Thomas Paine (January 29, 1737 – June 8, 1809) - 6 mourners at his funeral

[muriel_volestrangler]

Born in Thetford, Norfolk, in 1737 (there is a statue of him there, too), Paine's early adult life as a corset-maker and school teacher was largely unmarked by politics. But it was his subsequent job as an excise officer that inspired him to pen his first political work - a 21-page pamphlet that demanded better pay and conditions for his fellow workers.

A chance meeting with Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the US, in London in 1774 changed Paine's life - and, in time, American history. Following Franklin's advice to cross the Atlantic, Paine pitched up in America in November 1774, just as American revolutionaries were having heated debates about whether to break with Britain.
...
Titled simply, Common Sense, the work has been described by the Pulitzer-winning historian Gordon S Wood as "the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire (American) revolutionary period". It put the case for democracy, against the monarchy, and for American independence from British rule.

It became a sensation, selling 120,000 copies in the first three months. Given that America had only two million free citizens at the time, that is the equivalent of an American author selling 15 million books in three months today.

Who was Thomas Paine?

Well, someone ought to mark the day on DU.

[OneGrassRoot]

1. Thank you. :) n/t

[alsame]

2. I used to live very near the Thomas Paine Cottage in

New Rochelle NY.

Thanks for remembering him. :patriot:

[villager]

3. His great sin was that he took the idea(s) of "revolution" too seriously

And thus was shunned by the other Founding Fathers...

[depakid]

8. As did his contemporary Robespierre

[villager]

12. This would be the Robespierre that Paine spoke out against?

I believe Paine thought it was the job of revolutionaries to be different than the regimes they replaced...

[malaise]

4. Tom Paine is one of my favorite people

and he was a cricket fan to boot. :D

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Indeed:

The Hambledon Club in rural Hampshire had certainly been founded by 1768. Its basis was a local parish cricket team that was in existence before 1750 and had achieved prominence by 1756 when it played a series of three matches versus Dartford, which had itself been a major club for at least 30 years. Hambledon's stature grew over the next 20 years till by the late 1770s it was the foremost cricket club in England.

The Hambledon Club was multi-functional and essentially a social club that organised county cricket matches. It has generally been said that its teams should be termed "Hampshire" but, according to evidence quoted by G B Buckley, "Hampshire & Sussex" was synonymous with "Hambledon Club".

In 1782 the club moved from its original ground at Broadhalfpenny Down to Windmill Down, about half a mile away towards the village of Hambledon.

Hambledon's great days ended in the 1780s when Lord's was established as the home of the new Marylebone Cricket Club in 1787. Membership declined during the 1790s. On 29 August 1796, fifteen people attended a meeting and amongst them, according to the official minutes, was "Mr Thos Pain, Authour of the rights of Man"! It was probably a joke for Thomas Paine was then under sentence of death for treason and exiled in revolutionary Paris. The last meeting was held on 21 September 1796 where the minutes read only that "No Gentlemen were present".

http://www.jl.sl.btinternet.co.uk/stampsite/cricket/ladstolords/1751.html

Broadhalfpenny Down isn't far from me.

[Uncle Joe]

5. Thanks for your good work, Thomas Paine.

:patriot:

And thank you for the thread, muriel_volestrangler.:thumbsup:

[roguevalley]

6. Tom Paine and Samuel Adams, two of the best men ever.

[Reader Rabbit]

7. Reading the comments at the article:

Some of those Brits really don't like the man!

[anonymous171]

18. lol David Johns has this to say:

Let's face it! It was not a revolution, it was an English civil war in the 13 English colonies, fought by greedy landowners who would not pay there tax and wanted more land. Thomas Paine and all the others like Washington were traitors to England and ultimately Britain. All of them should have been put in prison or hanged for treason. That's why they will forever be remembered as being traitors! If you don't pay your tax today you get put in prison.

:rofl:

[2 Much Tribulation]

10. Huge respect for Thomas Paine: also the best selling author in US history per capita (annual sales)

The Pamphlet "Common Sense" still has the record for the highest sales in the USA per capita.

Paine:

First Principles of Government: "An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."

[Mythsaje]

13. I've never read that, but I see echoes of it in the Dune series.

Interesting, that.

[struggle4progress]

11. Paine was a real cradtsman: his rhetoric was sincere and timely, with excellent cadence

that is best appreciated by reading aloud.

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 by it 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. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated

O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind

But some, perhaps, will say: Are we to have no word of God — no revelation? I answer, Yes; there is a word of God; there is a revelation. THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD and it is in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh universally to man

[Zomby Woof]

14. I have always called him

The REAL 'Father of Our Country'.

Without 'Common Sense' and 'The American Crisis', where would General Washington have been?

'The Rights Of Man' was the best one-two smackdown of Edmund Burke (and conservatism) ever put to pen.

And in the spirit of The Enlightnment, I would like to give a nod to 'The Age Of Reason'.

[glitch]

15. Project Gutenburg has them all

http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/p#a91

[mmonk]

16. And you did. Good show.

It's interesting to look back at our forgotten principles and ideas of breaking from tyranny.

[Maru Kitteh]

17. Thank you! How wonderful, and how fitting for - Democratic - Underground!

[riverdeep]

19. I hate to tell you this, but the right is co-opting Thomas Paine as we speak.

Glen Beck in particular has some kind of Tom Paine tour going on, and has written a book 'inspired by Thomas Paine'.

("Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine")
http://www.amazon.com/Glenn-Becks-Common-Sense-Control/dp/1439168571

This all ties into the 'tea-party' stuff and the whole general idea that Obama is a radical departure from the ideas that founded this country, and so revolution -even violent revolution- is necessary. Meanwhile, while the Constitution was in tatters for eight years by the real threat to democracy, these same people either stayed silent or intimidated those who tried to stand up. If Thomas Paine were alive today, he'd be in Gitmo.