Editing Thomas Paine (section)

==Legacy==

{{Liberalism sidebar|philosophers}}

[[File:Thomas Paine, 40c, 1968 issue.jpg|right|thumb|upright=0.75|In 1969, a [[Prominent Americans series]] stamp honoring Paine, with his signature at top, was issued.]]
Historian [[Jack P. Greene]] stated:

{{blockquote|In a fundamental sense, we are today all Paine's children. It was not the British defeat at Yorktown, but Paine and the new American conception of political society he did so much to popularize in Europe that turned the world upside down.<ref>Jack P. Greene, "Paine, America, and the 'Modernization' Of Political Consciousness," ''Political Science Quarterly'' 93#1 (1978) pp. 73–92 [92] [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2149051 Online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181202070546/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2149051 |date=December 2, 2018 }}.</ref>}}

Harvey J. Kaye wrote that through Paine, through his pamphlets and catchphrases such as "The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth," "We have it in our power to begin the world over again," and "These are the times that try men's souls" did more than move Americans to declare their independence:

{{blockquote|[H]e also imbued the nation they were founding with democratic impulse and aspiration and exceptional – indeed, world-historic – purpose and promise. For 230 years Americans have drawn ideas, inspiration, and encouragement from Paine and his work.<ref>{{cite book|author=Harvey J. Kaye|title=Thomas Paine and the Promise of America: A History & Biography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s6iz3tX-qKIC&pg=RA1-PA258|year=2007|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|page=258|isbn=978-0374707064|access-date=June 8, 2019|archive-date=August 19, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200819212431/https://books.google.com/books?id=s6iz3tX-qKIC&pg=RA1-PA258|url-status=live}}</ref>}}

John Stevenson argues that in the early 1790s, numerous radical political societies were formed throughout England and Wales in which Paine's writings provided "a boost to the self-confidence of those seeking to participate in politics for the first time."<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Stevenson | first1 = John | year = 1989 | title = 'Paineites to a Man'? The English Popular Radical Societies in the 1790s | journal = Bulletin – Society for the Study of Labour History | volume = 54 | issue = 1| pages = 14–25 }}</ref> In its immediate effects, [[Gary Kates]] argues, "Paine's vision unified Philadelphia merchants, British artisans, French peasants, Dutch reformers, and radical intellectuals from Boston to Berlin in one great movement."<ref>Gary Kates. "From Liberalism to Radicalism " (1989) p. 569.</ref>
[[File:TSJuly1 1916original.JPG|left|thumb|upright=0.75|Since its founding in 1873, the American freethought periodical – ''[[The Truth Seeker]]'' – has championed Thomas Paine.]]
His writings in the long term inspired [[Philosophical radicals|philosophic]] and working-class [[radicalism (historical)|radicals]] in Britain and United States. [[American liberalism|Liberals]], [[libertarianism|libertarians]], [[left-libertarianism|left-libertarians]], [[Feminism|feminists]], [[democratic socialists]], [[social democrats]], [[anarchist]]s, [[Freethought|free thinkers]] and [[Progressivism|progressives]] often claim him as an intellectual ancestor. Paine's critique of institutionalized religion and advocacy of rational thinking influenced many British freethinkers in the 19th and 20th centuries, such as [[William Cobbett]], [[George Holyoake]], [[Charles Bradlaugh]], [[Christopher Hitchens]] and [[Bertrand Russell]].<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Kates | first1 = Gary | year = 1989 | title = From liberalism to radicalism: Tom Paine's Rights of Man | journal = Journal of the History of Ideas | volume = 50 | issue = 4| pages = 569–587 | doi = 10.2307/2709798 | jstor = 2709798 }}</ref>

The quote "Lead, follow, or get out of the way" is widely but incorrectly attributed to Paine. It can be found nowhere in his published works.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Gray |first1=Rosie |title=Mitt Romney Misquoted Thomas Paine In Victory Speech |url=https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosiegray/mitt-romney-misquoted-thomas-paine-in-victory-spee |website=[[BuzzFeed News]] |access-date=April 26, 2019 |language=en |date=February 1, 2012 |archive-date=April 26, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190426020538/https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosiegray/mitt-romney-misquoted-thomas-paine-in-victory-spee |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Abraham Lincoln===
In 1835, when he was 26 years old, [[Abraham Lincoln]] wrote a defense of Paine's deism.<ref>Robert Havlik, "Some Influences of Thomas Paine's Age of Reason Upon
Abraham Lincoln," ''Lincoln Herald,'' 104 (Summer 2002): 61–70.</ref> A political associate, Samuel Hill, burned the manuscript to save Lincoln's political career.<ref>Michael Burlingame, ''Abraham Lincoln: a Life'' (2008), vol. 2, p. 83.</ref> Historian [[Roy Basler]], the editor of Lincoln's papers, said Paine had a strong influence on Lincoln's style:

<blockquote>No other writer of the eighteenth century, with the exception of Jefferson, parallels more closely the temper or gist of Lincoln's later thought. In style, Paine above all others affords the variety of eloquence which, chastened and adapted to Lincoln's own mood, is revealed in Lincoln's formal writings.<ref>Roy P. Basler (ed.), ''Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings'' (1946), p. 6.</ref></blockquote>

===Thomas Edison===
The inventor [[Thomas Edison]] said:

<blockquote>I have always regarded Paine as one of the greatest of all Americans. Never have we had a sounder intelligence in this republic.... It was my good fortune to encounter Thomas Paine's works in my boyhood... it was, indeed, a revelation to me to read that great thinker's views on political and theological subjects. Paine educated me, then, about many matters of which I had never before thought. I remember, very vividly, the flash of enlightenment that shone from Paine's writings, and I recall thinking, at that time, 'What a pity these works are not today the schoolbooks for all children!' My interest in Paine was not satisfied by my first reading of his works. I went back to them time and again, just as I have done since my boyhood days.<ref>Thomas Edison, Introduction to ''The Life and Works of Thomas Paine'', New York: Citadel Press, 1945, Vol. I, pp. vii–ix. [http://www.thomaspaine.org/ Reproduced online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041110005749/http://www.thomaspaine.org/ |date=November 10, 2004 }} on thomaspaine.org, accessed November 4, 2006.</ref></blockquote>

===South America===
In 1811, Venezuelan translator Manuel Garcia de Sena published a book in Philadelphia that consisted mostly of Spanish translations of several of Paine's most important works.<ref name="street">John Street, ''Artigas and the Emancipation of Uruguay'' (London: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 178–186.</ref> The book also included translations of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the U.S. Constitution and the constitutions of five U.S. states.<ref name="street"/>

It subsequently circulated widely in South America and through it [[Uruguayan]] national hero [[José Gervasio Artigas]] became familiar with and embraced Paine's ideas. In turn, many of Artigas's writings drew directly from Paine's, including the ''[[Instructions of 1813]]'', which Uruguayans consider to be one of their country's most important constitutional documents, and was one of the earliest writings to articulate a principled basis for an identity independent of Buenos Aires.<ref name="street"/>

[[File:Thomas Paine Thetford.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|Monument, Kings Street, Thetford]]

===Memorials===
{{Main|Memorials to Thomas Paine}}
[[File:Thomas Paine Monument 2015.png|thumb|upright=0.75|The [[Thomas Paine Monument]]]]
The first and longest-standing memorial to Paine is the carved and inscribed 12-foot marble column in [[New Rochelle, New York]], organized and funded by publisher, educator and reformer Gilbert Vale (1791–1866) and raised in 1839 by the American sculptor and architect [[John Frazee (sculptor, born 1790)|John Frazee]], the [[Thomas Paine Monument]] (see image below).<ref>See Frederick S. Voss, ''John Frazee 1790–1852 Sculptor'' (Washington City and Boston: The National Portrait Gallery and The Boston Athenaeum, 1986), pp. 46–47.{{ISBN?}}</ref>

