To ELECT, and to REJECT, is the prerogative of a free people.
Since the establishment of Independence, no period has arrived that
so decidedly proves the excellence of the representative system of
government, and its superiority over every other, as the time we now
live in. Had America been cursed with John Adams's _hereditary Monarchy_
or Alexander Hamilton's _Senate for life_ she must have sought, in the
doubtful contest of civil war, what she now obtains by the expression of
public will. An appeal to elections decides better than an appeal to the
sword.
The Reign of Terror that raged in America during the latter end of the
Washington administration, and the whole of that of Adams, is enveloped
in mystery to me. That there were men in the government hostile to the
representative system, was once their boast, though it is now their
overthrow, and therefore the fact is established against them. But that
so large a mass of the people should become the dupes of those who were
loading them with taxes in order to load them with chains, and deprive
them of the right of election, can be ascribed only to that species
of wildfire rage, lighted up by falsehood, that not only acts without
reflection, but is too impetuous to make any.
There is a general and striking difference between the genuine effects
of truth itself, and the effects of falsehood believed to be truth.
Truth is naturally benign; but falsehood believed to be truth is always
furious. The former delights in serenity, is mild and persuasive, and
seeks not the auxiliary aid of invention. The latter sticks at nothing.
It has naturally no morals. Every lie is welcome that suits its purpose.
It is the innate character of the thing to act in this manner, and the
criterion by which it may be known, whether in politics or religion.
When any thing is attempted to be supported by lying, it is presumptive
evidence that the thing so supported is a lie also. The stock on which a
lie can be grafted must be of the same species as the graft.
What is become of the mighty clamour of French invasion, and the cry
that our country is in danger, and taxes and armies must be raised to
defend it? The danger is fled with the faction that created it, and what
is worst of all, the money is fled too. It is I only that have committed
the hostility of invasion, and all the artillery of popguns are prepared
for action. Poor fellows, how they foam! They set half their own
partisans in laughter; for among ridiculous things nothing is more
ridiculous than ridiculous rage. But I hope they will not leave off. I
shall lose half my greatness when they cease to lie.
So far as respects myself, I have reason to believe, and a right to say,
that the leaders of the Reign of Terror in America and the leaders of
the Reign of Terror in France, during the time of Robespierre, were in
character the same sort of men; or how is it to be accounted for, that
I was persecuted by both at the same time? When I was voted out of
the French Convention, the reason assigned for it was, that I was a
foreigner. When Robespierre had me seized in the night, and imprisoned
in the Luxembourg, (where I remained eleven months,) he assigned no
reason for it. But when he proposed bringing me to the tribunal, which
was like sending me at once to the scaffold, he then assigned a reason,
and the reason was, _for the interests of America as well as of France,
"Pour les interets de l'Amerique autant que de la France_" The words are
in his own hand-writing, and reported to the Convention by the committee
appointed to examine his papers, and are printed in their report, with
this reflection added to them, "_Why Thomas Paine more than another?
Because he contributed to the liberty of both worlds_."(1)
1 See my "Life of Paine," vol. ii., pp. 79, 81. Also, the
historical introduction to XXI., p. 330, of this volume.
Robespierre never wrote an idle word. This Paine well knew,
as Mirabeau, who said of Robespierre: "That man will go far
he believes every word he says."--_Editor._
There must have been a coalition in sentiment, if not in fact, between
the Terrorists of America and the Terrorists of France, and Robespierre
must have known it, or he could not have had the idea of putting America
into the bill of accusation against me. Yet these men, these Terrorists
of the new world, who were waiting in the devotion of their hearts for
the joyful news of my destruction, are the same banditti who are now
bellowing in all the hacknied language of hacknied hypocrisy, about
humanity, and piety, and often about something they call infidelity, and
they finish with the chorus of _Crucify him, crucify him_. I am become
so famous among them, they cannot eat or drink without me. I serve them
as a standing dish, and they cannot make up a bill of fare if I am not
in it.
But there is one dish, and that the choicest of all, that they have not
presented on the table, and it is time they should. They have not yet
_accused Providence of Infidelity_. Yet according to their outrageous
piety, she(1) must be as bad as Thomas Paine; she has protected him in
all his dangers, patronized him in all his undertakings, encouraged him
in all his ways, and rewarded him at last by bringing him in safety and
in health to the Promised Land. This is more than she did by the Jews,
the chosen people, that they tell us she brought out of the land
of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage; for they all died in the
wilderness, and Moses too.
I was one of the nine members that composed the first Committee of
Constitution. Six of them have been destroyed. Sieyes and myself have
survived--he by bending with the times, and I by not bending. The other
survivor joined Robespierre, he was seized and imprisoned in his turn,
and sentenced to transportation. He has since apologized to me for
having signed the warrant, by saying he felt himself in danger and was
obliged to do it.(2)