Thomas Paine (1737-1809) in his own way political views was close to Jefferson. He was one of the brightest and most colorful figures of the American Revolution. Paine was not an American by birth; he arrived in the New World when he was already 37 years old. He had letter of recommendation from Franklin, whom he met in England. Thanks to his eloquence, he gained some fame, and in 1775, on behalf of Congress, he went to England with a petition from the colonists to George III, but there was no answer to it. Upon his return to America, Paine published a pamphlet "Common sense"(1776). In three months, 120 thousand copies of the pamphlet were printed, which for that time indicated the exceptional popularity of the publication. One New York newspaper said that Paine: "has presented a new system of politics, which is as different from the old as Copernicus's system of views on the universe differs from Ptolemaic's."

The reasons for the success of “Common Sense” lay, firstly, in Paine’s determination: he called for an end to illusions about the English government. Many American politicians at that time there was still hope that it would be possible to achieve fairer relations with the metropolis. Paine demanded that the struggle for independence begin immediately, and called George III a “royal animal.” Secondly, he managed to very organically combine religious and scientific imagery in his work. For Paine, Americans are the “chosen people,” and America has a special destiny. Here God replaces the king, and the “word of God” will be embodied in the rule of law in the nascent republic. The author of “Common Sense” also willingly resorts to illustrations from scientific circulation.

So, to prove the absurdity of the situation when an island controls a territory several times larger than itself, Payne turns to Newton’s teaching for an example: “It has never yet been found in nature that satellites were larger than the planets around which they revolve.”

During the war with England, Paine joined Washington's army, and here he wrote 13 pamphlets, which he collected under the title "American crisis"(1776-1783). When the American army found itself in a difficult situation, Washington ordered these pamphlets to be read before the ranks of soldiers to raise morale. Many expressions from this work have become catchphrases.

After the end of the war, Paine returned to England, and then, when revolution broke out in France, he went there, declaring: “My home is where there is no freedom.” In France, he became close to such political figures as Lafayette and Condorcet. He was elected to the Convention and became a member of the committee to draft a national constitution. Paine also helped draft the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. When the English philosopher and publicist Edmund Burke, who had previously been on friendly terms with Paine, published an anti-revolutionary treatise "Reflections on the Revolution in France"(1790), Paine defended the French Revolution with a pamphlet "Human rights"(1791 - 1792). Burke, in his Reflections, expressed indignation that the French executed their rightful king, who was not distinguished by either cruelty or tyrannical tendencies. Paine, who spoke at the Convention against the execution of Louis XVI, explained that this event was directed not so much against the monarch himself, but against the despotic form of government that the king personified.

The author of “Human Rights” also explains the advantages of the French constitution over the English one. In the French constitution, the interaction between the individual and society is based on the theory of “natural law” and “social contract”. Paine, like many educators, believed that all people are born equal and have “natural rights” common to all. After the “state of nature” stage, people move to the social stage of development, which arises as a result of a consciously and voluntarily concluded “social contract” between individuals. In his interpretation of the “social contract,” Paine is close to the position of Locke, who believed that citizens retain “natural rights,” the protection of which, after the conclusion of the contract, the state undertakes. However, as a result of this, a person also acquires civil rights, i.e. rights belonging to him as a member of society. According to Paine, civil rights are also based on natural rights, but by necessity placed under the jurisdiction of the state. The English constitution is inferior to the French in that it was created not by the people, but by the government, which came to power through the struggle for it.

When the Jacobins seized power in France, Paine was arrested for being on friendly terms with the Girondins. He miraculously managed to escape execution. After the fall of Robespierre, he received his freedom and soon published the pamphlet “The Age of Reason” (1794/95), which he began working on while still in prison. The pamphlet contained many very free statements about religion, which aroused hatred towards it in church circles in both England and America. Therefore, when Payne returned to the USA in 1802, real persecution was launched against him, he was even deprived of the right to vote. IN last years Throughout his life he was constantly persecuted and died in poverty.

Despite the sad circumstances of the final period of his life, Paine's ideas had a lasting influence on the formation of the democratic movement in America, England and France. In Russia, the Decembrists showed interest in his teachings.

Political history often takes on the character of a nuclear chain reaction. When events in a country reach a certain critical stage, an explosion occurs that takes that country onto a new historical path. The sparks from this explosion fall into other countries, causing explosions there too, and they, in turn, scatter their sparks further. The American Revolution led to the creation of the world's first democratic state and the world's first constitution to guarantee the stable existence of democracy. Landing on the fertile soil of revolutionary France, the seeds of American democracy gave birth to the French Constitution of 1791 and its subsequent modifications, which became the model for most European constitutions. “Iberian” versions of the American constitution - Spanish (1812) and Portuguese (1822) - formed the basis of all constitutions Latin America. And, as is known, the basis of the post-war constitutions of Germany and Japan is also the American Constitution. From what has been said, a natural conclusion follows: modern democracies owe their emergence to a significant extent to the United States and its constitution.

An interesting detail. Just a year before the Declaration of Independence and the proclamation of the United States, not a single politician in the North American colonies even thought about secession from the British Empire. This is what was said in the resolution of the Second Continental Congress on July 6, 1775: “Let not the subjects of any part of the British Empire mistakenly think that it is our intention to sever ties with the Empire, under whose shadow the colonies have prospered for so long a time, to the general happiness and satisfaction.” It was written in the midst of a revolutionary war, the purpose of which was to achieve some autonomy within the empire, and nothing more. So, during this year, or rather three hundred and sixty-three days, something must have happened that would radically change the views and goals of the colonists and turn them from colonists into Americans.

