Thomas Paine's To Begin the World Over Again

male narrator: Occasionally, there is a man born into the world whose life is a great arc, a man who seems to offer nothing of any significance, then rises to extraordinary greatness, a man who changes the world, only to have the world he changed turn its back on him, a man who falls in love with a new and raw country, only to end up greatly misunderstood by his new love.

But then there were also declarations and constitutions and revolutions and friendships with extraordinary men and perhaps, above all, the thrill of the Enlightenment, when all the potential of humanity was about to burst forth, when it seemed that mankind could begin the world over again.

- Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm happy to stand here before you tonight and look out at our United States of America and, perhaps, from the shadows, shed a little light on its very beginning and on that of the French Revolution and on the idea of reason and, perhaps, even on some of the high and low tides of my own life.

And if you fear a history lesson tonight, what is history for but to remind us of our better dreams?

And what is life for but to search for the truth?

So let me begin by saying that the rumors of my addiction to alcohol were a lie.

As to me being a "filthy little atheist," filthy, no-- untidy I grant you-- little, obviously not, and atheist, never.

Not that I am without my faults, as I'm sure you will discover tonight, but I have been much maligned, misused, and misunderstood by our United States of America.

Now, this matters little in terms of the man Thomas Paine, but it matters much in terms of the ideas of the man Thomas Paine.

So... Enlightenment, what a concept-- that we could end ignorance and poverty... [sweeping classical music] That we, the pawns, could take the power from the Kings and Queens and Bishops, that through reason and curiosity and science, we the people could begin the world over again.

Well, my world began in Thetford, Norfolk, England, I had an inauspicious childhood.

I did sing songs often when asked not to.

I also at age eight began reflections on a God of gentleness and kindness not anger and revenge.

I did also at age eight begin my career as a writer.

"Epitaph to a Crow" by Thomas Paine.

"Here lies the body of John Crow, "who once was high, but now is low.

"Heed, brother crows, take warning all, for as you rise, so must you fall."

So young, so poetic, so prophetic.

I followed my father's footsteps As a courset maker.

to push out and pull in as desired.

Not conducive to breathing, hence fainting couches.

Then, thank God, the Seven Years' War.

Then, thank God, I moved to London.

And debating clubs, each with a specialty-- everything from politics to farting.

Sometimes hard to tell the one from the other.

But we were challenging everything.

And I was learning how to reason.

But life can be elusive for happiness.

My wife, Mary, and babe, Sarah both died in childbirth, not an unusual event.

Then I became a tax collector, everyone's favorite profession.

Then I married and separated From my friend Elisabeth And then finally, I sat down at 36 Craven Street with the British American Colonial Agent, Benjamin Franklin, and my life changed.

Ben wrote letters of recommendation to some of the most important men in the colonies.

"An ingenious, worthy, young man.

If you could put him in way of obtaining employment"-- from the most important man in the Colonies.

So, with Enlightenment in my mind and Ben's letters in my hand, I set sail for that place of new hope and last resort, the Colonies, a man who, apart from some fine debates had spent 37 remarkably unremarkable years on this Earth.

but I was not discouraged.

One must never be too discouraged by failure nor too elated by success.

I had served an apprenticeship, and I was ready for something.

Not the voyage.

[hoarsely] Seven weeks of absolute hell.

[breathes heavily] Racked with fevers... I had to be carried ashore on a stretcher into the care of a doctor, without which I think I would have died.

But I didn't.

So...Philadelphia.

And Quakers, who, like the Quakers of Norfolk, enjoyed much boiled food and, I suspect, rather dour sex.

But I loved this new land, this wide-open vista so raw and unformed, where it seemed to me I truly did have it in my power to begin my life over again.

[children singing] Well, next to my boarding room was a little publishing company owned by Robert Aitken, my new friend and employer-- editor of his magazine, "The Pennsylvania Magazine."

52 pages of flowers and forest creatures and illustrations of inventions and fascinating articles about beavers.

So I started writing, under many names-- Comus, Atlanticus, Amicus-- for two reasons-- to make it look as if we had more writers than we did and to cover my ass, pardon the expression, as we went from-- I went from beavers to attacks on the Monarchy-- from beavers to treason.

A couple of glasses of rum and water, treason, and the pursuit of virtue.

Ah, yes, virtue, cornerstone of the Enlightenment.

You see, the idea was to rise above one's own self-interests and do public good, preferably having first established some personal financial security.

