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2146 lines
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33 page printout.
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Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
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**** ****
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This file, its printout, or copies of either
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are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.
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Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
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**** ****
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VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
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1877
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"To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of
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reason is like administering medicine to the dead."
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Thomas Paine.
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_______
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Peoria, October 8, 1877.
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To the Editor of the N.Y. Observer:
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Sir: Last June in San Francisco, I offered a thousand dollars
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in gold -- not as a wager, but as a gift -- to any one who would
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substantiate the absurd story that Thomas Paine died in agony and
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fear, frightened by the clanking chains of devils. I also offered
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the same amount to any minister who would prove that Voltaire did
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not pass away as serenely as the coming of the dawn. Afterward I
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was informed that you had accepted the offer, and had called upon
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me to deposit the money. Acting upon this information, I sent you
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the following letter:
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Peoria, Ill., August 31st, 1877.
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To the Editor of the New York Observer:
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I have been informed that you accepted, in your paper, an
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offer made by me to any clergyman in San Francisco. That offer was,
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that I would pay one thousand dollars in gold to any minister in
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that city who would prove that Thomas Paine died in terror because
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of religious opinions he had expressed, or that Voltaire did not
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pass away serenely as the coming of the dawn.
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For many years religious journals and ministers have been
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circulating certain pretended accounts of the frightful agonies
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endured by Paine and Voltaire when dying; that these great men at
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the moment of death were terrified because they had given their
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honest opinions upon the subject of religion to their fellow-men.
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The imagination of the religious world has been taxed to the utmost
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in inventing absurd and infamous accounts of the last moments of
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these intellectual giants. Every Sunday school paper, thousands of
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idiotic tracts, and countless stupidities called sermons, have been
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filled with these calumnies.
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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1
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VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
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Paine and Voltaire both believed in God -- both hoped for
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immortality -- both believed in special providence. But both denied
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the inspiration of the Scriptures -- both denied the divinity of
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Jesus Christ. While theologians most cheerfully admit that most
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murderers die without fear, they deny the possibility of any man
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who has expressed his disbelief in the inspiration of the Bible
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dying except in an agony of terror. These stories are used in
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revivals and in Sunday schools, and have long been considered of
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great value.
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I am anxious that these slanders shall cease. I am desirous of
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seeing justice done, even at this late day, to the dead.
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For the purpose of ascertaining the evidence upon which these
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death-bed accounts really rest, I make to you the following
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proposition: --
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First -- As to Thomas Paine: I will deposit with the First
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National Bank of Peoria, Illinois, one thousand dollars in gold,
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upon the following conditions: This money shall be subject to your
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order when you shall, in the manner hereinafter provided,
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substantiate that Thomas Paine admitted the Bible to be an inspired
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book, or that he recanted his Infidel opinions -- or that he died
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regretting that he had disbelieved the Bible -- or that he died
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calling upon Jesus Christ in any religious sense whatever.
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In order that a tribunal may be created to try this question,
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you may select one man, I will select another, and the two thus
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chosen shall select a third, and any two of the three may decide
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the matter.
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As there will be certain costs and expenditures on both sides,
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such costs and expenditures shall be paid by the defeated party.
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In addition to the one thousand dollars in gold, I will
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deposit a bond with good and sufficient security in the sum of two
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thousand dollars, conditioned for the payment of all costs in case
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I am defeated. I shall require of you a like bond.
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From the date of accepting this offer you may have ninety days
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to collect and present your testimony, giving me notice of time and
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place of taking depositions. I shall have a like time to take
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evidence upon my side, giving you like notice, and you, shall then
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have thirty days to take further testimony in reply to what I may
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offer. The case shall then be argued before the persons chosen; and
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their decisions shall be final as to us.
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If the arbitrator chosen by me shall die, I shall have the
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right to choose another. You shall have the same right. If the
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third one, chosen by our two, shall die, the two shall choose
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another; and all vacancies, from whatever cause, shall be filled
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upon the same principle.
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The arbitrators shall sit when and where a majority shall
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determine, and shall have full power to pass upon all questions
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arising as to competency of evidence, and upon all subjects.
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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2
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VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
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Second. As to Voltaire: I make the same proposition, if you
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will substantiate that Voltaire died expressing remorse or showing
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in any way that he was in mental agony because he had attacked
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Catholicism -- or because he had denied the inspiration of the
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Bible -- or because he had denied the divinity of Christ.
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I make these propositions because I want you to stop
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slandering the dead.
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If the propositions do not suit you in any particular, please
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state your objections, and I will modify them in any way consistent
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with the object in view.
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If Paine and Voltaire died filled with childish and silly
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fear, I want to know it. and I want the world to know it. On the
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other hand, if the believers in superstition have made and
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circulated these cruel slanders concerning the mighty dead, I want
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the world to know that.
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As soon as you notify me of the acceptance of these
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propositions I will send you the certificate of the bank that the
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money has been deposited upon the foregoing conditions, together
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with copies of bonds for costs. Yours truly,
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R.G. Ingersoll.
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In your paper of September 27, 1877, you acknowledge the
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receipt of the foregoing letter, and after giving an outline of its
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contents, say: "As not one of the affirmations, in the form stated
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in this letter, was contained in the offer we made, we have no
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occasion to substantiate them. But we are prepared to produce the
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evidence of the truth of our own statement, and even to go further;
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to show not only that Tom Paine 'died a drunken, cowardly, and
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beastly death,' but that for many years previous, and up to that
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event he lived a drunken and beastly life."
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In order to refresh your memory as to what you had published,
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||
I call your attention to the following, which appeared in the N.Y.
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Observer, July 19, 1877:
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"Col. Bob Ingersoll, in a speech full of ribaldry and
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blasphemy, made in San Francisco recently, said: I will give a
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||
1,000 in gold coin to any clergyman who can substantiate that the
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||
death of Voltaire was not as peaceful as the dawn; and of Tom Paine
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||
whom they assert died in fear and agony, frightened by the clanking
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chains of devils -- in fact frightened to death by God. I will give
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||
$1,000 likewise to any one who can substantiate this 'absurd story'
|
||
-- a story without a word of truth in it."
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||
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"We have published the testimony, and the witnesses are on
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||
hand to prove that Tom Paine died a drunken, cowardly and beastly
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||
death. "Let the Colonel deposit the money with any honest man, and
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||
the absurd story, as he terms it, shall be shown to be an ower true
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||
tale. But he won't do it. His talk is Infidel 'buncombe' and
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||
nothing more."
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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3
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VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
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On the 31st of August I sent you my letter, and on the 27th of
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September you say in your paper: "As not one of the affirmations in
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||
the form stated in this letter was contained in the offer we made,
|
||
we have no occasion to substantiate them."
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||
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What were the affirmations contained in the offer you made? I
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||
had offered a thousand dollars in gold to any one who would
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||
substantiate "the absurd story" that Thomas Paine died in fear and
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agony, frightened by the clinking chains of devils -- in fact,
|
||
frightened to death by God.
|
||
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||
In response to this offer you said: "Let the Colonel deposit
|
||
the money with an honest man and the 'absurd story' as he terms it,
|
||
shall be shown to be an 'ower true tale.' But he won't do it. His
|
||
talk is infidel 'buncombe' and nothing more."
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||
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||
Did you not offer to prove that Paine died in fear and agony,
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frightened by the clanking chains of devils? Did you not ask me to
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||
deposit the money that you might prove the "absurd story" to be an
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||
"ower true tale" and obtain the money? Did you not in your paper of
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||
the twenty-seventh of September in effect deny that you had offered
|
||
to prove this "absurd story"? As soon as I offered to deposit the
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gold and give bonds besides to cover costs, did you not publish a
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falsehood?
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You nave eaten your own words, and, for my part, I would
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rather have dined with Ezekiel than with you.
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You have not met the issue. You have knowingly avoided it. The
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question was not as to the personal habits of Paine. The real
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||
question was and is, whether Paine was filled with fear and horror
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at the time of his death on account of his religious opinions. That
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is the question. You avoid this. In effect, you abandon that charge
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||
and make others.
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To you belongs the honor of having made the. most cruel and
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infamous charges against Thomas Paine that have ever been made. Of
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what you have said you cannot prove the truth of one word.
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You say that Thomas Paine died a drunken, cowardly and beastly
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death.
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I pronounce this charge to be a cowardly and beastly
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falsehood.
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Have you any evidence that he was in a drunken condition when
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he died?
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What did he say or do of a cowardly character just before, or
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at about the time of his death?
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In what way was his death cowardly? You must answer these
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||
questions, and give your proof, or all honest men will hold you in
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||
abhorrence. You have made these charges. The man against whom you
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make them is dead. He cannot answer you. I can. He cannot compel
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||
you to produce your testimony, or admit by your silence that you
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have cruelly slandered the defenseless dead. I can and I will. You
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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4
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VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
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say that his death was cowardly. In what respect? Was it cowardly
|
||
in him to hold the Thirty-Nine Articles in contempt? Was it
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||
cowardly not to call on your Lord? Was it cowardly not to be
|
||
afraid? You say that his death was beastly. Again I ask, in what
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||
respect? Was it beastly to submit to the inevitable with
|
||
tranquillity? Was it beastly to look with composure upon the
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approach of death? Was it beastly to die without a complaint,
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||
without a murmur -- to pass from life without a fear?
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||
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||
DID THOMAS PAINE RECANT?
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||
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Mr. Paine had prophesied that fanatics would crawl and cringe
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||
around him during his last moments. He believed that they would put
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||
a lie in the mouth of Death.
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||
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When the shadow of the coming dissolution was upon him, two
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||
clergymen, Messrs. Milledollar and Cunningham, called to annoy the
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||
dying man. Mr. Cunningham had the politeness to say, "You have now
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||
a full view of death -you cannot live long, and whosoever does not
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||
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will assuredly be damned." Mr.
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||
Paine replied, "Let me have none of your popish stuff. Get away
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||
with you. Good morning."
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||
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||
On another occasion a Methodist minister obtruded himself when
|
||
Willet Hicks was present. This minister declared to Mr. Paine "that
|
||
unless he repented of his unbelief he would he damned." Paine,
|
||
although at the door of death, rose in his bed and indignantly
|
||
requested the clergyman to leave his room. On another occasion, two
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||
brothers by the name of Pigott, sought to convert him. He was
|
||
displeased and requested their departure. Afterward Thomas Nixon
|
||
and Captain Daniel Pelton visited him for the express purpose of
|
||
ascertaining whether he had, in any manner, changed his religious
|
||
opinions. They were assured by the dying man that he still held the
|
||
principles he had expressed in his writings.
|
||
|
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Afterward, these gentlemen hearing that William Cobbett was
|
||
about to write a life of Paine, sent him the following note:
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New York, April 24, 1818.
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"Sir: We have been informed that you have a design to write a
|
||
history of the life and writings of Thomas Paine. If you have been
|
||
furnished with materials in respect to his religious opinions, or
|
||
rather of his recantation of his former opinions before his death,
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||
all you have heard of his recanting is false. Being aware that such
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reports would be raised after his death by fanatics who infested
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his house at the time it was expected he would die, we, the
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subscribers, intimate acquaintances of Thomas Paine since the year
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1776, went to his house. He was sitting up in a chair, and
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apparently in full vigor and use of all his mental faculties We
|
||
interrogated him upon his religious opinions, and if he had changed
|
||
his mind, or repented of anything he had said or wrote on that
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subject. He answered, "Not at all," and appeared rather offended at
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our supposition that any change should take place in his mind. We
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took down in writing the questions put to him and his answers
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Bank of Wisdom
|
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
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5
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VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
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thereto before a number of persons then in his room, among whom
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were his doctor, Mrs. Bonneville, &c. This paper is mislaid and
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||
cannot be found at present, but the above is the substance which
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||
can be attested by many living witnesses."
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||
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Thomas Nixon.
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||
_________
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||
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Daniel Pelton.
