Tom Paine's Bones

Thomas Paine was an English/American political activist, author and political theorist, whose words helped shape modern Britain and France, Born to a Quaker family of Thetford, England, on January 29th , 1737 ( or February 9th, 1737 according the Gregorian calender) ,the son of an artisan, he was well educated at Thetford Grammar School but soon chafed at the constraints of his home town. His chequered career eventually led him to the American colonies where he emigrated in 1774 with the help of Benjamin Franklin. There he found his calling, as a revolutionary writer.

Thomas Paine played a crucial part in the American Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789, after his popular pamphlets Common Sense and The American Crisis swept through the Western worlds, both new and old, placing before the public eye in simple, yet dramatic terms, the virtues of self-government and individual liberty.

On  January 10 1776, his pamphlet Common Sense  was published for the first time ( though anonymously,because of its treasonous content.). Here he delivered his uncompromising message to the common people, which set the seeds for the American  Revolution.In this important document, he passionately urged the American to create a new form of government - a modern republic, based entirely on popular consent. He believed all men were born equal, so saw no need for Kings and Queens, he also distinguished  between governments and society, at the root of all governments is evil but the root of society lay good. The pamphlet called for the end of British tyranny in the American colonies and a break with a country ruled by kings. Common Sense made its appearance at a crucial moment as the debate for American independence reached a tipping point.

Common Sense ignited a wildfire.The numbers were astonishing—150,000 copies were in print within a few months (roughly equivalent to 15 million copies today). But its real impact can best be measured in the way that colonists from Massachusetts to South Carolina moved in the direction that Paine prescribed. “Without the pen of Paine,” as one contemporary wrote, “the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain.” 

He became a champion of equality and liberty and went on to support struggles in Britain and France, he  despised tyranny and oppression, the divine right of kings, organised religion, the death penalty and slavery.  He loved reason, freedom, the emancipation of mankind and was the first person to coin the term “the United States of America” and to use the term “democracy” as something other than a pejorative.

 Paine thought the revolution in America did not go far enough since it did not abolish black slavery and he thought the revolution in France went too far since it became entrenched in medieval violence and bloodshed. He took bold private stands in both revolutions against his own friends, colleagues and comrades, never willing to compromise his conscience, but always ready to go it alone if that’s where the courage of his convictions took him – and it nearly always did.

Returning to Europe in 1787, and in response to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, he published his most famous work, The Rights of Man, 1791-2,  dedicated to Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette, Rights of Man extensively lays out Paine’s Republican utopianism and envisions a society where man’s natural rights are respected, all forms of hereditary government such as monarchy and aristocracy are abolished, and the welfare of the poor are taken care of. Paine’s work resulted in him receiving honorary French citizenship as a reward, as well as a seat on the French Constitutional Committee.

Paine fled to France and was briefly elected to the French National Convention. Imprisoned in the Bastille for opposing the execution of Louis XVI in 1793, Sentenced to death by Robespierre, he escaped his fate only by a miraculous accident (the executioners marked his cell door on the wrong side). Free again, Paine lashed out at President Washington, whom he blamed for not coming to his rescue.This alone would have been enough to secure his lasting ignominy in America, but Paine had more in mind. 

In 1795, he released the final, and most daring, chapter of his classic trilogy. The Age of Reason, an attack on traditional religion and the Christian church, made him one of history’s great apostates. He returned to America in 1802, his promotion of the concept of human rights greatly influenced the American Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.

However scurrilous attacks followed him in his waning years. It was symbolically appropriate that, as he tottered around New York City, he could find no place to be buried. (Even the arch liberal Quakers spurned his request.) His last years in America often depressed, drunk and in poverty. When he died on the 8th of Jine 1809, tragically only six people attended his funeral in New Rochelle, New York, and his tombstone was desecrated soon afterward.

His isolated grave was all but forgotten until a onetime foe, then later admirer, radical newspaper editor William Cobbett, dug up his skeleton, without permission ten years after his death. Cobbett was horrified when he visited Paine’s neglected grave in 1819 and deeply felt that the man had not been given his posthumous due. He decided that since America had turned its back on its revolutionary hero, he would rebury him in England,with grand plans for a memorial that would inspire England’s democracy movement.