I always seemed to miss out on that first step.

But there was much public good that needed to be done.

Across the street from my boarding room was a large shed where black men, women, and children were sold as commodities, much like cattle, sheep, or pigs.

Having been first inspected as to their strength, their durability, and often their sexual desirability, they were then sold and taken away, often in chains, to be a white man's slave for the rest of their God-given life.

That is not the kind of life that any God I would have any interest in would want for any of his children, as these fine Christian gentlemen led away their purchases.

So... I wrote this-- "And I reflect that ever since the discovery of America, "she, Britain, hath employed herself "in the most horrid of all traffics, "that of human flesh, "unknown to the most savage nations, "and hath yearly--without provocation and in cold blood-- "ravished the hapless shores of Africa, "robbing it of its unoffending inhabitants to cultivate her stolen dominions in the West."

"Pennsylvania Journal," October 18, 1775.

- [singing] Be my woman, girl and I'll all: Be your man - Be my woman, girl, I'll all: Be your man - Be my... - I demanded the immediate emancipation of all Africans in the colonies.

Didn't, of course, happen.

Pity.

Oh, America, what was it you did not understand about slavery?

Could we not have saved some suffering for our United States?

Or as someone would come to say, "What would have happened when Patrick Henry said, "'Give me liberty or give me death,' "if one of his slaves had stood up and said, 'Me too'"?

I would not live to see the end of this ungodly practice.

But I had many new friends-- mechanics, artisans, craftsmen, and I had Ben Franklin and Doctor Benjamin Rush, a great man of the Enlightenment-- also a great bloodletter.

[shudders] And Samuel Adams, who I would come to love like a brother, and later, Thomas Jefferson.

And I realize, in respect to Thomas, that I, being a mere writer, I never had to deal with the compromises of political power, but then I also, of my own choice, never had to deal with slaves.

The idea that Monarchs answered to God and God alone was being challenged.

After skirmishes at Concord and Lexington, 20,000 men assembled at Harvard Yard.

20,000 men are not a skirmish.

King George felt the same way, one of the very few times that his "mad-jesty"... [belching] And I agreed on anything, and he announced that we were either a colony or an enemy.

We were either with him or against him.

Well, the sons and daughters of this new America had a choice to make, and her future well-being depended upon changing the sentiments of the people from dependence to independence.

[martial drumbeat] So I had a pamphlet to write.

And I never, by the way, all through my life, found writing easy.

I wrote slowly, sometimes spending hours on a single sentence or even phrase, but I was writing because I had to, not because it was easy.

I was going to call it "Plain Truth," but Dr.

Rush, of the bloodletting, suggested "Common Sense."

Good call.

Now, I'm not going to read the entire thing to you.

And it is still available, by the way.

And I didn't just pluck these ideas out of thin air but from years of conversations and debates.

But I did do three things-- I actually wrote it-- important, you know-- I wrote it in short, simple sentences, and I wrote it to appeal to my reader's best and higher self.

Oh, yes, and I also said that against the greatest military power on earth, we could win, but in short, simple sentences.

"'Tis not in numbers, but in unity "that our great strength lies.

"Yet our present numbers are sufficient "to repel the force of all the world.

"The cause of America is in a great measure "the cause of all mankind.

"In America, the Law is King.

"With tyrants, the King is Law.

"Society in every state is a blessing, "but government, even in its best state, "is but a necessary evil, in its worst state, an intolerable one."

Now, let me expand on this.

It has caused much misunderstanding.

We are all society, and in an ideal situation, we would all aid and support each other, each contributing to the common good, a blessing.

But since we have not yet reached such an enlightened state, we must turn to the necessary evil of government to restrain our vices and to provide the support that we cannot provide ourselves, for the common good of the people.

But in 1776, to have as our government a tyrannical Monarch 3,000 miles away, that was intolerable.

"Securing freedom and property to all men "and, above all things, free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience."

And finally, "We have it in our power to begin the world over again."

But, of course, it had to be published-- not easy since it was treason.

Well, Robert Bell was brave enough to publish it, "Written by an Englishman."

As long as I covered all losses, he would get half of all profits, and we would charge 2 shillings a copy.

Well, December-- no, January 10, 1776, 1,000 copies, sold out.

Simple calculation showed that I was owed �30, but Bell calculated that not only was there no profit, but that I owed him �29, 12 shillings.

Being creative with the books goes back a lot further than you think.

