Thomas Paine and the Clarion Call for American Independence by Harlow Giles Unger

Author:Harlow Giles Unger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 2019-09-09T16:00:00+00:00

And I am such by principles which nothing can either alter or corrupt—by my attachment to humanity… [and] the dignity and honor of the human race; by the disgust which I experience when I observe men… governed by brutes; by the horrors which… monarchy has spread over the earth… the calamities… wars… massacres with which monarchy has crushed mankind. In short, it is against all the hell of monarchy that I have declared war.2

With his declaration of war against monarchy, Paine emerged a major figure in the French Revolution, much as he had been in the American Revolution, but his revolutionary ambitions were no longer limited by national frontiers. He intended fomenting a Revolution of the World, with Britain his next target.

In the summer of 1791, he set off for London, where friends had invited him to celebrate the second anniversary of the fall of the Bastille—a celebration he saw as an opportunity to wage war against monarchy in Britain. When the owner of the establishment where the celebration was to have been held learned Paine’s intent, however, he locked his doors. Paine took full advantage, issuing a “manifesto” saying, “We rejoice at the glorious event of the French Revolution.… As men, we rejoice in the freedom of twenty-five millions of men.… As Englishmen, we also rejoice, because we are immediately interested in the French Revolution.”

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