Thomas Paine -- Architect of Cooperative Individualism -- narrated - r

Thomas Paine: Architect of Cooperative Individualism:

Thomas Paine: Architect of Cooperative Individualism A Presentation on the Life and Legacy of the 18 th Century’s Most Remarkable Champion of Liberty Edward J. Dodson, M.L.A.

Who was Thomas Paine?:

Who was Thomas Paine?

Slide 3:

“My father being of the Quaker profession, it was my good fortune to have an exceeding good moral education, and a tolerable stock of useful learning. …I did not learn Latin, not only because I had no inclination to learn languages, but because of the objection the Quakers have against the books in which the language is taught, but this did not prevent me from being acquainted with the subjects of all the Latin books used in the school. The natural bend of my mind was to science. …”

Breaking Free:

Breaking Free

Re-entering Public Service:

Re-entering Public Service Lewes

Slide 13:

“Poverty, in defiance of principle, begets a degree of meanness that will stoop to almost anything. …He who has never hungered may argue finely on the subjection of his appetite; and he who never was distressed may harangue as beautifully on the power of principle. But poverty, like grief, has an incurable deafness, which never hears; the oration loses all its edge, and ‘to be, or not to be’ becomes the only question.”

Slide 15:

Edward Gibbon John Bevis

Slide 16:

Benjamin Franklin

Departs for North America:

Departs for North America

Slide 18:

Richard Bache

Slide 21:

“That some desperate wretches should be willing to steal and enslave men by violence and murder for gain, is rather lamentable than strange. But that many civilized, nay, Christianized people should approve, and be concerned in the savage practice, is surprising; and still persist, though it has been so often proved contrary to the light of nature, to every principle of Justice and Humanity, and even good policy, by a succession of eminent men, and several late publications.”

Slide 25:

“Surely the ministry are all mad, they never will be able to conquer America.”

Slide 27:

Charles M. Andrews

Slide 30:

“If, indeed, Great Britain, disjoined from her colonies, be a match for the most potent nations of Europe, with the colonies thrown into their scale, they may go on securely. But if they are not assured of this, it would be certainly unwise, by trying the event of another campaign, to risk our accepting a foreign aid, which, perhaps, may not be obtainable, but on condition of everlasting avulsion from Great Britain. This would be thought a hard condition, to those who still wish for re-union with their parent country. …”

Slide 31:

“… I am sincerely one of those, and would rather be in dependence on Great Britain, properly limited, than on any nation on earth, or than on no nation. But I am one of those, too, who, rather than submit to the rights of legislating for us, assumed by the British Parliament, and which late experience has shown they will so cruelly exercise, would lend my hand to sink the whole Island in the ocean.”

Slide 32:

George III

Slide 34:

“… rescue man from tyranny and false principles of government, and enable him to be free.”

Slide 37:

“As my wish was to serve an oppressed people, and assist in a just and good cause, I conceived that the honor of it would be promoted by my declining to make even the usual profits of an author.”

Slide 40:

“There is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is the distinction of men into Kings and Subjects. Male and Female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of heaven, but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth inquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or misery to the world.”

Slide 42:

Richard Henry Lee

Independence Declared, but Not Secured:

Independence Declared, but Not Secured

Slide 44:

“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 his country; but he that stands 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. ...”

Slide 45:

“…What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; ‘tis dearness only that gives everything 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.”

Victory or Death!:

Victory or Death! Lord Howe

Slide 47:

“The meanest peasant in America, blessed with liberty and safety is a happy man compared with a New-York tory.”

Slide 50:

“The nearer any disease approaches to a crisis, the nearer it is to a cure.”

Time for Change … in Britain? :

Time for Change … in Britain?

Slide 54:

“… instead of civilizing, has tended to brutalize mankind.”

Slide 56:

“My attachment is to all the world, and not any particular part…”

Slide 58:

“At the commencement of the revolution, it was supposed that what is called the executive part of a government was the only dangerous part; but we now see that quite as much mischief, if not more, may be done, and as much arbitrary conduct acted, by a legislature.”

Slide 59:

Silas Deane

Slide 67:

John Laurens John Laurens

Slide 68:

John Laurens

Slide 69:

Comte de Grasse

The World Turned Upside Down:

The World Turned Upside Down

Slide 72:

“… I have literary fame, and I am sure I cannot experience worse fortune.”