After disinterring Paine’s grave, he shipped the bones in a common merchandise crate and predicted their momentous effect. “…those bones will effect the reformation of England in Church and State.” Unfortunately for Cobbett, the bones failed to stir England and Cobbett became a laughingstock, the subject of vicious caricatures and grim jokes.

Despite Cobbett’s noble motive, the public responded in horror to the desecration of the grave, especially because of the surreptitious way he went about it. Lord Byron even wrote about the incident, which was quoted at the time:

“In digging up your bones, Tom Paine,
Will Cobbett has done well;
You visit him on earth again;
He’ll visit you in hell”

 The memorial never materialized and when Cobbett died a bankrupt in 1835, Paine’s bones remained above ground, in debtor’s limbo. Surviving the auctioneer’s hammer as a matter of taste, different fragments or parts of Paine’s bones were then over time dispersed and scattered over four corners of the earth.Parts of Paine might still be in England, possibly in the form of buttons made from his bones. There might be a rib in France. A man in Australia who claims to be a descendant says he has Paine’s skull. No one really knows where the skull that held the mind which one day long ago opined, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” For  such a 'Citizen of the World', his mortal remains have no final resting place.

Paine remains ,an icon of defiant, unorthodox idealism. and his promotion of the concept of human rights influenced the American Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.After his death, Napoleon is said to have suggested that every ‘free-thinking city’ should have a gold-plated statue of Paine. Instead, he is commemorated with a gilded bronze statue outside Thetford town hall commissioned by American philanthropist Joseph Lewis, who believed Paine was the true author of the American Declaration of Independence.  Paine’s work continues to be a great inspiration to politicians and activists he was a truth-teller, contentious and bold, who was adamant about holding accountable the brokers of authorised versions of history,calling out their hypocrisy, omissions and mistruths. I wonder what he would say in this age of tyranny, the rage spreading across the land of liberty, the urgent global crisis that we collectively face.would he still be speaking truth to power?,  His own basic philosophy, “The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion,” has never  been more timely. Hail to thee Tom Paine.

Here is  Dick Gaughan singing about the revolutionary 18th century thinker and propagandist The song  was written by Graham Moore.

Dick Gaughan - Tom Paine's Bones

 
As I dreamed out one evening
By a river of discontent
I bumped straight into old Tom Paine
As running down the road he went
He said, "I can't stop right now, child, King George is after me
He'd have a rope around my throat
And hang me on the Liberty Tree" But I will dance to Tom Paine's bones
Dance to Tom Paine's bones
Dance in the oldest boots I own
To the rhythm of Tom Paine's bones
I will dance to Tom Paine's bones
Dance to Tom Paine's bones
Dance in the oldest boots I own
To the rhythm of Tom Paine's bones "I only talked about freedom
And justice for everyone
But since the very first word I spoke
I've been looking down the barrel of a gun
They say I preached revolution
Let me say in my defence
That all I did wherever I went
Was to talk a lot of common sense"
Old Tom Paine he ran so fast
He left me standing still
And there I was, a piece of paper in my hand
Standing at the top of the hill
It said, "This is the Age Of Reason
These are The Rights Of Man
Kick off religion and monarchy"
It was written there in Tom Paine's plan
Old Tom Paine, there he lies
Nobody laughs and nobody cries
Where he's gone or how he fares
Nobody knows and nobody cares But I will dance to Tom Paine's bones
Dance to Tom Paine's bones
Dance in the oldest boots I own
To the rhythm of Tom Paine's bones
I will dance to Tom Paine's bones
Dance to Tom Paine's bones
Dance in the oldest boots I own
To the rhythm of Tom Paine's bones 

The writer/artist Paul Fitzgerald from Hulme in Manchester also known as Polyp,has been busily working to take Tom Paine out of stuffy lectures on politics and philosophy and onto the illustrated novel page.  Important update: copies of Paine are now on sale here!  The result of his labours is now out in the world, and is itself a cause for celebration. Paine: Being a Fantastical Visual Biography of the Vilified Enlightenment Hero, by his Ardent Admirer ‘Polyp’ quite lives up to its title. The book was funded through a Kickstarter appeal,