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||
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Mr. Jarvis, the artist, saw Mr. Paine one or two days before
|
||
his death. To Mr. Jarvis he expressed his belief in his written
|
||
opinions upon the subject of religion. B. F. Haskin, an attorney of
|
||
the city of New York, also visited him and inquired as to his,
|
||
religious opinions. Paine was then upon the threshold of death, but
|
||
he did not tremble. He was not a coward. He expressed his firm and
|
||
unshaken belief in the religious ideas he had given to the world.
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||
|
||
Dr. Manley was with him when he spoke his last words. Dr.
|
||
Manley asked the dying man if he did not wish to believe that Jesus
|
||
was the Son of God, and the dying philosopher answered: "I have no
|
||
wish to believe on that subject." Amasa Woodsworth sat up with
|
||
Thomas Paine the night before his death. In 1839 Gilbert Vale
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||
hearing that Mr. Woodsworth was living in or near Boston, visited
|
||
him for the purpose of getting his statement. The statement was
|
||
published in the Beacon of June 5, 1839, while thousands who had
|
||
been acquainted with Mr. Paine were living.
|
||
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||
The following is the article referred to.
|
||
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||
"We have just returned from Boston. One object of our visit to
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||
that city, was to see a Mr. Amasa Woodsworth, an engineer, now
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||
retired in a handsome cottage and garden at East Cambridge, Boston.
|
||
This gentleman owned the house occupied by Paine at his death --
|
||
while he lived next door. As an act of kindness Mr. Woodsworth
|
||
visited Mr. Paine every day for six weeks before his death. He
|
||
frequently sat up with him, and did so on the last two nights of
|
||
his life. He was always there with Dr. Manley, the physician, and
|
||
assisted in removing Mr. Paine while his bed was prepared. He was
|
||
present when Dr. Manley asked Mr. Paine "if he wished to believe
|
||
that Jesus Christ was the Son of God," and he describes Mr. Paine's
|
||
answer as animated. He says that lying on his back he used some
|
||
action and with much emphasis, replied, "I have no wish to believe
|
||
on that subject." He lived some time after this, but was not known
|
||
to speak, for he died tranquilly. He accounts for the insinuating
|
||
style of Dr. Manley's letter, by stating that that gentleman just
|
||
after its publication joined a church. He informs us that he has
|
||
openly reproved the doctor for the falsity contained in the spirit
|
||
of that letter, boldly declaring before Dr. Manley, who is yet
|
||
living, that nothing which he saw justified the insinuations. Mr.
|
||
Woodsworth assures us that he neither heard nor saw anything to
|
||
justify the belief of any mental change in the opinions of Mr.
|
||
Paine previous to his death; but that being very ill and in pain
|
||
chiefly arising from the skin being removed in some parts by long
|
||
lying, he was generally too uneasy to enjoy conversation on
|
||
abstract subjects. This, then, is the best evidence that can be
|
||
procured on this subject, and we publish it while the contravening
|
||
parties are yet alive, and with the authority of Mr. Woodsworth.
|
||
|
||
Gilbert Vale.
|
||
|
||
6
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
A few weeks ago I received the following letter which confirms
|
||
the statement of Mr. Vale:
|
||
|
||
Near Stockton, Cal.,
|
||
Greenwood Cottage,
|
||
July 9, 1877.
|
||
|
||
Col. Ingersoll:
|
||
|
||
In 1842 I talked with a gentleman in Boston. I have forgotten
|
||
his name; but he was then an engineer of the Charleston navy yard.
|
||
I am thus particular so that you can find his name on the books. He
|
||
told me that he nursed Thomas Paine in his last illness, and closed
|
||
his eyes when dead. I asked him if he recanted and called upon God
|
||
to save him. He replied, "No. He died as he had taught. He had a
|
||
sore upon his side and when we turned him it was very painful and
|
||
he would cry out. 'O God!' or something like that." "But," said the
|
||
narrator, "that was nothing, for he believed in a God." I told him
|
||
that I had often heard it asserted from the pulpit that Mr. Paine
|
||
had recanted in his last moments. The gentleman said that it was
|
||
not true, and he appeared to be an intelligent, truthful man. With
|
||
respect, I remain, &c.,
|
||
|
||
Philip Graves, M.D.
|
||
|
||
The next witness is Willet Hicks, a Quaker Preacher. He says
|
||
that during the last illness of Mr. Paine he visited him almost
|
||
daily, and that Paine died firmly convinced of the truth of the
|
||
religious opinions he had given to his fellow-men. It was to this
|
||
same Willet Hicks that Paine applied for permission to be buried in
|
||
the cemetery of the Quakers. Permission was refused. This refusal
|
||
settles the question of recantation. If he had recanted, of course
|
||
there could have been no objection to his body being buried by the
|
||
side of the best hypocrites on the earth.
|
||
|
||
If Paine recanted why should he be denied "a little earth for
|
||
charity"? Had he recanted, it would have been regarded as a vast
|
||
and splendid triumph for the gospel. It would with much noise and
|
||
pomp and ostentation have been heralded about the world.
|
||
|
||
I received the following letter to-day. The writer is well
|
||
know in this city, and is a man of high character:
|
||
|
||
Peoria, Oct. 8th, 1877.
|
||
|
||
Robert G. Ingersoll,
|
||
|
||
Esteemed Friend: My parents were Friends (Quakers). My father
|
||
died when I was very young. The elderly and middle-aged Friends
|
||
visited at my mother's house. We lived in the city of New York.
|
||
Among the number I distinctly remember Elias Hicks, Willet Hicks,
|
||
and a Mr. ---- Day, who was a bookseller in Pearl street. There
|
||
were many others, whose names I do not now remember. The subject of
|
||
the recantation by Thomas Paine of his views about the Bible in his
|
||
last illness, or at any other time, was discussed by them in my
|
||
presence at different times. I learned from them that some of them
|
||
had attended upon Thomas Paine in his last sickness and ministered
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
7
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
to his wants up to the time of his death. And upon the question of
|
||
whether he did recant there was but one expression. They all said
|
||
that he did not recant in any manner. I often heard them say they
|
||
wished he had recanted. In fact, according to them, the nearer he
|
||
approached death the more positive he appeared to be in his
|
||
convictions.
|
||
|
||
These conversations were from 1820 to 1822. I was at that time
|
||
from ten to twelve years old, but these conversations impressed
|
||
themselves upon me because many thoughtless people then blamed the
|
||
Society of Friends for their kindness to that "arch Infidel,"
|
||
Thomas Pain
|
||
|
||
Truly yours.
|
||
|
||
A.C. Hankinson.
|
||
|
||
A few days ago I received the following letter:
|
||
|
||
Albany, New York,
|
||
Sept. 27, 1877.
|
||
|
||
Dear Sir: It is over twenty years ago that professionally I
|
||
made the acquaintance of John Hogeboom, a Justice of the Peace of
|
||
the county of Rensselaer, New York. He was then over seventy years
|
||
of age and had the reputation of being a man of candor and
|
||
integrity. He was a great admirer of Paine. He told me that he was
|
||
personally acquainted with him, and used to see him frequently
|
||
during the last years of his life in the city of New York, where
|
||
Hogeboom then resided. I asked him if there was any truth in the
|
||
charge that Paine was in the habit of getting drunk. He said that
|
||
it was utterly false; that he never heard of such a thing during
|
||
the life-time of Mr. Paine, and did not believe any one else did.
|
||
I asked him about the recantation of his religious opinions on his
|
||
death-bed, and the revolting death-bed scenes that the world had
|
||
heard so much about. He said there was no truth in them, that he
|
||
had received his information from persons who attended Paine in his
|
||
last illness, "and that he passed peacefully away, as we may say,
|
||
in the sunshine of a great soul."...
|
||
|
||
Yours truly,
|
||
|
||
W.J. Hilton.
|
||
|
||
The witnesses by whom I substantiate the fact that Thomas
|
||
Paine did not recant, and that he died holding the religious
|
||
opinions he had published, are:
|
||
|
||
First -- Thomas Nixon, Captain Daniel Pelton, B.F. Haskin.
|
||
These gentlemen visited him during his last illness for the purpose
|
||
of ascertaining whether he had in any respect changed his views
|
||
upon religion. He told them that he had not.
|
||
|
||
Second -- James Cheetham. This man was the most malicious
|
||
enemy Mr. Paine had, and yet he admits that "Thomas Paine died
|
||
placidly, and al most without a struggle." (See Life of Thomas
|
||
Paine, by James Cheetham).
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
8
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
Third -- The ministers, Milledollar and Cunningham. These
|
||
gentlemen told Mr. Paine that if he died without believing in the
|
||
Lord Jesus Christ he would be damned, and Paine replied, "Let me
|
||
have none of your popish stuff. Good morning." (See Sherwin's Life
|
||
of Paine, p. 220).
|
||
|
||
Fourth -- Mrs. Hedden. She told these same preachers when they
|
||
attempted to obtrude themselves upon Mr. Paine again, that the
|
||
attempt to convert Mr. Paine was useless -- "that if God did not
|
||
change his mind no human power could."
|
||
|
||
Fifth -- Andrew A. Dean. This man lived upon Paine's farm at
|
||
New Rochelle, and corresponded with him upon religious subjects.
|
||
(See Paine's Theological Works, p. 308.)
|
||
|
||
Sixth -- Mr. Jarvis, the artist with whom Paine lived. He
|
||
gives an account of an old lady coming to Paine and telling him
|
||
that God Almighty had sent her to tell him that unless he repented
|
||
and believed in the blessed Savior, he would be damned. Paine
|
||
replied that God would not send such a foolish old woman with such
|
||
an impertinent message. (See Clio Rickman's Life of Paine.)
|
||
|
||
Seventh -- Wm. Carver, with whom Paine boarded. Mr. Carver
|
||
said again and again that Paine did not recant. He knew him well,
|
||
and had every opportunity of knowing. (See Life of Paine by Gilbert
|
||
Vale.)
|
||
|
||
Eighth -- Dr. Manley, who attended him in his last sickness,
|
||
and to whom Paine spoke his last words. Dr. Manley asked him if he
|
||
did not wish to believe in Jesus Christ, and he replied, "I have no
|
||
wish to believe on that subject."
|
||
|
||
Ninth -- Willet Hicks and Elias Hicks, who were with him frequently
|
||
during his last sickness, and both of whom tried to persuade him to
|
||
recant. According to their testimony, Mr. Paine died as he had
|
||
lived -- a believer in God, and a friend of man. Willet Hicks was
|
||
offered money to say something false against Thomas Paine. He was
|
||
even offered money to remain silent and allow others to slander the
|
||
dead. Mr. Hicks, speaking of Thomas Paine, said: "He was a good man
|
||
-- an honest man." (Vale's Life of Paine.)
|
||
|
||
Tenth -- Amasa Woodsworth, who was with him every day for some
|
||
six weeks immediately preceding his death, and sat up with him the
|
||
last two nights of his life. This man declares that Paine did not
|
||
recant and that he died tranquilly. The evidence of Mr. Woodsworth
|
||
is conclusive.
|
||
|
||
Eleventh -- Thomas Paine himself. The will of Thomas Paine,
|
||
written by himself, commences as follows:
|
||
|
||
"The last will and testament of me, the subscriber, Thomas
|
||
Paine, reposing confidence in my creator: God, and in no other
|
||
being, for I know of no other, nor believe in any other;" and
|
||
closes in these words "I have lived an honest and useful life to
|
||
mankind; my time has been spent in doing good, and I die in perfect
|
||
composure and resignation to the will of my creator God."
