FROM time immemorial men have observed the natal days of their gods and
heroes. A few weeks ago Christians celebrated the birthday of a god. We
come to celebrate the birthday of a man.
Within the brief space of twenty-five days occur the anniversaries of
the births of the three most remarkable men that have appeared on this
continent--Paine, Washington and Lincoln--the Creator, the Defender and
the Savior of our Republic. To do honor to the memory of the first
of these--to acknowledge our indebtedness to him as a patriot and
philosopher, and to extol his virtues as a man--have we assembled here.
We come the more willingly and our exercises will be characterized by
a deeper earnestness because the one whose merits we celebrate has been
the victim of almost infinite injustice. In the popular mind to utter a
word in his behalf has been to apologize for wrong--to declare yourself
the friend of Paine has been to declare yourself the enemy of man. The
world is not prepared to do him full justice yet. Priestcraft, still
powerful, uses all its power to prejudice the public mind against
him and in too many hearts, where love and gratitude should dwell,
ingratitude and hatred have their home. There are those who will condemn
this meeting in his name today and some of you may spurn the blossoms I
have culled to place upon his tomb.
But is it a crime to defend the dead? Has the court of Death issued an
injunction restraining us from pleading the cause of the departed? We
defend from the assaults of calumny the fair fame of the living, and not
more sacred are the reputations of the living than of the absent dead
whose voiceless lips can utter no defense. The lips of Thomas Paine have
long been dumb; but mine are not, and while I live I shall defend him.
As Rizpah stood by the bodies of her murdered sons, keeping back the
birds of prey, so will I stand by the memory of this good man and drive
back the foul vultures that feast their greedy selves and feed their
starving broods on dead men's characters.
On the 29th of January, 1737, at Thetford, England, Thomas Paine was
born. He was of Quaker parentage. Like nearly all of earth's illustrious
sons, he was of humble origin. At an early age he left the paternal roof
and began alone life's struggle,--serving in the British navy, teaching
in London, engaging in mercantile pursuits, and performing the duties of
exciseman.
While in London he formed the acquaintance of the learned Franklin, who
induced him to cross the ocean and cast his lot with the people of the
New World. He comes to America toward the close of 1774. A year of quiet
observation enables him to grasp the situation here. He sees thirteen
feeble colonies struggling against a powerful monarchy; he sees a tyrant
whom the world styles "king" trampling the fair form of Liberty beneath
his feet; he sees his subjects crouching and cringing before the throne,
pleading in vain for a redress of wrongs. Separation and Independence
have not yet been proposed. It is true that Lexington, and Concord, and
Bunker Hill have passed into history; it is true that Patrick Henry,
James Otis, John Hancock, and the Adamses have fearlessly denounced the
odious measures of the British ministry; yet up to the very close of
1775, not a voice has been raised in favor of Independence. A redress
of grievances is all that the boldest have demanded. But the current of
history is to be turned. Rebellion is to be changed to Revolution. With
the firm belief that right will triumph, Paine marshals the legions of
thought that spring from his prolific brain and on the first of January,
1776, moves in solid columns against this citadel of tyranny. The shock
is irresistible. The solid masonry gives way, and falls before his
fierce assault. Into the breach thus made an eager people rush, and on
the ruins plant the unsoiled banner of a new Republic.
That the Fourth of July, 1776, would not have witnessed the Declaration
of Independence but for the timely appearance of Paine's "Common Sense,"
no candid student of history will for a moment question. This book first
suggested American Independence; in this book appeared, for the first
time, "The Free and Independent States of America." Nor did Paine's
labors end with the publication of this work. He was the inspiring
genius of the long war that followed. When Washington's little army was
hurled from Long Island, when despondency filled every heart, and all
seemed lost, Paine came to the rescue with the first number of his
"Crisis," in which were couched those thrilling words, "These are
the times that try men's souls." His pamphlet, by orders of the
commander-in-chief, was read at the head of each regiment. It was
also sent broadcast over the land. The effect was magical; into the
dispirited ranks is breathed new life, and in the minds of the people
planted a determination never to give up the struggle. At critical
periods during the war number after number of this brave work appeared
until, at last, he could triumphantly say, "The times that tried men's
souls are over, and the greatest and completest revolution the world
ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished."
