Revolution 250 Podcast
Revolution 250 Podcast
Tom Paine's War with Jack Kelly
Few figures of the American Revolution wielded words as powerfully as Thomas Paine. In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison is joined by historian and journalist Jack Kelly, author of Tom Paine’s War, for a wide-ranging conversation about Paine’s outsized influence on the Revolutionary cause.
Kelly explores how Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense transformed colonial resistance into a popular movement for independence, reaching audiences far beyond elite political circles. The discussion traces Paine’s role as a wartime propagandist, the impact of The American Crisis during the darkest days of the war, and George Washington’s strategic use of Paine’s words to sustain morale in the Continental Army.
The episode also examines Paine’s complicated personality, his transatlantic radicalism, and his uneasy place in the postwar United States, where the man who helped ignite the Revolution found himself increasingly marginalized. Together, Allison and Kelly consider why Paine mattered so deeply in his own time and why his ideas about liberty, democracy, and popular sovereignty continue to resonate 250 years later.
A compelling look at the power of ideas in wartime America, this episode reminds us that the Revolution was fought not only with muskets and cannon, but with ink, paper, and the force of persuasion.
WEBVTT
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Hello, everyone,
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and welcome to the Revolution.
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Two fifty podcast.
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I'm Bob Allison.
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I chair the Rev.
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Two fifty advisory group.
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We are a consortium of about seventy-five
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organizations in Massachusetts planning
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commemorations of the beginning of
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American independence.
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This week marks the two hundred fiftieth
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anniversary of the publication of Common
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Sense,
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a book that really makes the revolution.
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Our guest today, Jack Kelly,
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has just written a new book on pain.
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Tom Paine's war,
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the words that rallied the nation and the
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founder for our time.
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So, Jack, thanks so much for joining us.
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Well, thank you, Bob.
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It's great to be with you.
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And again,
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you talked to us about Benedict Arnold a
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while ago,
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and you've written books about some of the
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action in the war.
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And this is really a book about words.
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So what drew you to Thomas Paine?
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Well,
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I was thinking as approaching the two
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hundred fiftieth anniversary,
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I had written a number of books about
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the war and military history and looking
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at the campaigns and then the officers and
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the soldiers.
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And I wanted to kind of broaden out
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a little bit and look at the ideas
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and values that were also part of the
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revolution.
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particularly in that one year of,
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and I looked around and said,
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which of the founders was the most
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critical in that year?
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And I really found myself coming back to
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Thomas Paine as the man who not only
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contributed tremendous ideas and two of
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the greatest documents of the founding,
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but also joined the Pennsylvania militia
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and marched with Washington's army and was
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on the front lines and knew of what
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he spoke.
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So I thought he was an ideal person
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to sort of encapsulate the year,
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and that's the year that we're really
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celebrating the revolution this year.
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Right.
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And it does be, I mean,
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the year does have this tremendous arc for
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pain,
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beginning with common sense and at the end
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with the crisis.
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I mean,
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these two really foundational documents.
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Yeah.
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The, the, uh, I, I think that, uh,
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I was actually, uh,
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as I did the research became more and
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more impressed of how important common
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sense was to the founding, uh,
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the overall founding of America.
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Um,
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You know, we don't really, you know,
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and I was myself wasn't as aware as
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I could have been that in January of
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seventeen seventy six,
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most Americans were not in favor of
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breaking with England.
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They were they they thought that they were
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fighting for reconciliation with the
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British crown.
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under better terms,
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but just to make a deal.
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And they had grown up under kings.
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Their parents had lived under kings.
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And so they were very amenable to
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remaining under the king.
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And common sense, not single-handedly,
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but certainly was a huge influence in
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moving public opinion away from that view
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away from the idea of reconciliation and
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towards the idea of independence.
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There was a lot of headwinds.
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A lot of people just didn't believe that
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that was the way we should go.
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Some of them
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retained that idea and became the
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loyalist, and other people said, yes,
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he's right.
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And I think the other thing about common
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sense was that it broadened the whole
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purpose of the war from just,
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is this about taxation and the price of
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tea,
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or is this
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As Thomas Paine himself said,
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we have it in our power to begin
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the world over again.
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And that was when the revolution really
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became a really big deal.
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What was the response to it then when
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it's published in January of seventeen
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seventy six?
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Do you get a sense of what people
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say as they're reading it?
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It was a phenomenal success, really.
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Every author's dream was a huge
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bestseller.
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Thomas Paine was very fortunate,
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and it was pretty much just pure luck,
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that almost the same day that Common Sense
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was published,
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the colonists heard of the king's speech,
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which had actually happened previous
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October,
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and the king had rejected what they called
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the olive branch petition of the sort of
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fawning idea that we're still loyal
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subjects and we just want to have some
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little adjustments here.
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And the king slapped that down and he
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said,
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you're in open rebellion and I'm going to
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teach you a lesson.
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And that generated enormous anger in the
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colonies.
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And then common sense came right on top
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of it and sort of channeled that anger.
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And they said that, you know,
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he could have, you know,
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Thomas Paine could have said that, well,
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I told you so.
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You know, they're not going to, you know,
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the king is not amenable to compromise.
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He's going to he's going to go all
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the way.
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And.
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So people swung in more and more towards
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independence.
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And that was a big change in colonies.
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Yeah, there had been this thought, I mean,
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with the olive branch petition that the
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king's been misled by his ministers.
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So he is the one who will
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be loyal to the crown,
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but our own assemblies will be governing
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us.
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And it's both his speech and common sense
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that demolished that idea.
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Yeah, and the...
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Movement was, you know,
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I think common sense has both been
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underappreciated and overappreciated.
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It was extremely important.
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It wasn't, as some people say,
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a lightning bolt that suddenly everybody
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switched over and was for independence.
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There was a lot of work to be
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done yet.
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And Thomas Paine participated in that as
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well because...
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During the spring,
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the big push was to get Pennsylvania to
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change their rather conservative views,
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the conservative constitution they had,
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and come in with a new government that
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would be for independence.
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And Payne and other of the more radical
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people in Philadelphia
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worked on that all during the spring and
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did achieve that transformation in
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Pennsylvania.
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That brought along other colonies and sort
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of pushed the colonies over the top
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towards independence.
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We're talking with Jack Kelly,
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whose new book is Tom Paine's War,
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the words that rallied a nation and found
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her for our time.
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One of the
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foremost advocates for independence before
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Paine was John Adams.
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And he really wasn't as enamored with
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common sense as you might think.
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Well,
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I think there was two factors with John
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Adams.
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One, he didn't agree,
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he did not agree with Thomas Paine's idea
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of government.
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Paine wanted simplicity in government,
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and I think Adams probably quite rightly
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thought that there should be what
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It turned out later to be the different
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complexities that allow different interest
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groups to go up against each other.
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Payne thought that just a unicameral
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legislature and a very simple government
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with no checks and balances would be the
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best thing.
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So there was an issue of dispute between
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the two of them.
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But I think it was also that Adams
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had been
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pushing, as you mentioned,
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for independence.
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And suddenly he saw that Paine was getting
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the credit for it.
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And he didn't like that.
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And he developed a real animosity towards
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Thomas Paine over the years and became
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very dismissive of his contributions.
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Did anyone know much about Paine when,
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I mean,
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it's published anonymously and the name is
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Common Sense.