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
9
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
Twelfth -- If Thomas Paine recanted, why do you pursue him? If
|
||
he recanted, he died substantially in your belief, for what reason
|
||
then do you denounce his death as cowardly? If upon his death-bed
|
||
he renounced the opinions he had published, the business of
|
||
defaming him should be done by Infidels, not by Christians.
|
||
|
||
I ask you if it is honest to throw away the testimony of his
|
||
friends -- the evidence of fair and honorable men -- and take the
|
||
putrid words of avowed and malignant enemies?
|
||
|
||
When Thomas Paine was dying, he was infested by fanatics -- by
|
||
the snaky spies of bigotry. In the shadows of death were the
|
||
unclean birds of prey waiting to tear with beak and claw the corpse
|
||
of him who wrote the "Rights of Man." And there lurking and
|
||
crouching in the darkness were the jackals and hyenas of
|
||
superstition ready to violate his grave.
|
||
|
||
These birds of prey -- these unclean beasts are the witnesses
|
||
produced and relied upon by you.
|
||
|
||
One by one the instruments of torture have been wrenched from
|
||
the cruel clutch of the church, until within the armory of
|
||
orthodoxy there remains but one weapon -- Slander.
|
||
|
||
Against the witnesses that I have produced you can bring just
|
||
two -- Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale. The first is referred to in
|
||
the memoir of Stephen Grellet. She had once been a servant in his
|
||
house. Grellet tells what happened between this girl and Paine.
|
||
According to this account Paine asked her if she had ever read any
|
||
of his writings, and on being told that she had read very little of
|
||
them, he inquired what she thought of them, adding that from such
|
||
an one as she he expected a correct answer.
|
||
|
||
Let us examine this falsehood. Why would Paine expect a
|
||
correct answer about his writings from one who had read very little
|
||
of them? Does not such a statement devour itself? This young lady
|
||
further said that the "Age of Reason" was put in her hands and that
|
||
the more she read in it the more dark and distressed she felt, and
|
||
that she threw the book into the fire. Whereupon Mr. Paine
|
||
remarked, "I wish all had done as you did, for if the devil ever
|
||
had any agency in any work, he had it in my writing that book."
|
||
|
||
The next is Mary Hinsdale. She was a servant in the family of
|
||
Willet Hicks. She, like Mary Roscoe, was sent to carry some
|
||
delicacy to Mr. Paine. To this young lady Paine, according to her
|
||
account, said precisely the same that he did to Mary Roscoe, and
|
||
she said the same thing to Mr. Paine.
|
||
|
||
My own opinion is that Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale are one
|
||
and the same person, or the same story has been by mistake put in
|
||
the mouth of both. It is not possible that the same conversation
|
||
should have taken place between Paine and Mary Roscoe, and between
|
||
him and Mary Hinsdale.
|
||
|
||
Mary Hinsdale lived with Willet Hicks and he pronounced her
|
||
story a pious fraud and fabrication. He said that Thomas Paine
|
||
never said any such thing to Mary Hinsdale. (See Vale's Life of
|
||
Paine.)
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
10
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
Another thing about this witness. A woman by the name of Mary
|
||
Lockwood, a Hicksite Quaker, died. Mary Hinsdale met her brother
|
||
about that time and told him that his sister had recanted, and
|
||
wanted her to say so at her funeral. This turned out to be false.
|
||
|
||
It has been claimed that Mary Hinsdale made her statement to
|
||
Charles Collins. Long after the alleged occurrence Gilbert Vale,
|
||
one of the biographers of Paine, had a conversation with Collins
|
||
concerning Mary Hinsdale. Vale asked him what he thought of her. He
|
||
replied that some of the Friends believed that she used opiates,
|
||
and that they did not give credit to her statements. He also said
|
||
that he believed what the Friends said, but thought that when a
|
||
young woman, she might have told the truth.
|
||
|
||
In 1818 William Cobbett came to New York. He began collecting
|
||
materials for a life of Thomas Paine. In this he became acquainted
|
||
with Mary Hinsdale and Charles Collins. Mr. Cobbett gave a full
|
||
account of what happened in a letter addressed to the Norwich
|
||
Mercury in 1819. From this account it seems that Charles Collins
|
||
told Cobbett that Paine had recanted. Cobbett called for the
|
||
testimony, and told Mr. Collins that he must give time, place, and
|
||
the circumstances. He finally brought a statement that he stated
|
||
had been made by Mary Hinsdale. Armed with this document Cobbett,
|
||
in October of that year, called upon the said Mary Hinsdale, at No.
|
||
10 Anthony street, New York, and showed her the statement. Upon
|
||
being questioned by Mr. Cobbett she said, "That it was so long ago
|
||
that she could not speak positively to any part of the matter --
|
||
that she would not say that any part of the paper was true -- that
|
||
she had never seen the paper -- and that she had never given
|
||
Charles Collins authority to say anything about the matter in her
|
||
name." And so in the month of October, in the year of grace 1818,
|
||
in the mist and fog of forgetfulness disappeared forever one Mary
|
||
Hinsdale -- the last and only witness against the intellectual
|
||
honesty of Thomas Paine.
|
||
|
||
Did Thomas Paine live the life of a drunken beast and did he
|
||
die a drunken, cowardly and beastly death?
|
||
|
||
Upon you rests the burden of substantiating these infamous
|
||
charges.
|
||
|
||
You have, I suppose, produced the best evidence in your
|
||
possession, and that evidence I will now proceed to examine. Your
|
||
first witness is Grant Thorburn. He makes three charges against
|
||
Thomas Paine. 1st. That his wife obtained a divorce from him in
|
||
England for cruelty and neglect. 2d. That he was a defaulter and
|
||
fled from England to America. 3d. That he was a drunkard.
|
||
|
||
These three charges stand upon the same evidence -- the word
|
||
of Grant Thorburn. If they are not all true Mr. Thorburn stands
|
||
impeached.
|
||
|
||
The charge that Mrs. Paine obtained a divorce on account of
|
||
the cruelty and neglect of her husband is utterly false. There is
|
||
no such record in the world, and never was. Paine and his wife
|
||
separated by mutual consent. Each respected the other. They
|
||
remained friends. This charge is without any foundation in fact. I
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
11
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
challenge the Christian world to produce the record of this decree
|
||
of divorce. According to Mr. Thorburn it was granted in England. In
|
||
that country public records are kept of all such decrees. Have the
|
||
kindness to produce this decree showing that it was given on
|
||
account of cruelty or admit that Mr. Thorburn was mistaken.
|
||
|
||
Thomas Paine was a just man. Although separated from his wife,
|
||
he always spoke of her with tenderness and respect, and frequently
|
||
sent her money without letting her know the source from whence it
|
||
came. Was this the conduct of a drunken beast?
|
||
|
||
The second charge, that Paine was a defaulter in England and
|
||
fled to America, is equally false. He did not flee from England. He
|
||
came to America, not as a fugitive, but as a free man. He came with
|
||
a letter of introduction signed by another Infidel, Benjamin
|
||
Franklin. He came as a soldier of Freedom -- an apostle of Liberty.
|
||
|
||
In this second charge there is not one word of truth. He held
|
||
a small office in England. If he was a defaulter the records of
|
||
that country will show that fact.
|
||
|
||
Mr. Thorburn, unless the record can be produced to
|
||
substantiate him, stands convicted of at least two mistakes.
|
||
|
||
Now, as to the third: He says that in 1802 Paine was an "old
|
||
remnant of mortality, drunk, bloated and half asleep."
|
||
|
||
Can any one believe this to be a true account of the personal
|
||
appearance of Mr. Paine in, 1802? He had just returned from France.
|
||
He had been welcomed home by Thomas Jefferson, who had said that he
|
||
was entitled to the hospitality of every American.
|
||
|
||
In 1802 Mr. Paine was honored with a public dinner in the city
|
||
of New York. He was called upon and treated with kindness and
|
||
respect by such men as DeWitt Clinton.
|
||
|
||
In 1806 Mr. Paine wrote a letter to Andrew A. Dean upon the
|
||
subject of religion. Read that letter and then say that the writer
|
||
of it was an "old remnant of mortality, drunk, bloated and half
|
||
asleep." Search the files of the New York Observer from the first
|
||
issue to the last, and you will find nothing superior to this
|
||
letter.
|
||
|
||
In 1803 Mr. Paine wrote a letter of considerable length, and
|
||
of great force, to his friend Samuel Adams. Such letters are not
|
||
written by drunken beasts, nor by remnants of old mortality, nor by
|
||
drunkards. It was about the same time that he wrote his "Remarks on
|
||
Robert Hall's Sermons."
|
||
|
||
These "Remarks" were not written by a drunken beast, but by a
|
||
clear-headed and thoughtful man.
|
||
|
||
In 1804 he published an essay on the invasion of England, and
|
||
a treatise on gunboats, full of valuable maritime information: --
|
||
in 1805, a treatise on yellow fever, suggesting modes of
|
||
prevention. In short, he was an industrious and thoughtful man. He
|
||
sympathized with the poor and oppressed of all lands. He looked
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
12
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
upon monarchy as a species of physical slavery. He had the goodness
|
||
to attack that form of government. He regarded the religion of his
|
||
day as a kind of mental slavery. He had the courage to give his
|
||
reasons for his opinion. His reasons filled the churches with
|
||
hatred. Instead of answering his arguments they attacked him. Men
|
||
who were not fit to blacken his shoes, blackened his character.
|
||
There is too much religious cant in the statement of Mr. Thorburn.
|
||
He exhibited too much anxiety to tell what Grant Thorburn said to
|
||
Thomas Paine. He names Thomas Jefferson as one of the disreputable
|
||
men who welcomed Paine with open arms. The testimony of a man who
|
||
regarded Thomas Jefferson as a disreputable person, as to the
|
||
character of anybody, is utterly without value. In my judgment, the
|
||
testimony of Mr. Thorburn should be thrown aside as wholly unworthy
|
||
of belief.
|
||
|
||
Your next witness is the Rev. J.D. Wickham, D.D., who tells
|
||
what an elder in his church said. This elder said that Paine passed
|
||
his last days on his farm at New Rochelle with a solitary female
|
||
attendant. This is not true. He did not pass his last days at New
|
||
Rochelle. Consequently this pious elder did not see him during his
|
||
last days at that place. Upon this elder we prove an alibi. Mr.
|
||
Paine passed his last days in the city of New York, in a house upon
|
||
Columbia street. The story of the Rev. J.D. Wickham, D.D., is
|
||
simply false.
|
||
|
||
The next competent false witness is the Rev. Charles Hawley,
|
||
D.D., who proceeds to state that the story of the Rev. J.D.
|
||
Wickham, D.D., is corroborated by older citizens of New Rochelle.
|
||
The names of these ancient residents are withheld. According to
|
||
these unknown witnesses, the account given by the deceased elder
|
||
was entirely correct. But as the particulars of Mr. Paine's conduct
|
||
"were too loathsome to be described in print," we are left entirely
|
||
in the dark as to what he really did.
|
||
|
||
While at New Rochelle Mr. Paine lived with Mr. Purdy -- with
|
||
Mr. Dean -- with Captain Pelton, and with Mr. Staple. It is worthy
|
||
of note that all of these gentlemen give the lie direct to the
|
||
statements of "older residents" and ancient citizens spoken of by
|
||
the Rev. Charles Hawley, D.D., and leave him with his "loathsome
|
||
particulars" existing only in his own mind.
|
||
|
||
The next gentleman you bring upon the stand is W.H. Ladd, who
|
||
quotes from the memoirs of Stephen Grellet. This gentleman also has
|
||
the misfortune to be dead. According to his account, Mr. Paine made
|
||
his recantation to a servant girl of his by the name of Mary
|
||
Roscoe. To this girl, according to the account, Mr. Paine uttered
|
||
the wish that all who read his book had burned it. I believe there
|
||
is a mistake in the name of this girl. Her name was probably Mary
|
||
Hinsdale, as it was once claimed that Paine made the same remark to
|
||
her, but this point I shall notice hereafter. These are your
|
||
witnesses, and the only ones you bring forward, to support your
|
||
charge that Thomas Paine lived a drunken and beastly life and died
|
||
a drunken, cowardly and beastly death. All these calumnies are
|
||
found in a life of Paine by a Mr. Cheetham, the convicted libeler
|
||
already referred to. Mr. Cheetham was an enemy of the man whose
|
||
life he pretended to write.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
13
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
In order to show you the estimation in which Mr. Cheetham was
|
||
held by Mr. Paine, I will give you a copy of a letter that throws
|
||
light upon this point:
|
||
|
||
October 28, 1807.
