myth america by martin zamyatin Thomas Paine Monument, Morristown, NJ, Georg Lober The Winter Soldier He who dares not offend cannot be honest. Thomas Paine After suffering several business failures and the death of his wife and child in A BSENT THOMAS PAINE, THERE childbirth, the 37-year old Englishman might have been no American Revolution. emigrated to the colonies in 1774 with the Published anonymously, Paine’s help of Benjamin Franklin. Barely surviving incendiary pamphlet, Common Sense, hit the voyage after typhoid fever swept the cobblestone streets of colonial through his ship, upon recovering Paine Philadelphia in January 1776, and sold found work in Philadelphia writing (and 12 0, 0 0 0 copies its first three months. later editing) a fledgling colonial periodical, By the end of the Revolution, fully one fifth The Pennsylvania Magazine. of the non-slave, non-native population of Unsatisfied merely penning eloquent the country of 2.5 million owned a copy, arguments in support of the abolition of making it proportionally the largest selling slavery, workers’ and women’s rights and American title of all time—before or since. greater citizen involvement in politics, Paine is revered today as ‘The Father of Paine wrote Common Sense shortly after the the American Revolution’ for his crucial Revolution began. The 47-page pamphlet part in its inception, but few Americans was itself revolutionary, advocating what know the whole story, which reveals a much amounted to a complete break from history less flattering—indeed, one might say truly in its attack on the British monarchy and its shameful—chapter in the nation’s history. clarion call for independence from England. Paine scorned what he called the ‘summer Defiant even in despair, Paine wrote The soldier and the sunshine patriot,’ who gave Age of Reason, a freethinking assault on lip service to revolutionary ideals but lacked organized religion. (Unjustly denounced as the courage to prevail through ‘times that an atheist, Paine, like Jefferson, was a Deist, try men’s souls.’ (These inspirational words and advocated freedom of religion and the are from Paine’s The American Crisis. Read practice of the ‘moral virtues.’ Ironically, by General Washington to his starving, The Age of Reason was in fact Paine’s dispirited troops before battle, they helped response to the French government’s brutal inspire a major turning point in the war.) suppression of religious practice.) Published On the other hand, Paine’s subsequent in 1794 while Paine lay deathly ill in prison, revelations about rampant profiteering and The Age of Reason outsold every book in land speculation during the Revolution by English history, excepting only the Bible. wealthy financiers like Robert Morris and Paine escaped the guillotine only through a future presidents Washington, Jefferson and fortuitous mistake: A chalk mark signifying Madison did little to endear him to the his death sentence was placed on the wrong nation’s emerging postwar aristocracy. side of his cell door the night before a planned Denounced as unpatriotic for daring to mass execution, the door having been left criticize the ‘Fathers of the Revolution,’ a open to allow the delirious prisoner some air. disgraced Paine returned to England in 1787 Released later that year, Paine remained in and soon became active in support of the France until 1802, returning to the U.S. only budding revolutionary movement in France. at the invitation of President Jefferson. Back Paine’s voluminous tract Rights of Man in America, the unrepentant Paine became (1791), a radical defense of democracy and an outspoken critic of his former friend individual freedom, sold nearly a million George Washington, both for Washington’s copies. Two years later an equally failure to come to his aid in prison, as well sensational sequel proposed a representative as for his refusal to credit France for the government and social programs designed crucial part it had played in the Revolution. to remedy the numbing poverty of Scorned by the religiously devout for The commoners through progressive taxation. Age of Reason and by the political establish- Taken for granted today, these kinds of ment for his championship of individual reforms were subversive in Paine’s time, liberty, abandoned by the country he helped and his subsequent arrest for sedition— give birth to, a bitter and broken Paine took along with the resulting mobs and burnings to drink to medicate the lasting trauma of in effigy—forced him to flee to France. his banishment and imprisonment. Welcomed in Paris, Paine helped draft a Paine died in poverty at the age of 72, new French constitution, but once again never receiving a penny in royalties for soon found himself on the wrong side of the writing some of the most influential and political aisle, in part for favoring clemency inspiring tracts of the 18th century. Only six for Louis XVI in recognition of the king’s mourners attended his nondescript funeral. help to America during the Revolutionary Paine’s tragic parting words were, “I would War. Declared a traitor during the year-long give worlds, if I had them, that The Age of Reign of Terror, he faced likely execution. Reason had never been published.” ◾.