So I had 6,000 published myself, this time written by Thomas Paine and, for the first time, Paine with an E. Up till then, I had always been, as many people would tell you, a simple P-A-I-N.

Well, I charged a shilling-- no binding, no cover, cheap paper.

See, a shilling-- now, that's the price of a plate of bread and beef and a beer, and I would hope a little more nourishing.

I would come to give all the profits to Washington to buy mittens for his men.

Then I renounced all rights so that anyone could publish it.

Hundreds of thousands of copies were printed, and everyone either read it or had it read to them, and suddenly, everyone was talking independence.

I felt proud, with good cause, I think, as I sank into poverty.

But many said kind things about it.

"We were blind, but on reading these enlightened words, the scales have fallen from our eyes"-- someone, a poet, I would say, in New York.

George Washington-- "Working a powerful change in the minds of many men."

Thomas Jefferson-- "No writer has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of style, in simple and unassuming language."

John Adams-- "A poor, ignorant, malicious, short-sighted, crapulous mass.

"I dreaded the effect so popular a pamphlet "might have among the people.

It was so democratical."

Yes, John, that was the entire idea.

And I trust that the word "crapulous" has gone out of fashion?

Mind you, John was not alone.

There were many attacks, and it was pointed out, you see, that democracy dangerously concentrates political power in the hands of the many.

Well, timing is all.

Shakespeare said that.

You see, Congress was debating my ideas of an independence manifesto when word came that the British were about to invade New York.

The Declaration of Independence was written and passed unanimously, and it was a revolutionary document, beautifully written, although it still could say, with no apparent shame, that all men are created equal and call American Indians "merciless savages."

I considered them brothers.

Well, the British weren't stupid.

They went out and enlisted 30,000 German mercenaries.

So I enlisted and took myself and my musket up to Fort Lee, where I was made a Major.

[folksy fiddle music] Yes, a Major Paine.

And I met George Washington, and we became certain friends, for a certain time, but then it was decided that, Major or not, I should devote my time to writing, since, while I might do some good with a pen, I was sure to do much harm with a musket.

But I could still sing.

[singing] So cheer, cheer the green mountaineers Yes, cheer, cheer the green mountaineers And the British marched down Broadway.

It was a stack of dominoes-- Fort Lee, Fort Washington, Newport, Trenton, Philadelphia in chaos, the whole army in full retreat, thousands of men deserting.

[indistinct chatter and metal clanging] So I picked up my pen, and I wrote "American Crisis I."

And Washington, the night before he crossed the Delaware, had his officers read it to the men.

"These are the times that try men's souls.

"The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, "in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country, "but he that stands by it now "deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

"American Crisis I," Thomas Paine.

After crossing the Delaware and as they routed the Hessians, Washington's men were screaming, "These are the times that try men's souls!"

And we had a victory.

13 in all, one for each colony.

Then--then I was appointed secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs.

[lively instrumental music] Then... the Silas Deane incident.

Silas Deane was appointed by Congress to go to France to procure money and supplies for the war.

He was also employed by a financier, Robert Morris, who saw the revolution as a way of lining his own coffers.

In fact, Morris was the chairman of the committee that gave out the contract for supplying the army, and who did they give the contract to?

The company owned by Robert Morris... without bids.

That there are men in every country who get their living by war is as shocking as it is true.

Then Congress got a bill for French support, a very large bill, vouched for by Deane, who was recalled to Philadelphia to explain why, for example, gunpowder was marked up 500%.

Well, I did not think much of his explanation, and I said so, but I made a political mistake.

You see, I also said that, "Those who are now our allies--the French-- "prefaced that alliance with an early and generous friendship."

In other words, the French were supplying us before we signed treaties.

Now, citizens must always be able to peer into the heart of their government, but governments often wish to hide what heart they have.

I had exposed the truth, but I had leaked diplomatic information.

And the ones who hated my ideas of Enlightenment and democracy, the ones with their slaves and their war profiteering who thought only the rich and well-born should vote, who detested my idea that labor, not property, is the true source of all capital, well, they could smell blood, as could the press.

"So, you, great 'Common Sense,' "did surely come from out the crack of grisly Pluto's bum."

I resigned as secretary, and my brief political career was over-- no doubt a blessing.

And Deane?

Well, after he died, his heirs sued the American government for $35,000 and got it, and then it came out that all through the war, Deane was a British spy.

But I had fallen.