|
||
|
||
"Mr. Cheetham: Unless you make a public apology for the abuse
|
||
and falsehood in your paper of Tuesday, October 27th, respecting
|
||
me, I will prosecute you for lying."
|
||
|
||
Thomas Paine.
|
||
|
||
In another letter, speaking of this same man, Mr. Paine says:
|
||
"If an unprincipled bully cannot be reformed, he can be punished."
|
||
" Cheetham has been so long in the habit of giving false
|
||
information, that truth is to him like a foreign language." Mr.
|
||
Cheetham wrote the life of Paine to gratify his malice and to
|
||
support religion. He was prosecuted for libel -- was convicted and
|
||
fined.
|
||
|
||
Yet the life of Paine written by this man is referred to by
|
||
the Christian world as the highest authority.
|
||
|
||
As to the personal habits of Mr. Paine, we have the testimony
|
||
of William Carver, with whom he lived; of Mr. Jarvis, the artist,
|
||
with whom he lived; of Mr. Staple, with whom he lived; of Mr.
|
||
Purdy, who was a tenant of Paine's; of Mr. Burger, with whom he was
|
||
intimate; of Thomas Nixon and Captain Daniel Pelton, both of whom
|
||
knew him well; of Amasa Woodsworth, who was with him when he died;
|
||
of John Fellows, who boarded at the same house; of James Wilburn,
|
||
with whom he boarded; of B. F. Haskin, a lawyer, who was well
|
||
acquainted with him and called upon him during his last illness; of
|
||
Walter Morton, a friend; of Clio Rickman, who had known him for
|
||
many years; of Willet and Elias Hicks, Quakers, who knew him
|
||
intimately and well; of Judge Herttell H. Margary, Elihu Palmer,
|
||
and many others. All these testified to the fact that Mr. Paine was
|
||
a temperate man. In those days nearly everybody used spirituous
|
||
liquors. Paine was not an exception; but he did not drink to
|
||
excess. Mr. Lovett, who kept the City Hotel where Paine stopped, in
|
||
a note to Caleb Bingham, declared that Paine drank less than any
|
||
boarder he had.
|
||
|
||
Against all this evidence you produce the story of Grant
|
||
Thorburn -- the story of the Rev. J.D. Wickham that an elder in his
|
||
church told him that Paine was a drunkard, corroborated by the Rev.
|
||
Charles Hawley, and an extract from Lossing's history to, the same
|
||
effect. The evidence is overwhelmingly against you. Will you have
|
||
the fairness to admit it? Your witnesses are merely the repeaters
|
||
of the falsehoods of James Cheetham. the convicted libeler.
|
||
|
||
After all, drinking is not as bad as lying. An honest drunkard
|
||
is better than a calumniator of the dead. "A remnant of old
|
||
mortality, drunk, bloated and half asleep" is better than a
|
||
perfectly sober defender of human slavery.
|
||
|
||
To become drunk is a virtue compared with stealing a babe from
|
||
the breast of its mother.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
14
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
Drunkenness is one of the beatitudes, compared with editing a
|
||
religious paper devoted to the defence of slavery upon the ground
|
||
that it is a divine institution.
|
||
|
||
Do you really think that Paine was a drunken beast when he
|
||
wrote "Common Sense" -- a pamphlet that aroused three millions of
|
||
people, as people were never aroused by a pamphlet before? Was he
|
||
a drunken beast when he wrote the "Crisis"? Was it to a drunken
|
||
beast that the following letter was addressed:
|
||
|
||
Rocky Hill, September 10. 1783.
|
||
|
||
"I have learned since I have been at this place, that you are
|
||
at Bordentown. -- Whether for the sake of retirement or economy I
|
||
know not. Be it for either or both, or whatever it may, if you will
|
||
come to this place and partake with me I shall be exceedingly happy
|
||
to see you at it. Your presence may remind Congress of your past
|
||
services to this country; and if it is in my power to impress them,
|
||
command my best exertions with freedom, as they will be rendered
|
||
cheerfully by one who entertains a lively sense of the importance
|
||
of your works, and who with much pleasure subscribes himself,"
|
||
|
||
Your Sincere Friend,
|
||
|
||
George Washington.
|
||
|
||
Did any of your ancestors ever receive a letter like that?
|
||
|
||
Do you think that Paine was a drunken beast when the following
|
||
letter was received by him?
|
||
|
||
"You express a wish in your letter to return to America in a
|
||
national ship; Mr. Dawson, who brings over the treaty, and who will
|
||
present you with this letter, is charged with orders to the captain
|
||
of the Maryland to receive and accommodate you back, if you can be
|
||
ready to depart at such a short warning. you will in general find
|
||
us returned to sentiments worthy of former times; in this it will
|
||
be your glory to have steadily labored and with as much effect as
|
||
any man living. That you may live long to continue your useful
|
||
labors, and reap the reward in the thankfulness of nations, is my
|
||
sincere prayer. Accept the assurances of my high esteem and
|
||
affectionate attachment."
|
||
|
||
Thomas Jefferson.
|
||
|
||
Did any of your ancestors ever receive a letter like that?
|
||
|
||
"It has been very generally propagated through the continent
|
||
that I wrote the pamphlet 'Common Sense.' I could not have written
|
||
anything in so manly and striking a style. -- John Adams.
|
||
|
||
"A few more such flaming arguments as were exhibited at
|
||
Falmouth and Norfolk, added to the sound doctrine and unanswerable
|
||
reasoning contained in the pamphlet 'Common Sense,' will not leave
|
||
numbers at a loss to decide on the propriety of a separation." --
|
||
George Washington.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
15
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
"It is not necessary for me to tell you 'how much all your
|
||
countrymen -- I speak of the great mass of the people -- are
|
||
interested in your welfare. They have not forgotten the history of
|
||
their own Revolution and the difficult scenes through which they
|
||
passed; nor do they review its several stages without reviving in
|
||
their bosoms a due sensibility of the merits of those who served
|
||
them in that great and arduous conflict. The crime of ingratitude
|
||
has not yet stained, and I trust never will stain, our national
|
||
character. You are considered by them as not only having rendered
|
||
important services in our own Revolution, but as being on a more
|
||
extensive scale the friend of human rights, and a distinguished and
|
||
able defender of public liberty. To the welfare of Thomas Paine the
|
||
Americans are not, nor can they be indifferent." James Monroe.
|
||
|
||
Did any of your ancestors ever receive a letter like that?
|
||
|
||
"No writer has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of
|
||
style, in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and
|
||
in simple and unassuming language." -- Thomas Jefferson.
|
||
|
||
Was ever a letter like that written about an editor of the New
|
||
York Observer?
|
||
|
||
Was it in consideration of the services of a drunken beast
|
||
that the Legislature of Pennsylvania presented Thomas Paine with
|
||
five hundred pounds sterling?
|
||
|
||
Did the State of New York feel indebted to a drunken beast,
|
||
and confer upon Thomas Paine an estate of several hundred acres?
|
||
|
||
"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."
|
||
|
||
"My own mind is my own church."
|
||
|
||
"It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally
|
||
faithful to himself."
|
||
|
||
"Any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child cannot
|
||
be a true system."
|
||
|
||
"The Word of God is the creation which we behold."
|
||
|
||
"The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system."
|
||
|
||
"It is with a pious fraud as with a bad action -- it begets a
|
||
calamitous necessity of going on."
|
||
|
||
"To read the Bible without horror, we must undo everything
|
||
that is tender, sympathizing and benevolent in the heart of man."
|
||
|
||
"The man does not exist who can say I have persecuted him, or
|
||
that I have in any case returned evil for evil."
|
||
|
||
"Of all tyrannies that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion is
|
||
the worst."
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
16
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
"My own opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in
|
||
doing good and endeavoring to make their fellow-mortals happy, will
|
||
be happy hereafter."
|
||
|
||
"The belief in a cruel god makes a cruel man."
|
||
|
||
"The intellectual part of religion is a private affair between
|
||
every man and his Maker, and in which no third party has any right
|
||
to interfere. The practical part consists in our doing good to each
|
||
other."
|
||
|
||
"No man ought to make a living by religion. One person cannot
|
||
act religion for another -- every person must perform it for
|
||
himself."
|
||
|
||
"One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests."
|
||
|
||
"Let us propagate morality unfettered by superstition."
|
||
|
||
"God is the power, or first cause, Nature is the law, and
|
||
matter is the subject acted upon."
|
||
|
||
"I believe in one God and no more, and I hope for happiness
|
||
beyond this life."
|
||
|
||
"The key of heaven is not in the keeping of any sect nor ought
|
||
the road to it to be obstructed by any."
|
||
|
||
"My religion, and the whole of it, is the fear and love of the
|
||
Deity and universal philanthropy."
|
||
|
||
"I have yet, I believe, some years in store, for I have a good
|
||
state of health and a happy mind. I take care of both, by
|
||
nourishing the first with temperance and the latter with
|
||
abundance."
|
||
|
||
"He lives immured within the Bastille of a word."
|
||
|
||
How perfectly that sentence describes you: The Bastille in
|
||
which you are immured is the word "Calvinism."
|
||
|
||
"Man has no property in man."
|
||
|
||
What a splendid motto that would have made for the New York
|
||
Observer in the olden time!
|
||
|
||
"The world is my country; to do good, my religion."
|
||
|
||
I ask you again whether these splendid utterances came from
|
||
the lips of a drunken beast?
|
||
|
||
Did Thomas Paine die in destitution and want?
|
||
|
||
The charge has been made, over and over again, that Thomas
|
||
Paine died in want and destitution -- that he was an abandoned
|
||
pauper -- an outcast without friends and without money. This charge
|
||
is just as false as the rest.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
17
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
Upon his return to this country in 1802, he was worth $30.000,
|
||
according to his own statement made at that time in the following
|
||
letter addressed to Clio Rickman:
|
||
|
||
"My Dear Friend: Mr. Monroe, who is appointed minister
|
||
extraordinary to France, takes charge of this, to be delivered to
|
||
Mr. Este, banker in Paris, to be forwarded to you.
|
||
|
||
"I arrived at Baltimore the 30th of October, and you can have
|
||
no idea of the agitation which my arrival occasioned. From New
|
||
Hampshire to Georgia (an extent of 1,500 miles) every newspaper was
|
||
filled with applause or abuse.
|
||
|
||
"My property in this country has been taken care of by my
|
||
friends, and is now worth six thousand pounds sterling; which put
|
||
in the funds will bring me 400 sterling a year.
|
||
|
||
"Remember me in affection and friendship to your wife and
|
||
family, and in the circle of your friends."
|
||
|
||
Thomas Paine.
|
||
|
||
A man in those days worth thirty thousand dollars was not a
|
||
pauper. That amount would bring an income of at least two thousand
|
||
dollars per annum. Two thousand dollars then would be fully equal
|
||
to five thousand dollars now.
|
||
|
||
On the 12th of July, 1809, the year in which he died, Mr.
|
||
Paine made his will. From this instrument we learn that he was the
|
||
owner of a valuable farm within twenty miles of New York. He also
|
||
was the owner of thirty shares in the New York Phoenix Insurance
|
||
Company, worth upwards of fifteen hundred dollars. Besides this,
|
||
some personal property and ready money. By his will he gave to
|
||
Walter Morton, and Thomas Addis Emmett, brother of Robert Emmett,
|
||
two hundred dollars each, and one hundred to the widow of Elihu
|
||
Palmer.
