The Life Of Thomas Paine Volume II Part 2

"Hail Briton's land!

Hail freedom's sh.o.r.e!

Far happier than of old; For in thy blessed realms no more The Rights of Man are sold!"

The famous town-crier of Bolton, who reported to his masters that he had been round that place "and found in it neither the rights of man nor common sense," made a statement characteristic of the time. The aristocracy and gentry had indeed lost their humanity and their sense under a disgraceful panic. Their serfs, unable to read, were fairly represented by those who, having burned Paine in effigy, asked their employer if there was "any other gemman he would like burnt, for a gla.s.s o' beer."

* "Pari. Hist.," x.x.xii., p. 383.

The White Bear (now replaced by the Criterion Restaurant) no longer knew its little circle of radicals. A symbol of how they were trampled out is discoverable in the "T. P." shoe-nails. These nails, with heads so lettered, were in great request among the gentry, who had only to hold up their boot-soles to show how they were trampling on Tom Paine and his principles. This at any rate was accurate. Manufacturers of vases also devised ceramic anathemas.*

* There are two Paine pitchers in the Museum at Brighton, England. Both were made at Leeds, one probably before Paine's trial, since it presents a respectable full-length portrait, holding in his hand a book, and beneath, the words: "Mr. Thomas Paine, Author of The Rights of Man." The other shows a serpent with Paine's head, two sides being adorned with the following lines:

"G.o.d save the King, and all his subjects too, Likewise his forces and commanders true, May he their rights forever hence Maintain Against all strife occasioned by Tom Paine."

"Prithee Tom Paine why wilt thou meddling be In others' business which concerns not thee; For while thereon thou dost extend thy cares Thou dost at home neglect thine own affairs."

"G.o.d save the King!"

"Observe the wicked and malicious man Projecting all the mischief that he can."

In all of this may be read the frantic fears of the King and aristocracy which were driving the Ministry to make good Paine's aphorism, "There is no English Const.i.tution." An English Const.i.tution was, however, in process of formation,--in prisons, in secret conclaves, in lands of exile, and chiefly in Paine's small room in Paris. Even in that time of Parisian turbulence and peril the hunted liberals of England found more security in France than in their native land.* For the eyes of the English reformer of that period, seeing events from prison or exile, there was a perspective such as time has now supplied to the historian.

It is still difficult to distribute the burden of shame fairly. Pitt was unquestionably at first anxious to avoid war. That the King was determined on the war is certain; he refused to notice Wilberforce when he appeared at court after his separation from Pitt on that point.

* When William Pitt died in 1806,--crushed under disclosures in the impeachment of Lord Melville,--the verdict of many sufferers was expressed in an "Epitaph Impromptu" (MS.) found among the papers of Thomas Rickman. It has some historic interest.

"Reader! with eye indignant view this bier; The foe of all the human race lies here.

With talents small, and those directed, too, Virtue and truth and wisdom to subdue, He lived to every n.o.ble motive blind, And died, the execration of mankind.

"Millions were butchered by his d.a.m.ned plan To violate each sacred right of man; Exulting he o'er earth each misery hurled, And joyed to drench in tears and blood, the world.

"Myriads of beings wretched he has made By desolating war, his favourite trade, Who, robbed of friends and dearest ties, are left Of every hope and happiness bereft.

"In private life made up of fuss and pride, Not e'en his vices leaned to virtue's side; Unsound, corrupt, and rotten at the core, His cold and scoundrel heart was black all o'er; Nor did one pa.s.sion ever move his mind That bent towards the tender, warm, and kind.

"Tyrant, and friend to war! we hail the day When Death, to bless mankind, made thee his prey, And rid the earth of all could earth disgrace,-- The foulest, bloodiest scourge of man's oppressed race."

But the three attempts on his life, and his mental infirmity, may be pleaded for George III. Paine, in his letter to Dundas, wrote "Madjesty"; when Rickman objected, he said: "Let it stand." And it stands now as the best apology for the King, while it rolls on Pitt's memory the guilt of a twenty-two years' war for the subjugation of thought and freedom. In that last struggle of the barbarism surviving in civilization, it was shown that the madness of a populace was easily distanced by the cruelty of courts. Robespierre and Marat were humanitarian beside George and his Ministers; the Reign of Terror, and all the ma.s.sacres of the French Revolution put together, were child's-play compared with the anguish and horrors spread through Europe by a war whose pretext was an execution England might have prevented.

