[See the works of President Theodore Roosevelt forthis quotation of his opinion of Thomas Paine. DW]
"Every syllable of that characterization is a shameful falsehood."—William M. Salter, A.M.
"One of the most transparently false and indefensible slanders that ever came from lip or pen."—J. P. Bland, B. D.
"Was he filthy? He was the friend and associate of Washington and Franklin. He was a member of the most conspicuous philosophical society in the new world. He was associated with the most distinguished men of the philosophical circles of France. Was he little? He entered an intellectual combat with Edmund Burke, and won immortal renown. Was he little? He was big enough and mighty enough to make the throne of Great Britain tremble. Was he little? He was big enough to make in America as well as in France the cause of human liberty his debtor forever "—Dr. John E. Roberts.
Commenting on this slander theNationof England says: "After all, our feelings of resentment at such a brutality are assuaged by the reflection that whereas, this man, will in a quick generation sink to the obscurity from which a series of accidents lifted him for a few years, history will gradually set in its proper place among the makers of the Republic the memory of the man whom he defamed."
"All this vilification is really the tribute that mediocrity pays to genius."—Elbert Hubbard.
Walt Whitman: "Paine was double damnably lied about."
"Anything lower, meaner, more contemptible, I cannot imagine, to take an aged man—a man tired to death after a complicated life of toil, struggle, anxiety—weak, dragged down, at death's door;... then to pull him into the mud, distort everything he does and says; oh, it's infamous."
"Thomas Paine had a noble personality, as exhibited in presence, face, voice, dress, manner, and what may be called his atmosphere and magnetism, especially the later years of his life. I am sure of it. Of the foul and foolish fictions yet told about the circumstances of his decease, the absolute fact is that he lived a good life, after its kind; he died calmly and philosophically, as became him."
Dr. Morrison Davidson: "He died as he lived, one of the grandest examples of intellectual piety, fidelity and rectitude that ever lived."
New York Advertiser (June 9, 1809): "With heartfelt sorrow and poignant regret, we are compelled to announce to the world that Thomas Paine is no more. This distinguished philanthropist, whose life was devoted to the cause of humanity, departed this life yesterday morning; and, if any man's memory deserves a place in the breast of a freeman, it is that of the deceased, for,
"'Take him for all in all,We ne'er shall look upon his like again.'"
(Paine's remains were buried on his farm at New Rochelle. Ten years later, because of America's ingratitude and neglect, William Cobbett had his bones disinterred and sent to England. In connection with their reinterment he had planned a great popular demonstration. "When I return," he said, "I shall cause them to speak the common sense of the great man; I shall gather together the people of Liverpool and Manchester in one assembly with those of London, and those bones will effect the reformation of England in Church and State."
Cobbett, probably waiting for a more opportune time, failed to carry out his cherished scheme. The bones of Paine reposed for nearly thirty years in their coffin and then disappeared. As late as 1854 a Unitarian clergyman claimed to have in his possession "the skull and the right hand of Thomas Paine.")
"The skull and the right hand of Thomas Paine!" What priceless relics! Could they be found America should repossess them, place them in a casket of gold and preserve them in a shrine at her national capitol. Within that skull was conceived this great republic. That hand wrote the inspired volume which transformed a vague dream into a glorious reality. That hand, too, wrote two other immortal works which, slowly but surely, are effecting what Cobbett contemplated, "the reformation of England in Church and State."
"His 'Rights of Man' is now the political constitution of England, his 'Age of Reason' is the growing constitution of its Church."—Dr. Conway.
"As to his bones, no man knows the place of their rest to this day. His principles rest not. His thoughts, untraceable like his dust, are blown about the world which he held in his heart. For a hundred years no human being has been born in the civilized world without some spiritual tincture from that heart whose every pulse was for humanity, whose last beat broke a fetter of fear, and fell on the throne of thrones."—Ibid.
Rev. Charles Wendt, DD.: "A much abused name."
Rev. O. B. Frothingham: "No private character has been more foully calumniated in the name of God than that of Thomas Paine."
"No page in history, stained as it is with treachery and falsehood, or cold-blooded indifference to right or wrong, exhibits a more disgraceful instance of public ingratitude than that which Thomas Paine experienced from an age and country which he had so faithfully served."—Rev. Solomon Southwick.
