An Examination of the Declaration of Independence 201
Analysis 227
Argument 229
Style 234
Special Characteristics 242
Grand Outlines of Thomas Paines Life 279
Conclusion 320
APPENDIX 323
PREFACE.
One hundred years ago to-day, Junius wrote as follows:
"The man who fairly and completely answers this argument, shall
have my thanks and my applause.... Grateful as I am to the good
Being whose bounty has imparted to me this reasoning intellect,
whatever it is, I hold myself proportionably indebted to him from
whose enlightened understanding another ray of knowledge
communicates to mine. But neither should I think the most exalted
faculties of the human mind a gift worthy of the Divinity, nor any
assistance in the improvement of them a subject of gratitude to my
fellow-creatures, if I were not satisfied that really to inform
the understanding corrects and enlarges the heart."
These were the concluding words of his last Letter. So say I now, and I
make them the preface to an argument which now sets the great apostle of
liberty right before the world. They serve, like a literary hyphen, to
connect the two ages--his own with this; and the two lives--the masked
with the open one; in both of which ages and lives he did good to
mankind, and that mightily.
WASHINGTON, D.C., _January 21, 1872_.