CHAPTER III. REVOLUTION VS. CONSt.i.tUTION

The French revolutionists have long borne responsibility for the first declaration of war in 1793. But from December 13, 1792, when the Painophobia Parliament began its debates, to February 1st, when France proclaimed itself at war with England, the British government had done little else than declare war--and prepare war--against France. Pitt, having to be re-elected, managed to keep away from Parliament for several days at its opening, and the onslaught was a.s.sumed by Burke. He began by heaping insults on France. On December 15th he boasted that he had not been cajoled by promise of promotion or pension, though he presently, on the same evening, took his seat for the first time on the Treasury bench. In the "Parliamentary History" (vols. x.x.x. and x.x.xi.) may be found Burke's epithets on France,--the "republic of a.s.sa.s.sins,"

"Cannibal Castle," "nation of murderers," "gang of plunderers,"

"murderous atheists," "miscreants," "sc.u.m of the earth." His vocabulary grew in grossness, of course, after the King's execution and the declaration of war, but from the first it was ribaldry and abuse. And this did not come from a private member, but from the Treasury bench. He was supported by a furious majority which stopped at no injustice.

Thus the Convention was burdened with guilt of the September ma.s.sacres, though it was not then in existence. Paine's works being denounced, Erskine reminded the House of the illegality of so influencing a trial not yet begun. He was not listened to. Fox and fifty other earnest men had a serious purpose of trying to save the King's life, and proposed to negotiate with the Convention. Burke fairly foamed at the motions to that end, made by Fox and Lord Lansdowne. What, negotiate with such villains! To whom is our agent to be accredited? Burke draws a comic picture of the English amba.s.sador entering the Convention, and, when he announces himself as from "George Third, by the grace of G.o.d," denounced by Paine. "Are we to humble ourselves before Judge Paine?" At this point Whetstone made a disturbance and was named. There were some who found Burke's trifling intolerable. Mr. W. Smith reminded the House that Cromwell's amba.s.sadors had been received by Louis XIV. Fox drew a parallel between the contemptuous terms used toward the French, and others about "Hanc.o.c.k and his crew," with whom Burke advised treaty, and with whom His Majesty did treat. All this was answered by further insults to France, these corresponding with a series of practical injuries. Lord Gower had been recalled August 17th, after the formation of a republic, and all intercourse with the French Minister in London, Chauvelin, was terminated. In violation of the treaty of 1786, the agents of France were refused permission to purchase grain and arms in England, and their vessels loaded with provisions seized. The circulation of French bonds, issued in 1790, was prohibited in England.

A coalition had been formed with the enemies of France, the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia, Finally, on the execution of Louis XVI., Chauvelin was ordered (January 24th) to leave England in eight days. Talleyrand remained, but Chauvelin was kicked out of the country, so to say, simply because the Convention had recognized him. This appeared a plain _casus belli_, and was answered by the declaration of the Convention in that sense (February 1st), which England answered ten days later.*

* It was stipulated in the treaty of commerce between France and England.

In all this Paine recognized the hand of Burke. While his adherents in England, as we have seen, were finding in Pitt a successor to Satan, there is a notable absence from Paine's writings and letters of any such animosity towards that Minister. He concluded at Paris (1786) that the sending away an amba.s.sador by either party, should be taken as an act of hostility by the other party. The declaration of war (February, 1793) by the Convention... was made in exact conformity to this article in the treaty; for it was not a declaration of war against England, but a declaration that the French republic is in war with England; the first act of hostility having been committed by England. The declaration was made on Chauvelin's return to France, and in consequence of it. "Paine's "Address to the People of France" (1797). The words of the declaration of war, following the list of injuries, are: "La Convention Nationale declare, au nom de la nation Francaise, qu'attendu les actes multiplies et d'agressions ci-dessus mentionnes, la republique Francaise est en guerre avec le roi d'Angleterre." The solemn protest of Lords Lauderdale, Lansdowne, and Derby, February 1st, against the address in answer to the royal message, before France had spoken, regards that address as a demonstration of universal war. The facts and the situation are carefully set forth by Louis Blanc, "Histoire de la Revolution,"

tome viii., p. 93 seq. regarded Pitt as a victim. "The father of Pitt,"