The pen of Paine was as mighty as the sword of Washington. "Common
Sense" was the glorious sun that evolved a new political world; each
number of the "Crisis" a brilliant satellite that helped to illumine
this New World's long night of Revolution.
In the Old World liberty remained, as it still remains to a large
extent, yet to be wearisomely achieved. In France the people were
struggling against a corrupt and oppressive government. Paine enlisted
his services in the cause of freedom there. He advocated a Republic,
and organized the first Republican society in France. But Louis was
permitted to resume his reign, and tranquility having been for a brief
season restored, Paine went to his native England, where, in reply to
Burke's "Reflections on the French Revolution," appeared his "Rights
of Man." With a desperation characteristic of the detected robber the
Government suppressed his work; but not until it had kindled a fire in
Europe which tyrants have not yet succeeded in extinguishing and in the
glare of whose unquenchable flames may be read the doom of monarchy.
The storms of revolution bursting forth afresh, Paine again repaired to
France. A joyous reception awaited his arrival at Calais. As his vessel
entered the harbor a hundred cannon thundered "Welcome!" As he stepped
upon the shore a thousand voices shouted "_Vive_ Thomas Paine!" Bright
flowers fell in showers around him; fair hands placed in his hat the
national cockade. An immense meeting assembled in his honor. Over the
chair he sat in was placed the bust of Mirabeau with the colors of
France, England and America united. All France was ready to honor her
defender.
Three departments, the Oise, the Pas-de-Calais, and the Puy-de-Dome,
each chose him for its representative. He accepted the honor from
Calais and proceeded to Paris. His entry into the French capital was a
triumphal one. He was received as a hero,--an intellectual hero who
on the field of mental combat had vanquished Europe's most brilliant
champion of monarchy, and vindicated before the tribunal of the world
mankind's eternal rights.
He took his seat in the National Convention. A stupendous task devolved
upon this body--the formation of a new Constitution for Republican
France. Its most illustrious statesmen and its wisest legislators must
be chosen to prepare it. A committee of nine was named: Thomas Paine,
Danton, Condorcet, Brissot, Barrere, Vergniaud, Petion, Gensonne, and
the Abbe Sieyes. To Paine and Condorcet chiefly was the work of drafting
it assigned by their colleagues.
Then came the trial of Louis XVI and the beginning of those turbulent
scenes which culminated in the Reign of Terror. The convention was
clamoring for blood. Paine had been one of the foremost in overthrowing
the monarchy. He believed the king to have been tyrannical,--to have
been the pliant tool of a corrupt nobility, and of a still more corrupt
priesthood. But he did not deem him deserving of death, nor did he
believe that the best interests of France would be subserved by such
harsh measures. But the Terrorists threatened with vengeance all who
should dare to oppose them. To plead the cause of the king might be to
share his fate. A vote by any member in favor of saving his life might
bring an overwhelming vote against that member's own life. They had
resolved that the king should die, and led by such men as Robespierre
and Marat, there were assembled the most determined and the most
dangerous men of France. The galleries, too, were filled with an excited
mob of fifteen hundred--many of them hired assassins, fresh from the
September massacre. "We vote," protested Lanjuinais when the balloting
commenced, "under the daggers and the cannon of the factions." In this
perilous position what course would Paine pursue? Would he, like others,
quietly acquiesce in these unjust proceedings? He had never yet faltered
in his purpose of pursuing what he deemed the right. Would he shrink
from danger now? No! above the wild storm of that enraged assembly,
through his interpreter, rose the voice of this brave man in powerful,
eloquent appeals in behalf of mercy. "Destroy the King," in effect, he
said, "but save the man! Strike the crown, but spare the heart!"
He pleads in vain; the king must die. "Death within four-and-twenty
hours," is the decree. Amid the insults and execrations of a frenzied
mob Louis is torn from the arms of his queen and children and hurried to
the scaffold.
