in this year's c-span student cam documentary competition. in the other midterm elections, picture yourself as a newly elected member of congress. we ask this year's competitors, what is your top priority and why? make a 5 to 6 minute video that shows the importance of your issue from opposing and supporting perspectives. don't be afraid to take risks with a documentary. be bold. amongst the $100,000 in cash prizes is a 5000-dollar grand prize. videos must be submitted january 20th, 2023. visit our website at student cam.org for competition rules, tips, resources and a step by step guide. listening to programs on c-span to c-span radio just got easier. tell your sports beaker play c-span radio and listen to washington journal daily at 7 am eastern, important

congressional hearings and other public affairs event throughout the day and weekdays at 5 pm to 9 pm eastern. catch washington today for a fast-paced report on the stories of the day. listen to c-span anytime. just to your sports maker play c-span radio. c-span, powered by cable. >> it is now my pleasure to introduce our speaker, doctor richard bell. doctor bell has presented many upstanding programs for smithsonian associates and topics related to early american history and the american revolutionary period over the course of the last several years. most, recently a program last month on baron vaughn struggle. it's a professor at the university of maryland, hold the ba from the university of cambridge in a ph. d. from harvard. he has won more than a dozen teaching awards, including a 2017 university system of maryland board of regions faculty award

for excellence in teaching, which is the highest honor for teaching faculty in the maryland state system. in addition, he has helped major research fellowship that yale, cambridge in the library of congress. and is a recipient of the 2018 national endowment of the humanities public scholar award into the 2021 andrew carnegie fellowship. he's the author of the book stolen, five people's kidnapped into slavery and are astonishing odyssey home. this book was a finalist for the 2020 george washington prize and about 2020 harriet tubman prize. doctor bell is a trustee of the maryland center for history and culture and a fellow of the royal historical society. it is a delight to have him back with us for another program. so, without further delay, please welcome dr. richard bell. welcome, rick. >> thank you, mary. i hope you can hear me okay and see me

okay. i'm going to go ahead and share my screen now, that might just take a couple seconds to get ready. let's get cracking. when thomas jefferson met thomas paine in paris, in 1787, he begged him to sit for a portrait. jefferson collected portraits of celebrated men and, in 1787, there were few men as celebrated as tom paine. the author of common sense, the 46 page pamphlet that had catalyzed the independence movement and overthrown the british monarchy in the colonies. i paine agreed to be painted and jefferson hung the little portrait in pride of place on the walls of monticello, his house in virginia. that was 1787. now, fast forward 40 years to 1828.

thomas jefferson is dead. and his family are selling off its possessions. when the auctioneers take out tom paine's portrait from the bottom of the box, they find his canvas torn and battered. there are knife holes through tom paine's eyes, there are stab marks in his chest, as if some children in jefferson's family had been allowed to vandalize it. the fate of tom paine's painting is, i think, an apt metaphor for tom paine's own extraordinary life. the man, toasted around the world in the 17 70s and 17 80s as the hero of the american revolution, ended his days as a discredited pariah. unceremoniously cast

aside. the ugly fate of that painting in monticello is also our first clue that thomas paine has never sat comfortably in the pantheon of america's founding fathers. a working class immigrant and sometime manual labor, paine sticks out from the rest like a sore thumb. famously, plain smoke it but devilishly smart. paine that was also far more radical and ideological than jefferson or any other leaders of the american revolution. as a radical, he had a lot to say. basically self taught, paine went toe to toe with a generation of american, british and french intellectuals and statesman. staking out very public and massively controversial positions on republicanism, on democracy, on social justice, on religious

freedom and on human rights. paine's unwavering beliefs and unwavering commitment to speaking bluntly about those beliefs indirectly made him far more enemies in his life than friends. and as the fate of his painting implies, paine's fall from public favor in the 17 90s and 18 hundreds was traumatic and dizzying. paine's widely publicized critiques of the british monarchy, of the french aristocracy, of george washington, of jesus and of the bible all brought down the wrath of the dominant classes

upon him. concerted to smear campaigns on both sides of the atlantic succeeded in turning the hero of the american revolution into the most despised public figure in the 18th century world. those attacks on him were devastating. and of the story of paine's demise and his death in 1809 is, to my mind, one of the most tragic of any public figure in that period. along the way, he would be spied on, spat at, shot at, tried and convicted in england, imprisoned and nearly executed in france and then defamed and denounced in the united states. it's an astonishing story and paine's life pulsated with risk and novelty and drama and surprise at every turn. so, let's get started in. tom paine was english, he was born in

norfolk, in eastern england in 1737. his father was a corset maker and he and young tom rarely saw eye to eye. like a lot of young men with difficult dads, tom left home when he was 19. set out for london. he was tall and slim, softspoken and a bit embarrassed about his country boy accent. he had been raised as a quaker like his dad, and that groups interest in commerce, their concern for political and social justice and their turn the other cheek morality surely rubbed off on him. but in london, he drifted away from quaker-ism, dabbling in anglican-ism and method-ism,