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Does anyone know much about Paine when it
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comes out?
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Well,
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he was pretty well known in Philadelphia,
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but he hadn't really gone beyond
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Philadelphia since he'd come over.
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He only came over to America after growing
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up and living most of his life in
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England,
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and he was thirty-seven years old.
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He came over in seventeen seventy-four and
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got a job as a magazine editor and
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began to get a little bit of a
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reputation from that.
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even in that most of the articles were
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um that he wrote were published under
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pseudonyms um and but he was a very
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congenial guy and he had a lot of
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friends he made friends very easily and he
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had a lot of friends among the radicals
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in philadelphia and of course congress was
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meeting there so he met probably many of
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the congressmen and um
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When Common Sense came out,
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his authorship of it became known pretty
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quickly,
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even though he continued to use the
00:09:33.259 --> 00:09:34.580
nickname of Common Sense.
00:09:34.659 --> 00:09:37.081
I believe when he wrote The American
00:09:37.121 --> 00:09:39.163
Crisis, it was by Common Sense,
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his nickname.
00:09:41.504 --> 00:09:45.606
But he became really a celebrity author
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almost overnight.
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And another question for authors,
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of course,
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is did he earn any money from this?
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Well,
00:09:55.605 --> 00:09:58.886
it was a little bit fuzzy as to
00:09:58.907 --> 00:09:59.866
the printer,
00:10:01.547 --> 00:10:03.527
what we would call the publisher of the
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pamphlet,
00:10:05.748 --> 00:10:07.408
got a good share of the money and
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kept seeming to have a lot of expenses
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that ate up the profits.
00:10:11.948 --> 00:10:15.549
But Thomas Paine had decided that he
00:10:15.570 --> 00:10:17.669
wanted to do what he thought was the
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a citizen of a Republic would do.
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And he contributed all of his profits,
00:10:23.599 --> 00:10:26.360
whatever profits that did come to him, uh,
00:10:26.380 --> 00:10:28.442
to buy supplies for the army that was
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already fighting in the field that, uh,
00:10:30.724 --> 00:10:30.924
you know,
00:10:30.965 --> 00:10:32.706
the revolutionary war had already begun.
00:10:33.687 --> 00:10:36.869
Um, so that was, um, uh,
00:10:36.908 --> 00:10:38.210
over the years, I mean,
00:10:38.230 --> 00:10:41.352
Payne made a lot of profits and he,
00:10:41.393 --> 00:10:42.874
he, he, uh,
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gave away a lot of his profits,
00:10:45.567 --> 00:10:48.248
and he was not a very good businessman
00:10:48.268 --> 00:10:48.889
to begin with,
00:10:49.068 --> 00:10:51.549
and so he never really got rich from
00:10:51.610 --> 00:10:52.149
his writing,
00:10:52.190 --> 00:10:55.932
but certainly did generate a lot of income
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for somebody.
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Yeah,
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and he's certainly dedicated to this
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cause.
00:11:02.174 --> 00:11:06.017
So common sense does really change.
00:11:07.725 --> 00:11:11.408
makes this case for why we shouldn't have
00:11:11.428 --> 00:11:13.991
a king in a clear really clear vivid
00:11:14.032 --> 00:11:17.936
way um are there any responses to it
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does anyone publish uh rebuttal to common
00:11:20.798 --> 00:11:21.100
sense
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Well, yeah,
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there was a major rebuttal that was
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published during the I think in the spring
00:11:30.962 --> 00:11:33.724
of early spring of seventeen seventy six.
00:11:34.524 --> 00:11:36.024
And Thomas Paine,
00:11:37.024 --> 00:11:38.705
that was exactly what he loved.
00:11:39.004 --> 00:11:40.145
He loved to argue.
00:11:40.285 --> 00:11:45.206
He loved to trade ideas back and forth.
00:11:46.167 --> 00:11:48.447
And he wrote a series of letters called
00:11:48.467 --> 00:11:52.089
the Forrester Letters that answered some
00:11:52.129 --> 00:11:54.509
of the arguments that had been made to
00:11:54.568 --> 00:11:58.769
his original propositions about
00:11:58.830 --> 00:11:59.410
independence.
00:11:59.431 --> 00:12:01.311
I mean,
00:12:01.350 --> 00:12:03.111
what he had to say was pretty shocking
00:12:03.172 --> 00:12:03.652
to people.
00:12:05.172 --> 00:12:07.052
At one point in Common Sense, he said,
00:12:07.913 --> 00:12:11.813
the king is a worm who in the
00:12:11.833 --> 00:12:14.455
midst of his splendor is crumbling into
00:12:14.514 --> 00:12:14.914
dust.
00:12:15.975 --> 00:12:19.155
And that was pretty heavy stuff for
00:12:19.196 --> 00:12:19.655
Americans,
00:12:19.696 --> 00:12:21.397
and they'd never heard anything like that
00:12:21.417 --> 00:12:21.856
before.
00:12:22.297 --> 00:12:23.317
They'd all been, well,
00:12:23.616 --> 00:12:25.498
to be a subject of a king,
00:12:26.957 --> 00:12:28.798
a loyal subject was considered a great
00:12:28.818 --> 00:12:29.278
virtue.
00:12:30.139 --> 00:12:34.860
And now here's a guy coming along saying,
00:12:34.899 --> 00:12:37.441
hereditary aristocracy is an insult,
00:12:37.561 --> 00:12:40.701
and the king has no divine right to
00:12:40.761 --> 00:12:42.861
rule you, and it's all a fraud.
00:12:44.023 --> 00:12:45.202
It was pretty world-shaking.
00:12:46.322 --> 00:12:46.702
It really was.
00:12:46.982 --> 00:12:47.143
Now,
00:12:47.222 --> 00:12:49.125
had he been this radical when he was
00:12:49.164 --> 00:12:49.625
in England?
00:12:49.664 --> 00:12:51.186
Had he been an anti-monarchist there?
00:12:51.206 --> 00:12:53.167
And was it possible to be in England?
00:12:53.706 --> 00:12:54.908
Yeah, I think it was a little bit.
00:12:55.028 --> 00:12:56.688
You had to be a little more circumspect
00:12:57.528 --> 00:12:57.969
in England.
00:12:58.129 --> 00:13:00.451
Though he did live in the town of
00:13:00.551 --> 00:13:00.931
Lewis.
00:13:03.932 --> 00:13:05.734
Starting out as a working man and as
00:13:07.033 --> 00:13:07.835
a corset maker,
00:13:09.033 --> 00:13:12.014
he um eventually got a job as a
00:13:12.095 --> 00:13:15.035
tax collector and they sent him to uh
00:13:15.155 --> 00:13:17.517
his his territory was the town of lewis
00:13:18.256 --> 00:13:20.158
which was near brighton was on the south
00:13:20.197 --> 00:13:23.559
coast of england and that was had been
00:13:23.919 --> 00:13:27.022
a a radical city uh and there was
00:13:27.042 --> 00:13:28.442
a lot of working class and a lot
00:13:28.481 --> 00:13:31.283
of uh there was a certain amount of
00:13:31.663 --> 00:13:35.225
anti-monarchy sentiment there and they had
00:13:35.666 --> 00:13:38.086
a debating society that he joined and they
00:13:38.106 --> 00:13:38.226
would
00:13:39.111 --> 00:13:39.696
gather in the...