The Mountain has triumphed. The Jacobins, infuriated by the taste of a
king's blood, will next devour their fellow-members. The Girondins, the
heart and brains of France, are expelled from the convention, dragged
to prison and to the guillotine. Paine's plea for mercy can not be
forgiven. He is imprisoned; sentence of death is finally pronounced
against him; the hour for his execution, with that of his
fellow-prisoners, is set. Fortuitously he escapes. In summoning the
victims for execution he is overlooked. Soon after, and before the
mistake is discovered, the bloody Robespierre is overthrown, and his own
neck receives the blow he meant for Paine. The fall of Robespierre stems
the crimson torrent and, in time, secures for Paine his freedom. His
imprisonment has lasted nearly a year, a year never to be forgotten, a
year of chaos, from which is to arise a fairer and a better France.
Let us contemplate, for a moment, this bloody and protracted drama. Let
us, in imagination, visit this death-stricken Paris. Buildings--once
palaces--have been transformed into prisons. Thousands are crowded
within their walls; beings of both sexes, and of every age and rank;
grayhaired men who look with stolid indifference upon the scenes around
them; youth, pale with fear; heroic types of manhood pacing to and fro
with all the bearing of conquerors; frail women, whose swollen eyes,
those tear-stained windows of the soul, faintly reveal the heart's
fierce agony within! The scene is changed. All is bustle and confusion.
A morbid and excited crowd is gathering; the death tumbrils go rumbling
by toward the Place de la Revolution; the groans of men, the shrieks of
women, rend the air and throw a shade of sadness over all deeper than
midnight's gloom.
Again the scene shifts. The bustle is over now; the crowd has dispersed;
those shrieks and groans are hushed. But that huge pile of headless
trunks; the headsman's sack; those pools of blood; that blood-stained
instrument, to whose edge still cling the straggling hairs of its
victims, the golden threads of youth mingled with the silver threads of
age, these remain--grim fragments of the feast where this French Saturn
made his last repast.
Day after day this carnival of death goes on. Danton, Brissot, and many
more of the best men of France are butchered; Roland and Condorcet die
by their own hands; Talleyrand is a refugee in America, and Lafayette
pines in the dungeon vaults of Austria.
Many noble women, too, are sacrificed. Marie Antoinette follows her
Louis to the scaffold. In the Conciergerie, companions for a time, are
held captive two of the purest and noblest of women,--the lovely and
amiable Josephine Beauhamais, destined to become Napoleon's queen, and
the beautiful and gifted Madame Roland, whose innocent blood must wet
the cruel knife of the guillotine.
Such was the French Revolution,--"A mighty truth clad in
hell-fire,"--the bloodiest, and yet the brightest page in the history
of France. It might have been a bloodless one, it might have been
a brighter one, had the wise and moderate counsels of Thomas Paine
prevailed.
In the shadow of death the crowning effort of his life, the "Age of
Reason," was composed. His pen had given kingcraft a mortal hurt;
priestcraft must be destroyed. This book has filled die Orthodox world
with terror. Around it has raged one of the fiercest intellectual
conflicts of the age. All the artillery of Christendom has been brought
to bear upon it; but without effect. Firm, impregnable, like some
Gibraltar, it still stands unharmed.
Bowed with the weight of sixty-six years Paine returned to America.
Here the evening of his life was passed,--embittered by a world's
ingratitude.
"Men never know their saviors when they come."
The apostle of liberty, of mercy, and of truth, became successively a
martyr to each. For espousing the cause of liberty England declared
him an outlaw; for advocating mercy France gave him a prison; and for
proclaiming the truth America placed upon his aged head the cruel crown
of thorns.
But death came at last and brought relief to the persecuted sage. On a
bright June morning (June 8), in 1809, the end came.
Yes, death came. But with it came no fears. No banished Hagar with
famishing infant haunted him; from the desolate ruins of those Midianite
homes came no phantoms to strike his soul with terror; no Uriah's ghost
stood before his bedside and would not down; the hand that with no
weapon but the pen had made priests and monarchs tremble, now growing
cold and pallid, was not stained with the blood of a wile or child;
no agonizing shrieks of a burning Servetus rang in his dying ears.
Tempestuous as life's voyage had been, the old man readied his port in
peace. Nature, whom he had deified, fondly and pityingly held him in
her all-embracing arms, and soothed him in that last sad hour as with
a mother's love. The morning sun looked kindly down and kissed his
throbbing temples; gentle breezes, fragrant with the odors of a thousand
roses, fanned his fevered brow; joyous birds, whose songs he loved so
well, came to his window and sang their cheeriest notes; while faithful
friends were at his bedside, ministering to every want. And so, bravely
and peacefully, with that serenity of soul which only the conscious of a
well-spent life can give, the grand old patriot passed away.