Imagine a mountain climber climbing a mountain. An awkward movement, and a stone slips out from under your foot, followed by others, more and more. A rockfall begins - a terrible avalanche, sweeping away everything in its path. If you then find that very first fallen pebble, show it to those who arrived at the scene of the disaster and say that it is its cause, people, without words, will just shrug their shoulders: what nonsense! But this pebble really was the cause and the beginning of the rockfall!

In our case, the role of such a pebble was played by Thomas Paine. 225 years ago, in January 1776, an anonymous pamphlet entitled "Common Sense" appeared, signed "Englishman", and authored by Paine. The pamphlet clearly, logically and uncompromisingly described the humiliating position in which the American colonists found themselves, mercilessly criticized the policy of the metropolis towards its colonies and the “crowned scoundrels” who led this metropolis. The only alternative to humiliation was the creation of their own independent democratic republic. “The period of debate is over. Arms as a last resort must resolve the dispute,” the pamphlet ended.

The response was amazing. A wave of patriotism swept through the colonists, who suddenly realized that they were Americans. All those who hesitated were literally swept away by an avalanche of patriotic feelings and a thirst for independence. Doubters and “loyalists”, fearing popular anger, hid their feelings deeper. The rebel colonies declared themselves independent republics, and on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted, proclaiming the creation of the United States of America. The author of the Declaration was Thomas Jefferson, a man of the same breed as Thomas Paine.

If you tell the average citizen of France or Portugal today that he should be grateful to Thomas Paine for the democratic benefits that this citizen enjoys today, there is a ninety-nine chance in a hundred that he will not even understand what is being said: this is the end of the parable about the stone that caused the avalanche.

Likewise, many have no idea where this term came from - United States? The fact is that before its appearance there were already two precedents - the United Kingdom (colloquially referred to as Great Britain or England) and the United Provinces (aka the Netherlands). Therefore, when the colonies rebelling against British rule needed a name that spoke of them as a certain political whole, it was found without difficulty: the United Colonies.

In July 1776, inspired by Thomas Paine's Common Sense, delegates from all the colonies gathered in Philadelphia to approve the Declaration of Independence. Virginia Representative Richard Henry Lee introduced a resolution to Congress that stated, among other things, that "these United Colonies are, and, under the right of them, shall continue to be, free and independent States."

IN English language the word state has two meanings: “state” and “state”. Let's say Secretary of State means "Secretary of State", and States General means "States General". Lee's resolution dealt specifically with "states" - states.

And in August of the same year (America is just now celebrating this “small birthday anniversary”) Paine’s next work appeared - 16 proclamations under the general title “American Crisis” - about the goals and objectives of the revolutionary struggle. The last proclamation ended thus: "Our independence must have the power to defend all that constitutes it. And as the United States we are able to do this; in any other capacity we are not!" This was the first time the future name of the federal republic was pronounced.

All of the above was the reason for the honorary nickname of Thomas Paine: “the godfather of the American nation” and, therefore, he is the godfather of democracy in general.

Thomas Paine is one of the most striking and tragic figures in the history of the United States, and over and over again, new monographs with Paine’s life stories and attempts to explain why all his great contemporaries and comrades, founding fathers and patriotic fighters, entered the Hall of Fame in 1900, when the Hall was founded, and Thomas Paine, the “Godfather of the United States,” received this honor only 45 years later, after the Allied victory in World War II.

In any encyclopedia you will read that Thomas Paine is a famous educator, writer and philosopher, but to say this means to say almost nothing. Just as the world's oceans are reflected in a drop of water, so the unique 18th century is reflected in the personality and fate of Payne, the century of creation and destruction, the collapse of hopes and the fulfillment of unfulfilled desires, the century that became the boundary between the Past and the Future of humanity. A citizen of the newly created United States, Paine was English by birth and French by conviction. His life, stormy and eventful, like this entire era, could serve as the plot for an excellent adventure novel, or, if you like, for a Shakespearean tragedy like King Lear. For Thomas Paine, the actual creator of the United States of America and the author of this name, who fought for this country in the War of Independence and glorified it throughout the world with his books “Common Sense” and “The Rights of Man,” ended his days in poverty, showered with insults from his ungrateful compatriots , and died a death that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.

The history of mankind is full of such tragedies, and the fact that their heroes gain immortality centuries after their death is very comforting for us, who adore happy endings, but not for them. In connection with the “small birthday anniversary,” I invite readers to get acquainted with one of the few Americans who are accompanied by the epithet “greatest.”

Thomas Payne was born on January 29, 1737 in the town of Thetford, in East Anglia, to a poor Quaker craftsman, Joseph Payne, who made ladies' corsets, and his pious wife Frances. He was the most ordinary boy, distinguished only by his unchildish isolation and complete inability to speak languages. When Tom was 13 years old, Papa Payne, who needed an assistant to make corsets, considered his son’s education quite sufficient and took him out of school.

