Socialist Action /April 2001
Commentary by Mumia Abu-Jamal: Forgotten Founding Father
"Free America without her Thomas Paine is
unthinkable."
-General Lafayette
It is impossible for one to be an American without
hearing nonstop paeans of praise to those called "The Founding Fathers"
of the American Revolution, and of the United States.
In every part of the world one finds people aware
of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, and folks like
Patrick Henry. Their lives and ideas are studied by school children around
the world.
How few of us know of, study, or teach about the
American revolutionary, Thomas Paine! As the writer of the pamphlet "Common
Sense" (Jan. 1776), Paine called for the separation of the Anglo-American
colonies from Britain.
Paine was truly a remarkable man, who left the
fledgling U.S. after the revolution, to go to Britain. Paine, born in England,
returned to his birthplace as a man convinced of the inherent rights of
common folks to freedom, and the necessity of equality. In 1791 he published
"Rights of Man" in critical response to the book by the British
conservative, Edmund Burke, "Reflections on the French Revolution."
Paine argued that the world belongs to those who
live in it, not to the dead. The Crown didn't care for Paine's ideas, and
banished him from England for "high treason." His book was banned.
Paine set sail for a France that was in the grip
of revolutionary extra-judicial violence, and was contemplating regicide.
Hearing of the coming of the American revolutionary, the French National
Assembly named him a French citizen, and residents of the rural district
of Calais elected Paine to the Revolutionary Convention, as a deputy.
Paine was further elected to the "Committee
of the Nine," with Danton, Brissot, and others, to draft a new constitution
for the newly-declared republic. He was in the Assembly when Louis XVI was
placed on trial, and argued (quite successfully) for the life of the usurped
royal.
Paine's defense of the life of Louis landed him
in prison with a date for the guillotine. He was himself luckier than the
king, and escaped the thirsty blade by purest chance. It was the custom
of the executioner to draw a cross on the doors of those to be guillotined
the next dawn. When he came to Paine's door, it was open, and the cross
mark was made on the inside. Once the door was closed, the mark was invisible.
Several days later, French revolutionary Robespierre
was sent to the Blade, and Paine was spared. As neither President Washington,
nor U.S. diplomat Gouverneur Morris, did anything to help him during his
long detention and close brush with death, Paine was both bitter and angry.
He would later write to Washington (1796):
"And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private
friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) and
a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether
you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles,
or whether you ever had any."
Just a few years before, he wrote Washington in
a far lighter mood, saying, "A share in two revolutions is living to
some purpose."
Paine was an internationalist, who was an Englishman
by birth, a French citizen by decree, and an American by adoption. He wrote,
"The World is my country, all mankind my brethren, and to do good is
my religion."
This, the most radical of American revolutionaries,
should not be forgotten.
© 2001 by Mumia Abu-Jamal. All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission of the author.
To communicate directly with Mumia, please write
to him at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene,175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370.
Socialist Action /April 2001 |