New Rochelle is also the original site of [[Thomas Paine Cottage|Thomas Paine's Cottage]], which along with a 320-acre (130 ha) farm were presented to Paine in 1784 by act of the New York State Legislature for his services in the American Revolution.<ref>See Alfred Owen Aldridge, ''Man of Reason'' (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1959), p. 103.{{ISBN?}}</ref> The same site is the home of the [[Thomas Paine National Historical Association|Thomas Paine Memorial Museum]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.iona.edu/library/about/collections/archives/paine |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130529155142/http://www.iona.edu/library/about/collections/archives/paine |archive-date=May 29, 2013|title=Academics: Libraries |work=Iona College }}</ref>
[[File:Statue of Thomas Paine, parc Montsouris, Paris (4).jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|Statue of Thomas Paine in Parc Montsouris, Paris, dedicated in 1948]]
In the 20th century, [[Joseph L. Lewis|Joseph Lewis]], longtime president of the Freethinkers of America and an ardent Paine admirer, was instrumental in having larger-than-life-sized statues of Paine erected in each of the three countries with which the revolutionary writer was associated. The first, created by [[Mount Rushmore]] sculptor [[Gutzon Borglum]], was erected in the [[Parc Montsouris]], [[Paris]], just before [[World War II]] began but not formally dedicated until 1948. It depicts Paine standing before the French [[National Convention]] to plead for the life of [[King Louis XVI]]. The second, sculpted in 1950 by [[Georg J. Lober]], was erected near Paine's one-time home in [[Morristown, New Jersey]]. It shows a seated Paine using a drumhead as a makeshift table. The third, sculpted by Sir [[Charles Wheeler (sculptor)|Charles Wheeler]], President of the Royal Academy, was erected in 1964 in Paine's birthplace, [[Thetford]], England. With a quill pen in his right hand and an inverted copy of ''The Rights of Man'' in his left, it occupies a prominent location on King Street. Thomas Paine was ranked No. 34 in the ''[[100 Greatest Britons]]'' 2002 extensive Nationwide poll conducted by the [[BBC]].<ref>{{cite news
 | title = BBC – 100 Great British Heroes
 | work = BBC News
 | url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2208671.stm
 | date = August 21, 2002
 | access-date = December 26, 2011
 | archive-date = November 4, 2010
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20101104074956/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2208671.stm
 | url-status = live
 }}</ref>

===In popular culture===
* In 1987, [[Richard Thomas (actor)|Richard Thomas]] appeared on stage in Philadelphia and Washington, DC, in the one-man play ''Citizen Tom Paine'' (an adaptation of [[Howard Fast]]'s 1943 novel of the same title), playing Paine "like a star-spangled tiger, ferocious about freedom and ready to savage anyone who stands in his way," in a staging of the play in the bicentennial year of the [[United States Constitution]].<ref>Louise Sweeney (1987). "On stage: reliving historic turning points. Howard Fast's 'Citizen Tom Paine'." ''The Christian Science Monitor''. March 12, 1987.</ref>
* In 1995, the English folk singer Graham Moore released a song called ''Tom Paine's Bones'' on an album of the same name.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Tom Paine's Bones [Graham Moore]|url=https://mainlynorfolk.info/roy.bailey/songs/tompainesbones.html|access-date=2021-08-09|website=mainlynorfolk.info|archive-date=August 9, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210809101835/https://mainlynorfolk.info/roy.bailey/songs/tompainesbones.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The song has since been covered by a number of other artists, including [[Dick Gaughan]], [[Grace Petrie]] and [[The Trials of Cato|Trials of Cato]].{{cn|date=March 2024}}
* In 2005, [[Trevor Griffiths]] published ''These are the Times: A Life of Thomas Paine'', originally written as a screenplay for [[Richard Attenborough|Richard Attenborough Productions]]. Although the film was not made, the play was broadcast as a two-part drama on [[BBC Radio 4]] in 2008,<ref>{{Cite web|title=BBC Radio 4 – Saturday Drama – Episodes by|publisher=Bbc.co.uk|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qgxs/broadcasts/2008/08|date=August 2008|access-date=May 7, 2014|archive-date=September 4, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150904024402/http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qgxs/broadcasts/2008/08|url-status=live}}</ref> with a repeat in 2012.<ref>{{Cite web|title=BBC Radio 4 – Saturday Drama – Episodes by|publisher=Bbc.co.uk|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qgxs/broadcasts/2012/08|date=August 2012|access-date=May 7, 2014|archive-date=October 16, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016044059/http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qgxs/broadcasts/2012/08|url-status=live}}</ref>
* In 2009, Paine's life was dramatized in the play ''Thomas Paine Citizen of the World'',<ref>{{Cite web|title=Thomas Paine – "Citizen Of The World"|publisher=Keystage-company.co.uk|url=http://www.keystage-company.co.uk/Keystage_Arts_and_Heritage_Company/Project_Portfolio/Entries/2009/4/27_THOMAS_PAINE_-_CITIZEN_OF_THE_WORLD.html|access-date=May 7, 2014|archive-date=April 7, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407222502/http://www.keystage-company.co.uk/Keystage_Arts_and_Heritage_Company/Project_Portfolio/Entries/2009/4/27_THOMAS_PAINE_-_CITIZEN_OF_THE_WORLD.html|url-status=live}}</ref> produced for the "Tom Paine 200 Celebrations" festival<ref name="tompainlegacy">[http://www.tompainelegacy.org.uk/programme.html Tom Paine Legacy] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120117175937/http://www.tompainelegacy.org.uk/programme.html|date=January 17, 2012}}, Programme for bicentenary celebrations in [[Thetford]], the town of his birth.</ref>