In the future, for many years, Thomas Paine's guardian angel will be another great American - Benjamin Franklin. The similarities between Franklin's and Paine's youth are striking. Both were taken out of school at age 13. Both worked in the “family business” (Franklin - in his older brother’s typesetting workshop). They both hated this job, and both dreamed of a vast world beyond their towns. And both of them ran away from home as young men. Paine's youth reminded Franklin of his own youth, and he may have sensed that fame similar to his was destined for Paine.

So, 19-year-old Thomas ran away from home, hired himself as a sailor on the brig “King of Prussia” and set sail towards new lands and a new life. This new life, right up to its last days, was merciless towards Thomas Paine. Payne always lost in everything, and even when fate smiled on him, there was certainly a fly in the ointment in the ointment of his luck. He married twice, and both times unsuccessfully: the first wife died soon after marriage, the second left him. He changed a number of professions, from an itinerant corset maker to an itinerant evangelical preacher, and always remained a penniless poor man. The “Father of the American Nation” was completely alien to the spirit of business so characteristic of Americans, and if there was a person in the world who was absolutely unfit for business, it was Thomas Paine. When, at the end of the period described, he became the owner of a small tobacco store, it all ended in bankruptcy, the sale of property for debts, and at 37 years old Payne found himself as poor as he was at 19 years old. True, all these years Thomas persistently engaged in self-education, studying mathematics, astronomy, economics, philosophy (especially French enlightenment). True, the famous Benjamin Franklin, representative of the American colonies in England, treated Thomas like a son. It is true that he was for several years a member of the White Hart Political Club, where he learned to express his thoughts clearly, accurately and concisely. This all related to the so-called “enduring values”, which no one could take away from him and about which he, like the ancient philosopher, could say: “I carry everything that is mine with me.” But, unfortunately, it was impossible to feed on all this.

“Try your luck in America,” Franklin advised him, and along with this good advice he gave Payne a letter of recommendation to his son-in-law, an influential Philadelphia businessman. On November 30, 1774, Thomas Paine disembarked the London Packet from the Philadelphia port, rented a room in a house on the corner of Front and Market Streets, and two months later he was already an employee of the Pennsylvania Magazine. A new life for Thomas Paine began in the New World.

One of Paine's first articles - "African Slaves in America" ​​- immediately caused a lot of noise. Paine was not the first to protest slavery. and before him there were Americans, nobly, in a narrow circle of friends, so that no one particularly heard, who condemned this shame of their time. Thomas Paine spoke about this loudly. And although all the glory of the fighter against slavery and for the liberation of blacks went to Abraham Lincoln, let us not forget that it was Paine who was the first abolitionist, which today's African Americans, the descendants of former slaves, as a rule, do not suspect. This article created Payne's first batch of mortal enemies - the planters. However, making enemies was the only thing Payne did successfully throughout his life.

We have already talked about “Common Sense,” written in 1776 and which prompted the American colonies to create a federal democratic republic. Let us add to this that despite the astronomical circulation figures and the unheard-of success of the pamphlet, Payne remained in his usual poverty: half of the fee was stolen by the publishers, and the author gave the other half to the fund of the revolutionary army, where he soon volunteered.

George Washington ordered Paine's proclamations demanding the creation of the United States to be read aloud to the troops, similar to future Napoleonic "orders."

This was Thomas Paine's finest hour. If he was not the most popular person in the colonies, then, in any case, he stood on a par with such figures as Franklin, Jefferson, Washington or Madison.

After the formation of the United States, a grateful Congress appointed Paine Secretary of the Committee on Foreign Relations. This position, in fact, should be occupied by a professional politician, that is, a person who opens his mouth only in the most necessary cases. Paine was not a politician, he was a journalist and opened his mouth at every opportunity. In 1779, in the third year of Paine's tenure, a scandal broke out related to the financial fraud of Silas Deane, who was sent to Paris to purchase weapons for the American army. (Today this scandal would be called something like "Dingate"). An incorrigible lover of truth, Paine immediately loudly responded to the scandal, after which he was summoned to Congress and fired “for disclosing state secrets in the press” - the current glorious democratic tradition of disclosure did not yet exist state secrets through newspapers.

In 1787, Paine left for Europe, not expecting that he would re-enter American soil only 15 years later. He came to England, his real homeland, and became convinced that everything there was the same as it was during his childhood - the old metropolis seemed to have petrified in its traditions. But France wandered and seethed in these pre-storm years, Payne went there and felt like a fish in water, in this familiar environment. When the revolution broke out and England responded to it with Edmond Burke's pamphlet "Reflection of the Revolution", where the events in Paris were called "a massacre perpetrated by a blood-drunk rabble", Paine issued his famous "Rights of Man" in defense of the revolution. This work elevated him to a new crest of fame: France and America admired his treatise, in terms of clarity and depth of thought, topicality and radicalism, surpassing the classical and mostly abstract works of the enlighteners of the first half of the century.

Today, “human rights” is a common verbal cliché, used a hundred times a day, and everything that is meant by this surprises no one. But then, two centuries ago, “conservatives” indignantly asked: is this super-radical, undermining the foundations of European civilization and stability, in his right mind? Why, he demands unthinkable and unheard-of things - equal rights for women, social insurance for elderly citizens, government assistance to the poor, separation of religion and state, abolition of the monarchical system, and who knows what else! Payne had legions of new enemies; in England, the entire circulation of Rights was confiscated, the publisher was sent to prison, and Payne himself was tried in absentia, declared an enemy of the state and the king, and outlawed as a criminal. But President Washington sent Paine enthusiastic letters, revolutionary France applauded him, and he, a foreigner, was solemnly elected a full member of the Convention.