00:13:51.592 --> 00:13:56.456
a lot of the more radical impulses in
00:13:56.597 --> 00:13:56.957
England.
00:13:57.577 --> 00:13:59.379
And I think also just from his own
00:13:59.440 --> 00:14:00.561
experience in England,
00:14:01.261 --> 00:14:04.063
he was sort of towards the bottom of
00:14:04.124 --> 00:14:07.366
the heap and the condescension of
00:14:07.427 --> 00:14:10.690
aristocrats was a personal affront to him.
00:14:11.831 --> 00:14:14.332
So he began to get these ideas over
00:14:14.373 --> 00:14:16.875
there as well.
00:14:16.894 --> 00:14:18.576
What about his family?
00:14:20.184 --> 00:14:20.365
Well,
00:14:20.705 --> 00:14:24.969
his father was a corset maker himself.
00:14:25.830 --> 00:14:26.971
And, you know,
00:14:27.010 --> 00:14:28.511
some people snicker a little bit about,
00:14:28.652 --> 00:14:28.852
you know,
00:14:28.873 --> 00:14:31.235
that he was in the business of making
00:14:31.274 --> 00:14:31.995
women's underwear.
00:14:32.034 --> 00:14:35.437
But it was a very respectable trade and
00:14:35.457 --> 00:14:37.440
it was very hard work and there was
00:14:37.460 --> 00:14:38.581
a lot of competition.
00:14:39.341 --> 00:14:41.163
And it was one of these things where
00:14:41.182 --> 00:14:42.725
you had to work twelve,
00:14:42.745 --> 00:14:44.546
fourteen hour days in order to make it
00:14:44.726 --> 00:14:45.726
just to get by.
00:14:47.587 --> 00:14:49.149
He only had an elementary school
00:14:49.208 --> 00:14:49.769
education.
00:14:49.808 --> 00:14:53.149
His parents couldn't afford to go beyond
00:14:53.190 --> 00:14:53.450
that.
00:14:55.009 --> 00:14:56.370
All the rest of his education,
00:14:56.769 --> 00:14:57.870
he got on his own.
00:14:57.910 --> 00:15:00.211
He was very much a self-educated man.
00:15:01.010 --> 00:15:02.051
When he was twelve years old,
00:15:02.072 --> 00:15:05.392
he went to work for his father as
00:15:05.432 --> 00:15:06.072
an apprentice,
00:15:06.613 --> 00:15:09.373
learned the trade of making corsets,
00:15:10.052 --> 00:15:12.634
and pursued that business himself.
00:15:14.054 --> 00:15:16.537
So his background was as a working man,
00:15:16.636 --> 00:15:18.557
and really for the next twenty-five years,
00:15:19.418 --> 00:15:21.240
he was pretty much working all the time
00:15:21.399 --> 00:15:24.702
in England, never getting ahead,
00:15:24.783 --> 00:15:26.725
never getting much beyond that.
00:15:28.546 --> 00:15:31.327
So that was his background, and he always,
00:15:31.408 --> 00:15:32.269
for the rest of his life,
00:15:32.308 --> 00:15:34.169
he had a great sympathy for working people
00:15:34.230 --> 00:15:35.932
and for common man.
00:15:37.283 --> 00:15:37.845
Was he married?
00:15:39.166 --> 00:15:40.767
Yeah, he was married twice.
00:15:41.107 --> 00:15:43.269
His first wife died, they think,
00:15:43.409 --> 00:15:45.652
in childbirth.
00:15:45.672 --> 00:15:47.974
There's not a lot of information available
00:15:48.014 --> 00:15:49.576
in detail about his early life,
00:15:50.115 --> 00:15:51.758
but they think his first wife died in
00:15:51.857 --> 00:15:52.578
childbirth.
00:15:53.379 --> 00:15:56.501
And later he had what seemed to be
00:15:56.522 --> 00:15:59.845
a kind of marriage of convenience with the
00:16:00.166 --> 00:16:00.865
daughter of...
00:16:04.589 --> 00:16:08.129
a businessman who had owned a hotel where
00:16:08.971 --> 00:16:13.413
Payne was staying and the father died and
00:16:13.793 --> 00:16:14.874
Payne married the daughter
00:16:16.918 --> 00:16:18.500
and helped her run the business.
00:16:18.519 --> 00:16:23.744
So they eventually separated.
00:16:24.205 --> 00:16:25.245
He never divorced her,
00:16:25.285 --> 00:16:28.408
but they separated pretty much permanently
00:16:28.447 --> 00:16:29.969
before he came over to America.
00:16:31.330 --> 00:16:32.571
We're talking with Jack Kelly,
00:16:32.591 --> 00:16:34.212
whose new book is Tom Paine's War,
00:16:34.232 --> 00:16:35.974
the words that rallied a nation and the
00:16:36.014 --> 00:16:37.134
founder for our time.
00:16:37.736 --> 00:16:39.158
And Jack's the author of a number of
00:16:39.298 --> 00:16:41.339
other books on the revolution.
00:16:41.359 --> 00:16:43.259
Also writes about other things on his sub
00:16:43.318 --> 00:16:45.460
stack, Jack Kelly talking to America,
00:16:45.500 --> 00:16:47.701
which is really well worth looking at for
00:16:47.740 --> 00:16:49.961
great stories on American history.
00:16:51.503 --> 00:16:53.303
I'm wondering then what brings him to
00:16:53.524 --> 00:16:54.024
America?
00:16:56.740 --> 00:16:56.961
Well,
00:16:57.020 --> 00:16:59.403
he claimed that he had read a book
00:16:59.903 --> 00:17:02.845
when he was young that was about Virginia,
00:17:03.164 --> 00:17:05.105
and he always wanted to come to America.
00:17:06.406 --> 00:17:09.509
And I think that it may well have
00:17:11.109 --> 00:17:13.010
also been influenced by his friendship
00:17:13.030 --> 00:17:14.092
with Benjamin Franklin,
00:17:14.132 --> 00:17:18.173
because Franklin had lived in London for
00:17:18.375 --> 00:17:20.096
quite a number of years at that point.
00:17:21.016 --> 00:17:22.577
And Thomas Paine,
00:17:22.857 --> 00:17:24.058
though he did live in London,
00:17:24.138 --> 00:17:25.500
he often visited London,
00:17:25.579 --> 00:17:28.762
and he loved the culture and the urban
00:17:28.823 --> 00:17:29.763
character of London.
00:17:30.364 --> 00:17:33.007
And he got to know Benjamin Franklin.
00:17:34.587 --> 00:17:37.451
And when he did come over to America,
00:17:38.571 --> 00:17:42.095
he got a recommendation from Franklin that
00:17:42.115 --> 00:17:42.894
was very helpful,
00:17:44.196 --> 00:17:46.739
an introduction to Philadelphia,
00:17:46.778 --> 00:17:47.740
which is where he landed.
00:17:50.050 --> 00:17:52.673
And then he writes for the Pennsylvania
00:17:52.713 --> 00:17:53.194
Magazine.
00:17:53.234 --> 00:17:54.796
He writes a number of really interesting
00:17:54.876 --> 00:17:56.878
essays on the African slave trade and
00:17:56.898 --> 00:17:57.599
other things.
00:17:57.660 --> 00:17:59.761
You can get a sense of his political
00:17:59.862 --> 00:18:00.303
ideas.