Thus have I briefly traced the public career of Thomas Paine,--a career
in which his steadfast devotion to manly principles ranks him with the
world's worthiest heroes. His private life was not less honorable. In
his moral nature were united the noblest traits that adorn the human
character.
His philanthrophy was bounded only by the limits of the world in which
he lived Jew and Mohammedan, Christian and Infidel, Caucasian and
Mongolian, the despised negro and the rude Indian, all to him were
brothers.
His charity was of the broadest kind. He was ever ready to share his
last dollar or his last comfort with the poor and distressed, and this
regardless as to whether they were friends or foes. When his Republican
friend, Bonneville, was crushed and impoverished by Napoleon, Paine gave
to his family an asylum in America, and willed to them a part of his
estate. When a brutal English officer assaulted him in Paris--and to
strike a deputy the penalty was death--he saved him from the guillotine,
and finding him penniless, from his own purse paid his passage home to
England.
His patriotism was never questioned. Many have won the name of patriot
whose services to their country have been inspired by mere selfish
motives; but with him, fame, wealth, comfort, all were sacrificed for
his country's welfare. Throughout that eight year's struggle, his life,
his time, his talents, all were at her service. And, whether serving as
aid-de-camp to General Greene in that terrible campaign of '76; filling
with ability the important post of Secretary to the Committee on Foreign
Affairs; with Laurens at the French court negotiating loans for his
government; or cheering the despondent and nerving them up to deeds of
valor,--he was at all times, and in every situation, the same modest,
magnanimous, unflinching patriot.
In his disinterestedness he stands alone. At the beginning of the
Revolutionary struggle he was a poor author, lacking at times even the
bare necessities of life. But he had the opportunity of becoming rich.
The enormous sale of "Common Sense" would of itself have secured for him
a handsome competence. But what did he do? did he secure for himself the
profits to which he was justly entitled? No! he presented to each of the
thirteen colonies the copyright, and came out indebted to his printer
for the original edition. When his country languished for want of funds
to pay her soldiers in the field he started a subscription that brought
her more than a million, heading it with five hundred dollars, and
limited his gift to this because he had no more to give. When his
"Rights of Man" was ready for the press he refused one thousand pounds
for the copyright and then gave it to the world.
Moral courage was another prominent element in this great man's
character. His espousal of the cause of American Independence--a cause
which no other man had up to that time dared to espouse--shows a lofty
heroism; his attack upon monarchy, in the very capital of a monarchical
government, knowing, as he must have known, that every effort would be
made to crush him, was a grand exhibition of moral bravery, while
his publication of the "Age of Reason" was, in many respects, a more
courageous act than either. But it was in His heroic defense of Louis
XVI that his moral courage shone with all the lustre of the sun. Search
all the annals of the past and say if on the historian's page is found
one act, one single act, surpassing in moral sublimity that of Thomas
Paine accepting a prison and, if need be, death, to save a fallen foe!
In the expression of his religious opinions no man has been more frank
or explicit, while no man's religious opinions have been more grossly
misrepresented. What was his belief?
"I believe in one God and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this
life.
"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.
"The world is my country, to do good my religion."
This was his creed; and with a firm belief in the truth and justice of
this creed he lived and died.
There are, I regret to say, many good people who believe that Thomas
Paine was a very bad man. They have heard this from the lips of those in
whose veracity they place implicit confidence. While from infancy they
have been taught to regard Jesus Christ as the mediator between man and
God, they have been led to consider Thomas Paine as a sort of negotiator
between the Devil and man. Now, let me ask these people, do you know
why Thomas Paine has been so bitterly assailed? You have heard various
charges preferred against him; but seriously, do you believe any of the
charges named sufficient to account for the intense, the bitter hatred
that has been manifested toward him? Have you never been impressed with
the thought that there might be something back of all this, some secret
grudge which your informants dare not mention? Let us notice briefly the
faults and vices imputed to him.
