Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine: My Favorite Revolutionary
Who was Thomas Paine? He was one of America’s greatest revolutionaries, and without him America may not exist. Born into poverty in England in 1737, the first half of Thomas’s life was marked by utter failure. He left school at 13, he ran away to sea at 16, and had opened and failed at a business by the time he was 21. Though he worked as an excise officer in England for some time, Thomas was fired at least twice from this job. By the time Thomas Paine was 37 years old, he had done little of great significance with his life in England; except that he had written and published a pamphlet on the working conditions of his fellow excise officers that was noticed by Parliament. Perhaps because of this brief brush with fame, or maybe it was just serendipity, Thomas met Benjamin Franklin in 1774 and Franklin convinced Thomas to go to America. And, so, with a letter of introduction from Franklin, Thomas arrived in Philadelphia on November 30, 1774. By 1775, Thomas was writing influential essays in Philadelphia. Thomas published Common Sense in 1776, arguably the most influential pamphlet written in support of the American cause for independence. It is estimated that 500,000 copies of Common Sense were sold in the colonies, and it is credited with pushing many of those reluctant to break with England toward the cause of independence. In 1791 and 1792, Thomas published The Rights of Man in two parts. Since this work advocated for the right of the people to overthrow their government, Paine was charged with sedition in England. He then fled to France, which was engulfed in its own revolution. While in France, Paine was appointed as a representative in the French National Convention where he pled for the life of King Louis XVI. This seeming betrayal of the right to independence landed Paine in jail until 1794. Upon his release, Thomas publishes part one of The Age of Reason with the second part being published in 1796. In 1802, Thomas Paine returned to New York City. He died on June 8, 1809, and was buried on his farm in New Rochelle, NY. During his life, Thomas Paine was thought to be a radical and a rabblerouser. To the English, he was a traitor. To Americans, he should be remembered as the greatest revolutionary in our nation’s history. He was a man whose ideas helped solidify the spirit of independence in the colonists that resulted in the birth of our great nation through the defeat of the greatest army and nation the world had even seen.