Referring to Paine, the BostonHeraldsays: "It has, perhaps, never fallen to the lot of any really great man to be so traduced in his lifetime, and, after the grave has closed over him, to have his memory so weighted down with obloquy of unsparing critics." Mrs. Bradlaugh-Bonner of England, daughter of Charles Bradlaugh, one of England's noted orators and statesmen, says: "Paine's politics were politics for the people, and the people were taught to deny him; his ideal religion was 'the Religion of Humanity,' and humanity would not even grant him a grave." Col. Ingersoll says: "I challenge the world to show that Thomas Paine ever wrote one line, one word in favor of tyranny—in favor of immorality; one line, one word against what he believed to be for the highest and best interests of mankind; one line, one word against justice, charity or liberty; and yet he has been pursued as though he had been a fiend from hell."
Harriet Law: "There are few to whom the world owes more, and probably none to whose memory it has been more ungrateful."
Edward D. Mead: "There is no other man in our religious or political history who has been the victim of such misrepresentation, of such persistent obloquy, as Thomas Paine."
"As we go back into the Dark Ages we read of the horrible atrocities perpetrated in the name of religion, and this feeling had not yet passed away during the time that Thomas Paine lived."—Admiral George W. Melville.
Hon. Andrew D. White, LL. D.: "Great, and, indeed, cruel injustice was done him in his day, and has been continued in large measure ever since."
Eastern Daily Press (England): "The fires still burn, although a hundred years have passed."
"For more than a century his name has been as a touchstone revealing the unappeasable malevolence of men's intolerance."—Mrs. Bradlaugh-Bonner.
Kumar Krishna de Varma, L. T. O. (Bombay, India): "The Orthodox have always slandered the immortal author of the 'Age of Reason' and the 'Rights of Man.'"
Prof. Ernst Haeckel: "Thomas Paine, the immortal author of the celebrated books, 'Age of Reason,' 'Common Sense,' 'Rights of Man,' and 'Crisis,' belongs to those meritorious Truththinkers who during their lifetime were not accorded the honor and acknowledgment that they well merited. The traditional historians of schoolbooks not only neglected him for many years but deliberately maligned and slandered him."
"Religious bigots have done all in their power to defame his character and rob him of the laurels with which we crown him to-day."—Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
D. M. Bennett: "Does a man with such a brilliant career, one having made such a magnificent record, and one to whom the world owes far more than it can ever pay, deserve to have his name maligned, his memory blackened, and all his actions and motives belied and misrepresented? Is it honorable? Is it manly? Is it just?"
Helen H. Gardener: "So long as a man, whether he be layman, bishop, cardinal or pope, is willing to bear false witness against his neighbor, whether that neighbor be living or dead, just so long will all the blood of all the Redeemers of all the nations of the earth be unable to wash his soul white enough to place it beside that of the patriot hero, Thomas Paine."
William T. Stead: "Paine and Ingersoll are assailed by the same weapons, subjected to the same aspersions, and misrepresented in the same merciless fashion as He [Christ] was assailed and misrepresented by the orthodox of his time.... If it is right to treat Paine and Ingersoll in this harsh, carping, uncharitable, malevolent fashion, then it is equally right to apply it to the founder of the faith."
Elmina Drake Slenker: "And this mild work, the 'Age of Reason,' is the real cause of all the cruel calumnies that the world has circulated about the hero, the scholar, the philosopher, the scientist, the inventor, the humanitarian, Thomas Paine."
Lillian Leland: "Paine... had ideals of intellectual and religious freedom, and was flung down from the pedestal of honor, broken, cast off and ostracized for venturing to criticise the received forms of religion."
"The replies to Thomas Paine," says George W. Foote of London, "were the work of Christian ruffians. Bishop Watson was the only one who attempted to answer Paine's arguments. The others only called him names; apparently on the principle that to charge a Freethinker with drunkenness and profligacy is the shortest and easiest way of proving that the Bible is the Word of God."
George E. Macdonald of New York, says: "The strongest defense of the Bible against the 'Age of Reason' was the allegation that Paine drank brandy, although the Bible commends liquor drinking and the ministers of that period were unrestricted in their potations."