You have been told that he was a pauper, that he died in wretchedness
and want. Those who told you this were certainly mistaken. The estate
presented to him by New York, in consideration of his Revolutionary
services, was valued at $30,000, and the greater portion of this was
remaining at his death. It is true that during his long and useful
career he was many times in straitened circumstances; but this was
the result, not of improvidence, or reckless expenditure, but of
the devotion of his life to the cause of humanity instead of the
accumulation of wealth. But what if he had died poor? Is poverty a
crime? Yes, were this true, is it a thing of which to boast, that in a
Christian city, within the sound of forty church-bells, an old man was
suffered to lie neglected and alone, racked by the pangs of hunger and
disease, piteously pleading for a crust of bread, or a cup of cold water
to cool his parched and fevered tongue; and do you mean to tell us that
Christian charity the while stood by unmoved, mocked his sufferings, and
damned him when he died?
You have been told that he was a drunkard. A baser slander was never
uttered. No human being ever saw Thomas Paine intoxicated. He was one
of the most temperate of men. All of his neighbors and acquaintances
indignantly denied the truth of this imputation. Gilbert Vale tells us
that he knew more than twenty persons who were intimately acquainted
with him and not one of whom ever saw him intoxicated. The proprietor of
the house in New York, a respectable inn at which Paine boarded in his
later years, says that of all his guests he was the most temperate. But
supposing that he was a drunkard. Is drunkenness so rare as to secure
for its victims an immortal notoriety? Are there no living drunkards for
these omnivorous creatures to devour, that, like hyenas, they must dig
into a drunkard's grave to fill their empty maws?
You have been told by the clergy that his writings are immoral. I defy
those who make this charge to point to one immoral sentence in all that
he has written. They cannot; and I further affirm that they dare not
permit you to examine his writings and ascertain for yourselves the
truth or falsity of this assertion. You who have never read his works
may believe that they contain much that is bad. You may imagine that
a deadly serpent lurks within them. Let me assure you that there is
nothing in them that can harm you. The highest moral tone pervades their
pages. They are full of charity, they glow with patriotism, they are
warm with love. Even yet, within their lids methinks I feel the beating
of the generous heart of him who penned them, every throb marking an
aspiration for the welfare of his fellow-men. But admitting, for the
sake of argument, that his writings are immoral. Does not the world teem
with immoral literature? Are there not hundreds of immoral writers even
among the living? If so, why has all this wrath been concentrated upon
Paine to the almost total exclusion of the rest?
You have been told that he was an Infidel. Infidel to what? In the
Christian sense of this term he was. But what peculiar significance
do your informants attach to this fact? Are not three fourths of the
world's inhabitants Infidels? Do not the greatest scholars of the age
go far beyond him in Infidelity? Earth's wisest sons--those who
have contributed most to the wealth of science, and literature, and
statesmanship, have been these so-called Infidels. Yet Paine has been
denounced as if he were the only Infidel that ever lived.
You have been told that he recanted on his deathbed. In other words,
that he lived a hypocrite; that he only feigned Infidelity for the sake
of being persecuted. A very plausible reason, surely. But this statement
has been widely circulated, and that, too, in spite of the fact that
every person who was with him during his dying hours pronounced it
false,--those who sat by his bedside and heard every word that fell
from his lips. It has ever been the custom of the church to make every
distinguished individual appear as an endorser of her dogmas. See
those insolent priests haunting the death chamber of Voltaire; see the
crucifix thrust into the hands of the dying Litre and the dead Sherman;
see the frantic efforts made to convince the world that Lincoln changed
his religious views and died a Christian. An honest Quaker who visited
Paine daily during his last illness testified to having been offered
money to publicly state that he recanted. But he refused. Others were
doubtless approached in the same manner, and with the same result.
Unable to find a deathbed witness base enough to make so foul a charge,
the calumny was originated by one who did not see him die. A Christian's
brain conceived and bore that infamous falsehood; and black and hideous
as the offspring was, nearly every orthodox clergyman was ready to serve
it in the capacity of a faithful nurse. And in these nurses' arms it
lived and died. Only a little while ago I saw one of them hugging to his
breast and endeavoring to resuscitate with holy breath the putrid corpse
of this dead lie! But supposing that he did recant, that he acknowledged
the divinity of Christ. If he did this he died in the Christian faith.
Now does the church treat deathbed penitents in the manner in which
Paine has been treated? Has not every criminal that has repented in his
last hours, from the dying thief of nineteen hundred years ago to the
last murderer sent to Heaven, been held up as an object of admiration?
