Bill Moyers on Thomas Paine
With Harvey J. Kaye, and Richard Brookhiser
The original of this commentary was posted at my previous blog on Wednesday, June 17, 2009. It’s worth a revisit, especially for the info on George Washington and early US politics. The video itself is no longer available due to Adobe Flash Player being discontinued, but the full transcript is still here
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06122009/watch2.html
The intro by Moyers was marred with the usual "bull"about Paine dying broke - he was quite well off - and abandoned. That's how people died in those days and more often than not in ours -- there WERE no hospitals or hospice unless you were Catholic -- and he wasn't "abandoned" any more than any elderly person is when they die; he died in the company of friends. We should all be so lucky. That is yet another of the lies spread by his political and religious enemies after his death. It is a matter of regret that neither historian corrected him.
Anyway, the intro repeated the usual twaddle first grunted out by Paine's enemies and repeated by every uncritical commentator and author ever since. Bill, with the distinguished historians you had there, I really believe you could have done
a better job and THEY certainly ought to have set you straight. DISAPPOINTED!!
[I suppose I should drop Moyers a friendly email and chide them a bit — see below.]
Brookhiser characterized the Girondin faction as a "bloody gang," repeating the old Anglophile/Francophobe hypocrisy-of-the-ages ... as if ANY government (ours included) wasn't or isn't "bloody." What? Burke's treasured British monarchy
wasn't bloody? Bloody hell! And what about Brookhiser's heros? Bloody every one. And the bloody faction was the Jacobins who guillotined virtually all the Girondin with the notable exception of Paine — and they attempted to kill him, too. Why didn’t anyone take Brookhiser to the woodshed?
Harvey Kaye got his point in that Paine "quickly discovered the 'American spirit' and made it his own," a position that, while open to careful criticism, is at least honestly defensible.
Kaye also used the correct response on the LETTER TO GEORGE WASHINGTON, though with less force than it warrants. Washington was idolized when elected yes,
but SCORNED AND HATED by half the populace when he left office; precisely for the reasons that Paine cites, most notably the 1794 Jay Treaty. We should all memorize
the Antifederalist slogan:
”Damn John Jay!
Damn everyone that won't damn John Jay!
Damn every one that won't put lights in his window
and sit up all night damning John Jay!”
Washington's conduct throughout that event was despicable. He was not at all
idolized by everyone (what a crock) and the virtual deification of Washington largely occurred after his death … and continues to the present.
While there is no proof, moreover, that Washington knew Paine was imprisoned in the French Revolution, there is plenty of reason to think that he did and no proof he didn't. Gouvenour Morris, the US representative to the French revolutionary government, was Washington's closest and most trusted friend and adviser and he
can be supposed to have been carrying out a policy endorsed by Washington, whether Washington had plausible deniability or not.
The discussion on AGE OF REASON (AoR) was weak. In defense of all three participants, however, it is a tricky subject. If AoR destroyed Paine's reputation, how come it was such a big best-seller here? It sold like hot-cakes, scared the crap out of the 9/10ths of the clerical profession, was almost universally popular with university students, and “everybody read it.” Freethinkers of all political persuasions were certainly not put off. Yes, a very few Democratic-Republicans were offended, but it was primarily the Federalists who used it to attack and discredit the democratic tendencies of both Paine and Jefferson. Jefferson was attacked just as hotly for his "infidelism" as Paine was and, as someone on the panel pointed out, did not write a best-selling book on the subject. As I wrote in article in the current issue of FREE INQUIRY, "Paine was attacked with the cudgel of religion on account of his political views," not the other way around. That trend continues.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Followup:
FYI, I did in fact post some comments to Moyer's blog re: the mistakes in his intro. My comments to him and one of his readers are both here:
”Jack Martin made a number of assertions about Thomas Paine in his comments here that are simple ahistoric and false. Paine did take up arms, he was aide-de-camp to General Nathaniel Greene, he was found innocent and reinstated to his excise employment in England, and he was employed NOT by Ben Franklin but by Robert Aiken at the PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINE (Franklin's paper was THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE, later renamed THE SATURDAY EVENING POST). The remainder of Martin's "historical" account is similarly specious. People, Thomas Paine was a great benefactor and friend of mankind. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise and if you want assistance of any kind on the history side of things, you're welcome to contact through the website linked to my name. Cordially.
Posted by: Kenneth Burchell | June 18, 2009 2:30 PM”
“Bill, in your introduction to this program you said that (paraphrase) Paine died impoverished and abandoned by his friends. Please fact-check before spreading these hoary old lies promulgated by Paine's enemies WAY back in 1800 and repeated by the incautious (probably the case here) and ungracious (certainly not your style) ever since. Paine was rather well off when he died. If you want the documentation, I can provide it, but his estate was worth at LEAST $8,000.00 when he died, a not inconsiderable sum worth around $140,000.00 according one calculation. As for dying alone that's how people died in those days -- there WERE no hospitals or hospices unless you were Catholic -- and he wasn't "abandoned" any more than any other elderly person
when they die; we all die alone to some extent, Bill. With all due respect, before you repeat the lies of Paine's enemies, please take time to fact-check historical claims. You had at least one fine Paine historian present for the panel and you're more than welcome to get in touch with me. Best regards and thanks for the fine work that you have produced over the years.
Posted by: Kenneth Burchell | June 18, 2009 2:14 PM”
One final note. History lovers and those interested in Paine owe it to themselves to read Paine’s Letter to George Washington. It’s a scorcher and a valuable/enlightening window into the politics of the early republic.
Here’s a link:
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-20-02-0329
