The Life Of Thomas Paine Volume II Part 12

{1795}

In the State Archives at Paris (etats Unis, vol. xliii.) there are two papers marked "Thomas Payne." The first urges the French Ministry to seize the occasion of a treaty with Spain to do a service to the United States: let the free navigation of the Mississippi be made by France a condition of peace. The second paper (endorsed "3 Ventose, February 21, 1795") proposes that, in addition to the condition made to Spain, an effort should be made to include American interests in the negotiation with England, if not too late. The negotiation with England was then finished, but the terms unpublished. Paine recommended that the Convention should pa.s.s a resolution that freedom of the Mississippi should be a condition of peace with Spain, which would necessarily accept it; and that, in case the arrangement with England should prove unsatisfactory, any renewed negotiations should support the just reclamations of their American ally for the surrender of the frontier posts and for depredations on their trade. Paine points out that such a declaration could not prolong the war a day, nor cost France an obole; whereas it might have a decisive effect in the United States, especially if Jay's treaty with England should be reprehensible, and should be approved in America.

That generosity "would certainly raise the reputation of the French Republic to the most eminent degree of splendour, and lower in proportion that of her enemies." It would undo the bad effects of the depredations of French privateers on American vessels, which rejoiced the British party in the United States and discouraged the friends of liberty and humanity there. It would acquire for France the merit which is her due, supply her American friends with strength against the intrigues of England, and cement the alliance of the Republics.

This able paper might have been acted on, but for the anger in France at the Jay treaty.

While writing in Monroe's house, the invalid, with an abscess in his side and a more painful sore in his heart--for he could not forget that Washington had forgotten him,--receives tidings of new events through cries in the street. In the month of his release they had been resonant with yells as the Jacobins were driven away and their rooms turned to a Normal School. Then came shouts, when, after trial, the murderous committeemen were led to execution or exile. In the early weeks of 1795 the dread sounds of retribution subside, and there is a cry from the street that comes nearer to Paine's heart--"Bread and the Const.i.tution of Ninety-three!" He knows that it is his Const.i.tution for which they are really calling, for they cannot understand the Robespierrian adulteration of it given out, as one said, as an opiate to keep the country asleep. The people are sick of revolutionary rule. These are the people in whom Paine has ever believed,--the honest hearts that summoned him, as author of "The Rights of Man," to help form their Const.i.tution.

They, he knows, had to be deceived when cruel deeds were done, and heard of such deeds with as much horror as distant peoples. Over that Const.i.tution for which they were clamoring he and his lost friend Condorcet had spent many a day of honest toil. Of the original Committee of Nine appointed for the work, six had perished by the revolution, one was banished, and two remained--Sieyes and Paine. That original Committee had gradually left the task to Paine and Condorcet,--Sieyes, because he had no real sympathy with republicanism, though he honored Paine.* When afterwards asked how he had survived the Terror, Sieyes answered, "I lived." He lived by bending, and now leads a Committee of Eleven on the Const.i.tution, while Paine, who did not bend, is disabled. Paine knows Sieyes well. The people will vainly try for the "Const.i.tution of Ninety-three." They shall have no Const.i.tution but of Sieyes' making, and in it will be some element of monarchy. Sieyes presently seemed to retire from the Committee, but old republicans did not doubt that he was all the more swaying it.

* "Mr. Thomas Paine is one of those men who have contributed the most to establish the liberty of America. His ardent love of humanity, and his hatred of every sort of tyranny, have induced him to take up in England the defence of the French revolution, against the amphigorical declamation of Mr. Burke. His work has been translated into our language, and is universally known. What French patriot is there who has not already, from the bottom of his heart, thanked this foreigner for having strengthened our cause by all the powers of his reason and reputation? It is with pleasure that I observe an opportunity of offering him the tribute of my grat.i.tude and my esteem for the truly philosophical application of talents so distinguished as his own."--Sieyes in the Moniteur, July 6, 1791.