"Around New Rochelle, where Thomas Paine lived, and where this myth about his drunkenness has its geography, there were deacons by the dozen who were drinking regularly more than Thomas Paine ever drank, without in the slightest degree affecting their religious reputation. I speak of these things, which I have investigated, because I feel so strongly the wrong which has been done to this man."—Edward D. Mead.
Gilbert Vale: "Could the 'Age of Reason' and 'Rights of Man' have been replied to as he replied to Burke we should have never heard these slanders."
William Ware Cotter:
"Let libelers' gall-envenomed tonguesMake bitter every word they speak;Time will disclose the patriot's wrongsAnd blanch with shame the slanderer's cheek."
M. Courtois: "He has labored to found liberty in two worlds."
Hon. Jonathan Bourne, Jr.: "Thomas Paine in England and America and Thomas Jefferson in America became the chanticleers of liberty."
Hon. John J. Ingalls: "Paine was one of the great apostles of human liberty, and did much to emancipate mankind from the shackles of ancient prejudice and error."
"A warm friend to the liberty and lasting welfare of the human race."—Samuel Adams.
Prof. Lester F. Ward, LL.D.: "Thanks to Paine and other great reformers, we have emerged from the condition where the political struggle is the main issue. In other words political liberty has been attained."
T. J. Bowles, M. D.: "At the close of the eighteenth century it dawned upon the minds of the immortal Paine, Jefferson and Franklin that all men are created equal, and this conception born in the minds of this trinity of saviors made the nineteenth century the most marvelous and the happiest period in the history of the world."
Earl John Francis Stanley Russell: "A great reformer and an illustrious heretical pioneer."
"His name stands for mental freedom and moral courage."—George W. Foote.
"Thomas Paine was a heroic innovator. He said what he thought and he meant what he said."—Rev. George Burman Foster.
John Wesley Jarvis: "He devoted his whole life to the attainment of two objects—rights of man and freedom of conscience."
Prof. H. M. Kottinger, A. M.: "Thomas Paine fought as courageously for religious liberty as he did for civil liberty."
"I dare not say how much of what our Union is owing and enjoying to-day—its independence—its ardent belief in, and substantial practice of, radical human rights—and the severance of its government from all ecclesiastical and superstitious dominions—I dare not say how much of all this is owing to Thomas Paine, but I am inclined to think a good portion of it decidedly is."—Walt. Whitman.
"It was his clear head and brave and righteous soul that inspired the men who declared our independence, and put into the Constitution of the United States such a veto against ecclesiastical domination as has defied its proud and conceited usurpation to the present day."—Elizur Wright.
H. Lee-Warner: "Its [Thetford's] great man who taught the world to respect the right of free-thought."
(The one hundredth anniversary of the death of Thomas Paine was observed at his birthplace. The mayor of Thetford presided, and four members of the British Parliament delivered eulogistic addresses.)
George Anderson: "One of the noblest Freethinkers in the world's history.
"Paine is the idol of Freethinkers. He is enthroned in our hearts because he gave his life to freedom."—L. K. Washburn.
"In both worlds he offered his blood for the good of man. In the wilderness of America, in the French Convention, in the sombre cell awaiting death, he was the same unflinching, unwavering friend of his race; the same undaunted champion of freedom."—Ingersoll.
Martin L. Bunge: "I owe much to Thomas Paine. His words have guided me in my struggle for liberty and truth. The more I study him the more I love the human race."
Isador Ladoff: "Freethought was to him not a mere attitude of mind, but a philosophy of life and action."
Prof. M. N. Wright: "He will always stand as an illustrious example of that higher reverence, that diviner faith of the incoming religion—a religion based in the common wants of a common humanity."
William Marion Reedy: "He glorified common sense.... He is one of the chief saints of the Church of Man."
Rev. Paul Jordan Smith: "When Thomas Paine first saw the light of day it was the custom of certain disciples of peace and good will to beat and burn the man who wanted to think.... And down the days that since have passed it has been the fashion of the blatant orthodox to cry, 'Infidel!' 'Infidel!' at the man who said: 'Any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system.' 'The world is my country; to do good my religion.'"