Ben's daughter Sarah wrote, "Well, the most rational thing he could have done "would have been to die the instant he finished 'Common Sense.'"

But I would have been dead at 39.

So we had won the war on the battlefield, but what to write about now?

Not politics.

Except I do just have to say one thing.

John Adams wrote that the United States should be governed by a few of the most wise and good, the rich and well-born and able.

Hamilton said that the rich and well-born should have a distinct, permanent place in government to check the imprudence of democracy.

Yet Adams was a son of a farmer, Hamilton was an illegitimate orphan raised in abject poverty-- not exactly well-born, either of them.

Beware of men who see their own rise to success as a sign of their own superiority.

And having achieved power, how could the rich and well-born check the imprudence of democracy?

By restricting the right to vote, which they did.

There was a famous case of a man who-- he fell on hard times and had to sell his ass, thereby losing enough of his assets as to also lose his right to vote.

Well, Ben posed the question, "Wherein lies the vote, in the man or in the ass?"

I said that all men should vote.

And I had a horse called Button, and if I had ever had to sell her, it would have broken my heart.

Then I was elected to the American Philosophical Society, an honor of the highest and purist degree, but...the true greatness of a nation is founded in principles of humanity, and much had changed in the first nine years of this new country.

The great Enlightenment ideas that had driven "Common Sense" and The Declaration were being ground up in the down-and-dirty dust of politics.

So I determined to put down my pen and, instead, work on my mechanical ideas-- an internal combustion engine, causes of yellow fever, a smokeless candle, and, above all, my wrought-iron bridge, a single-span wrought-iron bridge based on models in France, a bridge in Shropshire, England, and spiders' webs, 400 to 500 feet across, no piers.

And consider-- bridges bring people together, that by increasing mobility, they also increase equality, that they conquer nature without destroying it.

Well, I worked for months on a model in Philadelphia, but no one had the money to build it.

Then Ben suggested the French Academy of Science and wrote a letter of recommendation: "The bearer of this letter, Mr.

Thomas Paine, "is author of the famous piece entitled 'Common Sense,' "published here with great effect "on the minds of the people.

He brings with him the model of a bridge."

So, 13 years after arriving with Ben's letters in my hand, I set sail for France with Ben's letter in my hand.

[seagulls calling] And as I sailed away, the Constitutional Convention was preparing to draft the document that would... preserve the power of the powerful and preserve the shame of slavery.

It would be 15 years before I would return to live out the final chapter of my life.

Well, in Paris, they loved my bridge and also had no money to build it.

So I took it to the Royal Society.

Oh, and note that English societies, as with English postage stamps, have never felt the need to actually identify themselves as English, hmm?

Well, I visited my 90-year-old Mother, my Father's grave.

I renewed acquaintances in London, and I missed my Button.

I would rather have seen her eating grass in her meadow or in her stable than all the pomp and show of Europe.

But a 110-foot model of my bridge, 5-feet high, was built in a London field, and many famous people came to set foot upon it, including my new friend Edmund Burke, a great opponent of slavery and British foreign policy.

We would spend many pleasant weeks together.

It would be from Paris that we would have our most bitter falling out.

And, much as I loved my iron bridge, there was a revolution starting in France.

I arrived back in Paris as a philosopher rpublicain, representing le monde nouveau, a hero to the French people, with clearly very little command of the French language.

Ah, the beauty and gaiety and ostentation of the court of Louis Seizime.

Merci beaucoup.

Yes, well, beauty and gaiety may be all very well and fine, but revolutions are often ignited by the economy.

Now, the people of Paris, outraged by the high price of bread, armed themselves with guns, swords, axes, clubs, picks, pikes, pitchforks... [voices, fighting sounds] and facing an army of 30,000, they took over the mighty Bastille.

The ruling class of England was scared out of its wits.

Now, in Lewes, we had taverns, but in Paris, we had salons.

Ooh-la-la, hmm?

Yes, with writers and philosophers and aristocrats, often-- often hosted by women.

Indeed, a Baroness, Cornlie de Vasse, encouraged intimacy between us, and she spoke good English, but, no, intimacy had not proven something profitable or rewarding to me.

Pause.

Ben Franklin died.

And the American Federalists, who had refused him any reward or honorarium for all his services, said of him, as he lay dying, that he was the first to lay his head in the lap of French harlotry and to prostrate the honor and Christianity of his country to the Deism and democracies of France.

I, as his adopted political son, should have taken heed... or not.

