Rights of Man

Paine was a political radical whose life story refuses reduction: not only was he accused of treason by the English for his Rights of Man, but Paine was awarded the title of an honored citizen by the French Parliament. Yet the French would also turn against him: during the Reign of Terror, they thought he was an enemy Englishman and so imprisoned him. Again in America, he would experience a similar fate: despite his allegiance to the cause of the American Revolution as articulated in his Common Sense and American Crisis, Paine was snubbed by the Americans as an atheist drunkard; and when it came time to find a burial ground, they refused to inter him in American consecrated soil. Yet, today, we honor him as an exemplary Patriotic American.