And again, as always, the usual “fly in the ointment” appeared in Payne’s life. On January 20, 1793, the famous vote of the Convention took place, which was supposed to decide the fate of King Louis XVI. Two possibilities were considered: to put the king to public execution or to imprison him for life. When the turn came to Payne, whose convictions did not allow him to condemn a person to either death or life imprisonment, he proposed a third option - exile outside France. This was, it seems, the most absurd thing that could be imagined - after all, the king himself, his emigrant supporters, and in general all the forces hostile to France only dreamed of this. Paine's statement provoked a furious speech from the "friend of the people" Marat from the Jacobin faction, whom Paine, as usual, successfully turned from now on into his mortal enemies.

Six months passed after the Jacobin coup and the beginning of the Terror, and the time had come to settle scores: Thomas Paine was arrested as a “royalist” and an English spy and at the end of December 1793 he was thrown into a damp cell in a Luxembourg prison to await his fate. It was the most unlucky year of Payne's many unlucky years. Ten months spent in prison undermined his health. His letters to Washington, in which he begged the president to help him, Paine, release, remained unanswered: Paine’s idol and demigod was no longer the commander of the revolutionary army; Now he was a president, a politician, and relations with France were more important to him than the fate of his former friend and ally.

In prison, Paine wrote his third great work, “The Age of Reason,” which turned his subsequent life into a continuous, continuous nightmare. Paine's religious and philosophical views were very chaotic. They bizarrely combined Quaker-evangelical doctrines with bilious anti-clericalism in the spirit of Voltaire, and Robespierre's worship of the “higher mind” and the “supreme being” with the rationalistic atheism of the Enlightenment. Paine laughed at the divinity of Christ, but believed in his historical existence and shared his teachings. He rejected all churches, treated the Bible ironically, identified God with nature, but at the same time believed in the immortality of the soul. With his "Age of Reason" Paine immediately made the clergy of all confessions, all believers and especially bigots pretending to be believers, his eternal and mortal enemies. If we add to this the slave owners and opponents of the abolition of slavery, large and small businessmen who did not want any social changes, and radicals who despised Quaker virtues, we can say that Paine had almost no supporters and friends left. This is not a comforting situation for a man whose age was approaching sixty.

And yet friends were found. The new American ambassador to France, James Monroe, at his own peril and risk, appealed to the French government to demand the release of Thomas Paine as a citizen of the United States, friendly to France. The request was granted.

On September 1, 1802, Paine, outlawed in his first homeland, England, and imprisoned in his third homeland, France, departed for his second homeland, the United States. The first days after his arrival shocked him. This was no longer the America he left 15 years ago. The country was held in a stranglehold by politicians, planters and big businessmen. Payne's merits were long forgotten; the younger generation simply knew nothing about him. But the slightest mention of Paine in the press was accompanied by the indispensable epithets “blasphemer,” “criminal,” “villain,” “corrupter of morals,” and the like. Payne was lonely, despised and, as always, poor. And yet, his bright mind and nobility of nature showed up once again in full force.

"Letters to the Citizens of the United States" was the title of Paine's last work, written in 1803 in the form of seven letters to President Jefferson. The seventh letter is especially interesting for us. It detailed the blueprint for what would become the League of Nations 116 years later and what would become the United Nations 142 years later. The "Godfather of the United States" now dreamed of an "association of nations." The ten articles of the “model charter” of the international organization conceived by Paine contain practically everything on which today’s UN is based: equal rights of members, definition of aggression and sanctions against the aggressor, human rights and joint sanctions against violators of these rights - everything, right down to helping the poor and backward countries. This extraordinary person again a century ahead of his time. This look into the future, misunderstood and forgotten by his contemporaries, could in itself provide Paine with immortal fame.

Well, what about his grateful fellow citizens? On Election Day 1806, Paine went to his polling station and was subjected to unheard-of humiliation: he was clearly explained that he no longer had the right to vote - during 15 years of absence, the “father of the nation” had lost his American citizenship. This blow crippled Payne more than the Luxembourg prison.

He died forgotten and abandoned by everyone on June 8, 1809, and a peculiar combination of obituary and epitaph for him was a phrase from the New York City newspaper: “He lived a long time, did some good and did a lot of harm.” That's all that contemporaries could say about the pebble that carried away the world avalanche of democracy.

Ten years later, William Cobbett, an English journalist, an ardent admirer of Paine's ideas, arrived in New Rochelle, where he was buried, removed the bones of his idol from the grave, placed them in a specially prepared metal chest and took them to England. Cobbett dreamed of burying Paine's remains with honors in his native Thetford and turning the grave into a national shrine and a place of pilgrimage for millions of people who believed in democratic ideals. Alas, he was too naive. The old metropolis had not changed, Paine was still an outlaw, and there was no question of any grave. Cobbett kept the chest at home. In 1835, he died, leaving the chest, as the greatest relic, to his son. When the latter went bankrupt and all his property went under the hammer, the chest was not recognized as property - it was simply thrown away. This chest with Payne's remains was picked up and kept for several years by some day laborer, then by a furniture maker; his further fate is unknown. For a whole century, an impenetrable haze of oblivion fell over the name of Thomas Paine...