he once wrote, "when a member of the House of Commons, exclaiming one day, during a former war, against the enormous and ruinous expense of German connections, as the offspring of the Hanover succession, and borrowing a metaphor from the story of Prometheus, cried out: 'Thus, like Prometheus, is Britain chained to the barren rock of Hanover, whilst the imperial eagle preys upon her vitals.'" It is probable that on the intimations from Pitt, at the close of 1792, of his desire for private consultations with friendly Frenchmen, Paine entered into the honorable though unauthorized conspiracy for peace which was terminated by the expulsion of Chauvelin. In the light of later events, and the desertion of Dumouriez, these overtures of Pitt made through Talleyrand (then in London) were regarded by the French leaders, and are still regarded by French writers, as treacherous. But no sufficient reason is given for doubting Pitt's good faith in that matter. Writing to the President (Washington), December 28, 1792, the American Minister, Gouverneur Morris, states the British proposal to be:

"France shall deliver the royal family to such branch of the Bourbons as the King may choose, and shall recall her troops from the countries they now occupy. In this event Britain will send hither a Minister and acknowledge the Republic, and mediate a peace with the Emperor and King of Prussia. I have several reasons to believe that this information is not far from the truth."

It is true that Pitt had no agent in France whom he might not have disavowed, and that after the fury with which the Painophobia Parliament, under lead of Burke, inspired by the King, had opened, could hardly have maintained any peaceful terms. Nevertheless, the friends of peace in France secretly acted on this information, which Gouverneur Morris no doubt received from Paine. A grand dinner was given by Paine, at the Hotel de Ville, to Dumouriez, where this brilliant General met Brissot, Condorcet, Santerre, and several eminent English radicals, among them Sampson Perry. At this time it was proposed to send Dumouriez secretly to London, to negotiate with Pitt, but this was abandoned.

Maret went, and he found Pitt gracious and pacific. Chauvelin, however, advised the French government of this illicit negotiation, and Maret was ordered to return. Such was the situation when Louis was executed.

That execution, as we have seen, might have been prevented had Pitt provided the money; but it need not be supposed that, with Burke now on the Treasury bench, the refusal is to be ascribed to anything more than his inability to cope with his own majority, whom the King was patronizing. So completely convinced of Pitt's pacific disposition were Maret and his allies in France that the clandestine amba.s.sador again departed for London. But on arriving at Dover, he learned that Chauvelin had been expelled, and at once returned to France.*

* See Louis Blanc's "Histoire," etc., tome viii.f p. 100, for the princ.i.p.al authorities concerning this incident.-- Annual Register, 1793, ch. vi.; "Memoires tires des papiers d'un homme d'etat.," ii., p. 157; "Memoires de Dumouriez,"

t. iii., p. 384.

Paine now held more firmly than ever the first article of his faith as to practical politics: the chief task of republicanism is to break the Anglo-German sceptre. France is now committed to war; it must be elevated to that European aim. Lord North and America reappear in Burke and France. Meanwhile what is said of Britain in his "Rights of Man" was now more terribly true of France--it had no Const.i.tution. The Committee on the Const.i.tution had declared themselves ready to report early in the winter, but the Mountaineers managed that the matter should be postponed until after the King's trial. As an American who prized his citizenship, Paine felt chagrined and compromised at being compelled to act as a legislator and a judge because of his connection with a Convention elected for the purpose of framing a legislative and judicial machinery.

He and Con-dorcet continued to add touches to this Const.i.tution, the Committee approving, and on the first opportunity it was reported again.

This was February 15, 1793. But, says the _Moniteur_, "the struggles between the Girondins and the Mountain caused the examination and discussion to be postponed." It was, however, distributed.

Gouverneur Morris, in a letter to Jefferson (March 7th), says this Const.i.tution "was read to the Convention, but I learnt the next morning that a Council had been held on it overnight, by which it was condemned." Here is evidence in our American archives of a meeting or "Council" condemning the Const.i.tution on the night of its submission.

It must have been secret, for it does not appear in French histories, so far as I can discover. Durand de Maillane says that "the exclusion of Robespierre and Couthon from this eminent task [framing a Const.i.tution]

was a new matter for discontent and jealousy against the party of Petion "--a leading Girondin,--and that Robespierre and his men desired "to render their work useless."* No indication of this secret condemnation of the Paine-Condorcet Const.i.tution, by a conclave appeared on March 1st, when the doc.u.ment was again submitted. The Convention now set April 15th for its discussion, and the Mountaineers fixed that day for the opening of their attack on the Girondins. The Mayor of Paris appeared with a pet.i.tion, adopted by the Communal Council of the thirty-five sections of Paris, for the arrest of twenty-two members of the Convention, as slanderers of Paris,--"presenting the Parisians to Europe as men of blood,"--friends of Roland, accomplices of the traitor Dumouriez, enemies of the clubs. The deputies named were: Brissot, Guadet, Vergniaud, Gensonne, Grangeneuve, Buzot, Barbaroux, Salles, Biroteau, Pontecoulant, Petion, Lanjuinais, Valaze, Hardy, Louvet, Lehardy, Gor-sas, Abbe Fauchet, Lanthenas, Lasource, Valady, Chambon.

