Thomas Paine
Revolutionary pamphleteer, author of Common Sense · 1737–1809
Thomas Paine was an English-born writer whose pamphlet Common Sense urged American independence. He later defended the French Revolution in Rights of Man, proposed public welfare measures and attacked organised religion in The Age of Reason.
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Estimated from their documented words and actions. A simplification, not a verdict.
Favoured a stronger national union over loose confederation in the early United States.
Argued for republican government based on popular consent and an end to hereditary monarchy.
Defended natural rights against state and church authority.
Called himself a citizen of the world and backed revolutions in America and France.
Supported revolutionary war while arguing that monarchies are the main cause of wars.
Described America as an asylum for people from all of Europe.
Agrarian Justice proposed taxing inherited land to fund a payment to every adult and old-age pensions.
Proposed public welfare programmes in Rights of Man, while praising commerce.
Argued that free commerce would promote peace between nations.
The Age of Reason attacked organised religion and the Bible from a deist standpoint.
By the standards of his time, radical: opposed slavery, monarchy and hereditary privilege.
Designed an iron bridge and took an active interest in inventions and science.