Why, then, denounce Paine for having, as they claim, renounced his
Infidelity? O Consistency, thou art, indeed, a jewel!
And now, assuming all these charges to be true, he would still have been
naught but a poor, drunken Infidel; and while this would have subjected
him to much harsh criticism while living, it would have been merely of a
local character, and would have ceased when he was no more. Death would
have silenced censure, the mantle of charity would have been spread
above his grave, and the waves of oblivion would have rolled over his
memory long ago. Is it possible that all Christendom would have been so
deeply agitated, that the walls of her churches would have echoed every
week with the fierce anathemas thundered from a thousand pulpits against
the inanimate dust of a poor, drunken Infidel!
The conclusion, I think, must irresistibly force itself upon your minds
that these reputed faults do not constitute the real head and front
of Thomas Paine's offending. There must be something else. What is it?
Would you have the mystery solved? If so, read his, "Age of Reason."
Read it carefully, thoughtfully, critically; read it with your Bibles
open before you; read it in connection with the ablest refutations that
have been attempted against it. Do this, and the mystery will be solved.
You will then know why Thomas Paine has been so bitterly assailed.
Two champions meet in the arena of debate. One of them, is overwhelmed.
Smiles and groans announce his discomfiture, while shouts of applause
reward the triumph of his rival. Then one of them grows angry, and stung
with madness, drops the sword of argument and seizes in its stead the
bludgeon of malice with which to assail his adversary. But which one
does this, the successful or the defeated antagonist? I have somewhere
read that "the bird that soars on pinions strong and free and is not hit
by the marksman's bullet is not discomposed'"--that "_it is the wounded
bird that flutters!_"
That Thomas Paine was not the poor, drunken, immoral wretch that
priestly virulence represents him to have been, is dearly shown by
the esteem in which he was held by those who knew him best. Would
Dr. Franklin have retained the friendship of a poor, drunken, immoral
wretch? Would Lord Erskine have defended against the government of
England, a poor, drunken, immoral wretch? Would Bishop Watson have
crossed swords in theological disputation with a poor, drunken, immoral
wretch? Would Napoleon Bonaparte, when in the zenith of his fame, have
invited to his table a poor, drunken, immoral wretch? Would France's
greatest women, Roland and De Stael, have stooped to pay the tribute
of praise to a poor, drunken, immoral wretch? Would President Jefferson
have offered a national ship to bear to his home a poor, drunken,
immoral wretch? Would Washington have acknowledged as one of the most
potent factors in achieving American Independence, the pen of a poor,
drunken, immoral wretch? Would the Congress of the United States and the
National Convention of France have bestowed gifts and conferred, honors
upon a poor, drunken, immoral wretch? Impossible! Every fact connected
with his public life refutes these charges made against his private
character.
In support of the claims that I have made for Thomas Paine, in
refutation of the calumnies that have been circulated against him, I
bring the testimony of more than _five hundred witnesses_--those who by
intimate acquaintance, or a careful study of his life, are qualified
to give a just estimate of his character and works,--historians,
biographers, encyclopedists, statesmen, divines, and others; men and
women who have acquired an honorable distinction in the various walks
of life, and whose names alone are a sufficient guarantee that what they
testify shall be the truth. From the dead and from the living--from two
continents--I summon them:
"COMMON SENSE" AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Dr. Joseph B. Ladd:
"Immortal Paine! whose pen, surprised we saw,
Could fashion empires while it kindled awe.
"When first with awful front to crush her foes,
All bright in glittering arms, Columbia rose,
From thee our sons the generous mandate took,
As if from Heaven some oracle had spoke;
And when thy pen revealed the grand design,
'Twas done--Columbia's liberty was thine."
W. C. Braun: "From the brain of Thomas Paine Columbia sprang full
panoplied, like Minerva from the brain of Jupiter."
"Paine was the prophet of American destiny."--_George Jacob Holyoake_.
"Thomas Paine is one of those men who most contributed to the
establishment of a Republic in America."--_Abbe Sieyes_.
Century Dictionary: "Took a prominent part in support of the American
Revolution."
"A principal actor in the American Revolution."--_M. Thiers, President
Third Republic of France_.