Of this list five were members of the Committee on the Const.i.tution, and two supplementary members.** Besides this, two of the arraigned--Louvet and Lasource--had been especially active in pressing forward the Const.i.tution. The Mountaineers turned the discord they thus caused into a reason for deferring discussion of the Const.i.tution.

* "Histoire de la Convention Nationale," p. 50. Durand- Maillane was "the silent member" of the Convention, but a careful observer and well-informed witness. I follow him and Louis Blanc in relating the fate of the Paine-Condorcet Const.i.tution.

** See vol. i., p. 357.

They declared also that important members were absent, levying troops, and especially that Marat's trial had been ordered. The discussion on the pet.i.tion against the Girondins, and whether the Const.i.tution should be considered, proceeded together for two days, when the Mountaineers were routed on both issues. The Convention returned the pet.i.tion to the Mayor, p.r.o.nouncing it "calumnious," and it made the Const.i.tution the order of the day. Robespierre, according to Du-rand-Maillane, showed much spite at this defeat. He adroitly secured a decision that the preliminary "Declaration of Rights" should be discussed first, as there could be endless talk on those generalities.*

* This Declaration, submitted by Condorcet, April 17th, being largely the work of Paine, is here translated: The end of all union of men in society being maintenance of their natural rights, civil and political, these rights should be the basis of the social pact: their recognition and their declaration ought to precede the Const.i.tution which secures and guarantees them. 1. The natural rights, civil and political, of men are liberty, equality, security, property, social protection, and resistance to oppression.

2. Liberty consists in the power to do whatever is not contrary to the rights of others; thus, the natural rights of each man has no limits other than those which secure to other members of society enjoyment of the same rights. 3.

The preservation of liberty depends on the sovereignty of the Law, which is the expression of the general will.

Nothing unforbidden by law can be impeached, and none may be constrained to do what it does not command. 4. Every man is free to make known his thought and his opinions. 5. Freedom of the press (and every other means of publishing one's thoughts) cannot be prohibited, suspended, or limited. 6.

Every citizen shall be free in the exercise of his worship [culte]. 7. Equality consists in the power of each to enjoy the same rights. 8. The Law should be equal for all, whether in recompense, punishment, or restraint. 9. All citizens are admissible to all public positions, employments, and functions. Free peoples can recognise no grounds of preference except talents and virtues. 10. Security consists in the protection accorded by society to each citizen for the preservation of his person, property, and rights. 11.

None should be sued, accused, arrested, or detained, save in cases determined by the law, and in accordance with forms prescribed by it. Every other act against a citizen is arbitrary and null. 12. Those who solicit, promote, sign, execute or cause to be executed such arbitrary acts are culpable, and should be punished. 13. Citizens against whom the execution of such acts is attempted have the right of resistance by force. Every citizen summoned or arrested by the authority of law, and in the forms prescribed by it, should instantly obey; he renders himself guilty by resistance. 14. Every man being presumed innocent until declared guilty, should his arrest be judged indispensable, all rigor not necessary to secure his person should be severely repressed by law. 15. None should be punished save in virtue of a law established and promulgated previous to the offence, and legally applied. 16. A law that should punish offences committed before its existence would be an arbitrary Act. Retroactive effect given to any law is a crime. 17. Law should award only penalties strictly and evidently necessary to the general security; they should be proportioned to the offence and useful to society. 18. The right of property consists in a man's being master in the disposal, at his will, of his goods, capital, income, and industry. 19. No kind of work, commerce, or culture can be interdicted for any one; he may make, sell, and transport every species of production. 20. Every man may engage his services, and his time; but he cannot sell himself; his person is not an alienable property. 21. No one may be deprived of the least portion of his property without his consent, unless because of public necessity, legally determined, exacted openly, and under the condition of a just indemnity in advance. 22. No tax shall be established except for the general utility, and to relieve public needs.

