He also attacked organized churches, even though he believed in God. He attacked George Washington for ignoring his pleas for help when he was confined in a French prison. Later he was condemned to death for opposing the revolutionary leader Robespierre and narrowing escaped execution on the guillotine. Later, George Washington read Paine's stirring words from 'The American Crisis'-'these are the times that try men's souls'-to his troops at Valley Forge.Īn enthusiastic supporter of the French Revolution, Paine arrived in France in 1791, was elected to the National Convention, and helped draft France's 1793 constitution. 'Monarchy and succession have laid the world in blood and ashes,' he exclaimed. With its arguments against monarchy and its doctrine that governmental authority derives from the people, Paine's pamphlet converted thousands of colonists to the cause of revolution. Eighteen months later, in January 1776, he published Common Sense, which sold 150,000 copies. At the age of 37, he left England, carrying letters of introduction from Benjamin Franklin. Later he ran away to become a ship's hand and pirate, taught school, served as a tax collector, and became involved with groups secretly opposed to Britain's King. Born in 1737, the son of a poor Quaker corsetmaker, Paine was apprenticed to his father at the age of 12. An active participant in the American and French Revolutions, and an early proponent of the antislavery, women's rights, animal protection, and free public education, Paine was also the person who proposed that his adopted country be called the United States. The author of 'Common Sense,' 'The Rights of Man,' and 'The Age of Reason,' Paine was probably the most widely read political pamphleteer of the eighteenth century. John Adams called him 'the first man of the Revolution.' Teddy Roosevelt called him a 'filthy little atheist.' His name was Thomas Paine.

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