So once more Paine seizes his pen; his hand is feeble, but His intellect has lost no fibre of force, nor his heart its old faith. His trust in man has pa.s.sed through the ordeal of seeing his friends--friends of man--murdered by the people's Convention, himself saved by accident; it has survived the apparent relapse of Washington into the arms of George the Third. The ingrat.i.tude of his faithfully-served America is represented by an abscess in his side, which may strike into his heart--in a sense has done so--but will never reach his faith in liberty, equality, and humanity.

Early in July the Convention is reading Paine's "Dissertation on First Principles of Government" His old arguments against hereditary right, or investing even an elective individual with extraordinary power, are repeated with ill.u.s.trations from the pa.s.sing Revolution.

"Had a Const.i.tution been established two years ago, as ought to have been done, the violences that have since desolated France and injured the character of the revolution, would, in my opinion, have been prevented. The nation would have had a bond of union, and every individual would have known the line of conduct he was to follow. But, instead of this, a revolutionary government, a thing without either principle or authority, was subst.i.tuted in its place; virtue or crime depended upon accident; and that which was patriotism one day, became treason the next. All these things have followed from the want of a Const.i.tution; for it is the nature and intention or a Const.i.tution to prevent governing by party, by establishing a common principle that shall limit and control the power and impulse of party, and that says to all parties, _Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther_. But in the absence of a Const.i.tution men look entirely to party; and instead of principle governing party, party governs principle.

"An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach himself."

Few of Paine's pamphlets better deserve study than this. In writing it, he tells us, he utilized the fragment of a work begun at some time not stated, which he meant to dedicate to the people of Holland, then contemplating a revolution. It is a condensed statement of the principles underlying the Const.i.tution written by himself and Condorcet, now included among Condorcet's works. They who imagine that Paine's political system was that of the democratic demagogues may undeceive themselves by pondering this pamphlet. It has been pointed out, on a previous page of this work, that Paine held the representative to be not the voter's mouthpiece, but his delegated sovereignty. The representatives of a people are therefore its supreme power. The executive, the ministers, are merely as chiefs of the national police engaged in enforcing the laws. They are mere employes, without any authority at all, except of superintendence. "The executive department is official, and is subordinate to the legislative as the body is to the mind." The chief of these official departments is the judicial. In appointing officials the most important rule is, "never to invest any individual with extraordinary power; for besides being tempted to misuse it, it will excite contention and commotion in the nation for the office." All of this is in logical conformity with the same author's "Rights of Man," which James Madison declared to be an exposition of the principles on which the United States government is based. It would be entertaining to observe the countenance of a President should our House of Representatives address him as a chief of national police.

Soon after the publication of Paine's "Dissertation" a new French Const.i.tution was textually submitted for popular consideration. Although in many respects it accorded fairly well with Paine's principles, it contained one provision which he believed would prove fatal to the Republic. This was the limitation of citizenship to payers of direct taxes, except soldiers who had fought in one or more campaigns for the Republic, this being a sufficient qualification. This revolutionary disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of near half the nation brought Paine to the Convention (July 7th) for the first time since the fall of the Brissotins, two years before. The scene at his return was impressive. A special motion was made by Lan-thenas and unanimously adopted, "that permission be granted Thomas Paine to deliver his sentiments on the declaration of rights and the Const.i.tution." With feeble step he ascended the tribune, and stood while a secretary read his speech. Of all present this man had suffered most by the confusion of the mob with the people, which caused the reaction on which was floated the device he now challenged. It is an instance of idealism rare in political history. The speech opens with words that caused emotion.

"Citizens, The effects of a malignant fever, with which I was afflicted during a rigorous confinement in the Luxembourg, have thus long prevented me from attending at my post in the bosom of the Convention; and the magnitude of the subject under discussion, and no other consideration on earth, could induce me now to repair to my station.

