and inconveniences of which I have had my share.--Thomas
Paine"
An old man in Pennsylvania told me once that his father hired a old
revolutionary soldier by the name of Thomas Martin to work for him.
Martin was then quite an old man; and there was an old Presbyterian
preacher used to come there, by the name of Crawford, and he sat down
by the fire and he got to talking one night, among other things about
Thomas Paine--what a wretched, infamous dog he was; and while he was in
the midst of this conversation the old soldier rose from the fireplace,
and he walked over to the preacher, and he said to him "Did you ever
see Thomas Paine?" "No." "Well," he says, "I have; I saw him at
Valley Forge. I heard read at the head of every regiment and company
the letters of Thomas Paine. I heard them read the 'Crisis,' and I saw
Thomas Paine writing on the head of a drum, sitting at the bivouac
fire, those simple words that inspired every patriot's bosom, and I
want to tell you Mr. Preacher, that Thomas Paine did more for liberty
than any priest that ever lived in this world."
"And yet they say he was afraid to die! Afraid of what? Is there any
God in heaven that hates a patriot? If there is Thomas Paine ought to
be afraid to die. Is there any God that would damn a man for helping
to free three millions of people? If Thomas Paine was in hell tonight,
and could get God's attention long enough to point him to the old
banner of the stars floating over America, God would have to let him
out. What would he be afraid of? Had he ever burned anybody? No.
Had he ever put anybody in the inquisition? No. Ever put the
thumb-screw on anybody? No. Ever put anybody in prison so that some
poor wife and mother would come and hold her little babe up at the
grated window that the man bound to the floor might get one glimpse of
his blue-eyed babe? Did he ever do that?"
"Did he ever light a fagot? Did he ever tear human flesh? Why, what
had he to be afraid of? He had helped to make the world free. He had
helped create the only republic then on the earth. What was he afraid
of? Was God a tory? It won't do."
One would think from the persistence with which the orthodox have
charged for the last seventy years that Thomas Paine recanted, that
there must be some evidence of some kind to support these charges.
Even with my ideas of the average honor of the believers in
superstition, the average truthfulness of the disciples of fear, I did
not believe that all those infamies rested solely upon poorly-attested
falsehoods. I had charity enough to suppose that something had been
said or done by Thomas Paine capable of being tortured into a
foundation of all these calumnies. What crime had Thomas Paine
committed that he should have feared to die? The only answer you can
give is that he denied the inspiration of the scriptures. If that is
crime, the civilized world is filled with criminals. The pioneers of
human thought, the intellectual leaders of this world, the foremost men
in every science, the kings of literature and art, those who stand in
the front of investigation, the men who are civilizing and elevating
and refining mankind, are all unbelievers in the ignorant dogma of
inspiration.
Why should we think Thomas Paine was afraid to die? and why should the
American people malign the memory of that great man? He was the first
to advocate the separation from the mother country. He was the first
to write these words: "The United States of America." Think of
maligning that man! He was the first to lift his voice against human
slavery, and while hundreds and thousands of ministers all over the
United States not only believed in slavery, but bought and sold women
and babes in the name of Jesus Christ, this infidel, this wretch who is
now burning in the flames of hell, lifted his voice against human
slavery and said: "It is robbery, and a slaveholder is a thief; the
whipper of women is a barbarian; the seller of a child is a savage."
No wonder that the thieving hypocrite of his day hated him! I have no
love for any man who ever pretended to own a human being. I have no
love for a man that would sell a babe from the mother's throbbing,
heaving, agonized breast. I have no respect for a man who considered a
lash on the naked back as a legal tender for labor performed. So write
it down, Thomas Paine was the first great abolitionist of America.
Now let me tell you another thing. He was the first man to raise his
voice for the abolition of the death penalty in the French convention.
What more did he do? He was the first to suggest a federal
constitution for the United States. He saw that the old articles of
confederation were nothing; that they were ropes of water and chains of
mist, and he said, "We want a federal constitution so that when you
pass a law raising 5 percent you can make the states pay it." Let us
give him his due. What were all these preachers doing at that time?
He hated superstition; he loved the truth. He hated tyranny; he loved
liberty. He was the friend of the human race. He lived a brave and
thoughtful life. He was a good and true and generous man, and "he died
as he lived." Like a great and peaceful river with green and shaded
banks, without a murmur, without a ripple, he flowed into the waveless
ocean of eternal peace. I love him; I love every man who gave me, or
helped to give me the liberty I enjoy tonight; I love every man who
helped me put our flag in heaven. I love every man who has lifted his
voice in any age for liberty, for a chainless body and a fetterless
brain. I love everyman who has given to every other human being every
right that he claimed for himself. I love every man who has thought
more of principle than he has of position. I love the men who have
trampled crowns beneath their feet that they might do something for
mankind, and for that reason I love Thomas Paine.
I thank you all, ladies and gentlemen, every one--every one, for the
attention you have given me this evening.