|
||
|
||
Is it possible that this will was made by a pauper -- by a
|
||
destitute outcast -- by a man who suffered for the ordinary
|
||
necessaries of life?
|
||
|
||
But suppose, for the sake of the argument, that he was poor
|
||
and that he died a beggar, does that tend to show that the Bible is
|
||
an inspired book and that Calvin did not burn Servetus? Do you
|
||
really regard poverty as a crime? If Paine had died a millionaire,
|
||
would you have accepted his religious opinions? If Paine had drank
|
||
nothing but cold water would you, have repudiated the five cardinal
|
||
points of Calvinism? Does an argument depend for its force upon the
|
||
pecuniary condition of the person making it? As a matter of fact,
|
||
most reformers -- most men and women of genius, have been
|
||
acquainted with poverty. Beneath a covering of rags have been found
|
||
some of the tenderest and bravest hearts.
|
||
|
||
Owing to the attitude of the churches for the last fifteen
|
||
hundred years, truth-telling has not been a very lucrative
|
||
business. As a rule. hypocrisy has worn the robes, and honesty the
|
||
rags. That day is passing away. You cannot now answer the arguments
|
||
of a man by pointing at holes in his coat. Thomas Paine attacked
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
18
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
the church when it was powerful -- when it had what was called
|
||
honors to bestow -- when it was the keeper of the public conscience
|
||
-- when it was strong and cruel. The church waited till he was dead
|
||
then attacked his reputation and his clothes.
|
||
|
||
Once upon a time a donkey kicked a lion. The lion was dead.
|
||
|
||
CONCLUSION.
|
||
|
||
From the persistence with which the orthodox have charged for
|
||
the last sixty-eight years that Thomas Paine recanted, and that
|
||
when dying he was filled with remorse and fear; from the malignity
|
||
of the attacks upon his personal character, I had concluded that
|
||
there must be some evidence of some kind to support these charges.
|
||
Even with my ideas of the average honor of believers in
|
||
superstition -- the disciples of fear -- I did not quite believe
|
||
that all these infamies rested solely upon poorly attested lies. I
|
||
had charity enough to suppose that something had been said or done
|
||
by Thomas Paine capable of being tortured into a foundation for
|
||
these calumnies. And I was foolish enough to think that even you
|
||
would be willing to fairly examine the pretended evidence said to
|
||
sustain these charges, and give your honest conclusion to the
|
||
world. I supposed that you, being acquainted with the history of
|
||
your country: felt under a certain obligation to Thomas Paine for
|
||
the splendid services rendered by him in the darkest days of the
|
||
Revolution. It was only reasonable to suppose that you were aware
|
||
that in the midnight of Valley Forge the "Crisis," by Thomas Paine,
|
||
was the first star that glittered in the wide horizon of despair.
|
||
I took it for granted that you knew of the bold stand taken and the
|
||
brave words spoken by Thomas Paine, in the French Convention,
|
||
against the death of the king. I thought it probable that you,
|
||
being an editor, had read the "Rights of Man;" that you knew that
|
||
Thomas Paine was a champion of human liberty; that he was one of
|
||
the founders and fathers of this Republic; that he was one of the
|
||
foremost men of his age; that he had never written a word in favor
|
||
of injustice; that he was a despiser of slavery; that he abhorred
|
||
tyranny in all its forms; that he was in the widest and highest
|
||
sense a friend of his race; that his head was as clear as his heart
|
||
was good, and that he had the courage to speak his honest thought.
|
||
Under these circumstances I had hoped that you would for the moment
|
||
forget your religious prejudices and submit to the enlightened
|
||
judgment of the world the evidence you had, or could obtain,
|
||
affecting in any way the character of so great and so generous a
|
||
man. This you have refused to do. ln my judgment, you have mistaken
|
||
the temper of even your own readers. A large majority of the
|
||
religious people of this country have, to a considerable extent,
|
||
outgrown the prejudices of their fathers. They are willing to know
|
||
the truth and the whole truth, about the life and death of Thomas
|
||
Paine. They will not thank you for having presented them the
|
||
moss-covered, the maimed and distorted traditions of ignorance,
|
||
prejudice, and credulity. By this course you will convince them not
|
||
of the wickedness of Paine, but of your own unfairness.
|
||
|
||
What crime had Thomas Paine committed that he should have
|
||
feared to die? The only answer you can give is, that he denied the
|
||
inspiration of the Scriptures. If this is a crime, the civilized
|
||
world is filled with criminals. The pioneers of human thought --
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
19
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
the intellectual leaders of the world -- the foremost men in every
|
||
science -- the kings of literature and art -- those who stand in
|
||
the front rank of investigation -- men who are civilizing,
|
||
elevating, instructing, and refining mankind, are to-day
|
||
unbelievers in the dogma of inspiration. Upon this question, the
|
||
intellect of Christendom agrees with the conclusions reached by the
|
||
genius of Thomas Paine. Centuries ago a noise was made for the
|
||
purpose of frightening mankind. Orthodoxy is the echo of that
|
||
noise.
|
||
|
||
The man who now regards the Old Testament as in any sense a
|
||
sacred or inspired book is, in my judgment, an intellectual and
|
||
moral deformity. There is in it so much that is cruel, ignorant,
|
||
and ferocious that it is to me a matter of amazement that it was
|
||
ever thought to be the work of a most merciful deity. Upon the
|
||
question of inspiration Thomas Paine gave his honest opinion. Can
|
||
it be that to give an honest opinion. causes one to die in terror
|
||
and despair? Have you in your writings been actuated by the fear of
|
||
such a consequence? Why should it be taken for granted that Thomas
|
||
Paine, who devoted his life to the sacred cause of freedom, should
|
||
have been hissed at in the hour of death by the snakes of
|
||
conscience, while editors of Presbyterian papers who defended
|
||
slavery as a divine institution. and cheerfully justified the
|
||
stealing of babes from the breasts of mothers, are supposed to have
|
||
passed smilingly from earth to the embraces of angels? Why should
|
||
you think that the heroic author of the "Rights of Man" should
|
||
shudderingly dread to leave this "bank and shoal of time," while
|
||
Calvin, dripping with the blood of Servetus, was anxious to be
|
||
judged of God? Is it possible that the persecutors -- the
|
||
instigators of the massacre of St. Bartholomew -- the inventors and
|
||
users of thumb-screws, and iron boots, and racks -- the burners and
|
||
tearers of human flesh -- the stealers, whippers and enslavers of
|
||
men -- the buyers and beaters of babes and mothers -- the founders
|
||
of inquisitions -- the makers of chains, the builders of dungeons,
|
||
the slanderers of the living and the calumniators of the dead, all
|
||
died in the odor of sanctity. with white, forgiven hands folded
|
||
upon the breasts of peace, while the destroyers of prejudice -- the
|
||
apostles of humanity -- the soldiers of liberty -- the breakers of
|
||
fetters -- the creators of light -- died surrounded with the fierce
|
||
fiends of fear?
|
||
|
||
In your attempt to destroy the character of Thomas Paine you
|
||
have failed, and have succeeded only in leaving a stain upon your
|
||
own. You have written words as cruel, bitter and heartless as the
|
||
creed of Calvin. Hereafter you will stand in the pillory of history
|
||
as a defamer -- a calumniator of the dead. You will be known as the
|
||
man who said that Thomas Paine. the "Author Hero," lived a drunken,
|
||
cowardly and beastly life, and died a drunken and beastly death.
|
||
These infamous words will be branded upon the forehead of your
|
||
reputation. They will be remembered against you when all else you
|
||
may have uttered shall have passed from the memory of men.
|
||
|
||
Robert G. Ingersoll.
|
||
|
||
In the Observer of September 27th, in response to numerous
|
||
calls from different parts of the country for information, and in
|
||
fulfillment of a promise, we presented a mass of testimony, chiefly
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
20
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
from persons with whom we had been personally acquainted,
|
||
establishing the truth of our assertions in regard to the dissolute
|
||
life and miserable end of Paine. It was not a pleasing subject for
|
||
discussion, and an apology, or at least an explanation, is due to
|
||
our readers for resuming it, and for occupying so much space, or
|
||
any space, in exhibiting the truth and the proofs in regard to the
|
||
character of a man who had become so debased by his intemperance,
|
||
and so vile in his habits, as to be excluded, for many years before
|
||
and up to the time of his death, from all decent society.
|
||
|
||
Our reasons for taking up the subject at all, and for
|
||
presenting at this time so much additional testimony in regard to
|
||
the facts of the case, are these: At different periods for the last
|
||
fifty years, efforts have been made by Infidels to revive and honor
|
||
the memory of one whose friends would honor him most by suffering
|
||
his name to sink into oblivion, if that were possible. About two
|
||
years since, Rev. O. B. Frothingham, of this city, came to their
|
||
aid, and undertook a sort of championship of Paine, making in a
|
||
public discourse this statement: "No private character has been
|
||
more foully calumniated in the name of God than that of Thomas
|
||
Paine." (Mr. Frothingham, it will be remembered, is the one who
|
||
recently, in a public discourse, announced the downfall of
|
||
Christianity, although he very kindly made the allowance that, "it
|
||
may be a thousand years before its decay will be visible to all
|
||
eyes." It is our private opinion that it will be at least a
|
||
thousand and one.) Rev. John W. Chadwick, a minister of the same
|
||
order of unbelief, who signs himself, "Minister of the Second
|
||
Unitarian Society in Brooklyn," has devoted two discourses to the
|
||
same end, eulogizing Paine. In one of these, which we have before
|
||
us in a handsomely printed pamphlet, entitled, "Method and Value of
|
||
his (Paine's) Religious Teachings," he says: "Christian usage has
|
||
determined that an Infidel means one who does not believe in
|
||
Christianity as a supernatural religion; in the Bible as a
|
||
supernatural book; in Jesus as a supernatural person. And in this
|
||
sense Paine was an Infidel, and so, thank God, am I." It is proper
|
||
to add that Unitarians generally decline all responsibility for the
|
||
utterances of both of these men, and that they compose a
|
||
denomination, or rather two denominations, of their own.
|
||
|
||
There is also a certain class of Infidels who are not quite
|
||
prepared to meet the odium that attaches to the name; they call
|
||
themselves Christians, but their sympathies are all with the
|
||
enemies of Christianity, and they are not always able to conceal
|
||
it. They have not the courage of their opinions. like Mr.
|
||
Frothingham and Mr. Chadwick, and they work only sideways toward
|
||
the same end. We have been no little amused since our last article
|
||
on this subject appeared, to read some of the articles that have
|
||
been written on the other side, though professedly on no side, and
|
||
to observe how sincerely these men deprecate the discussion of the
|
||
character of Paine, as an unprofitable topic. It never appeared to
|
||
them unprofitable when the discussion was on the other side.
|
||
|
||
Then, too, we have for months past been receiving letters from
|
||
different parts of the country, asking authentic information on the
|
||
subject and stating that the followers of Paine are making
|
||
extraordinary efforts to circulate his writings against the
|
||
Christian religion and in order to give currency to these writings
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
21
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
they are endeavoring to rescue his name from the disgrace into
|
||
which it sank during the latter years of his life. Paine spent
|
||
several of his last years in furnishing a commentary upon his
|
||
Infidel principles. This commentary was contained in his besotted,
|
||
degraded life and miserable end, but his friends do not wish the
|
||
commentary to go out in connection with his writings. They prefer
|
||
to have them read without the comments by their author. Hence this
|
||
anxiety to free the great apostle of Infidelity from the obloquy
|
||
which his life brought upon his name; to represent him as a pure,
|
||
noble, virtuous man, and to make it appear that he died a peaceful,
|
||
happy death, just like a philosopher.
|
||
|
||
But what makes the publication of the facts in the case still
|
||
more imperative at this time is the wholesale accusation brought
|
||
against the Christian public by the friends and admirers of Paine.