A recurrence to the vicissitudes I have experienced, and the critical situations in which I have been placed in consequence of the French Revolution, will throw upon what I now propose to submit to the Convention the most unequivocal proofs of my integrity, and the rect.i.tude of those principles which have uniformly influenced my conduct. In England I was proscribed for having vindicated the French Revolution, and I have suffered a rigorous imprisonment in France for having pursued a similar line of conduct. During the reign of terrorism I was a prisoner for eight long months, and remained so above three months after the era of the 10th Thermidor. I ought, however, to state, that I was not persecuted by the _people_, either of England or France.

The proceedings in both countries were the effects of the despotism existing in their respective governments. But, even if my persecution had originated in the people at large, my principles and conduct would still have remained the same. Principles which are influenced and subject to the control of tyranny have not their foundation in the heart."

Though they slay him Paine will trust in the people. There seems a slight slip of memory; his imprisonment, by revolutionary calendar, lasted ten and a half months, or 315 days; but there is no failure of conviction or of thought. He points out the inconsistency of the disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of indirect tax-payers with the Declaration of Rights, and the opportunity afforded partisan majorities to influence suffrage by legislation on the mode of collecting taxes. The soldier, enfranchised without other qualification, would find his children slaves.

"If you subvert the basis of the Revolution, if you dispense with principles and subst.i.tute expedients, you will extinguish that enthusiasm which has. .h.i.therto been the life and soul of the revolution; and you will subst.i.tute in its place nothing but a cold indifference and self-interest, which will again degenerate into intrigue, cunning, and effeminacy."

There was an educational test of suffrage to which he did not object.

"Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime." But in his appeal to pure principle simple-hearted Paine knew nothing of the real test of the Convention's votes. This white-haired man was the only eminent member of the Convention with nothing in his record to cause shame or fear. He almost alone among them had the honor of having risked his head rather than execute Louis, on whom he had looked as one man upon another. He alone had refused to enter the Convention when it abandoned the work for which it was elected and became a usurping tribunal. During two fearful years the true Republic had been in Paine's house and garden, where he conversed with his disciples; or in Luxembourg prison, where he won all hearts, as did imprisoned George Fox, who reappeared in him, and where, beneath the knife whose fall seemed certain, he criticised consecrated dogmas. With this record Paine spoke that day to men who feared to face the honest sentiment of the harried peasantry. Some of the members had indeed been terrorized, but a majority shared the disgrace of the old Convention. They were jeered at on the streets. The heart of France was throbbing again, and what would become of these "Conventionnels," when their a.s.sembly should die in giving birth to a government? They must from potentates become pariahs. Their aim now was to prolong their political existence. The const.i.tutional narrowing of the suffrage was in antic.i.p.ation of the decree presently appended, that two thirds of the new legislature should be chosen from the Convention. Paine's speech was delivered against a foregone conclusion. This was his last appearance in the Convention. Out of it he naturally dropped when it ended (October 26, 1795), with the organization of the Directory. Being an American he would not accept candidature in a foreign government.

CHAPTER X. THE SILENCE OF WASHINGTON

Monroe, in a letter of September 15th to his relative, Judge Joseph Jones, of Fredericksburg, Virginia, after speaking of the Judge's son and his tutor at St. Germain, adds:

"As well on his account as that of our child, who is likewise at St.

Germain, we had taken rooms there, with the intention of occupying for a month or two in the course of the autumn, but fear it will not be in our power to do so, on account of the ill-health of Mr. Paine, who has lived in my house for about ten months past. He was upon my arrival confined in the Luxembourg, and released on my application; after which, being ill, he has remained with me. For some time the prospect of his recovery was good; his malady being an abscess in his side, the consequence of a severe fever in the Luxembourg. Latterly his symptoms have become worse, and the prospect now is that he will not be able to hold out more than a month or two at the furthest. I shall certainly pay the utmost attention to this gentleman, as he is one of those whose merits in our Revolution were most distinguished."*

* I am indebted to Mrs. Gouverneur, of Washington, for this letter, which is among the invaluable papers of her ancestor, President Monroe, which surely should be secured for our national archives.