He was remembered again in the 30s of the 20th century, when European countries one after another turned into fascist and semi-fascist dictatorships, and when England fought alone against Nazi Germany. Paine was then called "the greatest of England's sons" and "British Voltaire." And in 1945, in the midst of celebrations on the occasion of the victory of democracy over totalitarianism, the bust of Thomas Paine was solemnly placed in the Hall of Fame. Perhaps this is the implementation of the principle “better late than never”...

It is believed that the principle of “collective guilt” is a vicious principle. But in this case, as an exception, this principle is fair: we all have a collective guilt before the memory of Thomas Paine - the man from whose words despotism collapsed, as once from the sound of trumpets - the walls of Jericho. We cannot place a luxurious tombstone on his grave, we cannot even put an armful of modest wildflowers on it - he has no grave. We are all indebted to him, and there is only one way we can repay this debt: to be always faithful to the ideals of democracy, to the ideals of the greatest American who created and named this country - Thomas Paine.

One of the most famous documents of early American history, the essay-pamphlet of Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was published anonymously in the colonies in January 1776. Paine called the English King George III a “royal monster” personally responsible for all acts of injustice, perpetrated against American colonists. The 50-page pamphlet, printed in America in a circulation of 120 thousand copies, had a serious influence on the attitude of the colonists towards the British crown and became the most effective tool of anti-British propaganda in the struggle of the American colonies for separation from England.

Thomas Paine

In the following pages I have resorted only to simple facts, understandable arguments and common sense, and have no other intention for the reader than to help him get rid of prejudices and preferences, to allow his mind and his feelings to determine themselves, to encourage so that he would find, or rather would not reject, true human nature and thoroughly expand his views beyond the limits of the present situation.
Numerous volumes have been devoted to the theme of the struggle between England and America. People of all classes dealt with these contradictions, based on different motivations and with different calculations, but it was all to no avail and the period of debate ended. The outcome of the contest is decided by weapons as a last resort: resorting to them was the choice of the king, and the Continent accepted this challenge.
Solnia has never seen a more noble goal. This is not the business of a single city, county, province or kingdom, but of the entire Continent - at least one-eighth of the inhabited part of the globe. This is not the concern of one day, one year or one century; future generations are actually involved in the confrontation, and they will, to one degree or another, be influenced by the current events almost until the very end of life on Earth. Today is the time for the birth of the Continental Union, faith and honor. The slightest break today will be like a name carved with the tip of a pin on the tender bark of a young oak tree; the wound will increase as the tree grows, and the name will appear before posterity in large letters. The transition from negotiations to weapons marked the beginning of a new political era - a new way of thinking emerged. All plans, proposals, etc., relating to the period before the nineteenth of April, that is, before the outbreak of hostilities, are similar to last year's calendar, which, being timely then, has become unnecessary and useless today. Everything that was put forward then by defenders of opposing points of view. came down to the same thing, namely, an alliance with Great Britain. The only difference between the parties was the method of achieving it: one of the parties proposed to resort to force, the other proposed to be friends; but it so happened that today the supporters of the first path have been defeated, and the supporters of the second have lost their influence.
I have heard some assert that, just as America prospered under her former connection with Great Britain, so a similar connection is necessary in the interest of her future happiness, and will always be so necessary. Nothing could be more fallacious than an argument of this kind. We may just as well assert that if a child has been raised on milk he should never be given meat, or that the first twenty years of our life are destined to become the model for the next twenty years. But even these statements imply a distortion of the truth, and I immediately answer that America would prosper just as much, and perhaps to a greater extent, if no European power paid any attention to it. Trade, by which she has enriched herself, is a necessity of life, and she will always have a market, while consumption is the habit of Europe.
But she protected us, some say. It is true that it has consumed us; it is also recognized that she defended the Continent at our and her own expense, and that she would defend Turkey based on the same considerations, namely for the sake of trade and dominion.
Alas! We have been mistaken for a long time, shackled by ancient prejudices and made enormous sacrifices to superstitions. We boasted of the defense of Great Britain, without realizing that she proceeded from her own interests, and not from affection for us; that she defended us from our enemies not for our sake, but from her enemies for the sake of her own interests, from those who did not quarrel with us for any other reason and who will always be our enemy for the same reason. Let Great Britain renounce her claims to the Continent, or let the Continent shed its dependence; and we will live in peace with France and Spain, even if they find themselves at war with Great Britain.
It has recently been asserted in Parliament that the colonies are connected with each other only through the mother country, that is, that Pennsylvania and Jersey, like all the others, are sister colonies through England. This, of course, is a very indirect way of proving a relationship. but the most direct and sure way of proving enmity or hostility, if you can call it that. France and Spain have never been and. may never be our enemies - the enemies of the Americans, but only our enemies as British subjects.
But Great Britain is our ancestor, some say. Moreover, she should be ashamed. Even wild animals do not eat their young, and savages do not fight with their families... Europe, not England, is the mother of America. The New World became a refuge for persecuted advocates of civil and religious freedom from all parts of Europe. They fled here not from the tender embrace of their mother, but from the cruelty of the monster. As for Great Britain, then, as before, this tyranny, which expelled the first emigrants from their homes, still haunts their descendants.
But even accepting that we were all of British origin, what do you mean by this? No. Great Britain, being a clear enemy, excludes any other name or definition: the claim that reconciliation is our duty sounds like a farce. The first king of England of the present dynasty (William the Conqueror) was a Frenchman, and half the peers of England are natives of this country. Following the same logic, England should be ruled by France. Much was said about the combined power of Great Britain and the colonies, that together they could challenge the whole world. But these are mere assumptions; the outcome of the war is uncertain, and all these statements mean nothing, since our Continent will never agree to sacrifice its population to support British arms in Asia, Africa or Europe.
And besides everything else, why should we challenge the whole world? Our plans include trade, and if it is organized wisely, it will ensure us peace and friendship with all the peoples of Europe, since it is in the interests of all Europe to have an open port in America. Her trade will always be a protection, and her lack of deposits of gold and silver will protect her from invaders. I challenge the most ardent advocate of reconciliation to name one piece of evidence of the benefit which our Continent will derive from remaining connected with Great Britain. I reiterate that there will be no benefit from this. Our corn will get its price in any market in Europe, and the goods we import must be paid for no matter where we buy them.
However, the damages and losses we suffer as a result of such communication are countless. Our duty to all mankind and to ourselves obliges us to renounce the alliance, since any submission or any dependence on Great Britain entails a direct interference of our Continent in European wars and quarrels and involves us in conflict with states which would otherwise seek our friendship and towards whom we bear neither malice nor discontent. Since Europe is our market, we should not establish partial relations with any particular part of it. It is in America's true interest to keep aloof from European strife, which it will never succeed in, while by remaining dependent on Great Britain it becomes a weight in the scales of British politics.
It is disgusting to argue, advanced with reference to the universal course of events, to all sorts of examples from past centuries, that our Continent can remain dependent on any foreign power. Britain's biggest optimists don't think so. Today, even the wildest imagination is unable to propose a plan, short of secession, that would ensure the security of our Continent for at least one year. Reconciliation now seems like a pipe dream. Naturalness has ceased to be a justification for a new connection, and artificiality cannot take its place. As Milton wisely observed, “true reconciliation will never arise where such deep wounds of mortal hatred exist.”
It is crazy and stupid to talk about friendship with those whom our reason forbids us to trust and our disposition towards whom, deeply wounded, forces us to hate them. Every day the last remnants of kinship between us and them disappear. And can there still be hope that as relationships fade, mutual sympathies will increase, or that we will be more successful in reaching agreement as the number of reasons for quarrels increases tenfold and the complications of relationships become more serious than ever before? .
You, who tell us about harmony and reconciliation, can you return to us bygone times? Is it possible to restore lost innocence to a prostitute? Likewise, you cannot reconcile Britain and America. The last thread has been severed, the people of Great Britain are presenting a bill to us. There are wounds which nature cannot forgive; she would cease to be nature if she did this. Just as a lover cannot forgive a rapist for violence against his beloved, our Continent cannot forgive Britain for murder.
O you who love humanity! You who dare to resist not only tyranny, but also the tyrant, take a step forward! Every inch of the old world is under oppression, suppressed. Freedom is persecuted everywhere to the globe. Asia and Africa have long ago driven it out. Europe considers her a stranger. and England gave her a warning before he was expelled. her. Oh, receive the exile and prepare to become in time a refuge for humanity