to other types of protestant christiane eddie. though he found no permanent religious home or community. money was tight. and after a while, paine did what a lot of other poor folk in london ended up doing when times got hard, he signed up to become a sailor. he was about to embark on his first voyage, on a ship called the terrible, when his dad arrived on the docks to talk about of what would have been a life shortening career choice. being a sailor's dangerous work. paine left london soon afterwards, moving to the town of louis on england's south coast. there, he got involved in a debating group who called themselves the headstrong club. he even scribbled out a few political, satirical and anti monarch occult pieces for the local paper there. sometimes

signing those pieces with a pen name, a pseudonym. try and guess what his pseudonym was. it was common sense. to pay the bills, paine tried his hand at shop keeping, corset making like his dad, teaching, being a tax collector. and he did also go to see as a sailor. but in all of these different occupations, tom paine was an unrelenting failure. his personal life was not much better. he lost his first wife in childbirth and he divorced his second wife. by 1774, paine was 37 years old. yet, he had little to show for himself. he was bankrupt and suffering from typhoid. when he had met benjamin franklin one day, back

when paine still lifted london, franklin had encouraged to the struggling young man to go start a new life in the american colonies. so, in 1774, tom paine did just that. clutching a very brief, a cursory letter of introduction from franklin, who barely knew him, paine booked passage to philadelphia. turning his back on the country, england, that had brought him nothing but despair and disappointment. paine's health deteriorated so much on that long voyage across the ocean that he staggered off the ship in philadelphia half dead it he didn't know a soul. when his health finally returned, fully six weeks later, tom paine said about reinventing himself. so, he added e to the end of his name, pain becomes paine. a signal to himself as much as anyone else that he wanted to start fresh.

he began contributing a few column inches to a local newspaper and, within a few months, he was able to use that brief experience, as well as that cursory letter of introduction from ben franklin, fillies favorites on, to get himself a job in philadelphia. editing a new gentleman's magazine there, at a salary of 50 pounds a year. and it was, i think, as editor of and contributor to this magazine, this pennsylvania magazine, that tom paine would hone the skills that he would later used to write common sense. think about it. editing a gentleman's magazine, a literary and political magazine, immersed tom paine, a newcomer, in the

world of colonial politics. editing this magazine also gave tom paine his first dedicated set of readers. a public, a reading public. whose opinion he soon learned how to manipulate. in fact, one of paine's the favorite tactics as editor and lead contributor to this pennsylvania magazine was to print articles in it that seemed to be about some harmless subject like how to deal with an aunt infestation. but on closer inspection, turned out to be about politics. so, for instance, and a piece he published in a pennsylvania magazine called an easy method to prevent the increase of bugs, he slowly reveals that his advice to house owners on how to exterminate their alcove unwelcome visitors is, of

course, really an analogy. it compares a british army, marching through new england at the time, to bugs. in fact, the pennsylvania magazine was filled with anti british barbs and quips like that one. some of them more carefully disguised than the others. this makes sense, remember who paine is. paine had turned on england long ago. the careers and marriages he had made their had caused him only ruined and regret. galvanized by what had happened at lexington and concord in april of 1775, tom paine would write common sense to persuade ordinary americans that they should declare their independence from britain. as he was writing that pin pamphlet, in the fall of 1775,

tensions with britain were escalating quickly. popular emotions had been aroused not only by the 1773 t act and the 1774 coercive act that followed it, but more recently by the battles at lexington and concord and that bunker hill. there was a lot of anger and confusion in the air as he was writing it. although, to be clear, no one was talking openly yet about independents. not until tom paine's pamphlet burst on the scene. so, tom paine is going to be one of the first people to make a very public argument that all colonial grievances should be focused on achieving independence, not reconciliation, not better terms and conditions but independents. so, it's going to matter. that spent some time now examining how tom paine builds the case for independents in the pages of that pamphlet, common sense.

and bear in mind that i paine's great gift was for language. he designed each paragraph of his pamphlet, common sense, to be read aloud to other people. he also adopts the sort of rhetorical tricks that the best preacher of the day might have recognized. even as paine offers up a secular, enlightenment-driven view that human beings have the power to better themselves and to change the world. remember, the change that paine wants his readers to make is to break with britain. now and forever. and in common sense, he makes independents, something previously unthinkable and improbable, he makes independent seem suddenly imminent. necessary and urgent. what's so clever about how paine writes in this famous

pamphlet is that the argument he makes are not self evident truths. what he says is actually not common sense at all. he just tells you that it is. in fact, he's able to make you rethink what you thought you knew. and he uses the plainspoken language of an outraged tavern goer to make you do so. take one of paine's very first arguments in common sense. i think it's simply outrageous. in a world in which kings and princes rule almost every square foot of western europe, tom paine declares all kings and princes, all of them, to be illegitimate and despotic. and demands that all of them be swept away. paine denies a heritage of their noble bloodlines and calls them

all a band of power hungry rough eons who sit on thrones, simply because an ancestor of there is killed the previous dynasty of kings. tom paine calls william the conquer, one of the most famous english kings of the previous centuries, a from france. which is pretty root. now, as get americans, you are a few steps ahead of me because you've all noted that tom paine is not exactly lying, is he? monarchies, of course, do distant descend generation by generation from original acts of violence and subordination. and yes, the histories of england, france and other european countries are littered with invasions and conquests in which one king is simply killed or removed by an upstart young man who thinks he