|
||
Christian ministers as a class, and Christian journals are
|
||
expressly accused of falsifying history, of defaming "the mighty
|
||
dead!" (meaning Paine,) &c., &c. In the face of all these
|
||
accusations it cannot be out of place to state the facts and to
|
||
fortify the statement by satisfactory evidence, as we are
|
||
abundantly able to do.
|
||
|
||
The two points on which we proposed to produce the testimony
|
||
are, the character of Paine's life (referring of course to his last
|
||
residence in this country, for no one has intimated that he had
|
||
sunk into such besotted drunkenness until about the time of his
|
||
return to the United States in 1802), and the real character of his
|
||
death as consistent with such a life, and as marked further by the
|
||
cowardliness, which has been often exhibited by Infidels in the
|
||
same circumstances.
|
||
|
||
It is nothing at all to the purpose to show, as his friends
|
||
are fond of doing, that Paine rendered important service to the
|
||
cause of American Independence. This is not the point under
|
||
discussion and is not denied. No one ever called in question the
|
||
valuable service that Benedict Arnold rendered to the country in
|
||
the early part of the Revolutionary war; but this, with true
|
||
Americans, does not suffice to cast a shade of loveliness or even
|
||
to spread a mantle of charity over his subsequent career. Whatever
|
||
share Paine had in the personal friendship of the fathers of the
|
||
Revolution he forfeited by his subsequent life of beastly
|
||
drunkenness and degradation, and on this account as well as on
|
||
account of his blasphemy he was shunned by all decent people.
|
||
|
||
We wish to make one or two corrections of misstatements by
|
||
Paine's advocates, on which a vast amount of argument has been
|
||
simply wasted. We have never stated in any form, nor have we ever
|
||
supposed, that Paine actually renounced his Infidelity. The
|
||
accounts agree in stating that he died a blaspheming Infidel, and
|
||
his horrible death we regard as one of the fruits, the fitting
|
||
complement of his Infidelity. We have never seen anything that
|
||
encouraged the hope that he was not abandoned of God in his last
|
||
hours. But we have no doubt, on the other hand, that having become
|
||
a wreck in body and mind through his intemperance, abandoned of
|
||
God, deserted by his Infidel companions, and dependent upon
|
||
Christian charity for the attentions he received, miserable beyond
|
||
description in his condition, and seeing nothing to hope for in the
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
22
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
future, he was afraid to die, and was ready to call upon God and
|
||
upon Christ for mercy, and ready perhaps in the next minute to
|
||
blaspheme. This is what we referred to in speaking of Paine's death
|
||
as cowardly. It is shown in the testimony we have produced, and
|
||
still more fully in that which we now present. The most wicked men
|
||
are ready to call upon God in seasons of great peril, and sometimes
|
||
ask for Christian ministrations when in extreme illness; but they
|
||
are often ready on any alleviation of distress to turn to their
|
||
wickedness again, in the expressive language of Scripture, "as the
|
||
sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire."
|
||
|
||
We have never stated or intimated, nor, so far as we are
|
||
aware, has any one of our correspondents stated, that Paine died in
|
||
poverty. It has been frequently and truthfully stated that Paine
|
||
was dependent on Christian charity for the attentions he received
|
||
in his last days, and so he was. His Infidel companions forsook him
|
||
and Christian hearts and hands ministered to his wants,
|
||
notwithstanding the blasphemies of his death-bed.
|
||
|
||
Nor has one of our correspondents stated, as alleged, that
|
||
Paine died at New Rochelle. The Rev. Dr. Wickham, who was a
|
||
resident of that place nearly fifty years ago, and who was
|
||
perfectly familiar with the facts of his life, wrote that Paine
|
||
spent "his latter days" on the farm presented to him by the State
|
||
of New York, which was strictly true, but made no reference to it
|
||
as the place of his death.
|
||
|
||
Such misrepresentations serve to show how much the advocates
|
||
of Paine admire "truth."
|
||
|
||
With these explanations we produce further evidence in regard
|
||
to the manner of Paine's life and the character of his death, both
|
||
of which we have already characterized in appropriate terms, as the
|
||
following testimony will show.
|
||
|
||
In regard to Paine's "personal habits," even before his return
|
||
to this country, and particularly his aversion to soap and water,
|
||
Elkana Watson, a gentleman of the highest social position, who
|
||
resided in France during a part of the Revolutionary war, and who
|
||
was the personal friend of Washington, Franklin, and other patriots
|
||
of the period, makes some incidental statements in his "Men and
|
||
Times of the Revolution." Though eulogizing Paine's efforts in
|
||
behalf of American Independence, he describes him as "coarse and
|
||
uncouth in his manners, loathsome in his appearance, and a
|
||
disgusting egotist." On Paine's arrival at Nantes, the Mayor and
|
||
other distinguished citizens called upon him to pay their respects
|
||
to the American patriot. Mr. Watson says: "He was soon rid of his
|
||
respectable visitors. who left the room with marks of astonishment
|
||
and disgust." Mr. W., after much entreaty, and only by promising
|
||
him a bundle of newspapers to read while undergoing the operation,
|
||
succeeded in prevailing on Paine to "stew, for an hour, in a hot
|
||
bath." Mr. W. accompanied Paine to the bath, and "instructed the
|
||
keeper, in French, (which Paine did not understand,) gradually to
|
||
increase the heat of the water until 'le Monsieur serait bien
|
||
bouille' (until the gentleman shall be well boiled;) and adds that
|
||
"he became so much absorbed in his reading that he was nearly
|
||
parboiled before leaving the bath, much to his improvement and my
|
||
satisfaction."
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
23
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
William Carver has been cited as a witness in behalf of Paine,
|
||
and particularly as to his "personal habits." In a letter to Paine,
|
||
dated December 2, 1776, he bears the following testimony:
|
||
|
||
"A respectable gentleman from New Rochelle called to see me a
|
||
few days back, and said that everybody was tired of you there, and
|
||
no one would undertake to board and lodge you. I thought this was
|
||
the case, as I found you at a tavern in a most miserable situation.
|
||
You appeared as if you had not been shaved for a fortnight, and as
|
||
to a shirt, it could not be said that you had one on. It was only
|
||
the remains of one, and this, likewise, appeared not to have been
|
||
off your back for a fortnight, and was nearly the color of tanned
|
||
leather; and you had the most disagreeable smell possible; just
|
||
like that of our poor beggars in England. Do you remember the pains
|
||
I took to clean you? that I got a tub of warm water and soap and
|
||
washed you from head to foot, and this I had to do three times
|
||
before I could get you clean." (And then follow more disgusting
|
||
details.)
|
||
|
||
"You say, also, that you found your own liquors during the
|
||
time you boarded with me; but you should have said, 'I found only
|
||
a small part of the liquor I drank during my stay with you; this
|
||
part I purchased of John Fellows, which was a demijohn of brandy
|
||
containing four gallons, and this did not serve me three weeks.'
|
||
This can be proved, and I mean not to say anything that I cannot
|
||
prove; for I hold truth as a precious jewel. It is a well-known
|
||
fact, that you drank one quart of brandy per day, at my expense,
|
||
during the different times that you have boarded with me, the
|
||
demijohn above mentioned excepted, and the last fourteen weeks you
|
||
were sick. Is not this a supply of liquor for dinner and supper?"
|
||
|
||
This chosen witness in behalf of Paine, closes his letter,
|
||
which is full of loathsome descriptions of Paine's manner of life,
|
||
as follows:
|
||
|
||
"Now, sir, I think I have drawn a complete portrait of your
|
||
character; yet to enter upon every minutiae would be to give a
|
||
history of your life, and to develop the fallacious mask of
|
||
hypocrisy and deception under which you have acted in your
|
||
political as well as moral capacity of life."
|
||
|
||
(Signed) "William Carver."
|
||
|
||
Carver had the same opinion of Paine to his dying day. When an
|
||
old man, and an Infidel of the Paine type and habits, he was
|
||
visited by the Rev. E. F. Hatfield, D.D., of this city, who writes
|
||
to us of his interview with Carver, under date of Sept. 27, 1877:
|
||
|
||
"I conversed with him nearly an hour, I took special pains to
|
||
learn from him all that I could about Paine, whose landlord he had
|
||
been for eighteen months. He spoke of him as a base and shameless
|
||
drunkard, utterly destitute of moral principle. His denunciations
|
||
of the man were perfectly fearful, and fully confirmed, in my
|
||
apprehension, all that had been written of Paine's immorality and
|
||
repulsiveness."
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
24
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
Cheetham's Life of Paine, which was published the year that he
|
||
died, and which has passed through several editions (we have three
|
||
of them now before us) describes a man lost to all moral
|
||
sensibility and to all sense of decency, a habitual drunkard, and
|
||
it is simply incredible that a book should have appeared so soon
|
||
after the death of its subject and should have been so frequently
|
||
republished without being at once refuted, if the testimony were
|
||
not substantially true. Many years later, when it was found
|
||
necessary to bolster up the reputation of Paine, Cheetham's Memoirs
|
||
were called a pack of lies. If only one-tenth part of what he
|
||
publishes circumstantially in his volume, as facts in regard to
|
||
Paine, were true, all that has been written against him in later
|
||
years does not begin to set forth the degraded character of the
|
||
man's life. And with all that has been written on the subject we
|
||
see no good reason to doubt the substantial accuracy of Cheetham's
|
||
portrait of the man whom he knew so well.
|
||
|
||
Dr. J.W. Francis. well-known as an eminent physician, of this
|
||
city, in his Reminiscences of New York, says of Paine:
|
||
|
||
"He who, in his early days, had been associated with, and had
|
||
received counsel from Franklin, was, in his old age, deserted by
|
||
the humblest menial; he, whose pen has proved a very sword among
|
||
nations, had shaken empires. and made kings tremble, now yielded up
|
||
the mastery to the most treacherous of tyrants, King Alcohol"
|
||
|
||
The physician who attended Paine during his last illness was
|
||
Dr. James R. Manley, a gentleman of the highest character. A letter
|
||
of his, written in October of the year that Paine died, fully
|
||
corroborates the account of his state as recorded by Stephen
|
||
Grellet in his Memoirs, which we have already printed. He writes:
|
||
|
||
"New York, October 2, 1809: I was called upon by accident to
|
||
visit Mr. Paine, on the 23th of February last, and found him
|
||
indisposed with fever, and very apprehensive of an attack of
|
||
apoplexy, as he stated that he had that disease before, and at this
|
||
time felt a great degree of vertigo, and was unable to help himself
|
||
as he had hitherto done, on account of an intense pain above the
|
||
eyes. On inquiry of the attendants I was told that three or four
|
||
days previously he had concluded to dispense with his usual
|
||
quantity of accustomed stimulus and that he had on that day resumed
|
||
it. To the want of his usual drink they attributed his illness, and
|
||
it is highly probable that the usual quantity operating upon a
|
||
state of system more excited from the above privations, was the
|
||
cause of the symptoms of which he then complained.... And here let
|
||
me be permitted to observe (lest blame might attach to those whose
|
||
business it was to pay any particular attention to his cleanliness
|
||
of person) that it was absolutely impossible to effect that
|
||
purpose. Cleanliness appeared to make no part of his comfort; he
|
||
seemed to have a singular aversion to soap and water; he would
|
||
never ask to be washed, and when he was he would always make
|
||
objections; and it was not unusual to wash and to dress him clean
|
||
very much against his inclinations. In this deplorable state, with
|
||
confirmed dropsy, attended with frequent cough, vomiting and
|
||
hiccough, he continued growing from bad to worse till the morning
|
||
of the 8th of June, when he died. Though I may remark that during
|
||
he last three weeks of his life his situation was such that his
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
25
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
decease was confidently expected every day, his ulcers having
|
||
assumed a gangrenous appearance, being excessively fetid, and
|
||
discolored blisters having taken place on the soles of his feet
|
||
without any ostensible cause, which baffled the usual attempts to
|
||
arrest their progress; and when we consider his former habits, his
|
||
advanced age, the feebleness of his constitution, his constant
|
||
habit of using ardent spirits ad libitum till the commencement of
|
||
his last illness, so far from wondering that he died so soon, we
|
||
are constrained to ask, How did he live so long? Concerning his
|
||
conduct during his disease I have not much to remark, though the
|
||
little I have may be somewhat interesting. Mr. Paine professed to
|
||
be above the fear of death, and a great part of his conversation
|
||
was principally directed to give the impression that he was
|
||
perfectly willing to leave this world, and yet some parts of his
|
||
conduct were with difficulty reconcilable with his belief. In the
|
||
first stages of his illness he was satisfied to be left alone
|
||
during the day, but he required some person to be with him at
|
||
night, urging as his reason that he was afraid that he should die
|
||
when unattended, and at this period his deportment and his
|
||
principle seemed to be consistent; so much so that a stranger would
|
||
judge from some of the remarks he would make that he was an
|
||
Infidel. I recollect being with him at night, watching; he was very
|
||
apprehensive of a speedy dissolution, and suffered great distress
|
||
of body, and perhaps of mind (for he was waiting the event of an
|
||
application to the Society of Friends for permission that his
|
||
corpse might be deposited in their grave-ground, and had reason to
|
||
believe that the request might be refused), when he remarked in
|
||
these words, 'I think I can say what they made Jesus Christ to say
|
||
-- "My God, my God! why hast thou forsaken me? "He went on to
|
||
observe on the want of that respect which he conceived he merited,
|
||
when I observed to him that I thought his corpse should be matter
|
||
of least concern to him; that those whom he would leave behind him
|
||
would see that he was properly interred, and, further, that it
|
||
would be of little consequence to me where I was deposited provided
|
||
I was buried; upon which he answered that he had nothing else to
|
||
talk about. and that he would as lief talk of his death as of
|
||
anything, but that he was not so indifferent about his corpse as I
|
||
appeared to be.