Robert Blatchford: "Paine left Moses and Isaiah centuries behind when he wrote: 'The world is my country; to do good my religion.'"
Stoughton Cooley: "One of the most devoted spirits in the cause of liberty."
East Anglian Daily Times: "The Rights of Man' and the 'Age of Reason' may have scandalized orthodox opinion, but their author was never engaged in any but a generous and noble cause, that had complete personal liberty for its sole object and aim."
"They [Lord Bolingbroke and Thomas Paine] were alike in making bitter enemies of the priests and pharisees of their day. Both were honest men; both advocates of human liberty."—Thomas Jefferson.
J. C. Hannon: "Liberty, hunted around the globe, has ever found its highest hope, its safest refuge, in the affections of those upon whose grand and noble foreheads the tyrants of the world have ever branded the indelible stigma of Infidelity. Thomas Paine, who has done more for human liberty than any other man who ever lived, has borne it with a grace amounting to sublimity."
Dr. J. B. Wilson: "Towering spires, blazing altars, jeweled palaces, and golden thrones had awed and subdued the Eastern nations for all time. It remained for Thomas Paine, standing upon the shores of this western world, to tear away the blinds of superstition, hypocrisy, selfishness, and imperial pretense, and awaken mankind to a consciousness of its own power and capacity for self-government."
Walter Holloway: "Age after age men have struggled toward the ideal, with toil and tears, praying in their pain, sobbing out their sorrows in the half-light of hope, forever beaten back from the coveted goal. Wise men long ago saw that the gods must be dethroned and the government of earth given into the hands of men. That was the passionate dream of Thomas Paine."
M. Felix Rabbe: "Thomas Paine has suffered the fate of all those who, listening only to their conscience of honest manhood, solely attentive to the voices of Nature and Reason, raised principles above all considerations of frontiers, parties, sects, and sacrificed without hesitation the mean calculations of a temporizing policy to the higher interests of eternal justice."
"The world has had few such men, those who divest themselves of selfish motives of gain or pride and are willing to suffer obloquy and poverty for a conviction."—Edward C. Wentworth.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton.: "We cannot be too grateful to those who through poverty, persecution, imprisonment, and death have given us the light of science in the place of blind faith on questions of government, religion, and social life. Thomas Paine is a worthy name in the long line of martyrs to liberal political and religious principles."
"Poor, abused, maligned, hated and persecuted, Paine stood alone in the ocean of superstition, ignorance and prejudice as the Liberty Statue of religious thought while the waves of malice, ostracism and anathema lashed against his kind and manly brow."—Rev. David W. Bash.
Rev. Dr. Thomas Slicer: "The progress of the world in political and religious liberty will be written in the estimates that the world has learned to take of Thomas Paine during the hundred years since he fell into an unnoticed grave."
"Thomas Paine made it impossible to write the history of human liberty with his name left out. He was one of the creators of light. He was one of the heralds of the dawn."—Col. R. G. Ingersoll.
"I enjoy myself when I think how free I am, and I thank this man for it. When I think of that the whole horizon is full of glory, and joy comes to me in every ray of sunshine and every rustle of the winds."—Ibid.
James F. Morton, Jr.:
"Since time began,No greater prophet faced the savage banOf priest and king."
Rev. David W. Bush: "How unwise to deny myself the companionship of one of the greatest, bravest, most self-sacrificing men of all time because he has written things I cannot accept."
Pearl W. Geer: "This is the beauty of Free-thought—the glory of Infidelity. We recognize good in everything where good is to be found. While we do not accept all of Thomas Paine's ideas we recognize in him the greatest man the world has ever known."
"There is not in Illinois a monument that stands as high as Abraham Lincoln; nor in Massachusetts as high as Ralph Waldo Emerson; nor in the world as high as Thomas Paine."—L. K. Washburn.
"The wisest, brightest, humblest son of earth."—Clio Rickman.
Rev. George Croly: "An impartial estimate of this remarkable man has been rarely formed and still more rarely expressed. He was assuredly one of the original men of the age in which he lived."
Col. Charles Stedman (a Tory officer in the Revolution): "Thomas Paine has rendered his name famous on the theatre of Europe and of the world."
