Thomas Paine: Architect of Cooperative Individualism
PART ONE
Edward J. Dodson
[1995]
Paine:
rebellious Staymaker; unkempt; who feels that he, a single
Needleman, did, by his Common Sense Pamphlet, free America; --
that he can and will free all this World; perhaps even the other.[ThomasCarlyle] |
Thomas Paine was, if measured by his personal character and habits, a
seemingly ordinary person. Yet, he lived an extraordinary life during
extraordinary times. History records his involvement in two great
social and political upheavals, remarkable for someone of such limited
education and accomplishment in matters practical. Arising from
obscurity, without position or means, he became one of history's most
consistent champions of the common man. Despite the fame he acquired
and the wealth he refused, his contemporaries among the founding
fathers and even the revolutionaries in France never really accepted
him as one of themselves. He remained an outsider, a voice in the
wilderness, whose socio-political philosophy and policy
recommendations were shunned by those who measured him an intellectual
inferior. Over the course of three decades, he nonetheless came to
very many important insights into the human condition and the ascent
of man.
Although his adult life began without direction, his arrival in North
America on the eve of uprising by the colonials against British rule
provided an avenue for radical expression that soon captured his full
energy and attention. As editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine, Paine's
commentary openly attacked the British constitution as a syste m of
socio-political arrangements and institutions that sanctioned and
protected privilege -- generation after generation. He warned against
the imposition of a state religion in the colonies; courageously, he
added his voice to those who sought to end the enslavement of Africans
and indigenous peoples. The publication of Common Sense in 1775 then
catapulted him into the vanguard of those espousing not a return to
the conditions of salutary neglect but the creation of a
constitutional and representative form of democracy.
The principles advanced in Common Sense and his later writings went
far beyond what all but the most enlightened of his contemporaries
were willing to acknowledge as constituting the basis for creating a
truly just society. Although the clamor for independence ran deep
within colonial society, those with vast titleholdings and the
material wealth derived therefrom also sought to preserve their
positions of privilege obtained under British rule. As historian
Bernard Bailyn observes, Paine's calls for a widespread franchise, for
an equality of civil and natural rights and for a truly representative
form of government challenged the conservative minority who had always
held power in the colonies:
Common Sense had scarcely been published when it came
under strong attack, not only by loyalists but by some of the most
ardent patriots who feared the tendencies of Paine's constitutional
ideas as much as they approved his plea for independence.
After the appearance of Common Sense, Paine's voice was no longer
heard only from the wilderness, but the fullness of his convictions
was shared by only a small minority among the revolutionary
leadership. He excited the average colonial with his condemnation of
monarchy and the promise he saw in representative government. And, as
the reality of independence appeared on the horizon, he urged his
countrymen to demand not just political liberty but the means
of prosperity as well. Although in Common Sense he advocated
open and free trade with Europe, he was at this juncture able to argue
-- on principle -- the case for a very nationalistic policy with
respect to continued British access to fisheries off the coast of New
England:
There are but two natural sources of wealth -- the Earth
and the Ocean, -- and to lose the right to either is, in our
situation, to put up the other for sale.
By March of 1781, Paine was in Paris negotiating for additional funds
and supplies on behalf of the Continental Congress. His mission
largely accomplished, Paine returned (unceremoniously) to the
Americas, arriving in the capital late in August. Ignored by the
Continental Congress and essentially without employment, "there
no longer seemed to be a place for him in the nation's affairs."
At the urging of George Washington, the financier Robert Morris
approached Paine to prepare a summary of the primary challenges facing
the new nation and its government. Samuel Edwards points out that this
pamphlet also challenged and angered states rights advocates by
consistently putting national interests above that of the individual
states and by taking the position that all land outside existing state
boundaries fell under the jurisdiction of the national government.
Paine's friends also secured for him a secret position as the
government's first paid propagandist. With a degree of financial
security in front of him, Paine began to fulfill his new
responsibilities. A pamphlet on taxation appeared in March of 1782,
followed in April with a strong call for unity:
The division of the empire into states is for our own
convenience, but abroad this distinction ceases. The affairs of each
state are local. They can go no further than to itself. And were the
whole worth of even the richest of them expended in revenue, it
would not be sufficient to support sovereignty against a foreign
attack. In short, we have no other national sovereignty than as
United States.
In his last Crisis Paper, a brief open letter to all Americans, Paine
makes very much the same point but in a way more directed to appeal to
the heart than to self-interest:
[I]t is only by acting in union that the usurpations of
foreign nations on the freedom of trade can be counteracted, and
security extended to the commerce of America. And when we view a
flag ... our national honor must unite with our interest to prevent
injury to the one, or insult to the other.
