Robert G. Ingersoll on Paine's supposed drunkenness

Delivered in Central Music Hall, Chicago, January 29, 1880

An excerpt from The Lectures of Robert Green Ingersoll at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8389/8389-h/8389-h.htm

Ingersoll's Lecture on Thomas Paine—Delivered in Central Music Hall, Chicago, January 29, 1880 (From the Chicago Times, Verbatim Report)

”The next thing is: Did Thomas Paine live the life of a drunken beast, and did he die a drunken, cowardly, and beastly death? Well, we will see. Upon you rests the burden of substantiating these infamous charges. The Christians have, I suppose, produced the best evidence in their possession, and that evidence I will now proceed to examine. Their first witness is Grant Thorburn. He made three charges against Thomas Paine:

1. That his wife obtained a divorce from him in England for cruelty and neglect.

2. That he was a defaulter and fled from England to America.

3. 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 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. I will give $1,000 if they will produce a 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 lent her money without letting her know the source from whence it came. Was this the conduct of a drunken beast?

The next is that he was a defaulter, and fled from England to America. As I told you in the first place, he was an exciseman; if he was a defaulter, that fact is upon the records of Great Britain. I will give $1,000 in gold to any man who will show, by the records of England, that he was a defaulter of a single, solitary cent. Let us bring these gentlemen to Limerick.

And they charge that he was a drunkard. That is another falsehood. He drank liquor in his day, as did the preachers. It was no unusual thing for a preacher going home to stop in a tavern and take a drink of hot rum with a deacon, and it was no unusual thing for the deacon to help the preacher home. You have no idea how they loved the sacrament in those days. They had communion pretty much all the time.

Thorburn says that in 1802 Paine was an "old remnant of mortality, drunk, bloated, and half asleep." Can anyone 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 De Witt 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 Christian papers, 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 gun-boats, 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 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 exhibits 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.

Now, Grant Thorburn—this gentleman who was "four feet and a half high, and who weighed ninety-eight pounds three and one-half ounces"—says that he used to sit nights at Carver's, in New York, with Thomas Paine. Mrs. Ferguson, the daughter of William Carver, says that she knew Thorburn when she saw him, but that she never saw him in her father's house. The denial of Mrs. Ferguson enraged Thorburn, and he at once wrote a few falsehoods about her. Thereupon a suit was commenced by Mrs. Ferguson and her husband against Thorburn, the writer, and Fanshaw, the publisher, of the libel. Thorburn ran away to Connecticut. Fanshaw wrote him for evidence of what he had written. Thorburn replied that what he had written about Mrs. Ferguson could not be proved. Fanshaw then settled with the Fergusons, paying them the amount demanded.

In 1859 the Fergusons lived at 148 Duane Street, New York. In The Commercial Advertiser of New York, in 1830, appeared the written acknowledgement of this same little Grant Thorburn that he did, on the 22d of August, 1830, at half-past 6 in the morning, take four bottles of cider from the cellar of Mr. Comstock.

Mr. Comstock says that Thorburn was arrested, and that when brought before him he pleaded guilty and threw himself upon his (Comstock's) mercy.

The Philadelphia Tract Society gave Thorburn $100 to write his recollections of Thomas Paine.

Let us dispose of this four feet and a half of wretch. In October, 1877, I received the following letter from James Parton:

"Newburyport, Mass., Oct 27, 1877.—My dear Sir: Touching Grant Thorburn, I personally knew him to have been a liar. At the age of 92 he copied with trembling hand a piece from a newspaper and brought it to the office of The Rome Journal as his own. It was I who received it and detected the deliberate forgery..... James Parton"

So much for Grant Thorburn. In my judgment, the testimony of Mr. Thorburn should be thrown aside as utterly unworthy of belief.

The 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 was 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, Mr. Dean, with Capt. 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 the "loathsome particulars" existing only in his own mind.

The next gentleman brought upon the stand is W.H. Ladd, who quotes from the memoirs of Stephen Grellett. This gentleman also has the misfortune to be dead. According to his account, Mr. Paige made his recantation to a servant girl of his by the name of Mary Roscoe. 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.

These are the witnesses of the church, 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 James Cheetham, the convicted libeler already referred to. Mr. Cheetham was an enemy of the man whose life he pretended to write. In order to show you the estimation in which this libeler was held by Mr. Paine, I will give you a copy of a letter that throws light upon this point:

"Oct. 27, 1807.—Mr. Cheethan: Unless you make a public apology for the abuse and falsehood in your paper of Tuesday, Oct. 27, 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 can not 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 Mr. 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 liar, 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. Purdy, who was a tenant of Paine's; of Mr. Buyer, with whom he was intimate; of Thomas Nixon and Capt. 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. Haskins, a lawyer, who was well acquainted with him, and called upon him during h is last illness; of Walter Morton, President of the Phoenix Insurance Company; of Clio Rickman, who had known him for many years; of Willet and Elias Hicks, Quakers, who knew him intimately and well; of Judge Hertell, H. Margary, Elihu Palmer and many others. All these testified to the fact that Mr. Paige 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 Christians 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 them. Will you have the fairness to admit it? Their 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. Drunkenness is one of the beatitudes, compared with editing a religious paper devoted to the defense of slavery upon the ground that it is a divine institution. Do you 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 words 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"

Do you think that Paine was a drunken beast when the following letters were 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 these 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"

"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"

"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 revolution, but as being on a more extensive scale the friend of human right and a distinguished and able advocate in favor of public liberty. To the welfare of Thomas Paine, the Americans are not, nor can they be, indifferent.—James Monroe"

"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 it in consideration of the services of a drunken beast that the Legislature of Pennsylvania presented Thomas Paine with L500 sterling? Did the State of New York feel indebted to a drunken beast, and confer upon Thomas Paine an estate of several hundred acres? Did the Congress of the United States thank him for his services because he had lived a drunken and beastly life? Was he elected a member of the French convention because he was a drunken beast? Was it the act of a drunken beast to put his own life in jeopardy by voting against the death of the King? Was it because he was a drunken beast that he opposed the "Reign of Terror "—that he endeavored to stop the shedding of blood, and did all in his power to protect even his own enemies? Do the following extracts sound like the words of a drunken beast:

"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 can not be a true system.

"The work 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 the tyrants that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.

"The belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.

"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 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 can not act religion for another—every person must act for himself.

"One good school-master 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 happiness 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 the orthodox. The Bastille in which they are immured is the word "Calvinism."

"Man has no property in man."

"The world is my country, to do good my religion."

I ask again whether these splendid utterances came from the lips of a drunken beast?

"Man has no property in man."

What a splendid motto that would make for the religious newspapers of this country thirty years ago. I ask, again, whether these splendid utterances came from the lips of a drunken beast?”