|
||
|
||
"During the latter part of his life, though his conversation
|
||
was equivocal, his conduct was singular; he could not be left alone
|
||
night or day; he not only required to have some person with him,
|
||
but he must see that he or she was there, and would not allow his
|
||
curtain to be closed at any time; and if, as it would sometimes
|
||
unavoidably happen, he was left alone, he would scream and halloo
|
||
until some person came to him. When relief from pain would admit,
|
||
he seemed thoughtful and contemplative, his eyes being generally
|
||
closed, and his hands folded upon his breast, although he never
|
||
slept without the assistance of an anodyne. There was something
|
||
remarkable in his conduct about this period (which comprises about
|
||
two weeks immediately preceding his death), particularly when we
|
||
reflect that Thomas Paine was the author of the 'Age of Reason.' He
|
||
would call out during his paroxysms of distress, without
|
||
intermission, 'O Lord help me! God help me! Jesus Christ help me!
|
||
Lord help me! ' etc., repeating the same expressions without the
|
||
least variation, in a tone of voice that would alarm the house. It
|
||
was this conduct which induced me to think that he had abandoned
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
26
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
his former opinions, and I was more inclined to that belief when I
|
||
understood from his nurse (who is a very serious and, I believe,
|
||
pious woman), that he would occasionally inquire, when he saw her
|
||
engaged with a book, what she was reading. and, being answered, and
|
||
at the same time asked whether she should read aloud, he assented,
|
||
and would appear to give particular attention.
|
||
|
||
"I took occasion during the nights of the fifth and sixth of
|
||
June to test the strength of his opinions respecting revelation. I
|
||
purposely made him a very late visit; it was a time which seemed to
|
||
suit exactly with my errand; it was midnight, he was in great:
|
||
distress, constantly exclaiming in the words above mentioned, when,
|
||
after a considerable preface, I addressed him in the following
|
||
manner, the nurse being present: 'Mr. Paine, your opinions, by a
|
||
large portion of the community, have been treated with deference,
|
||
you have never been in the habit of mixing in your conversation
|
||
words of coarse meaning; you have never indulged in the practice of
|
||
profane swearing; you must be sensible that we are acquainted with
|
||
your religious opinions as they are given to the world. What must
|
||
we think of your present conduct'? Why do you call upon Jesus
|
||
Christ to help you? Do you believe that he can help you? Do you
|
||
believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ? Come, now, answer me
|
||
honestly. I want an answer from the lips of a dying man, for I
|
||
verily believe that you will not live twenty-four hours.' I waited
|
||
some time at the end of every question; he did not answer, but
|
||
ceased to exclaim in the above manner. Again I addressed him; 'Mr.
|
||
Paine, you have not answered my questions; will you answer them?
|
||
Allow me to ask again, do you believe? or let me qualify the
|
||
question, do you wish to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of
|
||
God?' After a pause of some minutes, he answered, 'I have no wish
|
||
to believe on that subject.' I then left him, and knew not whether
|
||
he afterward spoke to any person on any subject, though he lived,
|
||
as I before observed, till the morning of the 8th. Such conduct,
|
||
under usual circumstances, I conceive absolutely unaccountable,
|
||
though, with diffidence, I would remark, not so much so in the
|
||
present instance; for though the first necessary and general result
|
||
of conviction be a sincere wish to atone for evil committed, yet it
|
||
may be a question worthy of able consideration whether excessive
|
||
pride of opinion, consummate vanity, and inordinate self-love might
|
||
not prevent or retard that otherwise natural consequence. For my
|
||
own part, I believe that had not Thomas Paine been such a
|
||
distinguished Infidel he would have left less equivocal evidences
|
||
of a change of opinion. Concerning the persons who visited Mr.
|
||
Paine in his distress as his personal friends, I heard very little,
|
||
though I may observe that their number was small, and of that
|
||
number there were not wanting those who endeavored to support him
|
||
in his deistical opinions, and to encourage him to 'die like a
|
||
man,' to 'hold fast his integrity.' lest Christians. or, as they
|
||
were pleased to term them, hypocrites, might take advantage of his
|
||
weakness, and furnish themselves with a weapon by which they might
|
||
hope to destroy their glorious system of morals. Numbers visited
|
||
him from motives of benevolence and Christian charity, endeavoring
|
||
to effect a change of mind in respect to his religious sentiments.
|
||
The labor of such was apparently lost, and they pretty generally
|
||
received such treatment from him as none but good men would risk a
|
||
second time, though some of those persons called frequently."
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
27
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
The following testimony will be new to most of our readers. It
|
||
is from a letter written by Bishop Fenwick (Roman Catholic Bishop
|
||
of Boston), containing a full account of a visit which he paid to
|
||
Paine in his last illness. It was printed in the United States
|
||
Catholic Magazine for 1846; in the Catholic Herald of Philadelphia,
|
||
October 15, 1846; in a supplement to the Hartford Courant, October
|
||
23, 1847; and in Littell's Living Age for January 22, 1848, from
|
||
which we copy. Bishop Fenwick writes:
|
||
|
||
"A short time before Paine died I was sent for by him. He was
|
||
prompted to this by a poor Catholic woman who went to see him in
|
||
his sickness, and who told him, among other things, that in his
|
||
wretched condition if anybody could do him any good it would be a
|
||
Roman Catholic priest. This woman was an American convert (formerly
|
||
a Shaking Quakeress) whom I had received into the church but a few
|
||
weeks before. She was the bearer of this message to me from Paine.
|
||
I stated this circumstance to F. Kohlmann, at breakfast, and
|
||
requested him to accompany me. After some solicitation on my part
|
||
he agreed to do so, at which I was greatly rejoiced, because I was
|
||
at the time quite young and inexperienced in the ministry, and was
|
||
glad to have his assistance, as I knew, from the great reputation
|
||
of Paine, that I should have to do with one of the most impious as
|
||
well as infamous of men. We shortly after set out for the house at
|
||
Greenwich where Paine lodged, and on the way agreed on a mode of
|
||
proceeding with him.
|
||
|
||
"We arrived at the house; a decent-looking elderly woman
|
||
(probably his housekeeper,) came to the door and inquired whether
|
||
we were the Catholic priests, for said she, 'Mr. Paine has been so
|
||
much annoyed of late by other denominations calling upon him that
|
||
he has left express orders with me to admit no one to-day but the
|
||
clergymen of the Catholic Church. Upon assuring her that we were
|
||
Catholic clergymen she opened the door and showed us into the
|
||
parlor. She then left the room and shortly after returned to inform
|
||
us that Paine was asleep, and, at the same time, expressed a wish
|
||
that we would not disturb him, 'for,' said she, 'he is always in a
|
||
bad humor when roused out of his sleep. It is better we wait a
|
||
little till he be awake.' We accordingly sat down and resolved to
|
||
await a more favorable moment. 'Gentlemen,'said the lady, after
|
||
having taken her seat also, 'I really wish you may succeed with Mr.
|
||
Paine, for he is laboring under great distress of mind ever since
|
||
he was informed by his physicians that he cannot possibly live and
|
||
must die shortly. He sent for you to-day because he was told that
|
||
if any one. could do him good you might. Possibly he may think you
|
||
know of some remedy which his physicians are ignorant of. He is
|
||
truly to be pitied. His cries when he is left alone are
|
||
heart-rending. 'O Lord help me! 'he will exclaim during his
|
||
paroxysms of distress -- 'God help me -- Jesus Christ help me!'
|
||
repeating the same expressions without the least variation, in a
|
||
tone of voice that would alarm the house. Sometimes he will say, 'O
|
||
God, what have I done to suffer so much! 'then, shortly after, 'But
|
||
there is no God,' and again a little after, 'Yet if there should
|
||
be, what would become of me hereafter.' Thus he will continue for
|
||
some time, when on a sudden he will scream, as if in terror and
|
||
agony, and call out for me by name. On one of these occasions,
|
||
which are very frequent, I went to him and inquired what he wanted.
|
||
'Stay with me,' he replied, 'for God's sake, for I cannot hear to
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
28
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
be left alone.' I then observed that I could not always be with
|
||
him, as I had much to attend to in the house. 'Then,' said he,
|
||
'send even a child to stay with me, for it is a hell to be alone.'
|
||
'I never saw,' she concluded, 'a more unhappy, a more forsaken man.
|
||
It seems he cannot reconcile himself to die.'
|
||
|
||
"Such was the conversation of the woman who had received us,
|
||
and who probably had been employed to nurse and take care of him
|
||
during his illness. She was a Protestant, yet seemed very desirous
|
||
that we should afford him some relief in his state of abandonment,
|
||
bordering on complete despair. Having remained thus some time in
|
||
the parlor, we at length heard a noise in the adjoining passage-
|
||
way, which induced us to believe that Mr. Paine, who was sick in
|
||
that room, had awoke. We accordingly proposed to proceed thither,
|
||
which was assented to by the woman, and she opened the door for us.
|
||
On entering, we found him just getting out of his slumber. A more
|
||
wretched being in appearance I never beheld. He was lying in a bed
|
||
sufficiently decent of itself, but at present besmeared with filth;
|
||
his look was that of a man greatly tortured in mind; his eyes
|
||
haggard, his countenance forbidding, and his whole appearance that
|
||
of one whose better days had been one continued scene of debauch.
|
||
His only nourishment at this time, as we were informed, was nothing
|
||
more than milk punch, in which he indulged to the full extent of
|
||
his weak state. He had partaken, undoubtedly, but very recently of
|
||
it, as the sides and corners of his mouth exhibited very
|
||
unequivocal traces of it, as well as of blood, which had also
|
||
followed in the track and left its mark on the pillow. His face, to
|
||
a certain extent, had also been besmeared with it."