can do better. but, so what? if paine it's technically correct about all of this, remember, remember, in the 17 70s when he's writing, kings and princes are all the western world really knows. no one can yet imagine a realistic alternative to governing large countries and their growing empires. kings, at least, provide stability. kings godfather princes and those princes become the next kings, this is a system that works. it's worked for hundreds of years. so, to suggest that colonist should break from the king of england and set out on their own requires a great deal of confidence. i think in spanish the word is cojones, right? requires a great deal of confidence. in fact, paine's cojones are so big that he

doesn't limit himself to the simple treason of attacking king george. no, paine attacks all kings as illegitimate. in fact, he doesn't even bother to mention king george the third by name. referring to him in passing as the royal brute. bold stuff from tom paine! or take another major argument from common sense. with fighting already underway at lexington and concord and bunker hill, paine tells the readers of common sense that they should not make peace with england. reconciliation, now, he says, is a dangerous doctrine. really? in the opening months of 1776, did any sane person really think that a tiny colonial militia could ever beat and vanish the most

powerful navy that the world had ever seen and a significant army? it is madness to think that. so, why not make peace? safe in the knowledge that all of the colonists grievances against england would eventually evaporate as time passed i. why not make peace, safe in the knowledge that the columnists debts would eventually get paid? that this hated king would soon surely die and his unpopular cabinet would eventually be forced from power? why not make peace, patch things up, wait it out? because paine won't let you see the problem like that. paine, in common sense, puts the burden of proof elsewhere. not upon the colonists to prove why they should be independent, he

puts the burden of proof upon the british to prove why americans should stay shackled to them for even a second longer. bold stuff from tom paine! so, in these ways, folks, common sense is a sort of declaration of independence. by which i mean it's a new kind of argument that denies all precedents by smacking the rulebook about how you make arguments out of opponents hands. and ignoring every previous thing thought were said in favor of continuing on as dependent colonies. and the pages of common sense, tom paine doesn't cite any classical authors, he doesn't quote people who disagree with him, he doesn't mention any constitutional theories about what is possible and what is not possible. paine won't stand for any of that. we have it in our power, he writes, to begin

the world again. as i think you can start to see, as i hope you can start to see, much of paine's persuasive power rests not exactly and what he says but in the way he says it. for instance, paine worked hard to convince readers that the colonists are caught up in an epic struggle. not a small, silly domestic dispute about taxes and tee that will soon blow over. no. paine tells readers of common sense that the cause of america's, in a great measure, the cause of all mankind. with independents, paine argues, america will become a bright beacon for a

light will spread across the world. for god sake, he says, let us come to a final separation. because the birthday of a new world is at hand. folks, who doesn't like birthdays? independents, paine argues, it's just common sense. you too paine, there is other geographically and politically unnatural about americas dependence on a distant island for government. to be always running three or 4000 miles with a tail or partition, then waiting for five months for an answer. which, when obtained, requires five or six months to explain it in. it will, in a few years, be looked on as folly and childish-ness, paine rights. and who can argue with logic like that? it's

impossible. like any good self help book, and common sense is a self help book, paine concludes common sense by telling colonists how to take the next step. america, he says, should abandon britain and establish its own continental, republican form of government. a government that should be elective, representative and accountable. to do all this, paine suggests that colonists write a proper declaration of independence. a manifesto that would summarize, as he put it, the misery is we've endured and that peaceful methods which we have ineffectively used to seek redress. i paine even proposed what he called a continental conference to discuss and decide the precise future form of government for this new country. a country he

christened the united states of america. and he was not shy about sharing his own preference, that this country's new republican government should embrace a broad franchise, to elected assemblies and a rotating presidency to be chosen from among members of this congress, he suggested. paine drafted this pamphlet, common sense, and the fall of 1775 and it first appeared in philadelphia bookshops on january the 10th, 1776, priced at two shilling's. a price that paine thought was too high. nevertheless, he found plenty of readers right away. and that first printing sold out within two weeks. printers rushed to print more and turn a quick profit well

demand was high. in all, we know that 25 additions of common were published in 13 american cities and towns. helping it to become the best selling pamphlet of the year. and its effect on the people that read it was widely described as dramatic. by march of 1776, a report was making the rounds in britain that, back in america, common sense is read to all ranks. and as many as read it, so many become converted. those who perhaps an hour before were violent against the least idea of independents. so, what they're saying there is their hearing reports from america that people who want nothing to do with the cause of independents are reading this pamphlet and suddenly end immediately and decisively turning in favor of independents. that it's a fact is that powerful. it's like a drug. paine's friend, benjamin

rush, later recalled that the pamphlets effects were sudden and extensive on the american mind. it was read by public men, repeated in clubs, spouted in schools. and in one instance, delivered from the pulpit instead of a sermon by a clergymen in connecticut. noticeably, phrases lifted from common sense began to turn up in all sorts of petitions, written by ordinary americans, that now called for independence. throughout the colonies, letters to newspapers would quote common sense. editors of those papers reprinted excerpts from common sense and hundreds of newspaper readers wrote into praise the pamphlets style and content.

