Thomas Paine Tis Time to Part

Who was Thomas Paine? Pamphleteer Revolutionary Radical intellectual Inventor –Single span iron bridge –Smokeless candle –Worked on early development of the steam engine

Stands Alone One man- Thomas Paine – stands alone among those who helped to swing the tide of public opinion in colonial America toward revolution.

Life Grew up poor and uneducated Was a corset maker by trade His young wife went into premature labor with a baby and she and the baby both died. Had numerous jobs Immigrant from England who had long held resentment against the British governement.

Coming to America Ben Franklin, while in London encouraged him to move to America. Paine barely survived the voyage. –Drinking water caused 5 to die of Typhoid Fever –He was too ill to leave his cabin in Philadelphia –Had to be carried ashore –6 weeks to recover

Common Sense Declared independence to be the only correct choice Argued strongly against any compromise short of independence Sold 150,000 copies Swayed some loyalists Was his most important work Published anonymously Complex ideas in clear concise form

Common Sense Washington found it so compelling that he ordered it read to all his troops on Dec. 2, 1776 prior to crossing the Delaware. 47 pages long Presented a brilliant political argument on behalf of the common man. Laughed at monarchies, and rank, and birth.

American Crisis These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph.

Writings Thomas Paine's writings had great influence on his contemporaries, especially the American revolutionaries. His books inspired both philosophical and working-class Radicals in the United Kingdom; and he is often claimed as an intellectual ancestor by United States liberals, libertarians, progressives and radicals. Both Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Alva Edison read his works with respect. Lincoln is reported by William Herndon to have written a defense of Paine's deism in 1835 that was burned by Lincoln's friend Samuel Hill as a gesture meant to save Lincoln's political career.

Thomas Edison Edison said of Paine: –I have always regarded Paine as one of the greatest of all Americans. Never have we had a sounder intelligence in this republic… It was my good fortune to encounter Thomas Paine's works in my boyhood… it was, indeed, a revelation to me to read that great thinker's views on political and theological subjects. Paine educated me then about many matters of which I had never before thought. I remember very vividly the flash of enlightenment that shone from Paine's writings and I recall thinking at that time, 'What a pity these works are not today the schoolbooks for all children!' My interest in Paine was not satisfied by my first reading of his works. I went back to them time and again, just as I have done since my boyhood days.