Tom Paine's America

Seth Cotlar. Tom Paine's America: The Rise and Fall of Radicalism in the Early Republic.
Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2011.

Cotlar’s provocatively titled book begins with a moving, and slightly pathetic, account of Tom Paine’s less-than-triumphant return to the United States, in 1802. The former bard of Democracy and Revolution was reduced to hoofing it from tavern to tavern in Baltimore looking for one which would provide lodging to a man now widely reviled as an atheist and a “Jacobin.” The contrast between this ignominious episode, and the reference to “Tom Paine’s America” in the title is striking. Thomas Paine found Americans in the early 1800s to be largely either hostile or indifferent to his return and his person, a situation which—as the Epilogue makes clear—would largely continue to this death, and beyond. So what, exactly, was the “America” which Cotlar claims was his, and what happened to it?

The intervening five chapters illuminate the rise and fall of that now largely forgotten America; one which embraced a trans-Atlantic, radical democracy as its ultimate goal. The ‘Paineites’ in Cotlar’s narrative held a view of democracy which was more expansive, all-encompassing, and radical than the purely suffrage-based model we are more familiar with. They considered themselves part of a larger democratic movement, one which took inspiration from other countries as well as crediting Americans for doing the same; devotees of Paine’s teachings saw democratic revolution as a truly universal phenomenon, one which was defined neither by American exceptionalism, nor by a limitation to what is now considered the “political” sphere.

Indeed, the very notion of what was “political” was contested in the early years of the republic, just as what “democracy” meant was. In both cases, the Paineites advocated a broader conception of those concepts; in both cases, their interpretations—which were influential and important during the Revolutionary era—would eventually be discredited by a new, more moderate consensus.

But Paineites did not give up without a fight; for some time after Tom Paine himself left America for France, his followers continued to advocate his ideals; one of Cotlar’s arguments is that Paineites existed in a much more intense and active dialogue with—and understanding of—liberal democratic activism in Europe. It was easy for them to tie their own cause, whether it took shape in nascent working-class activism or in the many Democratic-Republican Societies, to the fate of similar groups espousing similar goals in Great Britain and France. And for a while, this position was both popular and broadly acceptable to many Americans. So while there was always a conservative opposition to Paineite ideology, conservatives such as John Adams felt obligated either to criticize radical democrats obliquely, or in private.

That would change, however; the rise of Jacobin violence in France, and the supposed influence of the Democratic-Republican Societies on the Whiskey Rebellion, began to put Paineites on the defensive. More and more, they were forced to explain their support for movements which seemed to threaten good government, the new Constitution, and social harmony.

The Painites would continue to have a place in the anti-Federalist opposition for some time, but ironically it was the victory of Jefferson and the Republicans in 1800 which sounded the death knell for Paine’s followers as a vital and formidable political force. Jefferson and his followers quickly disassociated themselves from the radical democrats—now routinely disparaged by “respectable” Republicans as well as Federalists as ‘Jacobins’—who had helped them gain power; the Federalist establishment returned the favor by acknowledging that Jefferson and his Republican coalition were much more respectable than the Jacobin rabble. Property was safe, as was respectable political leadership by sober, respectable men. Questions about leveling, ending slavery, and so forth could be safely forgotten. In the end, America was able to avoid the trauma of the French Revolution by taming and restricting the scope of what “democracy” meant and how far it should go.

Paine himself died a nearly forgotten man, spending his days with a tiny, dwindling band of like-minded artisan deists and radicals, all of whom would strive to keep the flame of radical democracy flickering for future generations to rediscover.