00:18:00.858 --> 00:18:02.880
Yeah, he certainly was.
00:18:04.140 --> 00:18:06.980
He wasn't an out and out abolitionist,
00:18:07.020 --> 00:18:09.521
but he was very much opposed to the
00:18:09.561 --> 00:18:14.163
slave trade and spoke out about it and
00:18:15.325 --> 00:18:17.806
was immediately sort of embraced by the
00:18:17.986 --> 00:18:21.866
radical people in Philadelphia as Benjamin
00:18:21.946 --> 00:18:24.188
Rush became a great friend of his.
00:18:26.288 --> 00:18:29.570
was uh had also spoken out against slavery
00:18:30.030 --> 00:18:32.811
and that was a radical position at the
00:18:32.872 --> 00:18:35.012
time you know every state you know slavery
00:18:35.032 --> 00:18:38.334
was uh going pretty strong in every state
00:18:38.354 --> 00:18:43.096
uh particularly in the south but also and
00:18:43.115 --> 00:18:45.196
um so uh the the
00:18:46.917 --> 00:18:50.223
it it set pain on the direction and
00:18:50.263 --> 00:18:52.528
more and more of going into political
00:18:53.108 --> 00:18:56.433
controversy uh than just being a magazine
00:18:56.473 --> 00:18:58.938
editor yeah how does he come to write
00:18:58.998 --> 00:18:59.819
common sense
00:19:01.728 --> 00:19:03.689
Well, there was a group of his friends,
00:19:04.789 --> 00:19:05.069
I think,
00:19:05.109 --> 00:19:08.311
just recognized the fact that he had an
00:19:08.352 --> 00:19:10.752
ability to write and had an ability to
00:19:10.833 --> 00:19:12.614
speak to common people.
00:19:13.255 --> 00:19:15.695
And they wanted him to explain.
00:19:16.375 --> 00:19:17.856
And I think Benjamin Franklin,
00:19:17.896 --> 00:19:20.219
who had since come back to America,
00:19:20.798 --> 00:19:23.000
was one of those people that encouraged
00:19:23.039 --> 00:19:23.700
him to write it.
00:19:24.701 --> 00:19:26.922
What started out as a history of the...
00:19:28.365 --> 00:19:30.145
of the conflict between Britain and the
00:19:30.445 --> 00:19:30.905
colonies,
00:19:30.925 --> 00:19:32.426
which of course had been going on for
00:19:32.727 --> 00:19:33.987
about ten years at that point.
00:19:34.086 --> 00:19:36.688
And he was going to write it as
00:19:36.708 --> 00:19:37.169
a history,
00:19:37.209 --> 00:19:40.569
but eventually he transformed it into his
00:19:40.690 --> 00:19:43.611
own read for independence.
00:19:44.611 --> 00:19:47.772
And they encouraged him,
00:19:47.792 --> 00:19:49.393
but Benjamin Rush,
00:19:49.752 --> 00:19:52.795
who was one of his real avid backers,
00:19:53.654 --> 00:19:55.435
told him he said don't mention the word
00:19:55.496 --> 00:19:58.157
independence you know that that people
00:19:58.178 --> 00:19:59.598
don't want to hear that i'll put people
00:19:59.759 --> 00:20:02.861
off and uh pain just ignored that advice
00:20:02.921 --> 00:20:04.781
and went with what he thought he should
00:20:04.821 --> 00:20:06.923
say and um and he turned out to
00:20:06.963 --> 00:20:08.884
be that that turned out to be the
00:20:08.924 --> 00:20:11.646
right course that's interesting and most
00:20:11.707 --> 00:20:13.968
of the american arguments at the time
00:20:14.028 --> 00:20:15.690
would have gone through the history that
00:20:15.769 --> 00:20:18.171
is you know stamp act these other things
00:20:18.250 --> 00:20:20.873
as re reciting all of the grievances and
00:20:20.893 --> 00:20:22.374
common sense really doesn't do that
00:20:22.827 --> 00:20:23.048
Yeah,
00:20:23.587 --> 00:20:25.769
it really took all that for granted and
00:20:25.808 --> 00:20:30.250
then started out talking about government
00:20:30.269 --> 00:20:32.171
and what constitutes government.
00:20:33.131 --> 00:20:34.290
As you mentioned before,
00:20:34.691 --> 00:20:36.632
tearing down monarchy and the whole,
00:20:36.932 --> 00:20:39.373
particularly hereditary aristocracy,
00:20:39.413 --> 00:20:39.972
he thought was...
00:20:40.413 --> 00:20:41.453
totally, you know,
00:20:41.473 --> 00:20:44.117
how could you impose somebody else's
00:20:44.178 --> 00:20:46.059
family on the future?
00:20:46.119 --> 00:20:47.842
You know, that, uh,
00:20:47.862 --> 00:20:49.223
that just made no sense to him.
00:20:49.243 --> 00:20:53.528
Uh, the, um, the, uh, he, um,
00:20:56.284 --> 00:20:59.266
used part of the pamphlet to assure the
00:20:59.286 --> 00:21:01.428
Americans that they had the resources to
00:21:01.468 --> 00:21:02.769
win because that was the other thing.
00:21:02.788 --> 00:21:04.790
If you're going to oppose the king,
00:21:04.830 --> 00:21:06.471
if you were going to declare independence,
00:21:08.574 --> 00:21:11.236
you had to have some chance of defeating
00:21:11.276 --> 00:21:13.038
the British because the British obviously
00:21:13.077 --> 00:21:14.419
had a lot of military power.
00:21:14.858 --> 00:21:17.662
But he said the colonies have their
00:21:17.721 --> 00:21:22.405
resources too and we can gather the power
00:21:22.445 --> 00:21:23.826
to overcome the British.
00:21:24.487 --> 00:21:26.788
And at the very end of Common Sense,
00:21:27.209 --> 00:21:27.509
he said,
00:21:27.789 --> 00:21:30.372
what we really need is a Declaration of
00:21:30.432 --> 00:21:31.152
Independence.
00:21:31.492 --> 00:21:32.653
And that was, you know,
00:21:33.034 --> 00:21:35.075
in January of seventeen seventy six,
00:21:35.756 --> 00:21:36.576
six months later,
00:21:36.635 --> 00:21:38.198
Congress passed the Declaration of
00:21:38.238 --> 00:21:38.758
Independence.
00:21:38.778 --> 00:21:41.140
Yeah, it really is.
00:21:41.319 --> 00:21:44.521
And he makes this case not only that.
00:21:44.823 --> 00:21:45.262
Why?
00:21:45.323 --> 00:21:46.324
But it's possible.
00:21:47.135 --> 00:21:47.696
And then he makes,
00:21:47.757 --> 00:21:49.578
it's not just about Americans,
00:21:49.818 --> 00:21:51.040
it's about the world.
00:21:51.340 --> 00:21:52.061
Yeah, exactly.
00:21:52.501 --> 00:21:54.564
Then he goes farther and says, you know,
00:21:54.585 --> 00:21:56.246
we have it in our power to begin
00:21:56.286 --> 00:21:57.367
the world over again.
