Thomas Paine

Lore & Background

Paine was born in Thetford, Norfolk, to Joseph Pain, a Quaker tenant farmer and stay-maker, and Frances Cocke Pain, an Anglican. He attended Thetford Grammar School from 1744 to 1749, then apprenticed with his father. After a failed marriage to Mary Lambert and her death in childbirth, he worked as an excise officer, was dismissed for claiming to have inspected goods he did not inspect, and later reinstated. In 1771 he married Elizabeth Ollive and entered her family's grocery and tobacco business, which failed. He separated from her in 1774 and emigrated to Philadelphia with a letter of recommendation from Benjamin Franklin, arriving on November 30, 1774.

In America, Paine became editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine in March 1775. His pamphlet Common Sense (1776) catalyzed the call for independence, and he followed with the pro-independence The American Crisis series. He returned to Britain in 1787 and wrote Rights of Man (1791) to rebut Edmund Burke's criticism of the French Revolution, leading to a conviction in absentia for seditious libel in 1792. He fled to France, was elected to the French National Convention, and was arrested in December 1793 by Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier. Imprisoned in Luxembourg Prison, he completed the first part of The Age of Reason before his arrest. James Monroe secured his release in November 1794.

Paine later published an open letter denouncing George Washington in 1796 and Agrarian Justice (1797), which introduced a concept of guaranteed minimum income through an inheritance tax on landowners. He returned to the U.S. in 1802 but was broadly ostracized for his ridicule of Christianity and attacks on leaders. He died on June 8, 1809, with only six mourners at his funeral.

Reader's Guide

Thomas Paine's significance lies in his role as a revolutionary pamphleteer whose writings shaped the American and French revolutions. Common Sense and The American Crisis provided the intellectual and emotional framework for American independence, while Rights of Man defended French revolutionary ideals against conservative critique. His later work The Age of Reason promoted Deism and freethought, alienating many former allies. Paine also contributed to political economy with Dissertations on Government, criticizing fiat currency, and Agrarian Justice, proposing a form of guaranteed minimum income. His legacy is that of a radical thinker who advanced human rights arguments that influenced revolutionary discourse on both sides of the Atlantic, though his later attacks on religion and George Washington led to his ostracism in the United States.

Did You Know?

• Paine was already using the spelling 'Paine' in 1769 while living in Lewes, Sussex, before emigrating to America.
• He was elected to the French National Convention despite not being able to speak French.
• Only six mourners attended Paine's funeral in 1809.
• Paine argued in his 1786 essay Dissertations on Government that paper money was a form of state counterfeiting.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Eloquence may strike the ear, but the language of poverty strikes the heart; the first may charm like music, but the second alarms like a knell." — Thomas Paine "This sacrifice of common sense is the certain badge which distinguishes slavery from freedom; for when men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon." — Thomas Paine "He who dares not offend cannot be honest." — Thomas Paine "Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime." — Thomas Paine