Paine's speech in the Convention told sadly on his health. Again he had to face death. As when, in 1793, the guillotine rising over him, he had set about writing his last bequest, the "Age of Reason," he now devoted himself to its completion. The ma.n.u.script of the second part, begun in prison, had been in the printer's hands some time before Monroe wrote of his approaching end. When the book appeared, he was so low that his death was again reported.

So far as France was concerned, there was light about his eventide.

"Almost as suddenly," so he wrote, "as the morning light dissipates darkness, did the establishment of the Const.i.tution change the face of affairs in France. Security succeeded to terror, prosperity to distress, plenty to famine, and confidence increased as the days multiplied." This may now seem morbid optimism, but it was shared by the merry youth, and the pretty dames, whose c.r.a.ped arms did not prevent their sandalled feet and Greek-draped forms from dancing in their transient Golden Age. Of all this, we may be sure, the invalid hears many a beguiling story from Madame Monroe.

But there is a grief in his heart more cruel than death. The months have come and gone,--more than eighteen,--since Paine was cast into prison, but as yet no word of kindness or inquiry had come from Washington.

Early in the year, on the President's sixty-third birthday, Paine had written him a letter of sorrowful and bitter reproach, which Monroe persuaded him not to send, probably because of its censures on the ministerial failures of Morris, and "the pusillanimous conduct of Jay in England." It now seems a pity that Monroe did not encourage Paine to send Washington, in substance, the personal part of his letter, which was in the following terms:

"As it is always painful to reproach those one would wish to respect, it is not without some difficulty that I have taken the resolution to write to you. The danger to which I have been exposed cannot have been unknown to you, and the guarded silence you have observed upon that circ.u.mstance, is what I ought not to have expected from you, either as a friend or as a President of the United States.

"You knew enough of my character to be a.s.sured that I could not have deserved imprisonment in France, and, without knowing anything more than this, you had sufficient ground to have taken some interest for my safety. Every motive arising from recollection ought to have suggested to you the consistency of such a measure. But I cannot find that you have so much as directed any enquiry to be made whether I was in prison or at liberty, dead or alive; what the cause of that imprisonment was, or whether there was any service or a.s.sistance you could render. Is this what I ought to have expected from America after the part I had acted towards her? Or, will it redound to her honor or to your's that I tell the story?

"I do not hesitate to say that you have not served America with more fidelity, or greater zeal, or greater disinterestedness, than myself, and perhaps with not better effect After the revolution of America had been established, you rested at home to partake its advantages, and I ventured into new scenes of difficulty to extend the principles which that revolution had produced. In the progress of events you beheld yourself a president in America and me a prisoner in France: you folded your arms, forgot your friend, and became silent.

"As everything I have been doing in Europe was connected with my wishes for the prosperity of America, I ought to be the more surprised at this conduct on the part of her government. It leaves me but one mode of explanation, which is, that everything is not as it ought to be amongst you, and that the presence of a man who might disapprove, and who had credit enough with the country to be heard and believed, was not wished for. This was the operating motive of the despotic faction that imprisoned me in France (though the pretence was that I was a foreigner); and those that have been silent towards me in America, appear to me to have acted from the same motive. It is impossible for me to discover any other."