00:21:58.328 --> 00:22:01.873
And I think, you know,
00:22:02.333 --> 00:22:04.595
got the idea across to people that this
00:22:04.654 --> 00:22:07.257
was was a big thing and and it
00:22:07.297 --> 00:22:08.498
had to be if you're going to risk
00:22:08.518 --> 00:22:09.999
your life it's not going to be for
00:22:10.378 --> 00:22:12.201
lower taxes it's not going to be just
00:22:12.260 --> 00:22:14.682
you know the price of tea uh so
00:22:15.042 --> 00:22:19.066
um the the this idea of not only
00:22:20.007 --> 00:22:20.166
uh
00:22:21.917 --> 00:22:24.423
Can we change the government here?
00:22:24.742 --> 00:22:27.528
We can change the world by being the
00:22:27.567 --> 00:22:30.291
model for taking down monarchies around
00:22:30.332 --> 00:22:30.752
the world,
00:22:30.873 --> 00:22:32.856
substituting this new form of government,
00:22:33.337 --> 00:22:35.240
government of and for the people.
00:22:37.713 --> 00:22:39.655
So the year begins with this great
00:22:39.997 --> 00:22:42.378
statement, this bracing idea.
00:22:42.598 --> 00:22:45.102
And then but when it's in December,
00:22:45.201 --> 00:22:46.323
things have really changed.
00:22:46.343 --> 00:22:46.502
I mean,
00:22:46.542 --> 00:22:48.184
he is one of the few to join
00:22:48.224 --> 00:22:50.788
this army as it's being kicked out of
00:22:50.827 --> 00:22:53.451
New York and then being chased across New
00:22:53.510 --> 00:22:54.111
Jersey.
00:22:54.250 --> 00:22:57.034
But the American crisis is one of these
00:22:57.094 --> 00:23:00.218
great statements of why we are doing this.
00:23:02.029 --> 00:23:03.352
Yeah,
00:23:04.374 --> 00:23:07.638
once Payne had signed up with the
00:23:07.679 --> 00:23:08.740
Pennsylvania militia,
00:23:09.020 --> 00:23:10.423
they went to Perth Amboy
00:23:11.512 --> 00:23:13.934
directly across a short body of water from
00:23:14.055 --> 00:23:14.776
Staten Island.
00:23:15.316 --> 00:23:16.857
And they watched the buildup of the
00:23:16.897 --> 00:23:18.239
British there all summer.
00:23:18.898 --> 00:23:21.060
Ships kept coming, more and more Redcoats,
00:23:21.141 --> 00:23:24.463
more and more Hessians, cannon,
00:23:24.564 --> 00:23:25.285
ammunitions.
00:23:26.246 --> 00:23:28.386
And then the Battle of Brooklyn,
00:23:28.647 --> 00:23:29.307
they lost.
00:23:30.568 --> 00:23:32.951
New York City was lost in September.
00:23:33.231 --> 00:23:35.212
In October, they lost in White Plains.
00:23:35.933 --> 00:23:38.155
In November, they lost Fort Washington.
00:23:39.673 --> 00:23:41.934
And almost immediately, by this time,
00:23:42.355 --> 00:23:44.535
Payne had switched over and was now with
00:23:44.555 --> 00:23:45.516
the Continental Army,
00:23:46.336 --> 00:23:47.435
which is the main army,
00:23:48.195 --> 00:23:50.257
as an aide to General Nathaniel Green,
00:23:50.277 --> 00:23:51.237
who was, of course,
00:23:51.557 --> 00:23:54.778
one of Washington's main generals.
00:23:56.598 --> 00:23:58.739
And they were in Fort Lee watching the
00:23:58.778 --> 00:24:00.140
fall of Fort Washington.
00:24:00.759 --> 00:24:02.560
And a few days later, Fort Lee fell.
00:24:03.020 --> 00:24:03.280
And so...
00:24:04.380 --> 00:24:05.780
Payne and other soldiers that are
00:24:05.902 --> 00:24:07.723
scrambled to get out of there and not
00:24:07.763 --> 00:24:08.924
be captured themselves.
00:24:09.885 --> 00:24:12.468
And then began the long retreat across New
00:24:12.509 --> 00:24:12.929
Jersey,
00:24:12.949 --> 00:24:17.334
which was the rest of November and most
00:24:17.374 --> 00:24:20.237
of December until they ended up in
00:24:21.017 --> 00:24:21.438
Trenton.
00:24:21.478 --> 00:24:23.279
They couldn't take a stand in Trenton.
00:24:23.319 --> 00:24:25.182
Washington decided to go over to...
00:24:26.423 --> 00:24:29.644
the other side of the Delaware River,
00:24:30.325 --> 00:24:34.606
and at least be able to protect
00:24:35.047 --> 00:24:35.728
Philadelphia.
00:24:37.107 --> 00:24:38.489
And that was really the low point,
00:24:39.068 --> 00:24:40.230
you could say, in a way,
00:24:40.289 --> 00:24:41.851
the low point of American history,
00:24:41.871 --> 00:24:44.152
because the twenty thousand man army that
00:24:44.192 --> 00:24:47.854
they'd started out with had shrunk at
00:24:47.894 --> 00:24:49.634
times to three thousand men.
00:24:50.474 --> 00:24:50.595
And
00:24:52.556 --> 00:24:54.037
Washington wrote to his brother.
00:24:54.096 --> 00:24:54.458
He said,
00:24:54.837 --> 00:24:56.638
I think the game is pretty near up.
00:24:57.358 --> 00:24:59.441
And the British thought that the war was
00:24:59.540 --> 00:25:01.021
over, that they had won it,
00:25:01.301 --> 00:25:03.282
that there was no more fighting to be
00:25:03.323 --> 00:25:03.583
done.
00:25:03.942 --> 00:25:05.503
And they went into winter quarters.
00:25:06.105 --> 00:25:06.565
And of course,
00:25:06.644 --> 00:25:10.508
then having stationed Hessians out in the
00:25:10.548 --> 00:25:12.709
various towns in New Jersey,
00:25:14.390 --> 00:25:18.673
then came the great counterattack and the
00:25:18.913 --> 00:25:20.534
redemption of George Washington.
00:25:21.499 --> 00:25:21.638
Yeah,
00:25:21.719 --> 00:25:24.102
and Paine writes in The Crisis about some
00:25:24.182 --> 00:25:26.825
characters really appear best when they're
00:25:26.845 --> 00:25:29.587
in their moments of trial, of adversity,
00:25:29.627 --> 00:25:31.891
and he sees Washington in that light.
00:25:32.153 --> 00:25:32.333
Yeah,
00:25:32.373 --> 00:25:34.515
and I think that was a good insight
00:25:34.535 --> 00:25:38.037
about Washington because he really did
00:25:38.076 --> 00:25:40.759
seem to come through when it was really
00:25:40.818 --> 00:25:41.539
in the clutch.
00:25:43.780 --> 00:25:45.382
He was feeling his way along,
00:25:45.461 --> 00:25:46.583
I think you'd have to say,
00:25:47.104 --> 00:25:48.344
in the first year or two of the
00:25:48.384 --> 00:25:48.684
war.