who is the author of common sense? ask the reader in rhode island. i can hardly refrain from adoring him, he deserves a statue of gold. tom paine, by the way, published anonymously at first. hence the mystery of who is the author of common sense. while common sense certainly spawned several rebuttals by loyalists, those four bottles were no match for this pamphlets brute but lyrical power. many skeptics were eventually won over. john adams had first described common sense as a poor, ignorant, malicious, short sighted, crappy list mess. a piece of crap. but even john adams had to eventually acknowledge the pamphlets extraordinary power. after the war was won, much later, adams

wrote that, without the pen of the author of common sense, this word of washington would have been raised in vain. indeed, this little, 46 page pamphlet would soon push the members of the second continental congress to adopt independents as the fundamental objective of their escalating war with britain. they're july 1776 declaration of independence owed an obvious debt to common sense. although tom paine himself had no hand in drafting the declaration. because, by then, paine was no longer in pennsylvania. he had joined the continental army on its march toward new york to try to capture that city from the british. but the british would soon put the continental army on the back foot, forcing them to retreat back across new jersey towards their

headquarters in philadelphia. paine was with them as they had advanced forward and then he was with them as they fell back. working as an aide to come through so out that dispiriting summer and fall campaign. so it was as the continental army fell back to trenton that tom paine authored the first and most famous of the six essays known as the american crisis. these are the times that try men's souls, paine wrote. in that 3000 word owed to patriot fearlessness. the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country. but he that stands at now deserves the love and thinks of men in the world.

tyranny, like how, is not easily conquered. general washington ordered these during words from the american crisis by thomas paine to be read to his frostbitten, exhausted troops as they were ready to retreat back across the delaware river into pennsylvania. by this time pain had left the army's ranks, having served long enough to discover that he was thoroughly and suited to a soldier's life. the american crisis essays cemented payne's reputation as a gifted polemicists and as the chief propagandist of the american independence movement. yet, thomas payne was broke. having made precious little money from common sense, or by any of the american crisis works. so, pain now took on several new writing jobs after a philly. none of which paid a

fortune or gave him much satisfaction. the only bright spot in his life, in these came in 1784 when the state of new york awarded him a 300 acre farm, in gratitude for his service to the new nation. a file that the state of new york had confiscated for a loyalist family that it had turned out. a year later, a general washington's insistence they supplemented new york's gift with an additional $3,000. providing this immigrant, former corset maker with a modest degree of financial security for the first time in his life. and, with that financial independence, payne found the freedom to embark on a long, slightly strange campaign to get a single arch

iron bridge built across the school kill river. a project that he hoped would jump-start infrastructure projects across the new nation. he went back and forth to england and france to look for funding and patrons for this bridge project but slightly turned up empty handed each time. by the time he admitted that his bridge project was a failure, it was 1791. by then, pain was living in london once again. and was vowing to renew his radicalism, and to resume his writing career by pending a pamphlet that cars do for the political consciousness of the british people what common sense had recently done for the american colonists the. the first part

of this new work, the rights of man, they first part of the rights of man appeared on the shelves of british booked in april of 1791. dedicated to george washington, the hero of the american issue, the rights of man attempted to stir in britain the same sort of revolutionary radicalism scene in america. and in france. echoing his previous attacks on the monarchy and feudal aristocracy. this new word, the rights of man dared, british raiders to embrace republicanism, calling for british readers to install an elected head of state. and elected legislature, a written constitution, and a universal franchise for all adult men. radical stuff. like common

sense before it, rights of man, his new work, burned with outrage. and, sparkled with diamond hard pros. aimed at the sort of working paper who usually ignored high politics. in this new work the only works he cited where the bible and the book of common prayer. now, there is a long tradition of republican descent in england. it goes back centuries. and, pans ideas in favor of a republic instead of a monarchy where in some ways quite derivative. but, it was pains attempts to disseminate those ideas to the masses in plain spoken language, so that they could actually understand, that made this new work, they writes a man so momentous when it was

published. and so controversial. and the rights of manned sold like gangbusters, 50,000 copies in the first three months in england alone. even the british prime minister, he found time to read it. and he confessed to a friend that pain was quite right. what am i to do? i am the prime minister, as things are if i were to encourage tom paine's opinions i should have a bloody revolution on my hands. those fears of an english revolution soon escalated as more and more english readers began demanding the sorts of civil rights that pan had championed. and, as news arrived in london of the beheadings and revolutionary france, and have the rise of

robes pierre there, determined to prevent that sort of radical leveling from leaking the english channel from france, and turning the english working classes into murderous guillotining moms intent on executing rich people. now, they hastily passed a series of homeland security laws to limit free speech rights. two in president anyone who talked openly of challenging the kang or parliament. i am for equality, why have no kings, one landowner shouted in a coffeehouse. he was promptly sent to prison for 18 months

for that speech act. and, the government that had passed these laws went after thomas paine, himself. the author of the rights of man, with all they had. the government funded a smear campaign in the press that defamed thomas payne as ugly, smell he, and girl. as a wife beater, as impotent in his marriage bed, and as having, instead, a fetish for having sex with cats. the papers published cartoons rendering thomas payne as a three headed fire breathing monster win. and hundreds of letters to the editor, many of them suspiciously identical inward and image, denounced thomas payne in english papers as a liar, as a traitor, and as a terrorist. mad tom, the british tabloids now called him.