Then my friend Edmund Burke launched his "Reflections on the Revolution in France," 400 pages of unprovoked attack on the people of France, full of ignorance and prejudice, a complete change of philosophy.

Ah, but then the British government had just awarded him a pension of �3,000 a year.

Timing is all.

Now, I will sum it up in a single paragraph.

You see, Burke writes that the power of English Kings was established in 1688 when Parliament said, and I quote, "We do, in the name of all the people, "most humbly and faithfully submit them, "their heirs, and all descendants forever "till the end of time to the King."

Absurd.

And as for us riffraff, he actually wrote, "The occupation of a hairdresser cannot be a matter of honor to any person."

If there are any hairdressers here tonight, I apologize.

But Burke feared that aristocrats would be overthrown by, and I quote, "Petty lawyers, Jew brokers, "keepers of hotels, taverns, and brothels; "pert apprentices, clerks, shop boys, fiddlers and dancers, and hairdressers."

What was his thing about hairdressers?

I've only been so betrayed twice in my life, by Burke and by Washington.

So I wrote "Rights of Man, Part First," dedicated, ironically, to Washington.

But I would like to share one or two of the ideas with you.

"Every individual-- every individual-- "is born equal in rights with his contemporary.

"It is the living, not the dead, "that are to be accommodated.

"When man ceases to be, "his power and his wants cease with him.

"Governments have no rights, "only duties to their citizens.

"War--war is the common harvest "of all those who participate in the division "and expenditure of public money.

"In despotic governments, wars are the effect of pride, "but in those governments in which "they become the means of taxation, "they acquire a more permanent habitualness.

"Taxes are not raised to carry on wars, "but, rather, wars are raised to carry on taxes.

War is the art of conquering at home."

Well, the British government did their best to smear me with accusations-- that I was a debt-ridden wife beater, callous to my parents, and known to engage in carnal relations with my maiden wife and a cat.

Wreow!

Yes, well, the cries on the streets of Paris were not cats, but, "Aristocrate, a la lanterne."

Assumed aristocrats were hanged from street lanterns and then beheaded and disemboweled, and their head, heart, and entrails were carried on pikes round their old neighborhood-- one way to make a point.

Now, I was once mistaken for an aristocrat.

I know, ridiculous, yeah, but I had forgotten my cockaded hat, and I was kicked and beaten and dragged towards a lamppost when someone pointed out that I was no aristocrat.

I was an American... and the Angel of Death passed over.

Would soon need to make a second visit.

Perhaps I had underestimated the dangers of revolution, of an enraged people.

Well, back in London, cats and all, I spent evenings visiting friends, playing chess, draughts--checkers-- dominoes, not cards-- I never liked cards-- and writing "Rights of Man, Part Second."

And an Irishman was kind enough to write a melody for it.

[playful flute melody] "When it shall be said in any country in the world "'my poor are happy, neither ignorance "'nor distress is to be found among them.

"'My jails are empty of prisoners, "'my streets of beggars.

"'The aged are not in want.

"'The taxes are not repressive.

"'The rational world is my friend "because I am a friend of happiness,' "when these things can be said, "then may that country boast of its constitution and its government."

"The elderly, the widowed, "newly married couples, the poor, "the unemployed, disbanded soldiers, "and children, who would be required to attend school, "must be provided for from state funds, "and this support is not the nature of charity "but of a right.

"It will be paid for through general taxation.

"We are all children of God, "and the greatest offense of all to the great Father "is when we seek to torment and render each other miserable.

"My country is the world, and my religion is to do good."

See, is this not all God's work on Earth?

Well, it did very well in America and was the biggest best seller in English history, apart from the Bible.

Even I would not challenge the Bible.

Mind you, sales were helped considerably by the British government calling it wicked and seditious.

Everyone loves a wicked and seditious read.

In fact, when the Viennese government came out with a "Catalogue of Forbidden Books," so many Austrians used it as their reading guide that the government felt obliged to add the catalogue itself to the list.

But then I was issued with a 41-page summons for sedition, But with sedition, they didn't just burn effigies.

With the sword of Damocles overhead, a letter arrived.

"France, sir, calls you to its bosom, "to perform one of the most useful "and most honorable functions, "that of contributing, by wise legislation, to the happiness of the people," from the French National Assembly.

Well, I was at dinner with my friend William Blake, a great mystic and poet, but truly a man of vision, and he suddenly-- he turned to me, and he said, "Do not go home, or you are a dead man."