00:25:49.785 --> 00:25:55.589
But the attack on Christmas night against
00:25:55.630 --> 00:25:56.809
the Hessians in Trenton,
00:25:57.810 --> 00:25:59.412
and then the second Battle of Trenton,
00:25:59.531 --> 00:26:00.913
and then the Battle of Princeton,
00:26:02.034 --> 00:26:03.855
he seemed to find his groove in that
00:26:03.994 --> 00:26:07.736
and to really get his confidence um and
00:26:10.317 --> 00:26:12.978
almost transformed as a general and into
00:26:13.038 --> 00:26:14.897
someone who's instead of being totally
00:26:14.938 --> 00:26:18.799
defensive and um and and kind of hesitant
00:26:19.500 --> 00:26:22.221
uh he became very decisive and and much
00:26:22.260 --> 00:26:22.861
more aggressive
00:26:25.599 --> 00:26:28.461
And Paine is also talking about the people
00:26:28.500 --> 00:26:29.201
of New Jersey.
00:26:29.221 --> 00:26:32.202
And he longs for some Jersey maid to
00:26:32.262 --> 00:26:33.782
rise up like Joan of Arc.
00:26:33.903 --> 00:26:36.003
And so it's both,
00:26:36.183 --> 00:26:38.964
it's really addressed to Americans who,
00:26:39.645 --> 00:26:40.945
the summer soldiers,
00:26:41.465 --> 00:26:43.207
the sunshine patriots,
00:26:43.727 --> 00:26:45.488
and seeing this is really the moment.
00:26:45.508 --> 00:26:47.709
He talks about a tavern keeper in Perth
00:26:47.788 --> 00:26:48.749
Amboy who says,
00:26:49.189 --> 00:26:50.769
let me have peace in my day.
00:26:50.829 --> 00:26:52.451
And he's standing there with this child.
00:26:53.428 --> 00:26:55.449
And it's this vivid passage where he says,
00:26:55.588 --> 00:26:57.628
everyone knows that independence is going
00:26:57.648 --> 00:26:59.028
to come and there's going to be a
00:26:59.088 --> 00:26:59.429
war.
00:26:59.869 --> 00:27:00.589
He should say,
00:27:00.690 --> 00:27:02.569
let me have it in my day so
00:27:02.589 --> 00:27:03.971
that my child will have peace.
00:27:04.090 --> 00:27:04.770
Yeah, exactly.
00:27:06.351 --> 00:27:08.412
Let the trouble be in my day so
00:27:08.451 --> 00:27:09.912
my child may have the peace.
00:27:11.092 --> 00:27:12.332
Yeah, very insightful.
00:27:13.252 --> 00:27:14.873
And he knew that, I mean,
00:27:14.913 --> 00:27:18.213
that was the style of,
00:27:18.874 --> 00:27:20.914
Paine's writing, in both common sense,
00:27:20.954 --> 00:27:25.077
but even more so in the American crisis,
00:27:25.698 --> 00:27:27.720
is a very conversational style.
00:27:29.701 --> 00:27:30.421
Particularly, I think,
00:27:30.480 --> 00:27:33.083
from the tavern debates that he
00:27:33.182 --> 00:27:34.703
participated in in England,
00:27:35.584 --> 00:27:37.746
he developed the style of being able to
00:27:39.527 --> 00:27:41.268
get points across to people.
00:27:41.307 --> 00:27:43.009
He knew how to communicate with people.
00:27:43.048 --> 00:27:45.089
He knew how to not talk over their
00:27:45.130 --> 00:27:45.450
heads.
00:27:46.530 --> 00:27:47.613
using stories.
00:27:47.794 --> 00:27:51.820
You mentioned the jersey made.
00:27:52.501 --> 00:27:55.748
That was to embarrass the militiamen who
00:27:55.788 --> 00:27:56.669
were not turning out.
00:27:58.580 --> 00:28:00.102
Maybe they should have a woman come out
00:28:00.162 --> 00:28:01.103
and lead them.
00:28:02.684 --> 00:28:07.167
And the sunshine soldier and the summer
00:28:07.208 --> 00:28:10.631
soldier and the sunshine patriot were
00:28:10.730 --> 00:28:13.053
mocking phrases that were very memorable
00:28:13.134 --> 00:28:14.815
and very, I think,
00:28:14.855 --> 00:28:17.938
effective of people who were on the fence
00:28:18.157 --> 00:28:20.200
and thinking of joining the militia.
00:28:20.240 --> 00:28:20.339
But
00:28:21.359 --> 00:28:22.520
oh, it's pretty cold out there.
00:28:22.560 --> 00:28:24.201
I don't know if I want to join.
00:28:25.142 --> 00:28:28.903
Maybe I'll wait till next summer and make
00:28:28.923 --> 00:28:32.265
them feel guilty and encouraging them to
00:28:32.625 --> 00:28:32.924
act.
00:28:33.184 --> 00:28:36.006
And I think it did have an effect.
00:28:36.026 --> 00:28:41.147
I think that there was militia.
00:28:44.048 --> 00:28:46.830
More militiamen were turning out in the
00:28:46.851 --> 00:28:49.352
late December than had been earlier.
00:28:52.382 --> 00:28:54.502
Washington's army did grow a little bit
00:28:54.903 --> 00:28:56.565
before he attacked Trenton.
00:28:57.465 --> 00:28:58.807
So it did have an effect.
00:28:59.386 --> 00:29:00.428
I always compare,
00:29:02.329 --> 00:29:04.392
I think the idea of history as a
00:29:04.432 --> 00:29:07.614
row of dominoes where one thing affects
00:29:07.673 --> 00:29:09.955
another thing is not really correct.
00:29:10.236 --> 00:29:13.838
And I think it's more interesting analogy
00:29:13.878 --> 00:29:16.361
to use as a flywheel.
00:29:17.102 --> 00:29:19.603
So that once the flywheel starts turning,
00:29:20.063 --> 00:29:21.523
then there's different things that
00:29:21.683 --> 00:29:24.224
accelerate it and other things that slow
00:29:24.265 --> 00:29:24.625
it down.
00:29:24.664 --> 00:29:28.326
But the American crisis was a very big
00:29:28.426 --> 00:29:29.787
impetus to the flywheel.
00:29:30.326 --> 00:29:35.028
Did it cause Washington to make the
00:29:35.068 --> 00:29:36.309
decision to counterattack?
00:29:37.210 --> 00:29:38.530
We can't really know, but...
00:29:39.592 --> 00:29:41.932
The Battle of Trenton and the Second
00:29:41.952 --> 00:29:45.273
Battle of Trenton and Princeton were all
00:29:45.334 --> 00:29:46.473
pretty close calls.
00:29:46.673 --> 00:29:51.154
I mean, it wasn't overwhelming victories.
00:29:52.095 --> 00:29:53.796
They just barely got through them.
00:29:54.556 --> 00:29:58.457
And I think that certainly the effect on
00:29:58.497 --> 00:30:01.837
the morale and the spirit of the Americans
00:30:02.657 --> 00:30:06.439
from the American crisis really deserved
00:30:06.980 --> 00:30:08.160
some of the credit at least.
00:30:09.200 --> 00:30:09.601
I think so.
00:30:09.621 --> 00:30:11.082
And there's that moment in the Battle of
00:30:11.142 --> 00:30:13.545
Princeton when one soldier closes his eyes
00:30:13.605 --> 00:30:15.666
because he sees Washington charging ahead.
00:30:15.686 --> 00:30:17.648
He doesn't want to see Washington fall.
00:30:18.528 --> 00:30:21.132
And it's moments like, I mean,
00:30:21.152 --> 00:30:22.673
there are so many of these moments,
00:30:22.753 --> 00:30:23.173
as you know,
00:30:23.233 --> 00:30:25.977
having written so much about this
00:30:26.057 --> 00:30:27.157
extraordinary story.