government agents turk to trailing him wherever he wants. but, across the english country, astroturf crowds of paid thugs paraded thomas paine's body in effigy. burning it in town squares. go off to france if you like the revolution so much. a writer in the times of london urged him we. so, in september of 1792 the now 57 year old pain did just that. he bunkered off to france. sailed from dover in england, to france, to escape the long arm of his britannica majesties government. we three months later, in december, that british government took, i will start that again, three months later that british government put thomas paine on trial, in absentia, on charges of seditious libel. and, in his

absence, they found him guilty, and in his absence they sentenced him to exile after the fact, he had already gone. pain with spending ex decade in france, would never return to the land of his birth. pain arrived in france armed with not one but four letters of introduction from benjamin franklin, it was well known in france. as a result, thomas payne quickly gained entrance to thomas paine's highest circles, almost immediately he's up a petition representing -- in the revolutionary national assembly. a position to which he had been elected months earlier in honor of his authorship of the rights of man. but that did not go as

expected. payne spoke little french, and he had trouble keeping up as a french revolution rapidly radicalized and accelerated. payne made a great mistake of speaking up in favor of sparing king louis the 16th from the guillotine. arguing instead that it would be him military humiliating enough to banish the king to exile in the united states. but that did not go over well in france. especially given pains earlier critiques of monarchy and inherited power. where is your boldness now, tom? the french said to him. as robes pierre lead france into what we call the reign of terror, pain despaired. and then he picked up his pen. he drafted the

first part of the age of reason. the third great work for which his man is still member today. and got it to a printer only six hours before french came to his door for to drag him to the senate prison cell for his dissenting views. not radical enough. this third work, the age of reason, part one. is in some ways his master pace. an astonishing virtuoso denunciation of atheism. which he saw as the letter fuel for the most violent, most extreme, most uncontrollable excesses of this unfolding french revolutions. in defense of religious faith in the context of a french revolution run amok, payne wrote eloquently about how a loss of faith in god could extinguish human

compassion, selflessness, morality, ethics, virtue, grace, and could turn society into nothing but a gathering of base. this conception of the power of faith was a pretty mainstream view and the 17 90s. only really controversial in france itself because of the spread of atheism of the past two years. christiane is a, pain to leaders, was the lifeblood of republican democracy. and the bibles old testament provided a set of useful commanders that could instill private ethics. he also had praise for the new testament, describing jesus

christ as a virtuous and a bubble man who had preached social justice, and who had paid for his convictions with his life. so far, so good, right? the trouble was that pain kept going. and the age of reason, his third work, it is controversial because of everything else he had to say about christiana and particular, and about organized religion in general. pain was not a fan of jesus christ, he wrote, he was not divine. it was just a man. the bible, pain went on, was not the revealed word of god. it was just a book written by some priests. and, as pain sought the bible was full of indecipherable rattles. irrational-ism, and fabulous them. like the bizarre story of

the talking snake who's chat with eve and with her eating and apple and destroying humanity. they churches that taught this sort of nonsense, hand said, where dangerous to savers. institutions set up to terrify and enslaved mankind, and monopolize power and profit. each of those charges accuses the other of on belief, and from my own part i disbelieve all of them. still, pain was clear that despite all of this he was not trying to deny the existence of god. on the contrary, paine wrote, i believe in one god and no more. and i hope for happiness beyond this life. i believe in the equality of man, and i believe

that religious duties consist in doing justice. loving mercy, and endeavor-ing to make our fellow creatures happy. but i do not believe in the -- profess by the jewish church, roman church, creek church, by the turkish church, by the proudest internship nor by any church that i know of. my own mind is my own church. this, folks, is almost the dictionary definition of deism, a variety of spiritual belief that was very common in highly educated circles. it both britain and america, in the 17 90s. and it's a type of faith that we might call now intelligent design or something like that. edward gibbon, david hume and thomas jefferson were also self-declared deists like tom paine, those other dudes had a

good sense about it to keep quiet and only announced that fact in private to their highfalutin philosophical friends. but that is not tom paine's style. paine, of course, use the pages of the age of reason to shout his de-ism from the rooftops of paris. he's in his gift for plainspoken language and a polemical turn of phrase to take that gospel to the masses. and he had all too much success. in britain, sales of the age of reason part one surpassed all records. in fact, breaking records set by the rights of man two years earlier. church leaders now denounced paine with acid and thunder. and the age of reason

attracted at least 50 rebuttals. charging its author, tom paine, with being either an infidel, which is wrong, or a deist, which is fair enough. or, most ironically, a filthy atheist, not even close. doggerel versus saying the same flooded the press not only in britain but also in america. which was in the midst of a major evangelical revival at the time, known to most of us as the second great awakening. all the while, paine himself languished in an eight by ten foot cell on the ground floor of the luxembourg prison. a former royal palace in paris now repurpose by french revolutionary for political prisoners. there, by

candlelight, tom paine passed the time scrawling out a sequel to the first part of the age of reason. and he rode quickly. as, one by one, guards lead his fellow dissenting inmates to their executions.. part two of the age of reason was still unfinished when the american ambassador in paris, james monroe, finally secured tom paine's release after ten long, terrifying months behind bars. i paine had grown weak and ill and prison, ravaged by typhus and fevers and a festering wound in his belly that would not heal. so, paine finished the age of reason part two in the u.s. ambassador's official residence. publishing it, part two, in october of 1795. though it shared many of the same big