Unwilling as all are to admit anything disparaging to Washington, justice requires the fair consideration of Paine's complaint There were in his hands many letters proving Washington's friendship, and his great appreciation of Paine's services. Paine had certainly done nothing to forfeit his esteem. The "Age of Reason" had not appeared in America early enough to affect the matter, even should we suppose it offensive to a deist like Washington. The dry approval, forwarded by the Secretary of State, of Monroe's reclamation of Paine, enhanced the grievance. It admitted Paine's American citizenship. It was not then an old friend unhappily beyond his help, but a fellow-citizen whom he could legally protect, whom the President had left to languish in prison, and in hourly danger of death. During six months he saw no visitor, he heard no word, from the country for which he had fought. To Paine it could appear only as a sort of murder. And, although he kept back the letter, at his friend's desire, he felt that it might yet turn out to be murder. Even so it seemed, six months later, when the effects of his imprisonment, combined with his grief at Washington's continued silence (surely Monroe must have written on the subject), brought him to death's door. One must bear in mind also the disgrace, the humiliation of it, for a man who had been reverenced as a founder of the American Republic, and its apostle in France. This, indeed, had made his last three months in prison, after there had been ample time to hear from Washington, heavier than all the others. After the fall of Robespierre the prisons were rapidly emptied--from twenty to forty liberations daily,--the one man apparently forgotten being he who wrote, "in the times that tried men's souls," the words that Washington ordered to be read to his dispirited soldiers.

And now death approaches. If there can be any explanation of this long neglect and silence, knowledge of it would soothe the author's dying pillow; and though there be little probability that he can hold out so long, a letter (September 20th) is sent to Washington, under cover to Franklin Bache.

"Sir,--I had written you a letter by Mr. Letombe, French consul, but, at the request of Mr. Monroe, I withdrew it, and the letter is still by me. I was the more easily prevailed upon to do this, as it was then my intention to have returned to America the latter end of the present year (1795;) but the illness I now suffer prevents me. In case I had come, I should have applied to you for such parts of your official letters (and your private ones, if you had chosen to give them) as contained any instructions or directions either to Mr. Monroe, to Mr. Morris, or to any other person, respecting me; for after you were informed of my imprisonment in France it was inc.u.mbent on you to make some enquiry into the cause, as you might very well conclude that I had not the opportunity of informing you of it. I cannot understand your silence upon this subject upon any other ground, than as connivance at my imprisonment; and this is the manner in which it is understood here, and will be understood in America, unless you will give me authority for contradicting it. I therefore write you this letter, to propose to you to send me copies of any letters you have written, that I may remove this suspicion. In the Second Part of the "Age of Reason," I have given a memorandum from the handwriting of Robespierre, in which he proposed a decree of accusation against me 'for the interest of America as well as of France.' He could have no cause for putting America in the case, but by interpreting the silence of the American government into connivance and consent. I was imprisoned on the ground of being born in England; and your silence in not inquiring the cause of that imprisonment, and reclaiming me against it, was tacitly giving me up. I ought not to have suspected you of treachery; but whether I recover from the illness I now suffer, or not, I shall continue to think you treacherous, till you give me cause to think otherwise. I am sure you would have found yourself more at your ease had you acted by me as you ought; for whether your desertion of me was intended to gratify the English government, or to let me fall into destruction in France that you might exclaim the louder against the French Revolution; or whether you hoped by my extinction to meet with less opposition in mounting up the American government; either of these will involve you in reproach you will not easily shake off.

"Thomas Paine."

This is a bitter letter, but it is still more a sorrowful one. In view of what Washington had written of Paine's services, and for the sake of twelve years of _camaraderie_, Washington should have overlooked the sharpness of a deeply wronged and dying friend, and written to him what his Minister in France had reported. My reader already knows, what the sufferer knew not, that a part of Paine's grievance against Washington was unfounded. Washington could not know that the only charge against Paine was one trumped up by his own Minister in France. Had he considered the letter just quoted, he must have perceived that Paine was laboring under an error in supposing that no inquiry had been made into his case. There are facts antecedent to the letter showing that his complaint had a real basis. For instance, in a letter to Monroe (July 30th), President's interest was expressed in two other American prisoners in France--Archibald Hunter and Shubael Allen,--but no word was said of Paine. There was certainly a change in Washington towards Paine, and the following may have been its causes.

