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The Constitutional Theories of Thomas Paine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

John J. Meng
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Extract

The latter half of the eighteenth century was a period of tremendous social, political, and economic fermentation. Much of our contemporary civilization was shaped by the forces released during those five decades. Frenchmen, Englishmen, and Germans of great ability and deserved renown had written and were writing of the rights of man and of the citizen. More than ever before in the history of the modern world thought was being given to the lot of the common people. In America, and later in France, Thomas Paine epitomized this liberal intellectual trend in words that have been adopted as classic expressions of the inherent value of the human personality.

Unfortunately, the phenomenal growth of industrial capitalism during he nineteenth and twentieth centuries caused the new bourgeois ruling classes to lose sight of the basic human values stressed so emphatically by the eighteenth-century intellectuals.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , July 1946 , pp. 283 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1946

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References

1 The text of the Constitution is printed in Pennsylvania Archives. Series 3, X, 767–783.Google Scholar

2 An act of the General Assembly, dated November 28, povided for a vote on the first Tuesday of April, 1779. The act was printed in the Pennsylvania Packet of December 1, and the Pennsylvania Evening Post of December 2 1778.

3 Some pertinent brief comments on the Pennsylvania “Associators” and the Philadelphia Constitutional Society, of which Paine was a prominent member, may be found inLink, Eugene Perry, Democratic-Republican Societies, 1790–1800 (New York, 1942), 26–29.Google Scholar

4 See Meng, John J., Despatches and Instructions of Conrad Alexandre Gérard, 1778–1780 … (Baltimore, 1939), 395–396.Google Scholar The letters are not included in any edition of Paine's reprinted works, nor have they been separately republished. Other letters referred to in this article are appearing in the Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, LVII, 03, 1946, ff.Google Scholar

5 The story of the Paine-Deane controversy has been reviewed frequently, particularly by the admirers of Thomas Paine. His letters to Deane, widely published in the journals of the time, may be found in practically every edition of the author's works. The entire affair was closely involved with Franco-American relations, and touched upon many public concerns usually ignored by writers on the subject. Documentation for this aspect of the controversy may be found in Meng, , op. cit., 95–97, 395n., 429–430, 442n., 467–468, 470–472, 474, 500, 505n., 548n.Google Scholar

6 “Constitutions, Governments, and Charters,” June 21, 1805; “Constitutional Reform. To the Citizens of Pennsylvania on the Proposal for Calling a Convention,” August, 1805, in William M., Van der Weyde (ed.). The Life and Works of Thomas Paine (10 v., New Rochelle, 1925). X, 235–272.Google Scholar

7 The Pennsylvania Packet, or the General Advertiser, 12 1, 1778.Google Scholar Italics Paine's.

8 “Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession,” in Van der Weyde, , II, 107.Google Scholar

9 “Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs,” in Van der Weyde, , II, 143.Google Scholar

10 Paine's arguments concerning the necessity for an equality of constitutional rights appeared in Pennsylvania Packet, 12 1, 1778.Google Scholar

11 Pennsylvania Packet, 12 1, 1778.Google Scholar Italics Paine's.

12 ibid.

13 ibid.

14 Id., December 10, 1778.Google Scholar

15 Paine's remarks upon the nature of freedom appeared in the Pennsylvania Packet, 12 1, 1778.Google Scholar Italics Paine's.

16 “Dissertation on First Principles of Government,” in Van der Weyde, , V, 225.Google Scholar

17 Pennsylvania Packet, 12 1, 1778.Google Scholar

18 Id., December 5, 1778.Google Scholar

19 Id., December 1, 1778.Google Scholar

20 Id., December 5, 1778.Google Scholar

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid. This was neither the first nor the last time that Paine inveighed against the British Crown and all its pomps. Divine-right monarchy as exemplified in Britain remained throughout his life the object of his detestation and abhorrence.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid.

25 These observations on the executive power were printed in the Pennsylvania Packet, December 10, 1778.Google Scholar

26 Pennsylvania Packet, December, 10, 1778.Google Scholar

27 See his letter on “Constitutional Reform,” 08, 1805, in Van der Weyde, X, 243–272Google Scholar

28 Paine's, comments on the judiciary appeared in the Pennsylvania Packet, December 12, 1778.Google Scholar

29 Pennsylvania Packet, December 12, 1778.Google Scholar

30 Id., December 1, 1778.Google Scholar