Robert Shelton Mackenzie: "We cannot ignore the fact that he was one of the ablest politicians of his time and that liberal minds all over the world recognize him as such."
"Washington recognized his practical insight, Napoleon picked him out from the crowd of 'ideaologues' and consulted him."—London Times.
William Cobbett, one of the most notable figures in English politics, who, misled by Paine's enemies, had been one of his most violent assailants, thus frankly acknowledges his indebtedness to him: "Old age having laid his hand upon this truly great man, this truly philosophical politician, at his expiring flambeau I lighted my taper."
Charles Bradlaugh: "He was a sturdy, true man. Though Norfolk born, not English, but human, and with nothing of geographical limit to that humanity. As a politician, or rather as a thinker on politics he stands for England as Jean Jacques Rousseau has stood for France. You on your side ought to reverence him for the timely words which gave form and reality to vague, unspoken thought. We, on our side, too, ought to honor him for the 'Rights of Man' yet to be wearisomely achieved."
Atlantic Monthly: (July, 1859): "His career was wonderful, even for the age of miraculous events he lived in. In America he was a Revolutionary hero of the first rank, who carried letters in his pocket from George Washington, thanking him for his services. And he managed besides to write his radical name in large letters in the History of England and France."
W. W. Bartlett: "He was undeniably preeminent among statesmen, and by his many-sidedness he succeeded in rousing the whole civilized world."
Marshall J. Gauvin: "In honoring the memory of Thomas Paine we recognize and salute one of the greatest forces in history."
"Other men have followed events; Paine actually created them.... he wanted a Declaration of Independence, and he produced the wish for it."—Gilbert Vale.
Hugh Byron Brown: "There are a few great men who, like milestones along the road of progress, are so distinguished and prominent, and who have so influenced the destinies of nations, as to mark an epoch in the world's history. Such a man was Thomas Paine."
Michael Monahan: "One of the notables of history."
Rev. E. M. Frank: "Thomas Paine was, in his time, one who stood in the forefront of human progress."
Dr. Edward Bond Foote: "As Lincoln was the man for his time and place, so Paine fitted perfectly and filled remarkably the niche which history allotted to him."
Horace L. Green: "Thomas Paine, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, the glorious trinity of Independence."
Eugene V. Debs: "The revolutionary history of the United. States and France stirred me deeply and its heroes and martyrs became my idols. Thomas Paine towered above them all."
Knut Martin Teigen, M.D., Ph.D.: "Thomas Paine was, beyond all doubt, a true genius."
Dr. John Walker (with Paine in France): "There can be no question that Paine was a man of the most gigantic genius and of the soundest practical knowledge."
Joel Barlow, ambassador to France during Napoleon's reign, Paine's companion in London and Paris, and to whom he entrusted the manuscript of his "Age of Reason" when he was taken to prison, says: "Paine was endowed with the clearest perception, an uncommon share of original genius, and the greatest depth of thought.... As a visiting acquaintance and literary friend, he was one of the most instructive men I have ever known."
"He ought to be ranked among the brightest and most undeviating luminaries of the age in which he lived."—Ibid.
"To me Thomas Paine appears as one of the master spirits of the earth."—Horace Seaver.
"One who deserves from his still ungrateful country an honored place in her Hall of Fame."—Rev. Eugene Rodman Shippen.
Rev. Dr. L. M. Birkhead: "Paine in days to come will be considered one of the greatest men and statesmen the world has ever known."
"I regard Thomas Paine as one of the greatest men the world has ever produced, and all ought to be proud that he belonged to our race."—Sir Hiram Maxim.
Glasgow Herald: "Paine was greater than he knew."
"The two men who have left the richest heritage of thought and made the deepest imprint upon the minds of mankind for future ages,... Thomas Paine and Charles Darwin [Darwin was born in the year that Paine died], were in turn the Elijah and the Elisha of the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries of the Christian era. One hundred years ago today Thomas Paine let fall his mantle of light upon the infant shoulders of Charles Darwin and vanished in a chariot of fire that shall blaze the trail of the seeker after truth from generation unto generation."—Alden Freeman.
Edward G Wentworth: "Giordano Bruno was one of the world's martyrs who died for a cause. Thomas Paine was one of the world's martyrs who lived for a cause. Each has created an imperishable name."