Paine Thomas (January 29, 1737, Thetford - June 8, 1809, New York) - revolutionary thinker, social and political figure in Great Britain, the USA and France, representative of the revolutionary wing of the 18th century enlightenment.

Thomas Paine - a native of the people, a revolutionary and social and political figure, publicist, progressive thinker and encyclopedist-scientist - left a noticeable mark on the philosophy of the American Enlightenment.

The views of Paine, the most consistent representative of the radical democratic trend in the American socio-political movement of the late 18th century, had a direct influence on the formation of the ideology of the Chartist movement in Great Britain.

1. Childhood and youth

Born in England in the family of a poor artisan. Due to need, he was forced to quit school at the age of thirteen and start helping his father in the workshop, but after five years he left the family, making attempts to get out of his disastrous financial situation. He was a sailor, a corset maker, a teacher, a tax collector... - while constantly educating himself.

2. Social activities

2.1. Great Britain

In 1772, Paine first appeared as a public figure: at the request of his comrades, he wrote an appeal to parliament, outlining the complaints of excise officials about their difficult lot. As a result, the excise bureau dismisses the restless official, and in 1774 Payne comes to London in search of work, where he meets Franklin, with whose assistance he goes to the United States of America.

2.2. North America

Payne arrives in the American colonies on the very eve of their struggle for independence, and with the outbreak of the war he becomes involved in active revolutionary activities: in 1775 he edits the Pennsylvania Journal newspaper, promoting radical views - the abolition of the monarchy, slavery of blacks, etc., and in At the beginning of 1776, he published the pamphlet “Common Sense,” where he convincingly argued for the need for a war against England for the independence of its American colonies and called on the people to take up arms. In the summer of the same year, Payne volunteered for the American revolutionary army.

During the war years, Paine wrote a number of vivid revolutionary pamphlets under the general title “The American Crisis,” directed against the English monarchy and in defense of the young American republic.

In 1777 - 1779 Paine is secretary of the Congressional Foreign Relations Committee, and in 1781 he participates in Paris in negotiations with the French government on assistance to the North American colonies.

After the war, Paine continued to publish on social and political issues, while turning to scientific pursuits and invention.