1. Paine had introduced Genet to Morris, and probably to public men in America. Genet had put an affront on Morris, and taken over a demand for his recall, with which Morris connected Paine. In a letter to Washington (private) Morris falsely insinuated that Paine had incited the actions of Genet which had vexed the President.

2. Morris, perhaps in fear that Jefferson, influenced by Americans in Paris, might appoint Paine to his place, had written to Robert Morris in Philadelphia slanders of Paine, describing him as a sot and an object of contempt. This he knew would reach Washington without pa.s.sing under the eye of Paine's friend, Jefferson.

3. In a private letter Morris related that Paine had visited him with Colonel Oswald, and treated him insolently. Washington particularly disliked Oswald, an American journalist actively opposing his administration.

4. Morris had described Paine as intriguing against him, both in Europe and America, thus impeding his mission, to which the President attached great importance.

5. The President had set his heart on bribing England with a favorable treaty of commerce to give up its six military posts in America. The most obnoxious man in the world to England was Paine. Any interference in Paine s behalf would not only have offended England, but appeared as a sort of repudiation of Morris' intimacy with the English court.

The (alleged) reclamation of Paine by Morris had been kept secret by Washington even from friends so intimate (at the time) as Madison, who writes of it as having never been done. So carefully was avoided the publication of anything that might vex England.

6. Morris had admonished the Secretary of State that if Paine's imprisonment were much noticed it might endanger his life. So conscience was free to jump with policy.

What else Morris may have conveyed to Washington against Paine can be only matter for conjecture; but what he was capable of saying about those he wished to injure may be gathered from various letters of his.

In one (December 19, 1795) he tells Washington that he had heard from a trusted informant that his Minister, Monroe, had told various Frenchmen that "he had no doubt but that, if they would do what was proper here, he and his friends would turn out Washington."

Liability to imposition is the weakness of strong natures. Many an Iago of canine cleverness has made that discovery. But, however Washington's mind may have been poisoned towards Paine, it seems unaccountable that, after receiving the letter of September 20th, he did not mention to Monroe, or to somebody, his understanding that the prisoner had been promptly reclaimed. In my first edition it was suggested that the letter might have been intercepted by Secretary Pickering, Paine's enemy, who had withheld from Washington important doc.u.ments in Randolph's case.

Unfortunately my copyist in the State Department sent me only Bache's endors.e.m.e.nt: "Jan. 18,1796. Enclosed to Benj. Franklin Bache, and by him forwarded immediately upon receipt." But there is also an endors.e.m.e.nt by Washington: "From Mr. Thomas Paine, 20 Sept. 1795." (Addressed outside: "George Washington, President of the United States.") The President was no longer visited by his old friends, Madison and others, and they could not discuss with him the intelligence they were receiving about Paine.

Madison, in a letter to Jefferson (dated at Philadelphia, January 10, 1796), says:

"I have a letter from Thomas Paine which breathes the same sentiments, and contains some keen observations on the administration of the government here. It appears that the neglect to claim him as an American citizen when confined by Robespierre, or even to interfere in any way whatever in his favor, has filled him with an indelible rancor against the President, to whom it appears he has written on the subject [September 20, 1795]. His letter to me is in the style of a dying one, and we hear that he is since dead of the abscess in his side, brought on by his imprisonment. His letter desires that he may be remembered to you."

Whatever the explanation may be, no answer came from Washington. After waiting a year Paine employed his returning strength in embodying the letters of February 22d and September 20th, with large additions, in a printed _Letter to George Washington_. The story of his imprisonment and death sentence here for the first time really reached the American people. His personal case is made preliminary to an attack on Washington's whole career. The most formidable part of the pamphlet was the publication of Washington's letter to the Committee of Public Safety, which, departing from its rule of secrecy (in anger at the British Treaty), thus delivered a blow not easily answerable. The President's letter was effusive, about the "alliance," "closer bonds of friendship," and so forth,--phrases which, just after the virtual transfer of our alliance to the enemy of France, smacked of perfidy.