|
||
|
||
Immediately upon their making known the object of their visit,
|
||
Paine interrupted the speaker by saying: "That's enough, sir;
|
||
that's enough," and again interrupting him, "I see what you would
|
||
be about. I wish to hear no more from you, sir. My mind is made up
|
||
on that subject. I look upon the whole of the Christian scheme to
|
||
be a tissue of absurdities and lies, and Jesus Christ to be nothing
|
||
more than a cunning knave and impostor." He drove them out of the
|
||
room, exclaiming: "Away with you and your God, too; leave the room
|
||
instantly; all that you have uttered are lies -- filthy 'lies; and
|
||
if I had a little more time I would prove it, as I did about your
|
||
impostor, Jesus Christ."
|
||
|
||
This, we think, will suffice. We have a mass of letters
|
||
containing statements confirmatory of what we have published in
|
||
regard to the life and death of Paine, but nothing more can be
|
||
required.
|
||
|
||
INGERSOLL'S SECOND REPLY.
|
||
|
||
Peoria, Nov. 2d, 1877.
|
||
|
||
To the Editor of the New York Observer:
|
||
|
||
You ought to have honesty enough to admit that you did, in
|
||
your paper of July 19th, offer to prove that the absurd story that
|
||
Thomas Paine died in terror and agony on account of the religious
|
||
opinions he had expressed, was true. You ought to have fairness
|
||
enough to admit that you called upon me to deposit one thousand
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
29
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
dollars with an honest man, that you might, by proving that Thomas
|
||
Paine did die in terror, obtain the money.
|
||
|
||
You ought to have honor enough to admit that you challenged me
|
||
and that you commenced the controversy concerning Thomas Paine.
|
||
|
||
You ought to have goodness enough to admit that you were
|
||
mistaken in the charges you made.
|
||
|
||
You ought to have manhood enough to do what you falsely
|
||
asserted that Thomas Paine did: -- you ought to recant. You ought
|
||
to admit publicly that you slandered the dead; that you falsified
|
||
history; that you defamed the defenseless; that you deliberately
|
||
denied what you had published in your own paper. There is an old
|
||
saying to the effect that open confession is good for the soul. To
|
||
you is presented a splendid opportunity of testing the truth of
|
||
this saying.
|
||
|
||
Nothing has astonished me more than your lack of common
|
||
honesty exhibited in this controversy. In your last, you quote from
|
||
Dr. J.W. Francis. Why did you leave out that portion in which Dr.
|
||
Francis says that Cheetham with settled malignity wrote the life of
|
||
Paine? Why did you leave out that part in which Dr. Francis says
|
||
that Cheetham in the same way" slandered Alexander Hamilton and
|
||
DeWitt Clinton? Is it your business to suppress the truth? Why did
|
||
you not publish the entire letter of Bishop Fenwick? Was it because
|
||
it proved beyond all cavil that Thomas Paine did not recant? Was it
|
||
because in the light of that letter Mary Roscoe, Mary Hinsdale and
|
||
Grant Thorburn appeared unworthy of belief? Dr. J.W. Francis says
|
||
in the same article from which you quoted, "Paine clung to his
|
||
Infidelity until the last moment of his life." Why did you not
|
||
publish that? It was the first line immediately above what you did
|
||
quote. You must have seen it. Why did you suppress it? A lawyer,
|
||
doing a thing of this character, is denominated a shyster. I do not
|
||
know the appropriate word to designate a theologian guilty of such
|
||
an act.
|
||
|
||
You brought forward three witnesses, pretending to have
|
||
personal knowledge about the life and death of Thomas Paine: Grant
|
||
Thorburn, Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale. In my reply I took the
|
||
ground that Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale must have been the same
|
||
person. I thought it impossible that Paine should have had a
|
||
conversation with Mary Roscoe, and then one precisely like it with
|
||
Mary Hinsdale. Acting upon this conviction, I proceeded to show
|
||
that the conversation never could have happened, that it was
|
||
absurdly false to say that Paine asked the opinion of a girl as to
|
||
his works who had never read but little of them. I then showed by
|
||
the testimony of William Cobbett, that he visited Mary Hinsdale in
|
||
1819, taking with him a statement concerning the recantation of
|
||
Paine, given him by Mr. Collins, and that upon being shown this
|
||
statement she said that "it was so long ago that she could not
|
||
speak positively to any part of the matter -- that she would not
|
||
say any part of the paper was true." At that time she knew nothing,
|
||
and remembered nothing. I also showed that she was a kind of
|
||
standing witness to prove that others recanted. Willett Hicks
|
||
denounced her as unworthy of belief.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
30
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
To-day the following from the New York World was received,
|
||
showing that I was right in my conjecture:
|
||
|
||
TOM PAINE'S DEATH BED.
|
||
|
||
To the Editor of the World:
|
||
|
||
Sir: I see by your paper that Bob Ingersoll discredits Mary
|
||
Hinsdale's story of the scenes which occurred at the death-bed of
|
||
Thomas Paine. No one who knew that good lady would for one moment
|
||
doubt her veracity or question her testimony. Both she and her
|
||
husband were Quaker preachers, and well known and respected
|
||
inhabitants of New York City. Ingersoll is right in his conjecture
|
||
that Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale was the same person. Her maiden
|
||
name was Roscoe, and she married Henry Hinsdale. My mother was a
|
||
Roscoe, a niece of Mary Roscoe, and lived with her for some time.
|
||
I have heard her relate the story of Tom Paine's dying remorse, as
|
||
told her by her aunt, who was a witness to it. She says (in a
|
||
letter I have just received from her), "he (Tom Paine) suffered
|
||
fearfully from remorse, and renounced his Infidel principles,
|
||
calling on God to forgive him, and wishing his pamphlets and books
|
||
to be burned, saying he could not die in peace until it was done."
|
||
|
||
(Rev.) A.W. Cornell.
|
||
|
||
Harpersville, New York.
|
||
|
||
You will notice that the testimony of Mary Hinsdale has been
|
||
drawing interest since 1809, and has materially increased. If Paine
|
||
"suffered fearfully from remorse, renounced his Infidel opinions
|
||
and called on God to forgive him," it is hardly generous for the
|
||
Christian world to fasten the fangs of malice in the flesh of his
|
||
reputation.
|
||
|
||
So Mary Roscoe was Mary Hinsdale, and as Mary Hinsdale has
|
||
been shown by her own admission to Mr. Cobbett to have known
|
||
nothing of the matter; and as Mary Hinsdale was not, according to
|
||
Willet Hicks, worthy of belief -- as she told a falsehood of the
|
||
same kind about Mary Lockwood, and was, according to Mr. Collins,
|
||
addicted to the use of opium -- this disposes of her and her
|
||
testimony.
|
||
|
||
There remains upon the stand Grant Thorburn. Concerning this
|
||
witness, I received, yesterday, from the eminent biographer and
|
||
essayist, James Parton, the following episode:
|
||
|
||
Newburyport, Mass.
|
||
|
||
Col. R.G. Ingersoll:
|
||
|
||
Touching Grant Thorburn, I personally know him to have been a
|
||
dishonest man. At the age of ninety-two he copied, with trembling
|
||
hand, a piece from a newspaper and brought it to the office of the
|
||
Home Journal, as his own. It was I who received it and detected the
|
||
deliberate forgery. If you are ever going to continue this subject,
|
||
I will give you the exact facts.
|
||
|
||
Fervently yours,
|
||
|
||
James Parton.
|
||
|
||
|
||
31
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
After this, you are welcome to what remains of Grant Thorburn.
|
||
|
||
There is one thing that I have noticed during this controversy
|
||
regarding Thomas Paine. In no instance that I now call to mind has
|
||
any Christian writer spoken respectfully of Mr. Paine. All have
|
||
taken particular pains to call him "Tom" Paine. Is it not a little
|
||
strange that religion should make men so coarse and ill-mannered?
|
||
|
||
I have often wondered what these same gentlemen would say if
|
||
I should speak of the men eminent in the annals of Christianity in
|
||
the same way. What would they say if I should write about "Tim"
|
||
Dwight, old "Ad" Clark, "Tom" Scott, "Jim" McKnight,"Bill"
|
||
Hamilton,"Dick" Whately,"Bill" Paley, and "Jack" Calvin?
|
||
|
||
They would say of me then, Just what I think of them now.
|
||
|
||
Even if we have religion, do not let us try to get along
|
||
without good manners. Rudeness is exceedingly unbecoming, even in
|
||
a saint. Persons who forgive their enemies ought, to say the least,
|
||
to treat with politeness those who have never injured them.
|
||
|
||
It is exceedingly gratifying to me that I have compelled you
|
||
to say that "Paine died a blaspheming Infidel." Hereafter it is to
|
||
be hoped nothing will be heard about his having recanted. As an
|
||
answer to such slander his friends can confidently quote the
|
||
following from the New York Observer of November 1st, 1877:
|
||
|
||
"We have never stated in any form, nor have we ever supposed
|
||
that Paine actually renounced his Infidelity. The accounts agree in
|
||
stating that he died a blaspheming Infidel."
|
||
|
||
This for all coming time will refute the slanders of the
|
||
churches yet to be.
|
||
|
||
Right here allow me to ask: If you never supposed that Paine
|
||
renounced his Infidelity, why did you try to prove by Mary Hinsdale
|
||
that which you believed to be untrue?
|
||
|
||
from the bottom of my heart I thank myself for having
|
||
compelled you to admit that Thomas Paine did not recant.
|
||
|
||
For the purpose of verifying your own admission concerning the
|
||
death of Mr. Paine, permit me to call your attention to the
|
||
following affidavit:
|
||
|
||
Wabash, Indiana, October 27, 1877.
|
||
|
||
Col. R.G. Ingersoll:
|
||
|
||
Dear Sir: The following statement of facts is at your
|
||
disposal. In the year 1833 Willet Hicks made a visit to Indiana and
|
||
stayed over night at my father's house, four miles east of
|
||
Richmond. In the morning at breakfast my mother asked Willet Hicks
|
||
the following questions:
|
||
|
||
"Was thee with Thomas Paine during his last sickness?"
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
32
|
||
|
||
VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.
|
||
|
||
Mr. Hicks said: "I was with him every day during the latter
|
||
part of his last sickness."
|
||
|
||
"Did he express any regret in regard to writing the 'Age of
|
||
Reason,' as the published accounts say he did -- those accounts
|
||
that have the credit of emanating from his Catholic housekeeper?"
|
||
|
||
Mr. Hicks replied: "He did not in any way by word or action."
|
||
|
||
"Did he call on God or Jesus Christ, asking either of them to
|
||
forgive his sins, or did he curse them or either of them?"
|
||
|
||
Mr. Hicks answered: "He did not. He died as easy as any one I
|
||
ever saw die, and I have seen many die in my time."
|
||
|
||
William B. Barnes.
|
||
|
||
Subscribed and sworn to before me Oct. 27, 1877.
|
||
|
||
Warren Bigler, Notary Public.
|
||
|
||
You say in your last that "Thomas Paine was abandoned of God."
|
||
So far as this controversy is concerned, it seems to me that in
|
||
that sentence you have most graphically described your own
|
||
condition.
|
||
|
||
Wishing you success in all honest undertakings, I remain,
|
||
|
||
Yours truly.
|
||
|
||
Robert G. Ingersoll.
|
||
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
|
||
|
||
The Bank of Wisdom Inc. is a collection of the most thoughtful,
|
||
scholarly and factual books. These computer books are reprints of
|
||
suppressed books and will cover American and world history; the
|
||
Biographies and writings of famous persons, and especially of our
|
||
nations Founding Fathers. They will include philosophy and
|
||
religion. all these subjects, and more, will be made available to
|
||
the public in electronic form, easily copied and distributed, so
|
||
that America can again become what its Founders intended --
|
||
|
||
The Free Market-Place of Ideas.
|
||
|
||
The Bank of Wisdom is always looking for more of these old,
|
||
hidden, suppressed and forgotten books that contain needed facts
|
||
and information for today. If you have such books please contact
|
||
us, we need to give them back to America.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
33
|
||
|