ideas, it is not a patch on part one. listen to this historian craig nelson describe it and it's unfortunate effect on our thinking on paine and his legacy. part two of the age of reason, craig nelson says, is a snide, sneering and obsessive rant. with none of the first age of reasons lyrical-ification of the spiritual to be found in natural philosophy. if there is a reason for paine's reputation to be sullied beyond englishman wanting monarchy and americans wanting christiane 80, it is the catastrophic rank or in the age of reason part two. another example of the reign of terror's devastation of paine's psyche. but still, tom paine had further to fall, especially

in the estimations of the citizens of the united states, his adopted homeland. while he convalescent the ambassador's residence in paris, paine fired off a long open letter to his former friend, this gentleman, president george washington. and in that open letter, tom paine blamed george washington personally for failing to rescue him sooner from prison. and then, tom paine kept going, accusing washington, the father of the country, of everything from mismanagement to

corruption. i paine said that washington's military strategy during the revolutionary war had been to do nothing and that washington himself was selfish, friendless, indifferent, hypocritical and possessed of a cold hermaphrodite faculty that was devoid of principle. when this poison pen letter, which paine sent to washington on washington's birthday, found its way to the american press, readers there were rightly incensed. paine's reputation as an american patriot was irreversibly damaged. it would take seven more years for the federal government to indict tom paine to return to the united states. in the meantime, he convalesce. he watched the worst excesses of the french revolution burn themselves out and, of course, he wrote. he authored all sorts of things

during his long recuperation at the american ambassador's residence. one of the things he wrote deserves our attention now. before we follow paine home. i think he wrote that i'm talking about is a called agrarian justice. paine wrote it in 1795 and 96. even though it is not nearly as well-known as common sense, rights of man or age of reason, the ideas that agrarian justice contains have actually been incredibly influential. because those ideas represent the first full scale practical proposals to develop wet, in the 20th century, would come to be called the welfare state. written as a rebuttal of a famous english clergymen's

sermon praising the division between rich and poor as a sign of gods wisdom he, agrarian justice by thomas paine proposes to limit the size of that division between rich and poor by taxing the highest earners and investing heavily in a social safety net with the proceeds. paine imagine three the tax system and government spending priorities in britain and by extension in america, france or anywhere else. to provide seven basic entitlements that, together, might shield the nation's poorest and most vulnerable from the ravages of market capitalism. let me show you what he had in mind. first, he proposed grants of four pounds a year to help parents afford to send their children to school. second, he proposed one

time payments of 15 pounds on their 21st birthdays. third, propose much mauler one-time payments to newly married couples and further smaller payments to each child they brought into the world. fourth, he proposed eliminating all taxes on poor people earning below a minimum annual income. fifth, he proposed a government run back to work scheme that could find temporary employment for those out of work and that could provide room and board if needed. sixth, he proposed pensions of six pounds a year for seniors over the age of 50 that within rise to ten pounds a year for those who made it to the age of 16. seventh, he proposed a onetime death benefit to grieving spouses to cover the cost of funerals. drawing on his experiences back in england of being a tax collector, many decades earlier, paine even costed all of this

out. he did the math. he demonstrated to readers of agrarian justice that all of this was actually quite inexpensive and it could all be readily paid for if the british parliament would implement a graduated income tax, put in place and a state tax on the largest fortunes and downsize the british military budget, which was enormous. it would be worth it, paine explained, almost giddy with excitement. all it would take would be a few pieces of new tax policy to rig britain's streets of aged beggars and ragged and hungry children. and investing in the education of young people would pay back huge dividends in the longer term. a nation under a well regulated government

should permits none to remain an instructed, paine wrote. it is monarch coal and aristocratic a government only that requires ignorance for its support. but i'm laying out here, from the pages of agrarian justice, is an extraordinary social justice manifesto for any 18th century person to imagine. importantly, it is not proto-marxism. quite the contrary. it is a non marxist critique of the free market that lays no plans to nationalize the education system, no plans to place any limits on how much money or property anyone can acquire. rather, paine simply insists that those with the most i should modestly compensate those with the very least.

still, paine's ideas went nowhere at the time. his name was already mud in legislative circles in london and he had just insulted the president of the united states. those who read agrarian justice, and it was hardly the bestseller that some of his past weeks had been, dismissed paine's design for a world beyond want ads fanciful. or as a pernicious form of leveling. leaving his blueprint for the 20th century architects of the modern and leaves for america to discover for themselves. thomas paine 700 sailed for

america and 1802, after president john adams, critics lost his reelection mandate, to thomas jefferson. that ds and democrat like pain. but still coming to america, it turned out to be a picture homecoming. and thomas paine disembarked in baltimore, and that refused to accommodate him and keeping him away from american radicalism and become a dirty word in america and the french revolution it, was a great part to blame. in the french revolution had begun, back in 1589, many american us and welcomed it at first, but after louis pierre began gillis healing it and conservative and will became known as the land of terror,

many american patriots enter the colony to the event unfolding. so then thomas paine, the french nationalism i turn up, in 1802 card and american conservatives took to trying to smear him as a drunk and to discredit his political views and openly accusing him of being an agitator who is only come back to bring down at the federal government of the united states and kickstart in america land of terror. and most of his conservative and enemies thomas paine famously relation of religious beliefs, to try to destroy the political reputation.