I left that night for Dover, and on a cold and dreary September morning, to the sound of boos and hissings, calls for a tar and feathering, not to mention a hanging, I sailed on the tide from England.

[crowd yelling] I would never see her again.

But I arrived in Calais a hero.

It seemed the entire town came out.

"Vive Thomas Paine.

Vive la Nation.

Vive Thomas Paine."

I was made an honorary citizen.

I was elected delegate to the French Assembly, despite my lack of French.

C'est la vie.

Same welcome in Paris.

But much had changed in 15 months.

The September massacres-- 1,300 political prisoners murdered in Paris, priests and royalists murdered in the countryside, the French Assembly full of politics.

Yes, Louis and Marie Antoinette were under lock and key, but when Danton said, "The French Republic, it is one and indivisible," would that he had been correct.

Well, the National Convention convened.

Now, there were... There were three tiers.

You had the nobility, or, as I often called them, the no-ability.

You had the clergy, even then known as deputies of corporations, and you had the commons, made up of the Montagnards with Robespierre, the Girondins with their connections to Jefferson and Franklin, the Jacobins, more provocative, the sans-culotte-- without breeches, meaning that they wore long trousers, hmm-- theEnrag-- the very angry-- the men like Jean-Paul Marat, who saw blood flowing in the gutters as an essential part of revolution.

Robespierre would come to agree.

And in the middle, the Plain, the majority, who usually controlled the vote until the Jacobins took over.

Well, I was one of nine appointed to write a new Constitution, and all around us was the guillotine, the machine, the quick and easy way of chopping off heads, even as we debated the fate of the King.

Robespierre called for execution.

I spoke against it.

The vote was to behead.

[martial drumming] And the former King was driven through a thick, early-morning mist to the Place de la Rvolution, where, in front of 20,000 people, the blade came down... [drum roll] [crowd cheering] I was a marked man.

And the Jacobins began to devour the Girondins, and the Committee of Public Safety took over, and we entered the Terror.

[faint screaming and yelling] And England had found me guilty of sedition, so she was looking to hang me by the neck until dead.

Given a choice, I would rather opt for the guillotine.

I nearly did.

But my skills are not in the day-to-day details of government, but one must always speak the truth as one sees it, no matter the consequences, no matter the consequences.

I retired from all public life, as I watched my friends lined up for the machine or taking the path of suicide.

And so I sat at Rue Faubourg-Saint-Denis, a delightful place, actually, more like a country dwelling than a Parisian house.

Now, we had chickens, ducks, geese... [birds squawking] turkeys, rabbits, two pigs, and the best orange apricots and greengage plums I have ever tasted.

And as I sat and waited for the knock on the door to take me away to the machine, I wrote "Age of Reason, Part First."

Now, ironic in that I wrote it to inspire mankind to a more exalted idea of God, and as an attack on atheism and on the slaughter of priests and on the idea of a state religion.

But this is the work that would be used to instigate the mutilation of my reputation.

So excerpts... [solemn classical music] "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 endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy.

"But I do not believe in the creed "professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, "by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, "by the Protestant church, "nor by any church that I know of.

"My own mind is my own church.

"Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief, "and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.

"Now, I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those "who believe otherwise.

"They have the same right to their beliefs as I have to mine.

"But it is necessary to the happiness of man "that he be mentally faithful to himself.

"Infidelity does not consist in believing or in disbelieving.

"It consists in professing to believe "what he does not believe.

"And let us bring the subject of the adulterous connection "of church and state fairly and openly before the world.

"And as to the Bible, "whenever we read the obscene stories, "the voluptuous debaucheries, "the cruel and torturous executions, "the unrelenting vindictiveness, "with which more than half the Bible is filled, "it would be more consistent that we called it "the work of a demon than the work of God.

"It is a history of wickedness "that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind, "and for my own part, I sincerely detest it, "as I detest everything that is cruel.

"And every religion is good that teaches man to be good, "and the world is my country, "all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."

And God-- oh, I stand in awe of God and His creation.

Everything that we see and touch and reap and eat is his magnificence, but I believe that if, when you look at this creation, you feel a need to understand what God was thinking, then look into yourself for that understanding, not to some man in brightly colored robes in a building full of brightly colored glass, all the better to dazzle you but not to help you understand God.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, in brief, is Deism.

And there were many of us-- Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Hancock, Madison, Hamilton, and myself.

narrator: "On December 27th "of the second year of the French Republic, "one and indivisible.