Unfortunately, this strong statement on behalf of a national
government alienated those in the Congress who, more than anything
else, feared that very result. Although he was awarded a large estate
by the New York legislature and a cash gift by Pennsylvania, he was
offered no position in the new national government. At the beginning
of 1786 he cam e to the defense of the Bank of North America, began
work on the design of his iron bridge, and in May of 1787 he sailed
for France. Thus, when the time came for consolidating the struggle
for independence into the formation of a new nation, Paine was not
available to be called upon. Perhaps this accounts for the rather low
opinion of Paine expres sed by British historian Ernest Barker
(writing in the 1940s):
[W]e must not exaggerate the importance of his Common
Sense, ... or of the thirteen numbers of his American Crisis
...There were profounder minds and firmer pens, steeped in a far
more durable ink, to argue the American cause.
Barker points to revolutionary leaders like James Wilson and Daniel
Dulany, men who had been educated in Britain, as decidedly more
important. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Otis -- though
educated in the colonies -- are described as having the type of highly
schooled legal minds needed to adapt the British form of government to
the very unique circumstances of the land of their birth. One
understands that by comparison, Paine is thought by Barker to be
second rate.
What makes Thomas Paine stand out, I submit, even among these
architects of constitutional government, is his recognition that
principles of justice are universal and independent of time and place.
Paine's contribution is, therefore, not so much tied to his role as a
Founding Father but as a propagandist who developed into a
socio-political philosopher, and who materially advanced the basis for
dialogue within the transnational community. In this context, his most
important contributions to the ascent of man remain known to and
understood by only a relatively few. That was certainly true during
his lifetime as is even more true today.
Among those who have challenged Paine's principles, John Adams stands
out among Paine's contemporaries as his most vocal and noteworthy
critic. At the root of their disagreement was the strongly-held
conviction by Adams that a strong, central government provided the
only sure means of securing and maintaining individual liberty. Paine,
on the other hand, described national government as a potential
instrument of tyranny to be kept as weak as possible. Despite these
fears, however, Paine also realized that the new nation faced powerful
external enemies. He therefore sided with those who argued that the
national government possess adequate means with which to provide for
the defense of the nation. The irony of circumstance, the paradox in
which principle was put at great risk, was recognized and accepted by
Paine because of his great faith in the collective wisdom of his
fellow citizens.
John Adams came to believe that only a few possessed sufficient
wisdom and experience to govern. Paine not only believed in the
collective wisdom of the nation but reflected on the inherent goodness
of individuals and their demonstrated ability to govern themselves.
Adams, in an effort to counter what he viewed as a dangerous doctrine,
responded to Paine's Common Sense with an open letter he published as
Thoughts on Government, in which he argued the case for a strong
executive and a separation of powers tied to his vision of a
meritocracy:
As good government is an empire of laws, how shall your
laws be made? In a large society, inhabiting an extensive country,
it is impossible that the whole should assemble to make laws. The
first necessary step, then, is to depute power from the many to a
few of the most wise and good. ...
That it may be the interest of this assembly to do strict justice
at all times, it should be an equal representation, or, in other
words, equal interests among the people should have equal interests
in it.
[J]udges ... should be always men of learning and experience in the
laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness, and
attention. Their minds should not be distracted with jarring
interests; they should not be dependent upon any man, or body of
men. To these ends, they should hold estates for life in their
offices; ...
History discloses that relations between the individual and the State
moved with deliberate speed in a direction that satisfies neither
Adams nor Paine. There are few instances either in history or in the
world today where liberty has been secured, where the degree of
democracy is appropriately representative, or where merit is the
primary qualification for ascendancy to positions of public authority.
What I ask the reader to consider, however, is that had Paine's policy
agenda found a more receptive audience and a widespread adoption, our
circumstances today might be rather different and improved. To the
extent Paine can be credited with being a catalyst for social change,
his influence remained at the fringe and was carried forward primarily
by individuals who shared his convictions that justice demanded the
full separation of Church and State. During Paine's last years, his
defense of deism brought on personal attacks by Whigs and the
Protestant clergy, who damned him as an atheist. After his death,
groups of Jacksonian Democrats did continue to celebrate his birthday
each year, and a new edition of The Age of Reason was actually
published by Thomas Williams; for this act of religious subversion,
Williams he was charged with blasphemy and brought to trial in Boston.