All citizens have the right to co-operate, personally or by their representatives, in the establishment of public contributions. 23. Instruction is the need of all, and society owes it equally to all its members. 24. Public succors are a sacred debt of society, and it is for the law to determine their extent and application. 25. The social guarantee of the rights of man rests on the national sovereignty. 26. This sovereignty is one, indivisible, imprescriptible, and inalienable. 27. It resides essentially in the whole people, and each citizen has an equal right to co-operate in its exercise. 28. No partial a.s.semblage of citizens, and no individual may attribute to themselves sovereignty, to exercise authority and fill any public function, without a formal delegation by the law. 29. Social security cannot exist where the limits of public administration are not clearly determined by law, and where the responsibility of all public functionaries is not a.s.sured. 30. All citizens are bound to co-operate in this guarantee, and to enforce the law when summoned in its name.

31. Men united in society should have legal means of resisting oppression. In every free government the mode of resisting different acts of oppression should be regulated by the Const.i.tution. 32. It is oppression when a law violates the natural rights, civil and political, which it should ensure. It is oppression when the law is violated by public officials in its application to individual cases. It is oppression when arbitrary acts violate the rights of citizens against the terms of the law. 33. A people has always the right to revise, reform, and change its Const.i.tution. One generation has no right to bind future generations, and all heredity in offices is absurd and tyrannical.

It now appears plain that Robespierre, Marat, and the Mountaineers generally were resolved that there should be no new government The difference between them and their opponents was fundamental: to them the Revolution was an end, to the others a means. The Convention was a purely revolutionary body. It had arbitrarily absorbed all legislative and judicial functions, exercising them without responsibility to any code or const.i.tution. For instance, in State Trials French law required three fourths of the voices for condemnation; had the rule been followed Louis XVI. would not have perished. Lanjuinais had pressed the point, and it was answered that the sentence on Louis was political, for the interest of the State; _salus populi suprema lex_. This implied that the Convention, turning aside from its appointed functions, had, in antic.i.p.ation of the judicial forms it meant to establish, const.i.tuted itself into a Vigilance Committee to save the State in an emergency. But it never turned back again to its proper work. Now when the Const.i.tution was framed, every possible obstruction was placed in the way of its adoption, which would have relegated most of the Mountaineers to private life.

Robespierre and Marat were in luck. The Paine-Condorcet Const.i.tution omitted all mention of a Deity. Here was the immemorial and infallible recipe for discord, of which Robespierre made the most He took the "Supreme Being" under his protection; he also took morality under his protection, insisting that the Paine-Condorcet Const.i.tution gave liberty even to illicit traffic. While these discussions were going on Marat gained his triumphant acquittal from the charges made against him by the Girondins. This damaging blow further demoralized the majority which was eager for the Const.i.tution. By violence, by appeals against atheism, by all crafty tactics, the Mountaineers secured recommitment of the Const.i.tution. To the Committee were added Herault de Sech.e.l.les, Ramel, Mathieu, Couthon, Saint-Just,--all from the Committee of Public Safety.

The Const.i.tution as committed was the most republican doc.u.ment of the kind ever drafted, as remade it was a revolutionary instrument; but its preamble read: "In the presence and under the guidance (_auspices_) of the Supreme Being, the French People declare," etc.

G.o.d was in the Const.i.tution; but when it was reported (June 10th) the Mountaineers had their opponents _en route_ for the scaffold. The arraignment of the twenty-two, declared by the Convention "calumnious"

six weeks before, was approved on June 2d. It was therefore easy to pa.s.s such a const.i.tution as the victors desired. Some had suggested, during the theological debate, that "many crimes had been sanctioned by this King of kings,"--no doubt with emphasis on the discredited royal name. Robespierre identified his "Supreme Being" with nature, of whose ferocities the poor Girondins soon had tragical evidence.*

* "Les rois, les aristocrates, les tyrants qu'ils soient, sont des esclaves revoltas contre le souverain de la terre, qui est le genre humain, et contre le legislateur de l'univers, qui est la nature."--Robespierre's final article of "Rights," adopted by the Jacobins, April 21,1793. Should not slaves revolt?

The Const.i.tution was adopted by the Convention on June 25th; it was ratified by the Communes August 10th. When it was proposed to organize a government under it, and dissolve the Convention, Robespierre remarked: _That sounds like a suggestion of Pitt!_ Thereupon the Const.i.tution was suspended until universal peace, and the Revolution superseded the Republic as end and aim of France.*