The Life Of Thomas Paine Volume I Part 27

Chorus.

"From thee may rudest nations learn To prize the cause thy sons began; From thee may future, may future tyrants know That sacred are the Rights of Man.

"From thee may hated discord fly, With all her dark, her gloomy train; And o'er thy fertile, thy fertile wide domain May everlasting friendship reign.

"Of thee may lisping infancy The pleasing wondrous story tell, And patriot sages in venerable mood Instruct the world to govern well.

"Ye guardian angels watch around, From harm protect the new-born State; And all ye friendly, ye friendly nations join, And thus salute the Child of Fate.

Be thou forever, forever great and free, The Land of Love and Liberty!"

Notwithstanding royal tremors these gentlemen were genuinely loyal in singing the old anthem with new words:

"G.o.d save the Rights of Man!

Give him a heart to scan Blessings so dear; Let them be spread around, Wherever Man is found, And with the welcome sound Ravish his ear!"

No report is preserved of Paine's speech, but we may feel sure that in giving his sentiment "The Revolution of the World" he set forth his favorite theme--that revolutions of nations should be as quiet, lawful, and fruitful as the revolutions of the earth.

{1792}

CHAPTER XXII. THE RIGHT OF EVOLUTION

The Abbe Sieyes did not escape by declining to stand by his challenge of the republicans. In the second part of "The Rights of Man" Paine considers the position of that gentleman, namely, that hereditary monarchy is an evil, but the elective mode historically proven worse.

That both are bad Paine agrees, but "such a mode of reasoning on such a subject is inadmissible, because it finally amounts to an accusation of providence, as if she had left to man no other choice with respect to government than between two evils." Every now and then this Quaker Antaeus touches his mother earth--the theocratic principle--in this way; the invigoration is recognizable in a religious seriousness, which, however, makes no allowance for the merely ornamental parts of government, always so popular. "The splendor of a throne is the corruption of a state." However, the time was too serious for the utility of bagatelles to be much considered by any. Paine engages Sieyes on his own ground, and brings historic evidence to prove that the wars of succession, civil and foreign, show hereditary a worse evil than elective headship, as ill.u.s.trated by Poland, Holland, and America. But he does not defend the method of either of these countries, and clearly shows that he is, as Sieyes said, a "poly-crat," so far as the numerical composition of the Executive is concerned.* He affirms, however, that governing is no function of a republican Executive. The law alone governs. "The sovereign authority in any country is the power of making laws, and everything else is an official department."

*"I have always been opposed to the mode of refining government up to an individual, or what is called a single Executive. Such a man will always be the chief of a party. A plurality is far better. It combines the ma.s.s of a nation better together. And besides this, it is necessary to the manly mind of a republic that it lose the debasing idea of obeying an individual."--Paine MS.

More than fifty thousand copies of the first part of "The Rights of Man"

had been sold, and the public hungrily awaited the author's next work.

But he kept back his proofs until Burke should fulfil his promise of returning to the subject and comparing the English and French const.i.tutions. He was disappointed, however, at finding no such comparison in Burke's "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs." It did, however, contain a menace that was worth waiting for.

"Oldys" (Chalmers) says that Paine was disappointed at not being arrested for his first pamphlet on "The Rights of Man," and had, "while fluttering on the wing for Paris, hovered about London a whole week waiting to be taken." It is, indeed, possible that he would have been glad to elicit just then a fresh decision from the courts in favor of freedom of speech and of the press, which would strengthen faint hearts.

If he had this desire he was resolved not to be disappointed a second time.

A publisher (Chapman) offered him a thousand guineas for the ma.n.u.script of Part II. Paine declined; "he wished to reserve it in his own hands."

Facts afterwards appeared which rendered it probable that this was a ministerial effort to suppress the book.*

* Paine may, indeed, only have apprehended alterations, which he always dreaded. His friends, knowing how much his antagonists had made of his grammatical faults, sometimes suggested expert revision. "He would say," says Richard Carlile, "that he only wished to be known as he was, without being decked with the plumes of another."