George Jacob Holyoake: "Paine was the most intrepid and influential Englishman that ever sprang from the ranks of the people."
"The man who was the confidant of Burke, the counsellor of Franklin, and the friend and colleague of Washington, must have had great qualities."
"He belongs to England. His fame is the property of England; and if no other people will show that they value that fame, the people of England will:"—William Cobbett.
Rev. J. Lloyd Jones, LL. D.: "Great souls are the key-stones in the arches that unite the races.... German provincialism died when Lessing, Schiller, and Goethe were born. The insignificant island lost its insular character when Shakespeare wrote. The emaciated thirteen colonies became great when Washington, Franklin, Paine, and Jefferson spoke for them."
Mohammed Ali Webb: "All educated Mohammedans know him. The intelligent Moslem places Thomas Paine among the world's admirable men and holds his memory in great reverence."
U. Dhammaloka: "The Buddhist Tract Society of Burmah observed the one hundreth anniversary of the death of Thomas Paine. We had large audiences. I myself [president of this society] spoke to an audience of about five thousand at a town in Upper Burmah."
Kedàrnath Basu (of India): "My countrymen are beginning to admire and revere the noble character of Thomas Paine."
Yoshiro Oyama (Japan): "Thomas Paine was one of the greatest of the great men of the world."
Francois Thane: "The French people would be proud to have his ashes rest in the Pantheon beside the grave of Voltaire."
George Legg Henderson: "The time is not far distant when all the world will recognize in Thomas Paine the martyr, the hero, the man."
Prof. A. L. Rawson, LL. D.: "More men like Paine are wanted, and will appear from time to time, until the whole human race has grown in intelligence, reason and taste."
Judge Arnold Krekel, LL. D.: "Let us carry forward, then, the work in which the man we honor was so largely and so successfully engaged."
Libby C. Macdonald: "The lips of Thomas Paine are still in death, but we can voice his principles through ours."
"I commend the study of the life of Paine to the young men of today."—Hon. William J. Gaynor.
"Time will come when the problem of school education will be how to make good citizens of our boys and girls, and there are no better books for this purpose than those of Thomas Paine."—John S. Crosby.
"With the spirit of Thomas Paine in our hearts no despot, foreign or domestic, will ever be able to build his throne beside the grave of our liberty."—Rev. Thomas B. Gregory.
"Had the world but heeded the wise counsels of Thomas Paine, Europe would not now be drenched in blood."—W. M. van der Weyde.
Rev. J. Page Hopps: "Paine was a splendid radical prophet, and therefore, though a thoroughly practical man, was only a teacher and leader born too soon."
Rev. Marie J. Howe: "Paine did not belong to the eighteenth century, but was only born in it. He belongs to this."
Clarence Darrow: "Thomas Paine was so far beyond his age that a hundred years has not been long enough for the world to catch up. Sometime he will stand out as the wisest, truest, bravest friend of liberty that America can boast."
Henry Gaylord Wilshire: "Paine was the greatest man this country has produced, and it is only a question of time when we will come to realize it."
"Paine, being a genius, saw a vision of the future and the glories that should be. The herd did not, and we do not, but we shall some day."
Rev. Robert J. Lockhart: "He was a light that shed a splendor whose origin no man could declare. He was greater than the times he lived in."
Horace J. Bridges: "Some men are too great and too far ahead of their times to get justice at contemporary hands. Being too broad and impartial for any single party, they offend all parties, and are rejected and reviled by all. Such in England was the fate of Cromwell and Milton; and such in America has been the fate of Paine."
Herbert N. Casson: "Paine was a man who did not belong to his time, a man who was far larger than the men among whom he lived. He was loaned, as it were, from a larger planet to this small one. And he was given to this country at a time when the country most needed a guide and a wise teacher in the cause of independence and truth."
Rev. Dwight Galloupe, U. S. A.: "I am proud to speak the name of one who, in too many memories, lives only as an outcast and Ishmael among men—Thomas Paine. I cannot forget that when all was dark his eye saw a star of hope, his faith heard the tramping of millions of free people yet unborn. His devotion kept him steadfast until the Stars and Stripes compelled the recognition of the world."
