Lectures of Col. R.G. Ingersoll | Page 4

The word liberty was in the mouths of men, and
they began to wipe the dust from their superstitious knees. The dawn of
a new day had appeared. Thomas Paine went to France. Into the new
movement he threw all his energies. His fame had gone before him, and
he was welcomed as a friend of the human race and as a champion of
free government.
He had never relinquished his intention of pointing out to his
countrymen the defects, absurdities, and abuse of the English
government. For this purpose; he composed and published his greatest
political work. "The Rights of Man." This work should be read by
every man and woman. It is concise, accurate, rational, convincing, and
unanswerable. It shows great thought, an intimate knowledge of the
various forms of government, deep insight into the very springs of
human action, and a courage that compels respect and admiration. The
most difficult political problems are solved in a few sentences. The

venerable arguments in favor of wrong are refuted with a question--
answered with a word. For forcible illustration, apt comparison,
accuracy and clearness of statement, and absolute thoroughness, it has
never been excelled.
The fears of the administration were aroused, and Paine was prosecuted
for libel, and found guilty; and yet there is not a sentiment in the entire
work that will not challenge the admiration of every civilized man. It is
a magazine of political wisdom, an arsenal of ideas, and an honor not
only to Thomas Paine, but to nature itself. It could have been written
only by the man who had the generosity, the exalted patriotism, the
goodness to say: "The world is my country, and to do good my
religion."
There is in all the utterances of the world no grander, no sublimer
sentiment. There is no creed that can be compared with it for a moment.
It should be wrought in gold, adorned with jewels, and impressed upon
every human heart: "The world is my country, and to do good my
religion."
In 1792, Paine was elected by the department of Calais as their
representative in the National Assembly. So great was his popularity in
France, that he was selected about the same time by the people of no
less than four departments.
Upon taking his place in the assembly, he was appointed as one of a
committee to draft a constitution for France. Had the French people
taken the advice of Thomas Paine, there would have been no "reign of
terror." The streets of Paris would not have been filled with blood in
that reign of terror. There were killed in the City of Paris not less, I
think, than seventeen thousand people--and on one night, in the
massacre of St. Bartholomew, there were killed, by assassination, over
sixty thousand souls--men, women, and children. The revolution would
have been the grandest success of the world. The truth is that Paine was
too conservative to suit the leaders of the French revolution. They, to a
great extent, were carried away by hatred and a desire to destroy. They
had suffered so long, they had borne so much, that it was impossible
for them to be moderate in the hour of victory.
Besides all this, the French people had been so robbed by the
government, so degraded by the church, that they were not fit material
with which to construct a republic. Many of the leaders longed to

establish a beneficent and just government, but the people asked for
revenge. Paine was filled with a real love for mankind. His
philanthropy was boundless. He wished to destroy monarchy--not the
monarch. He voted for the destruction of tyranny, and against the death
of the tyrant. He wished to establish a government on a new basis--one
that would forget the past; one that would give privileges to none, and
protection to all.
In the assembly, where all were demanding the execution of the king,--
where to differ with the majority was to be suspected, and where to be
suspected was almost certain death--Thomas Paine had the courage, the
goodness, and the justice to vote against death. To vote against the
execution of the king was a vote against his own life. This was the
sublimity of devotion to principle. For this he was arrested, imprisoned,
and doomed to death. There is not a theologian who has ever maligned
Thomas Paine that has the courage to do this thing. When Louis Capet
was on trial for his life before the French convention, Thomas Paine
had the courage to speak and vote against the sentence of death. In his
speech I find the following splendid sentiments:
"My contempt and hatred for monarchical governments are sufficiently
well known, and my compassion for the unfortunate, friends or enemies,
is equally profound.
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