00:30:28.112 --> 00:30:29.192
Yeah,
00:30:29.212 --> 00:30:32.414
the drama during that entire campaign,
00:30:32.494 --> 00:30:32.875
really,
00:30:33.394 --> 00:30:38.178
the drama of the close calls and the
00:30:39.519 --> 00:30:41.980
deteriorating situation for the patriots
00:30:42.039 --> 00:30:43.101
and are they going to be able to
00:30:43.141 --> 00:30:47.123
make it back is really quite remarkable.
00:30:47.823 --> 00:30:52.006
And particularly, I try in the book to
00:30:54.711 --> 00:30:56.511
bring some attention to the Second Battle
00:30:56.531 --> 00:30:57.031
of Trenton,
00:30:57.051 --> 00:30:58.893
which is one of the lesser known.
00:30:59.472 --> 00:31:00.973
We usually think the First Battle of
00:31:01.013 --> 00:31:02.375
Trenton and then Princeton,
00:31:02.414 --> 00:31:05.435
and then that campaign is over for the
00:31:05.476 --> 00:31:05.836
year.
00:31:06.557 --> 00:31:08.258
But there was another battle in Trenton,
00:31:08.637 --> 00:31:13.861
and it was a much bolder move on
00:31:13.921 --> 00:31:16.481
Washington's part to go across again after
00:31:16.501 --> 00:31:17.682
they'd beat the Hessians,
00:31:17.782 --> 00:31:19.624
after they'd taken the prisoners back to
00:31:20.064 --> 00:31:20.724
Pennsylvania.
00:31:21.826 --> 00:31:24.007
He led the army back across into New
00:31:24.067 --> 00:31:25.446
Jersey one more time.
00:31:26.968 --> 00:31:29.449
And that was a battle against the British
00:31:29.548 --> 00:31:31.630
army as well as the Hessian army.
00:31:32.509 --> 00:31:35.711
And it was a battle that he fought
00:31:35.770 --> 00:31:38.352
with the Delaware River at his back so
00:31:38.372 --> 00:31:41.874
that he had no more option of retreating.
00:31:43.294 --> 00:31:48.438
And almost the entire Continental Army had
00:31:48.738 --> 00:31:51.019
enlistments that ran out on January first
00:31:51.058 --> 00:31:53.039
because they'd been organized about a year
00:31:53.079 --> 00:31:56.241
later on these one-year enlistments.
00:31:56.962 --> 00:31:58.262
So January first, I think,
00:31:58.344 --> 00:32:01.525
ninety percent of his troops could go
00:32:01.565 --> 00:32:01.806
home.
00:32:03.051 --> 00:32:05.414
they were crossing the river on december
00:32:05.454 --> 00:32:08.617
thirtieth so it was like when they got
00:32:08.698 --> 00:32:10.640
over there he had to beg them to
00:32:10.720 --> 00:32:13.221
stay you know just enlist just for a
00:32:13.261 --> 00:32:15.805
little while longer and um
00:32:16.448 --> 00:32:17.409
Not all of them did,
00:32:17.469 --> 00:32:20.371
but enough did that he was able to
00:32:20.431 --> 00:32:24.252
face down the British army and to survive.
00:32:24.532 --> 00:32:27.015
He didn't defeat them, but he survived.
00:32:27.454 --> 00:32:29.777
And then they slipped away in the night,
00:32:30.436 --> 00:32:31.458
got to Princeton,
00:32:31.518 --> 00:32:33.959
fought the rear guard and won.
00:32:35.200 --> 00:32:37.441
And that really totally changed the course
00:32:37.461 --> 00:32:37.781
of the war.
00:32:38.481 --> 00:32:39.403
It did.
00:32:39.442 --> 00:32:40.784
We're talking with Jack Kelly,
00:32:40.804 --> 00:32:42.404
whose new book is about Thomas Paine.
00:32:42.665 --> 00:32:45.028
Now, it's not a biography, really,
00:32:45.288 --> 00:32:47.068
looking at this particular period.
00:32:47.088 --> 00:32:49.590
Do you talk much about Paine afterward?
00:32:50.771 --> 00:32:54.895
I do just cover his later life.
00:32:56.396 --> 00:32:58.118
I think, as you mentioned,
00:32:58.138 --> 00:32:59.159
it's not a biography.
00:32:59.299 --> 00:33:02.021
And I think one of the difficulties of
00:33:02.061 --> 00:33:04.364
writing about Thomas Paine is that he had
00:33:04.683 --> 00:33:06.244
such an event-filled life
00:33:08.326 --> 00:33:10.208
somewhat before he came to America,
00:33:10.248 --> 00:33:12.509
but certainly afterwards because he went
00:33:12.630 --> 00:33:13.130
on to,
00:33:13.150 --> 00:33:17.593
first he retired from politics and tried
00:33:17.613 --> 00:33:20.875
to become an inventor and invented an iron
00:33:20.914 --> 00:33:23.355
bridge that he was looking to find money
00:33:23.395 --> 00:33:25.557
to finance.
00:33:26.755 --> 00:33:29.096
He went over to England and to France
00:33:29.115 --> 00:33:30.497
looking for capital.
00:33:31.538 --> 00:33:32.679
While he was there,
00:33:33.078 --> 00:33:34.640
the French Revolution broke out.
00:33:34.759 --> 00:33:37.340
He became a great advocate because to him,
00:33:37.401 --> 00:33:39.383
the French Revolution at first was
00:33:40.471 --> 00:33:42.773
the culmination of what he'd been trying
00:33:42.814 --> 00:33:44.276
to get across in America.
00:33:44.316 --> 00:33:46.617
This was the great change of the world
00:33:46.657 --> 00:33:47.538
was changing now.
00:33:47.578 --> 00:33:49.380
The monarchies were falling.
00:33:50.320 --> 00:33:53.884
And so he became very involved in the
00:33:53.924 --> 00:33:54.805
French Revolution.
00:33:55.705 --> 00:33:57.347
And then
00:33:59.028 --> 00:34:01.148
When the French Revolution went off the
00:34:01.209 --> 00:34:01.729
rails,
00:34:02.429 --> 00:34:05.750
that kind of sunk his reputation in
00:34:05.789 --> 00:34:06.290
America.
00:34:07.631 --> 00:34:10.692
He also wrote a critique of Christianity
00:34:11.231 --> 00:34:12.753
from a deist point of view.
00:34:13.512 --> 00:34:14.914
Like many of the Enlightenment men,
00:34:14.994 --> 00:34:16.653
he was a deist,
00:34:17.375 --> 00:34:19.315
and he wanted to get across his ideas
00:34:19.335 --> 00:34:20.076
about religion.
00:34:21.036 --> 00:34:23.036
Benjamin Franklin had a great quote about,
00:34:23.237 --> 00:34:25.438
he said, when you talk about religion,
00:34:25.478 --> 00:34:25.818
he said,
00:34:26.677 --> 00:34:28.119
when you spit into the wind,
00:34:28.358 --> 00:34:29.960
you're spitting in your own face.
00:34:30.219 --> 00:34:33.300
And so he recommended just don't say
00:34:33.340 --> 00:34:33.681
anything.
00:34:34.242 --> 00:34:36.262
But Thomas Paine wanted to get it out.