"The man whose eloquent and reasoned appeal, 'Common Sense,' first formulated the demand for Independence, the first coiner of the great thought and expression, 'The United States of America,' the man whom Washington and Jefferson were proud to call their friend, and whose magnificent work for the liberty of their country they acknowledged with unstinted praise."—The Nation.
George Washington: "That his 'Common Sense' and many of his 'Crisis' were well timed and had a happy effect on the public mind, none, I believe, who will turn to the epochs at which they were published will deny."
"Must the merits of Common Sense continue to glide down the stream of time unrewarded by his country? His writings certainly have had a powerful effect on the public mind,—ought they not then to meet an adequate return?"
"If you will come to this place and partake with me I shall be exceedingly glad to see you at it. Your presence may remind Congress of your past services to this country; and if it is in my power to impress them, command my best exertions with freedom, as they will be rendered cheerfully by one who entertains a lively sense of the importance of your works."
"I am in hopes you will find us returned generally to sentiments worthy of former [Revolutionary] times. In these it will be your glory to have steadily labored, and with as much effect as any man living."—Thomas Jefferson.
Colonel John Laurens: "You will be received with open arms, and all that affection and respect which our citizens are anxious to testify to the author of 'Common Sense' and the 'Crisis.'"
"I wish you to regard this part of America [the Carolinas] as your particular home—and every thing that I can command in it to be in common between us."
Robert Emmett: "To be associated with Mr. Paine, whose services to America are reflected in the glory of her Republic and the happiness of her people, must be to any one who loves liberty, or regards private virtues and public accomplishments, a source of peculiar pride."
James Monroe: "The citizens of the United States cannot look back upon the times of their own Revolution without recollecting among the names of their most distinguished patriots that of Thomas Paine. The services he rendered to his country in its struggle for freedom have implanted in the hearts of his countrymen a sense of gratitude never to be effaced as long as they deserve the title of a just and generous people."
"The crime of ingratitude has not yet stained, and I trust never will stain our national character. You are considered by them as not only having rendered an important service in our Revolution, but as being on a more extensive scale, the friend of human rights, and a distinguished and able advocate in favor of public liberty."
James Madison (to Washington): "Whether a greater disposition to reward patriotic and distinguished efforts of genius will be found on any succeeding occasion, is not for me to predetermine. Should it finally appear that the merits of the man whose writings have so much contributed to infuse and foster the spirit of independence in the people of America, are unable to inspire them with a just beneficence, the world, it is to be feared, will give us as little credit for our policy as for our gratitude in this particular."
Madison, Jefferson, Edmund Randolph, and others urged the appointment of Paine to a place in Washington's cabinet.
"A little less modesty, a little more preference of himself to humanity, and a good deal more of what ought to be common sense on the part of the people he sought to free, and he would have been President of the United States."—Calvin Blanchard.
Marquis de Lafayette: "To me America without her Thomas Paine is unthinkable."
Should you ever visit Mount Vernon you will see among the many interesting relics preserved there a key. It is the Key of the Bastille, the demolition of which, on the 14th of July, 1789, was France's Declaration of Independence. This key passed through the hands of three celebrated men and associates in the mind the world's two greatest revolutions. Its history, briefly stated, is as follows: "Jefferson [then Minister to France] had sailed [for America] in September, and Paine was recognized by Lafayette and other leaders as the representative of the United States. To Paine Lafayette gave for presentation to Washington the key of the destroyed Bastille, ever since visible at Mount Vernon—symbol of the fact that, in Paine's words, 'the principles of America opened the Bastille.'"—Conway.
Dr. J. Rudis-Jicinsky: "When, in Germany, I read for the first time Paine's 'Common Sense' I thought that in the land of liberty, the United States, this hero who upheld the cause of the Colonies must be glorified and his works known to every patriotic citizen... To my astonishment I found that in this country the name of this great writer was not even known to all its citizens. Then a flood of light flashed through my brain and by its rays I spelled the word 'Ingratitude.'"
Unknown Writer (written in an old volume of Paine's works in a Philadelphia library): "He has no name. The country for which he labored and suffered knows him not. His ashes rest in a foreign land. A rough grass-grown mound, from which the bones have been purloined [now surmounted by a handsome monument] is all that remains on the continent of America to tell of the hero, the statesman, and the friend of man."