Sadly, however, Paine's full contribution to the advance of
socio-political philosophy was ignored and soon forgotten.
The ideas espoused by Paine were far more individualistic and
grounded far too deeply in principles that threatened entrenched power
to have found widespread support during his own age. His writings made
direct and uncompromising attacks on the usurpations of power by both
the State and institutionalized religion. The proposals he made see
med, even to Adams, to promise anarchy in a world already turned
upside down. The leadership elite in North America was, as described
by Ferdinand Lundberg, comprised of "extreme conservatives,
aristocrats and abnormally property-minded" individuals whose
collective interests stood in direct opposition to the doctrine of
cooperative individualism presented by Paine. Equality of opportunity
was from the start subverted by circumstances where "[a] few
prominent families, possessed of wealth and distinctions, monopolized
offices and power in every colony" and continued to do so
after independence. The frontier provided a reprieve, a safety valve,
but not an institutional framework upon which a just society could be
built and sustained. This relationship between the beginnings of
European-American civilization and its current circumstances is
succinctly captured by historian Benjamin Barber:
Open spaces,empty jobs, and unmade fortunes are
theconditions that made inequality tolerable to the least advantaged
in America'scompromised republic; with hope gone, the compromise is
tself compromised, and inequality becomes a permanent, oppressive,
intolerable burden.
Paine sufficiently grasped history to recognize that the colonials'
struggle to ain freedom from British domination presented a crucial
window of opportunity to apply the principles of cooperative
individualism to socio-political arrangements and institutions that
would, without conscious effort, soon close. In Common Sense,
he challenged the colonials to make the most of their circumstance:
The present time, likewise, is that peculiar time which
never happens to a nation but once, viz., the time of forming itself
into a government. Most nations have let slip the opportunity, and
by that means have been compelled to receive laws from their
conquerors, instead of making laws for themselves.
Early on he clamored for union of the colonies, taking advantage of
the common foe before "[t]he vast variety of interests,
occasioned by an increase of trade and population, would create
confusion" from which "[c]olony would be against
colony" and the promise of a people united by a uniform
governmental system missed. As early as 1780 in his writing, Paine
agitated for a constitutional convention; and, in the years
immediately following formation of the union, he was convinced that a
new era had dawned in which "the principle of its government,
which is that of the equal Rights of Man, is making a rapid progress
in the world." At the time, the progress Paine referred to
was limite d to events occurring in France. Of the rest of Europe, he
asked: "What are the present governments of Europe,"
declared Paine, "but a scene of iniquity and oppression."
And, was it not evident to all that Britain had become "a
market where every man has his price, and where corruption is common
traffic, at the expense of a deluded people?" Thus, to Paine,
the differences between the forms of government created in the
sovereign united states of America and those of the Old World were
differences in kind and not simply of degree. He puts this in terms of
principle versus form:
Forms grow out of principles, and operate to continue the
principles they grow from. It is impossible to practice a bad form
on any thing but a bad principle. It cannot be ingrafted on a good
one; and wherever the forms in any government are bad, it is a
certain indication that the principles are bad also.
From Europe, he championed the newly-united North American states as
beacon lights of principle at work. America's diversity, its
pluralism, was a strength thought in all other societies as weakness.
The colonials had also benefited by the long period of salutary
neglect and closeness to nature. These circumstances "produced
among them a state of society [in which] ... man becomes what he
ought. He sees his species, not with the inhuman ideas of a natural
enemy, but as kindred; and the example shows to the artificial world,
that man must go back to nature for information." Paine, the
socio-political philosopher, probes deeply into human behavior and the
structure of group dynamics, examining the operation of nature and the
principles (i.e., nature laws) that both advance and thwart mankind's
instinctive quest for survival. His scientific mind pursued knowledge
openly, combining observation with speculative thought. Although he
rejects orthodoxy in matters religious, he sees within the order
attached to the physical universe an intellect at work far greater
than that of man..He is drawn to science as the methodology by which
man is challenged by God to discover the path to harmonious living --
within the constraints of the physical universe, to be sure, but also
with one another in society:
The Almighty lecturer, by displaying the principles of
science in the structure of the universe, has invited man to study
and to imitation. ...
It is the structure of the universe that has taught this knowledge to
man. That structure is an ever-existing exhibition of every principle
upon which every part of mathematical science is founded.
God has provided man with the ability to reason; thus, says, Paine, "[i]t
is only by the exercise of reason, that man can discover God."