"To the Deputies: "The Committee of General Surety resolves "that Thomas Paine be arrested and imprisoned, "that an examination be made of his papers "and those found suspicious put under seal and brought to the Committee of General Surety."

– And at some time after 3: 00 in the morning, hours after I had finished "Part First," the knock on the door came.

[knock at door] Well, I managed to get the manuscript to a friend, and I was then deposited in Luxembourg Prison, Paris.

I was...56.

[door clangs] There was no particular reason for my arrest, but I was hardly unique in that.

I worked on "Age of Reason, Part Second," again in all haste, because none of us could see beyond 24 hours.

Then in a cell with three kind Belgians, it appeared that my death would come not from the blade but from typhus, when a miracle occurred-- yes, even for an infidel Deist like me, hmm?

See, when your time had arrived, a mark was put on your cell door in the morning.

And then before midnight, you were rounded up and taken to your trial and usually on to meet your maker.

Well, our time had arrived, and a four was marked on our door, except the door happened to be open at the time to allow more breezes into the cell to sooth my fevers.

With the coming of the cooler night air, the door was closed, and the mark was on the inside, and the Angel of Death passed over again.

Luck, a bribe, a well-placed friend?

God works in mysterious ways.

168 were taken away that night.

8 lived.

Then Robespierre announced one too many plots, and on July 28, 1794, the machine was turned on him.

He was beheaded, the guillotine was put away, and the Terror was over.

Some say 15,000 died.

Some say 40,000.

Then the new American minister James Monroe stepped in, and after ten months and nine days in prison, I was released.

I was not myself.

[birds chirping] My mind had lost its sharpness.

I was covered in blotches.

So many of my friends were dead.

Monroe did not think I would survive the winter, but I did.

And I sharpened my quill, and I finished "Age of Reason, Part Second."

[solemn acoustic guitar music] "It has been the scheme of the Christian church "and of all other invented systems of religion "to hold man ignorant of the Creator, "as it is of governments to hold man "in ignorance of his rights.

"I totally disbelieve that the Almighty ever did communicate "anything to man by any mode of speech "or any kind of vision, "other than by the universal display "of himself in the creation.

"The creation is the Bible of the Deist.

"He there reads, "in the handwriting of the Creator himself, the certainty of his existence."

[birds chirping and twittering] Well, it was a great success in England, and in Italy, I was a curly-haired Tomasso Paine.

In America, 17 editions, 100,000 copies sold, and it inspired debate about Deism and democracy.

It also helped to inspire an alliance between the Federalists and the Calvinist clergy so that politicians, instead of rising in the morning to seek the truth, they went to bed at night with the great American Moral Order.

And many clergy, from the pulpit preached, Christianity or Infidelity.

But one can but throw one's ideas to the wind.

Where they are blown is beyond any man's power.

But what was happening to my America?

"A thousand years hence, perhaps in less, "America may be what England now is.

"And when the empire of America shall fall, "the noblest work of human wisdom, "the grandest scene of human glory, the fair cause of freedom shall have rose and fell."

Much like John Crow.

Perhaps Sarah Franklin was right.

Perhaps I should have died the instant I finished "Common Sense" and lived on as an enduring hero.

And perhaps Burke was right in that too many people died in the French Revolution and that the tyranny of Kings would only be replaced by the tyranny of Emperors.

But as I neared my final chapter, I realized that the true tyranny was not Kings or Emperors.

It was poverty.

"Agrarian Justice."

"It is wrong to say that God made rich and poor.

"He only made male and female "and gave them the earth for their inheritance.

"So when land is improved through cultivation, "it is the value of the improvement only, "not the earth itself, that is individual property.

"Every proprietor of cultivated land, therefore, "owes the community a ground-rent "for the land he holds.

"Now, this ground-rent will finance a national fund "to pay every person at aged 21 a sum "as a compensation in part "for the loss of his or her natural inheritance of land "and a sum per year to every person at age 50 "and to those blind and lame "who cannot provide income themselves "for the rest of their lives.

"The fund will also be financed by a tax "on the value of all estates "when they are passed on to relatives due to death, "and this will not be a charity but a right, not bounty but justice."

[upbeat classical music] Then Jefferson won the presidency, and it was time to go home.

I had done with Europe.

I suspect much of it had done with me.

And it was only right that in the end, I would return to my dear America.

Well, the Federalist press announced my arrival-- "The infamous scavenger of all filth."

