Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man was a response to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, in which the French Revolution and revolutionary causes were heavily criticized. Paine gave a theoretical defense of democracy and republican principles as the ideals of the French Revolution and advocated a remarkably modern welfare state program whose fundamental function was to abolish poverty.
The advent of the French Revolution
To appreciate the intent and impact of the Rights of Man, it has to be examined within the context of Paine’s life and intellectual itinerary. After an inconspicuous start in life as a corset maker and customs officer, in 1774 Paine emigrated from England to America, carrying a letter of recommendation from Benjamin Franklin.
Paine himself once said that he was a wanderer, and wandering was indeed emblematic of his lifestyle, but Paine was also an intellectual wanderer: His political and social ideas developed in ways that mirrored his roving lifestyle. From his arrival in Philadelphia in 1774 until his death in New York in 1809, Paine’s intellectual itinerary took him through four stages of political and social development. Initially he fell under the sway of the liberal ideas of John Locke and classical republican thought. In France, he encountered and embraced Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s notions of community, virtue, and social democracy. Paine’s third phase came at the end of the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution, when he found a new spirituality in seeking God’s wholeness and oneness in the universe. However, the Deistic spirituality faded away during his final years in America, which marked the fourth and the most despondent phase of Paine’s personal life and intellectual standing.
It was in the first phase, under the influence of Lockean liberalism
Paine also used the language of virtue and corruption, which was distinctive of classical republicanism. His contemporary, Burke, who is considered the founder of modern conservative thought, used the same language, but his usage was drastically different from Paine to such an extent that they lost their friendship and became adversaries in the debates over the French Revolution. The classical republicans searched for a virtuous citizenry
Paine spoke the language of classical republicanism to argue for the creation of an appropriate structure of good government—the republic. The republic guaranteed that government sought the common good for all rather than the individual interests of a corrupt few. This could presumably be done by ensuring that a virtuous citizenry participated in governmental decision making, which in turn entailed that elections were of utmost significance. When the people elected
Intellectually, however, Paine went on to draw upon not only the traditions of both liberalism and republicanism but also the framework of social democracy. With the gathering pace of revolutionary events on the Continent, Paine moved to France, where social and political debates were very much informed by the concept of social democracy articulated through the works of Rousseau. Paine incorporated Rousseau’s political philosophy into his thinking, as a result of which he managed to lay the foundations for the most radical and economic proposals in eighteenth century England and America. Although Paine had devoted part 1 of the Rights of Man to a direct rebuttal of Burke’s assault on French Revolution ideals, the second part ignored him and focused instead on formulating a welfare state project within a Rousseauist social democratic worldview. The astonishing fact is that Paine argued for these policies 150 years before the rise of the social welfare state.
In December, 1792, Paine was tried and condemned in absentia for seditious libel
Paine has long been a controversial figure, attracting both scholarly and popular interest as a result of his spirited participation in the major social and political issues of his time. His original contributions have managed to transcend time and space and are still relevant to contemporary concerns. In the Rights of Man, Paine presented two central arguments that have influenced discussions of governance and social justice.
In part 1, he argued that government should be founded on reason rather than on tradition or precedent and that a democratic society, in which all individuals have equal rights and in which leadership depends on talent and wisdom, is far superior to aristocracy, monarchy, or any type of hereditary governance. In part 2, he argued that political leaders acquired social virtue only when all people were properly cared for, when the needs of the poor became the responsibility of government to alleviate, and when everyone
Paine’s advocacy of social and liberal democracy, with its universalistic orientation, had a great intellectual impact not only on his contemporaries but also on subsequent generations of thinkers worldwide. His ideas were incorporated into the nineteenth and twentieth century internationalist movements, antislavery and anticolonial struggles, and social welfare theories and campaigns. Undoubtedly, Paine irritated many but equally inspired many others.
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Ayer, Alfred Julius. Thomas Paine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Analytical account of Paine’s life, travels, and travails, with a critical examination of his philosophical, political, and religious thoughts. -
Blakemore, Steven. Intertextual War: Edmund Burke and the French Revolution in the Writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Paine, and James Mackintosh. Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1997. A comparative study of Paine’s response to Burke in relation to other contemporary reactions by Mary Wollstonecraft and James Mackintosh. -
Claeys, Gregory. The Political Thought of Thomas Paine. Winchester, England: Unwin Hyman, 1989. A comprehensive commentary on Paine’s political thought, especially in the Rights of Man. -
Fennessey, R. R. Burke, Paine, and the Rights of Man: A Difference of Political Opinion. The Hague, the Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963. A meticulous account of the relationship between Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France and Paine’s response in his Rights of Man. -
Foner, Eric, ed. Thomas Paine: Collected Writings. New York: Library of America, 1995. A convenient collection of Paine’s important publications and several essays and letters. -
Fruchtman, Jack, Jr. Thomas Paine: Apostle of Freedom. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1994. A reader-friendly but rigorous chronological review and reappraisal of Paine’s life and thought. -
Kaye, Harvey J. Thomas Paine and the Promise of America. New York: Hill and Wang, 2005. A thorough tracing of Paine’s influence, from the formation of America to the early twenty-first century, on the collective American political psyche. -
Keane, John. Tom Paine: A Political Life. New York: Grove Press, 2003. An encyclopedic biography of Paine’s public and private life. -
Woodcock, Bruce, and John Coates. Combative Styles: Romantic Prose and Ideology. Hull, England: University of Hull Press, 1995. A literary study of the writing styles of Burke, Paine, and other leading participants in the revolution controversy.
Louis XVI Calls the Estates-General
Fall of the Bastille
Burke Lays the Foundations of Modern Conservatism
Wollstonecraft Publishes A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Declaration of Independence
U.S. Constitution Is Adopted
U.S. Bill of Rights Is Ratified
Edmund Burke; Benjamin Franklin; Thomas Paine; Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Mary Wollstonecraft.