By John Remsburg, President of American Secular Union

1916 Excerpt from “Thomas Paine, The Apostle of Liberty” an address 

The pen of Paine was as mighty as the sword of Washington. Common Sense was the glorious sun that evolved a new political world; each number of the Crisis a brilliant satellite that helped to illuminate this New World’s long night of Revolution. 

In the Old World liberty remained, as it still remains to a large extent, yet to be wearisomely achieved. In France the people were struggling against a corrupt and oppressive government. Paine enlisted his services in the cause of freedom there. He advocated a Republic, and organized the first Republican society in France. 

But Louis was permitted to resume his reign, and tranquility having been for a brief season restored, Paine went to his native England, where, in reply to Burke’s “Reflections on the French Revolution,” appeared his Rights of Man. With a desperation characteristic of the detected robber, the Government suppressed his work; but not until it had kindled a fire in Europe which tyrants have not yet succeeded in extinguishing, and in the glare of whose unquenchable flames may be read the doom of monarchy. 

The storms of revolution bursting forth afresh, Paine again repaired to France. A joyous reception awaited his arrival at Calais. As his vessel entered the harbor a hundred cannon thundered “Welcome!” As he stepped upon the shore a thousand voices shouted “Vive Thomas Paine!” Bright flowers fell in showers around him; fair hands placed in his hat the national cockade. An immense meeting assembled in his honor. Over the chair he sat in was placed the bust of Mirabeau [a Jacobin leader] with the colors of France, England and America united. All France was ready to honor her defender.

Three departments, the Oise, the Pas-de-Calais, and the Puy-de-Dome, each chose him for its representative. He accepted the honor from Calais and proceeded to Paris. His entry into the French capital was a triumphal one. He was received as a hero, an intellectual hero who… had vanquished Europe’s most brilliant champion of monarchy, and vindicated before the tribunal of the world mankind’s eternal rights. 

He took his seat in the National Convention. A stupendous task devolved upon this body–the formation of a new Constitution for Republican France. Its most illustrious statesmen and its wisest legislators must be chosen to prepare it. A committee of nine was named: Thomas Paine, Danton, Condorcet, Brissot, Barrere, Vergniaud, Petion, Gensonne, and the Abbe Sieyes. To Paine and Condorcet chiefly was the work of drafting it assigned by their colleagues. 

Then came the trial of Louis XVI and the beginning of those turbulent scenes which culminated in the Reign of Terror. The convention was clamoring for blood. Paine had been one of the foremost in overthrowing the monarchy. He believed the king to have been tyrannical, to have been the pliant tool of a corrupt nobility, and of a still more corrupt priesthood. But he did not deem him deserving of death, nor did he believe that the best interests of France would be subserved by such harsh measures. 

But the Terrorists threatened with vengeance all who should dare to oppose them. To plead the cause of the king might be to share his fate. A vote by any member in favor of saving his life might bring an overwhelming vote against that member’s own life. They had resolved that the king should die, and led by such men as Robespierre and Marat, there were assembled the most determined and the most dangerous men of France. The galleries, too, were filled with an excited mob of fifteen hundred – many of them hired assassins, fresh from the September massacre. “We vote,” protested Lanjuinais when the balloting commenced, “under the daggers and the cannon of the factions.” 

In this perilous position what course would Paine pursue? Would he, like others, quietly acquiesce in these unjust proceedings? He had never yet faltered in his purpose of pursuing what he deemed the right. Would he shrink from danger now? No! above the wild storm of that enraged assembly, through his interpreter, rose the voice of this brave man in powerful, eloquent appeals in behalf of mercy. “Destroy the King,” in effect, he said, “but save the man! Strike the crown, but spare the heart!” He pleads in vain; the king must die. Amid insults and execrations of a frenzied mob Louis is torn from the arms of his queen and children and hurried to the scaffold. 

The Mountain has triumphed. The Jacobins, infuriated by the taste of a king’s blood, will next devour their fellow-members. The Girondins, the heart and brains of France, are expelled from the convention, dragged to prison and to the guillotine. Paine’s plea for mercy can not be forgiven. He is imprisoned; sentence of death is finally pronounced against him; the hour for his execution, with that of his fellow-prisoners, is set.

Fortuitously he escapes. In summoning the victims for execution he is overlooked. Soon after, and before the mistake is discovered, the bloody Robespierre is overthrown, and his own neck receives the blow he meant for Paine. The fall of Robespierre stems the crimson torrent and, in time, secures for Paine his freedom. His imprisonment has lasted nearly a year, a year never to be forgotten, a year of chaos, from which is to arise a fairer and a better France. s 

Editor’s Note: 

For 2023 readability, paragraph breaks were inserted into the above text from 1916.