00:34:36.382 --> 00:34:39.945
And that book that was called The Age
00:34:39.965 --> 00:34:43.346
of Reason was another cause of his
00:34:43.405 --> 00:34:49.068
reputation going downhill in the seventeen
00:34:49.128 --> 00:34:52.271
nineties and never really recovered,
00:34:52.431 --> 00:34:53.891
unfortunately, even to this day.
00:34:55.719 --> 00:34:55.900
Now,
00:34:56.340 --> 00:34:58.284
we've talked a lot about the words that
00:34:58.344 --> 00:34:59.286
rallied a nation,
00:34:59.327 --> 00:35:01.710
but your other subtitle is the founder for
00:35:01.871 --> 00:35:02.733
our time.
00:35:02.753 --> 00:35:04.396
And why do you think campaign is the
00:35:04.416 --> 00:35:05.498
founder for our time?
00:35:06.914 --> 00:35:07.114
Well,
00:35:07.273 --> 00:35:11.215
I think that many of his ideas were
00:35:12.056 --> 00:35:12.976
ahead of their time.
00:35:13.318 --> 00:35:18.000
And he had advocated for old age pensions
00:35:18.059 --> 00:35:20.802
and he advocated for help for the poor
00:35:20.902 --> 00:35:23.322
and for a more equal distribution of
00:35:23.382 --> 00:35:23.782
wealth.
00:35:24.324 --> 00:35:26.264
He was actually talking about those things
00:35:27.585 --> 00:35:30.726
in common sense and his writings later in
00:35:30.746 --> 00:35:32.268
the in the seventeen nineties.
00:35:33.387 --> 00:35:37.510
He was talking about India before Common
00:35:37.550 --> 00:35:37.871
Sense.
00:35:38.170 --> 00:35:40.853
When he first came over, he said,
00:35:41.132 --> 00:35:42.914
look what's going on in India.
00:35:42.934 --> 00:35:43.974
The British were...
00:35:48.217 --> 00:35:51.278
imposing this imperialist regime on India.
00:35:52.360 --> 00:35:54.240
There had been a terrible famine in,
00:35:56.322 --> 00:35:57.882
killed like ten million people.
00:35:59.423 --> 00:36:05.867
So he was aware of things and his
00:36:05.927 --> 00:36:08.708
foresight and I think his sympathy and his
00:36:11.490 --> 00:36:14.552
uh empathy with working people uh is
00:36:14.592 --> 00:36:17.413
really much more modern than than many of
00:36:17.452 --> 00:36:20.614
the uh other the ideas of the other
00:36:20.893 --> 00:36:24.135
founders so i think those are in in
00:36:24.175 --> 00:36:26.255
themselves is is a reason for him to
00:36:26.295 --> 00:36:27.076
be relevant and i
00:36:27.896 --> 00:36:30.157
And he spoke directly to people who were
00:36:30.297 --> 00:36:31.737
in a true crisis.
00:36:31.757 --> 00:36:33.478
I mean, the American crisis.
00:36:33.978 --> 00:36:37.298
And he then wrote a series of essays
00:36:37.679 --> 00:36:39.480
that he called the Crisis Series that
00:36:41.981 --> 00:36:44.081
addressed other aspects of the
00:36:45.101 --> 00:36:47.603
Revolutionary War in its later years.
00:36:49.103 --> 00:36:49.543
I mean,
00:36:49.804 --> 00:36:52.385
people were in a desperate situation then,
00:36:52.445 --> 00:36:57.126
so his warnings against giving in to fear,
00:36:58.126 --> 00:37:00.188
his idea that there's always hope,
00:37:00.208 --> 00:37:02.009
that we can prevail,
00:37:02.608 --> 00:37:06.230
I think those are ideas that really have
00:37:06.250 --> 00:37:07.371
a resonance today,
00:37:08.590 --> 00:37:10.931
to the extent that we're in a rather
00:37:10.972 --> 00:37:14.074
fraught time in our own history in these
00:37:14.114 --> 00:37:14.353
days.
00:37:15.833 --> 00:37:16.355
Thank you so much.
00:37:16.394 --> 00:37:17.914
We've been talking with Jack Kelly,
00:37:17.954 --> 00:37:20.155
whose new book is Tom Paine's War,
00:37:20.195 --> 00:37:22.797
the words that rallied a nation and the
00:37:22.836 --> 00:37:24.338
founder for our time.
00:37:24.358 --> 00:37:26.739
Really a great look at this figure.
00:37:26.938 --> 00:37:29.000
You know, you said he's often forgotten,
00:37:29.019 --> 00:37:32.141
but he always comes back and he does
00:37:33.121 --> 00:37:33.460
speak,
00:37:33.702 --> 00:37:35.661
still speak to us in a way that
00:37:35.802 --> 00:37:36.963
is really extraordinary.
00:37:36.983 --> 00:37:37.802
So thank you, Jack.
00:37:38.603 --> 00:37:39.083
Well, thank you.
00:37:39.923 --> 00:37:42.045
And look forward to hearing more.
00:37:42.958 --> 00:37:45.083
And Jack also has a sub stack,
00:37:45.123 --> 00:37:46.827
Jack Kelly talking to America,
00:37:46.847 --> 00:37:49.112
which I recommend as well as the other
00:37:49.152 --> 00:37:50.193
books you have written.
00:37:50.233 --> 00:37:51.597
So thanks so much for joining us.
00:37:51.978 --> 00:37:52.197
Okay.
00:37:52.237 --> 00:37:52.960
Thanks a lot, Bob.
00:37:53.692 --> 00:37:55.793
And now I want to thank our listeners,
00:37:55.853 --> 00:37:57.436
too, as well as Jonathan Lane,
00:37:57.456 --> 00:37:58.197
our producer.
00:37:58.217 --> 00:37:59.597
So every week I thank folks who are
00:37:59.617 --> 00:38:00.878
regularly tuning in.
00:38:00.898 --> 00:38:02.300
And if you're in one of these places
00:38:02.320 --> 00:38:03.041
and want some Rev.
00:38:03.061 --> 00:38:05.603
Two fifty stuff, send Jonathan an email.
00:38:05.643 --> 00:38:08.206
Jay Lane at Revolution two five oh dot
00:38:08.306 --> 00:38:08.487
org.
00:38:09.108 --> 00:38:09.788
And this week,
00:38:09.967 --> 00:38:12.050
our friends in Philadelphia and
00:38:12.090 --> 00:38:13.112
Binghamton, New York.
00:38:13.672 --> 00:38:14.192
Boston,
00:38:14.231 --> 00:38:16.472
Hanover and Belmont in Massachusetts,
00:38:16.512 --> 00:38:18.893
Hillsborough and Bricktown, New Jersey,
00:38:19.494 --> 00:38:22.454
Edmond, Oklahoma, Laval, Quebec, Seguin,
00:38:22.494 --> 00:38:26.536
Texas, Yorktown in Virginia and Savage,
00:38:26.597 --> 00:38:27.197
Minnesota.
00:38:27.237 --> 00:38:28.717
Thank you all for joining us and everyone
00:38:28.757 --> 00:38:30.197
in places between and beyond.
00:38:30.297 --> 00:38:32.298
Now we'll be piped out on the road
00:38:32.338 --> 00:38:32.878
to Boston.
00:38:32.918 --> 00:38:33.278
Thank you.