Paine's Part Second was to appear about the first of February, or before the meeting of Parliament But the printer (Chapman) threw up the publication, alleging its "dangerous tendencies," whereby it was delayed until February 17th, when it was published by Jordan. Meanwhile, his elaborate scheme for reducing taxes so resembled that which Pitt had just proposed in Parliament that the author appended his reasons for believing that his pages had been read by the government clerk, Chalmers, and his plan revealed to Pitt. "Be the case, however, as it may, Mr. Pitt's plan, little and diminutive as it is, would have made a very awkward appearance had this work appeared at the time the printer had engaged to finish it."

At the time (September) when Chapman began printing Paine's Part II., George Chalmers brought to the same press his libellous "Life of Pain."

On learning that Chapman was printing Paine, Chalmers took his book away. As Chalmers was a government employe, and his work larger. Chapman returned Paine's work to him half printed, and the Chalmers book was restored to him. As Chapman stated in his testimony, and so wrote to Paine (January 17, 1792), that he was unwilling to go on with the printing because of the dangerous tendency of a part of it, his offer of a thousand guineas for it could only have contemplated its expurgation or total suppression. That it was the latter, and that the money was to be paid by the government, is rendered probable by the evidences in Chalmers' book, when it appeared, that he had been allowed the perusal of Paine's ma.n.u.script while in Chapman's hands. Chalmers also displays intimate knowledge of Chapman's business transactions with Paine.

In the light of Pitt's subsequent career it is a significant fact that, in the beginning of 1792, he should be suspected of stealing Paine's thunder! And, indeed, throughout Paine's Part Second the tone towards Pitt implies some expectation of reform from him. Its severity is that which English agitators for const.i.tutional reform have for a half century made familiar and honorable. The historical student finds mirrored in this work the rosy picture of the United States as seen at its dawn by the disfranchised people of Europe, and beside that a burdened England now hardly credible. It includes an historical statement of the powers claimed by the crown and gradually distributed among non-elective peers and cla.s.s-elective commoners, the result being a combination of all three against admission of the people to any degree of self-government. Though the arraignment is heavy, the method of reform is set forth with moderation. Particular burdens are pointed out, and England is warned to escape violent revolution by accommodating itself to the new age. It is admitted that no new system need be constructed. "Mankind (from the long tyranny of a.s.sumed power) have had so few opportunities of making the necessary trials on modes and principles of government, in order to discover the best, _that government is but now beginning to be known_, and experience is yet wanting to determine many particulars." Paine frankly retracts an old opinion of his own, that the legislature should be unicameral. He now thinks that, though there should be but one representation, it might secure wiser deliberation to divide it, by lot, into two or three parts. "Every proposed bill shall first be debated in those parts, by succession, that they may become hearers of each other, but without taking any vote; after which the whole representation to a.s.semble, for a general debate, and determination by vote." The great necessity is that England shall gather its people, by representation, in convention and frame a const.i.tution which shall contain the means of peaceful development in accordance with enlightenment and necessity.

In Part I. Paine stated his general principles with some reservations, in view of the survival of royalty in the French const.i.tution. In Part II. his political philosophy is freely and fully developed, and may be summarized as follows:

1. Government is the organization of the aggregate of those natural rights which individuals are not competent to secure individually, and therefore surrender to the control of society in exchange for the protection of all rights.

2. Republican government is that in which the welfare of the whole nation is the object.

3. Monarchy is government, more or less arbitrary, in which the interests of an individual are paramount to those of the people generally.

4. Aristocracy is government, partially arbitrary, in which the interests of a cla.s.s are paramount to those of the people generally.

5. Democracy is the whole people governing themselves without secondary means.

6. Representative government is the control of a nation by persons elected by the whole nation.

7. The Rights of Man mean the right of all to representation.

Democracy, simple enough in small and primitive societies, degenerates into confusion by extension to large populations. Monarchy, which originated amid such confusion, degenerates into incapacity by extension to vast and complex interests requiring "an a.s.semblage of practical knowledges which no one individual can possess." "The aristocratical form has the same vices and defects with the monarchical, except that the chance of abilities is better from the proportion of numbers."