newspapers supportive of washington, john adams and other members of their federalist party, called him a liar and drunken and call him a drunken atheist and they call him a sinner. and getting back on his feet on the enemy fire, almost killed thomas paine. he made plans to set up an agricultural export business from america to europe. and it was paralyzing his kandiss, losing his mobility, and forcing him to seek care in new york instead. and he would take a walk around manhattan. and he still had some friends,

and many admirers vertically washington people, but life in america particular for him was fought with tension and risk. and so whenever he was well enough, he would retreat and show how the city. the subject now is party politics and thomas paine took quickly to task and attacking john adams, and hamilton and the centralist party and in one newspaper column after another and defending jefferson and the democrat republicans as champions for the legacy. but to his great discussed, this proved to be utterly strength list while jefferson himself had thomas paine high regard

throughout his life, jefferson's cause in the republican party regarded thomas paine as an embarrassment. and they kept their distance from him. they did the rest to disassociate the party from a man they now regarded as referentially out of step. and slightly more conservative and far more pilots where he had been away in thomas paine had been away in europe and it thomas paine last political tirade, appeared in print on the 25th of august, 1808. and by then, there was not much of thomas paine to be scared of. he could not keep food down anymore he suffered in confidence, and agonizing pain. and he woke up in his room, and

he found himself alone and he had become frightened and he began to scream. he was dying. and quite help about the prospect about being buried among quakers in the crusade and the christians, and is meeting houses, that he has brought up. had been refused. so in thomas paine's miserable decline, 8:00 a.m. on june the eighth of 1809, is executives took them instead of and buried his body a piece of land given by the state of new york, it was later in creating the united states. [inaudible]. but so much as happened since that independence.

his farm is almost deserted. in the political leader attended his funeral, only six people turned up. french, immigrant, house people and another, benjamin and was described at the end of thomas paine's grave. and you told her son, see you there at the other end. and be grateful to america. an week later, it was she, went to the grave stone to the earth on the spot, the redstone

inscription was as simple as it was short, thomas paine. and also "common sense". >> thank you so much, that story is really amazing what a wonderful talk and anyway, we put in on the screen chair and i want to get the documents here, there we go. there are lots of great questions going in. when we were talking about "common sense" and at the bottom of this it says, it was by richard bell, so who is this richard bell. [laughter] >> well i am richard bell.

>> and there was another question, is there any connection to much let me tell you. this is actually robert bell, no relation it to me as far as i know and he is a printer the bookseller r bell and he was one of a small booksellers and printers at the time. and franklins would've been another one and it is robert bell, and his competitors would buy a copy and then they would print their own to compete against him so robert bell is holding on by will tell you that i teach and i have this

assignment that i do with the students, it uses one of the amazing databases we use now we definitely do not when i was in school we just digitized hope on beverly american newspapers. and you can search them by keywords. and then any mention of for instance, the word "common sense", would get grabbed by the software and he would use that phrase in the context. and i'm assignment where i tell my students that writers over the years, everybody in american had common sense, it was almost universally read and the number readers of "common sense" speculated 300,000 or something like that but no one actually can prove that, they just

asserted that when it was read this widely and to see who actually read it in single it out. everyone predict or can only find proof of some people did read it and some people didn't also have to joke about this. and how many bookstores wasn't available in and at what it's price point was an how can you tell if it's a lot of money or not a lot of money. i had them think about the availability in the libraries and whether people were reading it aloud or people who cannot read for themselves and they have to read this newspaper base to find literal bread crumbs to this question. and i do this in every class, and the printer of "common

sense" and then with the fascination of r. bell. >> okay, here is another, he, so the genesis of the pains into dire for the american independence and oppositions of the english monarchy, is the desire for a fresh start in the new world, is a more than that given that they have any more to gain personally. >> and this of course is more than that, in the beginning, that's the personal stuff, the personal stories. in a way that we interpret the world. so, thomas paine goes through a series of difficult moments and glenda, forcing him and pushing him really to leave. and he's not happy with his life in england, so the politics, he

constantly is named a break from britain. we cannot discount that from the psychology, image a great deal but certainly there is more to it than that and he relates money to publishing it "common sense", not merely as much as you think. and the prophets of it, and also because he published it relatively cheaply and after the first edition, he cut the price in half and thirdly, is a very public show, when it's discovered that is not actually and outed him because he was undermining the power of "common

sense" and it was not written by john adams or george washington and he erases that in a a big show saying that i've made no money over the past six months and guess what i've done with the money, the continental army to pay the soldiers and - is notably an amazing pr before pr, it's also patriotic at gesture and confirmation that he personally is not profiting nearly as much as my think. and he is writing this in a time when feelings are escalating rapidly, not just coming from america in 1740, and saying independence, he has come to america in 1734 and 1775 when all of these newspapers are full of concorde and hillhead british aggression it after another, and frustration in the air and he

thinks he has a path forward, a solution to offer for all americans should do without frustration it wishes to challenge in one direction. and that's his contribution and is a political wind, not just doing it for his own gain. >> that is great, thank you. what were gives views on slavery in america and did he ever write anything on slavery or the rights of women. >> to amazing questions, we do have some of his writings on the position of women although the road some anonymously, we think that he is the author, the contention about whether there actually describing him to these some enormous pieces but the pieces, they also do have a photojournalist mark which is to