2.3. France

In 1787, Payne traveled to France and then to England, hoping to find funds to build the single-arch iron bridge he designed. From London, Payne often travels to Paris, where in the house of the American Ambassador Jefferson he meets with prominent figures of the French Enlightenment.

With the beginning of the French bourgeois revolution, Payne immediately came out in its defense: in 1791 - 1792. he publishes the pamphlet “Human Rights”, where he explains the events of the French Revolution. At the end of 1792, the English government accused Paine of plotting against the monarchy; a lawsuit begins against him. Declared an outlaw in England, Paine flees to France to escape arrest. In the same year, the legislative assembly granted Paine, as an outstanding revolutionary, French citizenship, and he was elected as a deputy to the convention.

With the Jacobins coming to power, Payne's position worsens (in particular, he disagrees with them on the issue of the execution of Louis XVI). The intrigues of his political and ideological opponent, US Ambassador to France Morris, as well as the Jacobins’ condemnation of Paine’s connections with the Girondins also play a role. In December 1793, Paine was arrested under the Enemy Alien Act, which targeted the British. He spends over ten months in prison and is only accidentally saved from execution by the guillotine. The result of Payne's activities in France was the development of his social views in the field of criticism from the petty-bourgeois positions of bourgeois property relations. Finally, Paine, one of the pioneers of the atheistic tradition on American soil, writes the first part of his work against religion and the church, The Age of Reason, and then publishes Agrarian Justice.

2.4. Return to the USA

In 1802, only after Jefferson assumed the presidency, Paine managed to return to the United States. However, during the fifteen years of his absence from the United States, the situation in the country changed significantly: the dominance of capital was fully established in the republic, and the revolutionary democratic ideals, which the ruling circles began to change during the war, were largely consigned to oblivion. In an atmosphere of struggle between progressive and reactionary forces, grouped around two parties - Republican and Federalist, Paine's arrival could not go unnoticed. Large property owners and their Federalist Party greeted Paine with open hostility. His radical philosophical and political ideas were contrary to their views and beliefs. On the contrary, Republicans and progressive groups of American deists find in him a militant propagandist of their ideas.

In addition, Paine's political and social views outrage the dominant bourgeois plantation circles in America. Particularly dangerous for them are Paine’s calls for the elimination of inequality in property, which he makes in Agrarian Justice. Paine, although he did not go as far as the Babouvists on this issue, “objectively justified the uprising for the purpose of eliminating social inequality in relation to property” (Foner).

In America, Payne writes works, the material of which was intended for the third part of “The Age of Reason” and which saw the light only after the death of the author.

Payne, persecuted by enemies and slanderers who defame him, is ready to leave the United States, but his health does not allow him to do so. Bedridden and forgotten by his former friends, Payne dies in poverty. Two and a half months before his death, he asks the Quaker community for permission to be buried in its cemetery. His request is denied.

3. Main scientific and socio-political works

3.1. Common Sense (1776)

An anonymous pamphlet arguing for the necessity of the American colonies' war for independence. Based on the rationalistic theories of natural law and social contract, Paine defends the idea of ​​the sovereignty of the people and their right to revolution, argues for the need for the North American colonies to break with Great Britain and form an independent republic.

Paine makes a clear distinction between the wars, pointing to the American Revolution as an example of a just act: “their cause is just,” Paine writes, and therefore they must “in good conscience take up arms” to free themselves from the coercion of the English crown and obedience. to her.

The ideas of the pamphlet were reflected in the US Declaration of Independence of 1776.

3.2. American crisis (1776 - 1783)

During the War of Independence in North America, during the difficult days of the retreat of American troops from the Hudson to the Delaware, Paine, to maintain the spirit of the soldiers, wrote the pamphlet “The Crisis”, in which, branding the English king and his American supporters (Tories), he expressed confidence in victory.

The first pamphlet was followed by a whole series of similar ones (16 in total), which Paine wrote and published throughout the war, promoting the American Revolution. In these proclamations, the name of the new state being created was first heard - “The United States of America”.

These articles were reprinted by newspapers that campaigned for American independence; by order of Commander-in-Chief John Washington, they were read aloud to the soldiers of the liberation army. The significance of this series of pamphlets is not limited to explaining the immediate goals of the war, calling for the unification of the forces of all Americans, exposing the Tories as traitors, and providing detailed information about the progress of military operations - in them Paine continues to explain his political views.

3.3. Human rights (1791 - 1792)

A pamphlet in which Paine explained the events of the French Revolution, condemning the monarchy and exposing the apologist for the English crown, Burke, who slandered the revolution. Defending the revolutionary principles of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, Paine developed the ideas of popular sovereignty and republicanism. In Britain the essay was banned and publishers were put under pressure.

3.4. Age of Reason (1794 - 1795)

Title page of the first English edition of the first part of The Age of Reason, 1794

In this essay, Paine expressed the anti-religious sentiments of his era, opposing scientific knowledge ignorance and preaching of religious retrogrades. However, Paine's spontaneous materialistic views were not deeply developed: philosophical problems, as such, were not the object of his special study, and he addressed them only in connection with criticism of widespread religious views.

