Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine was the son of Joseph Pain and Frances and was born February 9, 1737 in Thetford, an important market town in rural Norfolk, England. He attended the Thetford Grammar School after which he went to Britain in 1759. There, he opened a shop in Sandwich, Kent which was not very successful. He married Mary Lambert in September 27, 1759 who later died due to early labor. For six years he worked as an excise officer and also was an ordained minister of the Church of England .He became involved in civic matters when he became a member of the Society of Twelve, which discussed town politics. He later, published The Case of the Officers of Excise,, which urged the Parliament for better salary and condition of work for the Excise Officers. It was Benjamin Franklin who gave him a letter of recommendation to emigrate to the British colonial America .He stayed on and became a citizen of Pennsylvania and in January, 1775, he got an opportunity to become the editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine in which he wrote a number of articles under the heading Crisis..His short pamphlet Common Sense on January 10, 1776, exposed him as a revolutionary propagandist. His writings urged for American independence and for the formation of a republican constitution. However, after independence, he focused on inventing a smokeless candle and devising an iron bridge. Later he wrote the most famous book the Rights of Man (Part I and Part II) which urged for the political equality of all men. His work labeled him as a radical and he was forced to leave Britain in September 1792. He then got involved in the France and was keen to see a revolution in Britain. He also became a citizen of France in August 1792 and later elected to the National Convention. Later, in prison he wrote the Age of Reason which acknowledges his mentor Newton and the revelation of God in Nature. Paine did not accept Christianity and its teaching in the Bible as he felt it was inconsistent. The last part of his life in America was marked by poverty, poor health and alcoholism. He died in New York on June 8, 1809 as a virtual outcast and was buried in his small farm in New Rochelle. His influence was more in England and his work Rights of Man proved to be a best seller of the 18th century. He rightly argued that the all men had an equal claim to political rights and that the government must rest on the ultimate sovereignty of the people.