Slide 74:

Abbe Guillaume Raynal

Slide 75:

“It is in vain to look for precedents among the revolutions of former ages, to find out, by comparison, the causes of this. Here the value and quality of liberty, the nature of government, and the dignity of man, were known and understood, and the attachment of the Americans to these principles produced the Revolution, as a natural unavoidable consequence.”

Slide 77:

“The true idea of a great nation is that which extends and promotes the principles of universal society; whose mind rises above the atmosphere of local thoughts, and considers mankind, of whatever nation or profession they may be, the work of the Creator.”

Salaried Public Servant :

Salaried Public Servant Robert Morris

Slide 80:

“Every man in America stands in a two-fold order of citizen. He is a citizen of the state he lives in, and of the United States; and without justly and truly supporting his citizenship in the latter, he will inevitably sacrifice the former.”

Slide 82:

“The times that tried men’s souls are over – and the greatest and completest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished.”

Slide 87:

“… from a nation unaccustomed to honoring literary gentlemen with cash rewards Paine had received more than almost any writer would ever receive from a national or state government in American history.”

What to do next …:

What to do next …

Slide 92:

Anne Robert Jacques Turgot

Slide 94:

Iron Bridge over the River Wear - 1796

Slide 95:

Lafayette

Slide 97:

Edmund Burke

Slide 104:

“Man did not enter into society to become worse than he was before, nor to have fewer rights than he had before, but to have those rights better secured. His natural rights are the foundation of his civil rights.”

Slide 109:

“… performed from a spirit of revenge rather than from a spirit of justice.”

Slide 111:

Palais du Luxembourg

Slide 112:

Gouverneur Morris

Slide 113:

Robespierre

Slide 114:

James Monroe

Slide 117:

“… a thing created by that which is called civilized life.”

Slide 119:

“[A]s it is impossible to separate the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that improvement is made, the idea of landed property arose from that inseparable connection; but it is nevertheless true that it is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property.”

Slide 121:

“Every proprietor … of cultivated land owes to the community a ground rent … for the land which he holds. …”

Slide 122:

George Washington

Slide 123:

“I owe this illness (from which I have not much prospect of recovering) partly to Robespierre and partly to Mr. Washington. …He ought to have said to somebody – inquire into the case of Mr. Paine and see if there is anything we can do for him. …I ought not to have suspected Mr. Washington of treachery but he has acted towards me the part of a cold blooded traitor.”

Slide 124:

Napoleon Bonaparte

Slide 125:

“Paine’s rage slips out of control” when he “makes a witless comparison to the Reign of Terror in France … to the Reign of Terror that raged in America during the latter end of the Washington administration, and the whole of that of Adams.”

Slide 129:

“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God.”

Slide 131:

“It is only in the Creation that all our ideas and conceptions of a Word of God can unite. The Creation speaks a universal language, independently of human speech or human language… It is an ever-existing original, which every man can read. …”

Slide 132:

“… It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself form one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this Word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God.”

Slide 137:

“… make a labor of rest, for they oblige a person to sit still from sunrise to sunset on a Sabbath-day, which is hard work.”

Slide 139:

“… parent of the western world … a measure that accords with the humanity of her principles, with her policy, and her commercial interest.”

Slide 142:

“The independence of America would have added but little to her own happiness, and been of no benefit to the world, if her government had been formed on the corrupt models of the old world. It was the opportunity of beginning the world anew, as it were; and of bringing forward a new system of government in which the rights of all men should be preserved that gave value to independence.”

Slide 144:

“… found Paine disheveled and drunk at a tavern in New Rochelle. He had not shaved for a fortnight.”

Slide 147:

Paine by John Wesley Jarvis

Slide 148:

“… one of the most pleasant companions I have met with for an old man.”

Slide 149:

“Paine was not a drunkard. He did not, and could not, drink much. Loneliness drove him to the bottle, but in company he almost always kept within his capacity.”

Slide 151:

“All the civilized world knows I have been of great service to the United States, and have generously given away talent that would have made me a fortune.”

Slide 152:

“Poor Tom Paine! There he lies: Nobody laughs and nobody cries. Where he has gone and how he fares Nobody knows and nobody cares.”