The representative republic advocated by Paine is different from merely epitomized democracy. "Representation is the delegated monarchy of a nation." In the early days of the American republic, when presidential electors were independent of the const.i.tuents who elected them, the filtration of democracy was a favorite principle among republicans.

Paine evidently regards the representative as different from a delegate, or mere commissioner carrying out instructions. The representatives of a people are clothed with their sovereignty; that, and not opinions or orders, has been transferred to them by const.i.tuencies. Hence we find Paine, after describing the English people as "fools" (p. 260), urging representation as a sort of natural selection of wisdom.

"Whatever wisdom const.i.tuency is, it is like a seedless plant; it may be reared when it appears, but it cannot be voluntarily produced. There is always a sufficiency somewhere in the general ma.s.s of society for all purposes; but, with respect to the parts of society, it is continually changing place. It rises in one today, in another tomorrow, and has most probably visited in rotation every family of the earth, and again withdrawn. As this is the order of nature, the order of government must follow it, or government will, as we see it does, degenerate into ignorance. The hereditary system therefore, is as repugnant to human wisdom as to human rights; and is as absurd as unjust As the republic of letters brings forward the best literary productions, by giving to genius a fair and universal chance, so the representative system is calculated to produce the wisest laws, by collecting wisdom where it can be found."

We have seen that "Publicola" (John Quincy Adams) in his answer to Paine's Part I. had left the people no right to alter government but the right of revolution, by violence; Erskine pointed out that Burkes pamphlet had similarly closed every other means of reform. Paine would civilize reformation:

"Formerly, when divisions arose respecting governments, recourse was had to the sword, and civil war ensued. That savage custom is exploded by the new system, and reference is had to national conventions. Discussion and the general will arbitrate the question, private opinion yields with a good grace, and order is preserved uninterrupted."

Thus he is really trying to supplant the right of revolution with the right of evolution:

"It is now towards the middle of February. Were I to take a turn in the country the trees would present a leafless wintery appearance. As people are apt to pluck twigs as they go along, I perhaps might do the same, and by chance might observe that a single bud on that twig had begun to smell. I should reason very unnaturally, or rather not reason at all to suppose this was the only bud in England which had this appearance.

Instead of deciding thus, I should instantly conclude that the same appearance was beginning, or about to begin, everywhere; and though the vegetable sleep will continue longer on some trees and plants than others, and though some of them may not blossom for two or three years, all will be in leaf in the summer, except those which are rotten. What pace the political summer may keep with the natural, no human foresight can determine. It is, however, not difficult to perceive that the Spring is begun. Thus wishing, as I sincerely do, freedom and happiness to all nations, I close the Second Part."

Apparently the publisher expected trouble. In the _Gazetteer_, January 25th, had appeared the following notice:

"Mr. Paine, it is known, is to produce another book this season. The composition of this is now past, and it was given a few weeks since to two printers, whose presses it was to go through as soon as possible.

They printed about half of it, and then, being alarmed by _some intimations,_ refused to go further. Some delay has thus occurred, but another printer has taken it, and in the course of the next month it will appear. Its t.i.tle is to be a repet.i.tion of the former, 'The Rights of Man,' of which the words 'Part the Second' will shew that it is a continuation."

That the original printer, Chapman, impeded the publication is suggested by the fact that on February 7th, thirteen days after the above announcement, Paine writes: "Mr. Chapman, please to deliver to Mr.

Jordan the remaining sheets of the Rights of Man." And that "some intimations" were received by Jordan also may be inferred from the following note and enclosure to him:

"February 16, 1792.--For your satisfaction and my own, I send you the enclosed, tho' I do not apprehend there will be any occasion to use it.

If, in case there should, you will immediately send a line for me under cover to Mr. Johnson, St. Paul's Church-Yard, who will forward it to me, upon which I shall come and answer personally for the work. Send also to Mr. Home Tooke.--T. P."

"February 16, 1792.--Sir: Should any person, under the sanction of any kind of authority, enquire of you respecting the author and publisher of the Rights of Man, you will please to mention me as the author and publisher of that work, and shew to such person this letter. I will, as soon as I am made acquainted with it, appear and answer for the work personally.--Your humble servant,

"Thomas Pain."