Paine
observed that he would not treat kings like Joshua. " I 'm of the
Scotch parson's opinion," he said, "when he prayed against Louis
XIV.-`Lord, shake him over the mouth of hell, but don't let him drop!
' " Paine then gave as his toast, " The Republic of the World,"-which
Samuel Rogers, aged twenty-nine, noted as a sublime idea. This was
Paine's faith and hope, and with it he confronted the revolutionary
storms which presently burst over France and England.
Until Burke's arraignment of France in his parliamentary speech
(February 9, 1790), Paine had no doubt whatever that he would
sympathize with the movement in France, and wrote to him from that
country as if conveying glad tidings. Burke's " Reflections on the
Revolution in France " appeared November 1, 1790, and Paine at once
set himself to answer it. He was then staying at the Angel Inn,
Islington. The inn has been twice rebuilt since that time, and from
its contents there is preserved only a small image, which perhaps was
meant to represent " Liberty,"-possibly brought from Paris by Paine
as an ornament for his study. From the Angel he removed to a house in
Harding Street, Fetter Lane. Rickman says Part First of " Rights of
Man " was finished at Versailles, but probably this has reference to
the preface only, as I cannot find Paine in France that year until
April 8. The book had been printed by Johnson, in time for the
opening of Parliament, in February ; but this publisher became
frightened after a few copies were out (there is one in the British
Museum), and the work was transferred to J. S. Jordan, 166 Fleet
Street, with a preface sent from Paris (not contained in Johnson's
edition, nor in the American editions). The pamphlet, though sold at
the same price as Burke's, three shillings, had a vast circulation,
and Paine gave the proceeds to the Constitutional Societies which
sprang up under his teachings in various parts of the country.
Soon after appeared Burke's " Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs."
In this Burke quoted a good deal from " Rights of Man," but replied
to it only with exclamation points, saying that the only answer such
ideas merited was "criminal justice." Paine's Part Second followed,
published February 17, 1792. In Part First Paine had mentioned a
rumor that Burke was a masked pensioner (a charge that will be
noticed in connection with its detailed statement in a further
publication); and as Burke had been formerly arraigned in Parliament,
while Paymaster, for a very questionable proceeding, this charge no
doubt hurt a good deal. Although the government did not follow
Burke's suggestion of a prosecution at that time, there is little
doubt that it was he who induced the prosecution of Part Second.
Before the trial came on, December 18, 1792, Paine was occupying his
seat in the French Convention, and could only be outlawed.
Burke humorously remarked to a friend of Paine and himself, " We hunt
in pairs." The severally representative character and influence of
these two men in the revolutionary era, in France and England,
deserve more adequate study than they have received. While Paine
maintained freedom of discussion, Burke first proposed criminal
prosecution for sentiments by no means libellous (such as Paine's
Part First). While Paine was endeavoring to make the movement in
France peaceful, Burke fomented the league of monarchs against France
which maddened its people, and brought on the Reign of Terror. While
Paine was endeavoring to preserve the French throne ("phantom" though
he believed it), to prevent bloodshed, Burke was secretly writing to
the Queen of France, entreating her not to compromise, and to " trust
to the support of foreign armies " (" Histoire de France depuis
1789." Henri Martin, i., 151). While Burke thus helped to bring the
King and Queen to the guillotine, Paine pleaded for their lives to
the last moment. While Paine maintained the right of mankind to
improve their condition, Burke held that " the awful Author of our
being is the author of our place in the order of existence; and that,
having disposed and marshalled us by a divine tactick, not according
to our will, but according to his, he has, in and by that
disposition, virtually subjected us to act the part which belongs to
the place assigned us." Paine was a religious believer in eternal
principles; Burke held that " political problems do not primarily
concern truth or falsehood. They relate to good or evil. What in the
result is likely to produce evil is politically false, that which is
productive of good politically is true." Assuming thus the
visionary's right to decide before the result what was " likely to
produce evil," Burke vigorously sought to kindle war against the
French Republic which might have developed itself peacefully, while
Paine was striving for an international Congress in Europe in the
interest of peace. Paine had faith in the people, and believed that,
if allowed to choose representatives, they would select their best
and wisest men; and that while reforming government the people would
remain orderly, as they had generally remained in America during the
transition from British rule to selfgovernment. Burke maintained that
if the existing political order were broken up there would be no
longer a people, but " a number of vague, loose individuals, and
nothing more." " Alas! " he exclaims, " they little know how many a
weary step is to be taken before they can form themselves into a
mass, which has a true personality." For the sake of peace Paine
wished the revolution to be peaceful as the advance of summer; he
used every endeavor to reconcile English radicals to some modus
vivendi with the existing order, as he was willing to retain Louis
XVI. as head of the executive in France: Burke resisted every
tendency of English statesmanship to reform at home, or to negotiate
with the French Republic, and was mainly responsible for the King's
death and the war that followed between England and France in
February, 1793. Burke became a royal favorite, Paine was outlawed by
a prosecution originally proposed by Burke. While Paine was demanding
religious liberty, Burke was opposing the removal of penal statutes
from Unitarians, on the ground that but for those statutes Paine
might some day set up a church in England. When Burke was retiring on
a large royal pension, Paine was in prison, through the devices of
Burke's confederate, the American Minister in Paris. So the two men,
as Burke said, " hunted in pairs."
So far as Burke attempts to affirm any principle he is fairly quoted
in Paine's work, and nowhere misrepresented. As for Paine's own
ideas, the reader should remember that "Rights of Man" was the
earliest complete statement of republican principles. They were
pronounced to be the fundamental principles of the American Republic
by Jefferson, Madison, and Jackson,-the three Presidents who above
all others represented the republican idea which Paine first allied
with American Independence.
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