The atheist finds the same degree of comfort in a reliance on Nature
as the deist Paine attributes to God as "a first cause, the
cause of all things." In either case, reason is the means by
which the individual a chieves maximum advantage in combining
intuitive thought with observation and experimentation:
Before anything can be reasoned upon to a conclusion,
certain facts, principles, or data, to reason from, must be
established, admitted, or denied.
The ascent of man is, then, directly associated with the accumulation
and aggregation of knowledge and understanding. For, the discovery and
acceptance of truth in matters pertaining to the physical universe
cannot but further the demands for truth in matters considered
socio-political.
Paine had the sense, proven unwarranted by later events, that his own
era would "merit to be called the Age of Reason." He
was nonetheless correct when he wrote that "such is the
irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is
the liberty of appearing." Under considerable pressure from
entrenched power, Paine and other s who constituted the still small
community of transnationals, forged ahead with their quest for truth.
As a student of human behavior and an activist deeply involved in
revolutionary struggle, Paine chose to be overly optimistic and placed
far too much faith in the dictum that right action would follow on the
heels of discovery:
Ignorance is of a peculiar nature; once dispelled, it is
impossible to re-establish it. It is not originally a thing of
itself, but is only the absence of knowledge; and though man may be
kept ignorant, he cannot be made ignorant.
The mind, in discovering truth, acts in the same manner as it acts
through the eye in discovering objects; when once any object has
been seen, it is impossible to put the mind back to the same
condition it was in before it saw it.
Paine is making both an intellectual and a moral judgement. He
presumes that mankind, although not instinctively moral, is nurtured
by truth to act in morally-acceptable ways. Human behavior, then, is
susceptible to incremental change directed by an acquired appreciation
of "true interest, provided it be presented clearly to their
understanding, and that in a manner not to create suspicion by any
thing like self-design, nor offend by assuming too much." Our
inclination is toward goodness, and nurturing is the common
denominator directing full actualization of this quality.
Paine hoped and believed the Age of Reason had dawned. Although he
held an appreciation for history, he did not trouble himself with
describing in any detail the passing of previous ages. Others had
already done so in great detail and with an objective eye. Existing
knowledge of antiquity revealed a pattern of socio-political
development a ssociated with all groups. The earliest form of
hierarchical structure Paine attributed to superstition and, secondly,
to the quest for power. Sure that the current age was of a different
kind, he declared that mankind had reached a new stage in which the
objective of government was "the common interests of society,
and the common rights of man." Adding, for good measure, "The
first was a government of priestcraft, the second of conquerors, and
the third of reason". There is no question that throughout
most of history, priestcrafts and conquerors have ruled; and, out of
this unholy alliance arose the evils of aristocracy and monarchy. The
combined effect was to immeasurably retard the asce nt of man. Tribal
societies might -- by conquest and absorption -- evolve into nation-
states or empires; but, the civilization formed in conjunction with
this expansion "operated two ways: to make one part of
society more affluent, and the other more wretched, than would have
been the lot of either in a natural state." In the state of
existence that precedes the formation of hierarchical (i.e., "corrupt")
government, Paine observes, "man ... is naturally the friend
of man," so that mankind's instinctive and dominant
behavioral characteristic is cooperation. Competition, on the other
hand, erupts into conflict as an accepted behavior nurtured by ritual,
celebration and tradition. The lesson of history is clear:
There is a natural aptness in man, and more so in
society, because it embraces a greater variety of abilities and
resources, to accommodate itself to whatever situation it is in. The
instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A
general association takes place, and common interest produces common
security.
Paine understands and accepts that, once civilized, man cannot return
to life as in a state of nature. Rather, he suggests that the
cooperative instinct remains so strong that only the imposition of
corrupt government dampens its positive influence; in the end, "man
is so naturally a creature of society, that it is almost impossible to
put him out of it."
If we consider what the principles are that first
condense men into society, and what the motives that regulate their
mutual intercourse afterwards, we shall find, by the time we arrive
at what is called government, that nearly the whole of the business
is performed by the natural operation of the parts upon each other.
Government is needed, for the cooperative instinct in mankind is
imperfect. There is a real conflict between what individuals perceive
as self-interest and their real interest, between the pursuit of
immediate gratification and damage to the longer-term interests of our
survival as a species. The legitimate and proper function of
government is (as Locke concluded) to prevent or punish criminal
licenses and to regulate economic licenses. Paine adds that "[s]ociety
is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former
promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the
latter negatively by restraining our vices." We should not,
then, be surprised when Paine concludes that "Government,
even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an
intolerable one."
PART 2
|