The lack of necessary philosophical training could not but affect the author’s position, weakening it. Paine's philosophy is characterized by inconsistency and deviations from materialism. The mechanical, metaphysical approach explains why Paine was unable to escape the captivity of deism. Defending at the end of the 18th century. the already outdated Newtonian idea of ​​the first impulse, in this respect he was inferior to Toland, Holbach and other materialists of the 18th century, who long before the “Age of Reason” overcame deistic ideas about God as the first cause.

Having examined the internal inconsistency of the story of the legendary Christ contained in the gospels, Paine comes to the conclusion that the New Testament is not authoritative. He is trying to find out the social prerequisites for the emergence of Christianity. Assuming the existence of a historical Christ, he sees in him a man who intended to free the Jewish people from Roman dependence and the domination of the Jewish priests. He also believes that it was in the popular environment that ideas about “saviors” arose, whose names acquired “the widest popularity,” and that the founders of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim religions came from a democratic environment.

The first part of the work was written in 1793, the second in 1794, in a Luxembourg prison, completed after the release of the author. The third part included the works "The Origin of Freemasonry" (1805) and "Predestination", which condemned the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, written by Paine shortly before his death.

The Age of Reason was attacked not only by reactionaries of all stripes, but Priestley also spoke out against it, arguing that Paine’s attacks on Christianity were not convincing, since enlightened Christians no longer believed in such absurd dogmas as, for example, the Trinity, and there was no reason to discredit Christianity based on such dogmas. And Rush, with whom Paine maintained friendly relations, in turn declared that “the principles proclaimed in his ‘Age of Reason’ are so unacceptable to me that I do not wish to renew communication with him.”

The Rev. E. Ogden, in his anti-Paine pamphlet, An Antidote to Deism, warned: “What can be expected when religious restrictions are removed, except that men will give in to the impulses of their passions? Human laws and punishments will be insufficient to restrain people from their vicious lusts where there is no real religious feeling - no premonition of another world, retribution, sinfulness and the otherworldly Creation of virtue. The ethics of the Enlightenment was guided by the exact opposite conviction: it did not need either religious foundations or religious sanctions - intimidation and illusions.

3.5. Agrarian Justice (1797)

A political-economic work in which Paine, deeply convinced that “revolution in the very state of civilization is an integral concomitant of revolution in the system of government,” develops the bold but utopian idea of ​​eliminating wealth inequality, dividing society into rich and poor while preserving the existing social -economic system. The specific plan he developed for the implementation of this idea boiled down to the payment of rent by the owners and the creation of a fund from it for compensation of the landless, as well as for pensions for the elderly.

According to Paine, wealth and poverty are not eternal phenomena. They are a violation of the natural right of people: “...poverty is a phenomenon generated by the so-called civilized way of life, and in natural state does not exist". Paine fights against the inequality in the distribution of wealth that violates natural law, and constantly repeats: in championing the cause of the disadvantaged, “I seek not mercy, but right, not generosity, but justice.”

Under the influence of the physiocrats and the highly regarded Adam Smith, Paine explored the sphere of production, rather than circulation, in order to find the real source of wealth. He condemns the system of distribution of property and makes a guess about the labor of workers as a source of capitalist profit: “... the accumulation of movable property is in many cases the consequence of too little payment for the labor that created this property, as a result of which the worker faces a terrible old age, and the entrepreneur wallows in luxury.” .

PAYNE, THOMAS(Paine, Thomas) (1737–1809), Anglo-American revolutionary and publicist, was born in Thetford (Great Britain) on January 29, 1737. Arrived in America in 1774 with the support of Benjamin Franklin, whom he idolized. Editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine, 1775–1777, he contributed greatly to the indecisive climate of the time by making a vigorous case for American independence in a pamphlet Common sense (Common Sense, 1776), and then, when the war began, in a series of proclamations American crisis (American Crisis, 1776–1783). The first of them was ordered by George Washington to be read to the soldiers in order to maintain their morale. In progress Common good (Public Good, 1780) Paine argued that Virginia's claim to western lands should be part of the question of the right of all colonies to make such claims; he hoped that the approach he proposed would help unify and strengthen the future union.

In 1787 Paine went to France, in 1791 in London he published the first part of the treatise Human rights (Rights of Man, 1791), in which he welcomed the French Revolution, responded to hostile revolutions Reflections Burke, published in 1790, and explained the advantages of a republic over a monarchy. Paine called on the British to overthrow the monarchy just as they had done in France. In Great Britain he was accused of treason and fled to France, where he was elected to the Convention in 1792, in which he belonged to the Girondins led by Brissot. After the seizure of power by Robespierre's supporters, Paine was imprisoned for ten months in December 1793 for opposing the execution of Louis XVI. Treatise Age of Reason (The Age of Reason, 1794–1796) was devoted to developing the position of deism.

Pro-monarchist supporters of Anglicanism and Calvinism in America declared this treatise by Paine to be the “bible of atheism” and blasphemy. Jefferson in the preface to Human rights argued that his principles and Paine's principles coincided. From that time on, Paine was often criticized in hopes of undermining Jefferson. Liberals in America and various British revolutionary societies helped expand Paine's influence by using his writings as textbooks in adult education programs. Fierce attacks by opponents also played an equally important role. All this bore fruit: in 1800 Jefferson was elected president, and in 1832 the Reform Bill was adopted in Great Britain. After returning to America at the invitation of Jefferson in 1802, Paine was again attacked by Calvinists, who found additional arguments in the bloody and reactionary outcome of the French Revolution. Payne died in