Rev. John Snyder of St. Louis says: "Paine is one of his country's half-forgotten saviors. In the mind of that country his heresy has canceled the years of loving and priceless service he rendered to a new-born nation. The clamor of bigotry has drowned the voice of gratitude."
"His patriotism shows not the slightest stain, and yet children have been taught to abhor his name."—Ibid.
"The highest monument of injustice on this earth is America's ingratitude to Thomas Paine."—James P. Bland, B.D.
"It is time the world awakened to his merits."—Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
"It is time that justice should be done the memory of the man who strove and suffered for his fellowmen."—William Marion Reedy.
"The Republic owes so much to him that it is hardly seemly that it should continue doing less than justice to his memory."—New York World.
Hon. Henry S. Randall: "Concede all the allegations against him and it still leaves him the author of 'Common Sense' and certain other papers, which rung like clarions in the darkest hour of the Revolutionary struggle, inspiring the bleeding and starving and pestilence-stricken as the pen of no other man ever inspired them."
"Shame rest on the pen which dares not to do him justice."
"A religion which will incite its followers, with virtual unanimity, to pursue with malignant hatred and to blacken with all the refinements of insatiable malice the memory of a distinguished benefactor of the human race, on the sole ground of his renunciation of certain theological dogmas, is undeniably the embodiment of a spirit hostile to intellectual liberty and human progress."—James F. Morton, Jr.
"The national ingratitude displayed toward him on account of the fact of his theological heresies has hardly a parallel in history. In vindicating his memory, and calling attention, afresh to his invaluable services, we are not indulging in a blind hero worship, but are establishing a principle. The securing of justice to Paine, against the venomous hatred invoked by his priestly enemies, involves a crushing blow to clerical malice, and the winning of a victory which will have large consequences. In the person of Paine, we are vindicating the principles of religious liberty and confounding its antagonists."—Ibid.
"The Atheists and Secularists of our time are printing, reading, revering a work ['Age of Reason'] that opposes their opinions. For above its arguments and criticisms they see the faithful heart contending with a mighty Apollyon, girt with all the forces of revolutionary and royal Terrorism. Just this one Englishman, born again in America, confronting George III. and Robespierre on earth and tearing the like of them from the throne of the universe! Were it only for the grandeur of this spectacle in the past Paine would maintain his hold on thoughtful minds. But in America the hold is deeper than that. In this self-forgetting insurrection of the human heart against deified Inhumanity there is an expression of the inarticulate wrath of humanity against continuance of the same wrong... There is still visible, however refined, the sting and claw of the Apollyon against whom Paine hurled his far-reaching dart."—Dr. Conway.
Judge Thomas Herttell: "No man in modern ages has done more to benefit mankind, or distinguished himself more for the immense moral good he has effected for his species, than Thomas Paine."
Ernestine L. Rose: "He was one of the greatest benefactors of mankind."
Theodore Parker: "His instincts were humane and elevated,' and his life was devoted mainly to the great purposes of humanity."
"We find in Paine united two qualities which were rare in the eighteenth century—political sagacity and humanity."—Hector Macpherson.
"His career is only reduced to intelligible consistency when we recognize that the impelling force behind his social, political and religious activities was an overmastering passion for humanity."—Ibid.
Edwin C. Walker:. "Paine was the least insular, the least provincial—the most cosmopolitan—of all whose names have come down to us from the ages gone... His sympathies were broader even than all humanity, for they enclosed other forms of life as well, and were as varied as the needs of all who suffered and aspired."
Ellery Sedgwick: "He hated cruelty in every form. He hated war, he hated slavery, he hated injustice; and his public life was one long battle against every form of oppression."
"His free lance was ever at the service of the poor and oppressed, but never to be bought by favors of the court, or awed by the menaces of kings or the anathemas of priests."—Hugh Byron Brown.
J. W. Whicker: "The growth of knowledge in the passing years will hallow the name of this author, this patriot, this hero of two continents. His life and his deeds are one sweet story of service for his kind."
John R. Charlesworth: "His weapon was a pen. His mind jeweled with gems of thought, richer by far than silver or gold, he gave of his intellectual treasures without price."