[bell tolling] "This loathsome reptile."

"A drunken atheist."

"A lying, drunken, brutal infidel "who rejoiced in the opportunity "of basking and wallowing in the confusion, devastation, bloodshed, and murder, in which his soul delights."

[bell tolls] Welcome home, Thomas.

Well, I continued to write against the Federalists, who were beginning to contemplate government as a profitable monopoly for the support and benefit of the rich at the expense of the general public.

And I wrote for Deism and for an Association of Nations and was advised to stop and didn't.

I did also compare John Adams to a number of animals and, better yet, vegetables.

I spent many pleasant afternoons with Thomas, supper at 4:00, followed by walks full of animated conversation, arm in arm.

It disgusted the Federalists.

So much the better.

But never an invitation into the society of Washington, never an invitation into government.

Jefferson was too astute a politician, I too stupid a one.

But my tide was truly in ebb.

"Reason" had cost me many friends-- Patrick Henry, Dr.

Rush, and... "Sir... "I have esteemed you as a warm friend, "but when I heard that you had turned your mind "to a defense of infidelity, "I felt myself much astonished and grieved.

"Do you think that your pen can un-Christianize "the mass of our citizens, "or have you hopes of converting a few of them to assist you in so bad a cause?"

Samuel Adams.

[gasps] Oh, God, not Samuel.

If only you had read it.

But one must always speak the truth as one sees it, no matter the consequences, no matter what one might be called, even Antichrist.

Am I not right in this?

Well, my last years, I, uh-- I began to misplace things, even as I wrote about the importance of memory.

Hmm.

And I wrote about religious freedom, press freedom, causes of yellow fever, flat-bottomed gunboats in the New York harbor, lawyers and corporations, and, above all, the fall of the British Monarchy.

I lived on tea, milk, fruit pies, plain dumplings, and a piece of meat when I could get it.

My last years were not pleasant, but then they seldom are.

My "Agrarian Justice" ideas would have been of great comfort.

But I had been blessed with 72 years and many adventures.

In private, I cried out in pain and peed in my bed, but I have always believed that human beings are essentially good.

There were those unkind enough as to pressure me to accept their religion, which I did not.

"Do you wish to believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God?"

I do not wish to believe on that subject... but I have always believed that human beings are essentially good.

Am I not right in this?

Well, some wrote of me with great passion, for example, William Cobbett... narrator: "Whether his carcass "is at last to be suffered to rot on the earth "or to be dried in the air "is of very little consequence.

"Whenever and wherever he breathes his last, "he will excite neither sorrow nor compassion.

"No friendly hand will close his eyes, "not a groan will be uttered, "not a tear will be shed.

"Men will learn to express all that is base, "malignant, treacherous, unnatural, and blasphemous by the single monosyllable, Paine."

- Or John Adams... "Begotten by a wild boar on a bitch wolf."

From my will... "I herewith take my leave of the world.

"I have lived an honest and useful life to mankind.

"My time has been spent in doing good, "and I die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my Creator God."

I slept a good night on June 7, 1809 and died at 8:00 in the morning as a new day was dawning.

Checkmate.

narrator: Thomas Paine died at 59 Grove Street, New York, at the home of an admirer.

The "New York Citizen," in its obituary, said, "He had lived long, did some good, and much harm."

Six people attended his funeral, three of them freed slaves.

But it was Cobbett, ten years later, having transformed into Paine's most ardent admirer, who traveled to a small, overgrown graveyard 22 miles north of New York and, in the dead of night, dug up Thomas Paine's decomposed body.

He sailed to London to exhibit the bones at twopence a go and build a giant bronze statue.

No statue was built, and as to the bones, they disappeared.

But Paine's principles, his writings and beliefs, live on for each new generation, still provoking debate about the true meaning of the revolutions that swept the world over 200 years ago.

In 1819, children sang a new nursery rhyme.

- [singing] Poor Tom Paine, there he lies Nobody laughs, nobody cries Where he's gone or how he fares Nobody knows, nobody cares Ah, yes, but then, you know, not everyone has a nursery rhyme written about them.

So I take my leave of you, with the hope that you will determine, as I did some time ago, to leave the world at your death a better place than was the world into which you were born and that you will use your dreams and hopes... passions... and reason to do so and that you will, indeed, understand that you have it in your power to begin the world over again.

Ladies and gentlemen, good night.

[sweeping classical music] [applause]