say he is pretty good by the standards of 19th century man. there was a more radical feminist who would see him as conservative, in 1790, 1792, indication of the rights and genuinely and this radical and thomas paine is not that pretty for the record when it comes to women and us to slavery, you would expect what into, to see some of the same stuff, we expect him to be denouncing the slavery as monstrous and immoral, unconstitutional, and is un-american etc. etc. and yet i personally, i'm not aware of any time where he writes about slavery, or calls it out. it's just like in plain thought to. and maybe he wrote about it but

i also find out that is writing in philadelphia in 1770s, and philadelphia population of enslavement is after the evolution of years. there had been slavery in philadelphia and pennsylvania sits the 1780s, but it's never been on the scale of south carolina or virginia and so he just have a different texture to agricultural slavery the plantations and so there are plenty of you know, kindhearted people who call out other injustices in philadelphia who did not see slavery in philadelphia as their number one civil rights issue. but the simple fact is they were

living in a place where slavery was not in a space in the same way that would be another place and another time. >> right, he was in philadelphia on one of the questions was why is philadelphia such an intellectual center in the late 18th century with thomas paine quickly, ben franklin, any thoughts on that. >> while it is hard to attribute that into that and i certainly agree with the premise of the question that it is those things so just quickly, back in the 16 hundreds, boston is the largest town or city in america. which is saying is not very large at all and through the most of the 17 hundreds, philadelphia would be the largest town or city in america and the late 18 hundreds and after, new york. so the 18th century, philadelphia's centric so the simple fact is it is the largest place and a magnet for money and

for people, and these ideas in dissent in conversations and of course is great heritage hundred in a place of the religious toleration work people of different faiths can live side-by-side. an intellectual diversity as well, new ideas and people with different backgrounds and traditions living next to each other pretty you are absolutely right that this colonial natural scientists and philosophers, live in pennsylvania in the 18 hundreds in new york is not yet the city will become later on in franklin makes a big deal in franklin with a generator and a magnet brother small smart intelligent people. >> thank you. here are some connected questions here, do you really think that thomas paine was a

visionary thinker are more of an effective communicator of these ideas had relating to this, did thomas paine have help including "common sense" and ideas and help and refinement prior to publication. >> the idea that there are geniuses that sit in cave in the get no external stimulation is probably false and medical i think all of us have the best ideas come from interacting with others. so that's probably true for thomas paine as well and i mentioned that he was part of a very radical club beckoning linda, the head stones of life and he has been with "common sense", a newspaper essays a row back in england. and even in the shape of the

pennsylvania magazine, not just on how to persuade people but also to find out with the care about and how to write to the english and they want to read every month so he sees himself as an apprentice in his fund for cultural and intellectual for the development he knows that he's not writing in a vacuum. i do think a significant portion of what is so magnificent about trying to argue his civil rights in the same way that other people behave like thomas jefferson, with extraordinary gift as writers and ben franklin as well, extraordinary gift as a writer and thomas paine, largely self-taught, he has not been sitting in a fancy library like jefferson had for quite a while. and he was not also a google hunter, there's a library, more like franklin it then jefferson

in that regard which i admire a great deal, workingman made that sort of change. and does he have his own ideas, we think yes so i think that talking about his work which is injustice and comparing schemes to social policy which probably have inspiration for other writers but again he is reading this together, very clearly and making it and saying guys, the ideal energy. >> and is connected with this justice and what he wrote in that and we have a few questions

about, the description of the first campaign against thomas paine, in his words we recognize the modern times. do you see parallels with post 911 america and with that thomas paine reputation and influence today. >> his life certainly. and i will tread carefully this one. >> entirely, i think the people see that there are connections definitely. >> i think that is right and all i will say is in there, across all nations in all times and in all centuries, new ideas face great scrutiny and some people embrace them a and perhaps because they seem like the right it is in the personally my benefit. in other people pushback against new ideas because perhaps it may

affected them adversely and it seems that maybe thomas paine's ideas can rightly be understood in a challenge to orthodoxy to conventional wisdom. and he is by that standard, a radical so of course radicals really had a tough time in every case and in every century read and, thomas paine is nothing unusual here in the only thing unusual with him is that he he never really silencer shut down the and my finals when i have the works, is common sense which is astonishing work and his allies, very happy knowing that this had a transformative effect on world history and he also

writes, the age of reason, and the "rights of man" in their own ways equally transform and we can keep going, he is an energizing money of radicalism. >> this will be our final question of the evening, why is it that they allow the thomas paine to have this influence when he was in prison to write the age of reason part two. >> specific question, i am sure that was common practice, no tvs radios back then. this was a former palace as well so there is at least an attempt to suggest by radical revolutionaries, to will them but we are not monsters, and we have the greatest thomas paine here.

and it would be probably problematic it withhold from him, i would imagine it's common for a person with such as danny thomaspaine to get pen and pape. and if they didn't, what the consequences of that would be. >> black includes our program for tonight, we have run out of time, but thank you gannett for such a wonderful fantastic program info with that emeritusn

on the 1863 new york city draft riots. >> from july 13th-16th,