Did the United States Have Only One Founder?

I know not whether any man in the world has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for the last thirty years than Thomas Paine. There can be no severer satyr on the age. For such a mongrel between pig and puppy, begotten by a wild boar on a bitch wolf, never before in any age of the world was suffered by the poltroonery of mankind, to run through such a career of mischief. Call it then the Age of Paine. — John Adams

If 37-year-old Thomas Paine had died when he was carried off the ship in Philadelphia on November 30, 1774, suffering “dreadfully with the Fever” and “unable to turn in [his] bed without help,” there would likely have been no Declaration of Independence for anyone to sign 19 months later. A failure in life, Paine had left England on the advice of Benjamin Franklin to seek perhaps a tutorial position in the colonies. As it happened, he found his calling in life.

He began writing essays for the Philadelphia Magazine in January 1775, and finished the year with a problem: How to get an incendiary pamphlet published he had carved out on the recommendation of Benjamin Rush, a physician and a delegate to the Continental Congress. With Rush’s help he found a printer quickly: Robert Bell, “well-known for his fearless private support of independence,” who had a proven track record of publishing.

“We have it in our power to begin the world over again,” Paine beseeched readers of Common Sense that Bell started publishing on January 10, 1776. The 47-page pamphlet swept through the colonies like a viral post of today, seducing commoners and elites alike, and prompted an irresolute Congress to break with England and to declare the colonies as assuming among the powers of the earth as free and independent states.

Other tracts, such as Jefferson’s A Summary View of the Rights of British America, written in 1774, called on the King “to interpose with that efficacy which your earnest endeavors may ensure to procure redress of these our great grievances, to quiet the minds of your subjects in British America. . .” Paine, in his tavern-style eloquence, wrote in Common Sense,

In England a king hath little more to do than to make war and give away places; which, in plain terms, is to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears. . . . Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.

Jefferson wrote for his elite colleagues in Congress, Paine wrote for anyone who could read.

When historians get together to nominate candidates for Founders of the United States, they doubtless have criteria that eludes logic. Stated simply: No Common Sense, no United States. Yet, Paine is almost always missing. One source, Founders Online, “an official website of the U.S. government,” lists seven “major shapers of the United States.” Calling them “shapers” instead of “founders” removes some of the glow from their titles. The magnificent seven shapers are George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison.

If you had to reduce the number of Founders to one, who would you choose? Certainly Thomas Paine would be in the running. As John Adams said, though the exact wording is apocryphal, “Without the pen of the author of ‘Common Sense,’ the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.”

Jefferson wrote beautiful words about all men possessing inalienable rights, “as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.” Yet he held some 600 people in bondage and freed only a few at his death in 1826. Of the 56 signers of the Declaration, at least 41 were slaveholders during their lifetime.

Paine posted sharp words against slavery in his March 8, 1775 essay African Slavery In America: “Certainly, one may, with as much reason and decency, plead for murder, robbery, lewdness and barbarity, as for this practice.” Though his authorship of the essay has been questioned in recent years, he was among those who joined The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes unlawfully held in Bondage, at a meeting on April 14, 1775 in Philadelphia.

Declaration of Independence

Five members of Congress were chosen to draft the Declaration of Independence, with Jefferson nominated as the chief author. One draft, copied by John Adams, was submitted to Roger Sherman to review and approve before showing it to Congress. On the back of Sherman’s copy is a note that reads:

A beginning perhaps – Original with Jefferson – Copied from Original with T.P.’s permission.

Does this terse note indicate Paine’s role? The Sherman Copy states:

“We hold these truths to be ‘Self evident.’” In contrast, the Jefferson rough draft originally reads: “We hold these truths to be ‘sacred and undeniable,’” with those words visibly crossed out and replaced with “Self evident.”. . .this suggests that the original draft’s author initially used “Self evident,” which Jefferson later changed to “sacred and undeniable” before reverting back to “Self evident” after the Committee of Five and Congress made their edits.

Given Paine’s ability to express high-minded thoughts in everyday language, his close friendship with Jefferson, along with his authorship of the famous pamphlet that led to the Committee of Five, it is not unreasonable to think Paine was close at hand, if not the original drafter.

Much more could be added to his record, including his role as a writer-soldier in Washington’s army. It was Paine’s first American Crisis essay—written on the head of a soldier’s drum and read to the troops on a freezing Christmas evening—that helped inspire the men to cross the ice-strewn Delaware and shock hung-over Hessian mercenaries at Trenton early the next morning, bringing Washington his first victory. The essay’s immortal opening line—“These are the times that try men’s souls.”—have become synonymous with American resolve.

Conclusion

Thomas Paine died in his sleep on an overcast morning of June 8, 1809, having suffered intense physical pain for months and the harassment of certain people wanting him to repudiate his strong deist beliefs before dying. In Paine’s words,

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy. But. . .I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

Raised as a Quaker, he was denied a plot in New York City’s Quaker cemetery and was buried instead on his estate in New Rochelle. Today, if he’s acknowledged at all, he’s considered a second-tier Founder at best.