00:08 - Were joined by a Harvey J. Kaye, author of his book Thomas Paine and the promise of

00:12 - America a history and biography welcome.

00:16 - Thank you it's a pleasure to be here and as you know it's

00:19 - a pleasure to be back after twenty years you might say

00:21 - having done this

00:23 - with

00:24 - the director of PCN years ago.

00:27 - In seventeen seventy six Thomas Paine's common

00:29 - sense was published what made it so popular.

00:33 - Well

00:34 - one thing to remember about Thomas Paine is that he didn't grow up in a in a

00:39 - prestigious or or rich family he grew up in

00:42 - essentially what we would call today a working class family

00:44 - his father was

00:45 - an.

00:46 - Artisan corset maker in fact otherwise known as a stay maker and he

00:52 - didn't have

00:53 - help out of resources

00:54 - but an aunt afforded

00:56 - him the opportunity

00:57 - to attend school

00:59 - but even then it was very difficult and at the age

01:01 - of and I'll get to the executor question that second

01:03 - but they had to pull him out in his early teen years and then they apprenticed him to

01:07 - his father and the key thing about what makes.

01:11 - The pamphlet common sense so popular.

01:14 - Is the fact that it was written by someone who could speak without

01:19 - fence of fighting.

01:21 - He could he so he wrote in a fashion

01:23 - that everyone would understand him that that enable them to grasp it

01:27 - what made it popular otherwise is this.

01:30 - Payne.

01:32 - Did as he always said.

01:34 - He didn't

01:35 - tell Americans

01:36 - something that didn't already exist in their imaginations

01:41 - in their aspirations

01:42 - what Payne found when he came to America

01:44 - was an incredible kind of

01:47 - cell or it was already in some ways in a row it was a decide

01:50 - the estate of rebellion when he arrived in Philadelphia

01:53 - and what he notices that.

01:56 - Basically Philadelphians and folks of other towns and cities in America were

02:00 - already governing themselves

02:02 - in the wake of the Boston tea party and the imposition of the.

02:06 - Intolerable acts by Britain

02:08 - basically

02:09 - working people Rose up in these towns and cities and essentially throughout.

02:14 - The British authorities

02:16 - and set up their own committees to govern themselves the pain was

02:18 - very much impressed

02:20 - by Americans if you like.

02:23 - Prevailing

02:24 - rebelliousness rambunctiousness the radicalism

02:26 - and their Democratic instincts at least

02:29 - that's what struck him

02:31 - and so as he said is

02:32 - in many ways he was.

02:35 - Enabling Americans

02:36 - by way of common sense to see what they were already doing

02:41 - but had yet to sort of officially or formally

02:44 - intellectually articulate and he was the first

02:47 - of the pamphleteers to do just that

02:50 - in fact the way I liked to I used to tell my students

02:52 - and I think the best way to look at it it was as if pain

02:55 - held up a mirror to Americans.

02:58 - For them to see themselves

03:00 - not just in terms of what they were doing but of what they

03:03 - could

03:04 - do or as he would say in his pamphlet

03:06 - we have it in our power to begin the world over again

03:10 - and you mentioned that

03:11 - based off how he wrote it is

03:13 - part of what made it so popular

03:15 - what background or experience does he have in literature.

03:19 - Well

03:19 - in the schooling that he did receive

03:21 - which which was good and and it's interesting to to realize that

03:26 - he had a particular affection for the works of Shakespeare

03:29 - and also for John Bunyan

03:31 - and

03:32 - and for and Milton as well

03:34 - and so in many ways he had an inclination

03:37 - towards poetry a poetry that it mattered

03:40 - the poetry that told a story

03:42 - that I think mattered is also the case

03:44 - that when he was apprentice to his father as

03:46 - a stay maker it's the case that his father

03:50 - basically told him of the history

03:52 - of quakers his father was a quaker stay maker

03:55 - so so pain was

03:57 - becoming versed in what had happened

03:59 - in seventeenth century England

04:01 - when.

04:03 - To put the long story short the English kind of

04:05 - taught the French had to take off the head of a king

04:08 - and

04:09 - it's the case that.

04:10 - His father was not himself a radical but in relating the story of the quakers

04:15 - and the story of the seventeenth century pain gets an understanding of history

04:19 - it also situates

04:20 - the literature that he's been so interested in

04:23 - so I think that

04:24 - I think those things mattered however

04:26 - his as his father as a quaker did.

04:29 - Prove he

04:30 - did tell the school

04:32 - that pain should not be a part of what was

04:34 - considered the more elite program in the school.

04:37 - He didn't want his son to learn Latin

04:40 - okay he felt Latin was the language of the churches

04:43 - and

04:43 - and of the law and that was that was not

04:46 - that was not for pain to learn so

04:48 - and that's

04:48 - in other words English mattered to pain from the beginning and he wasn't distracted

04:53 - by Latin.

04:56 - And the pain was originally from the united

04:58 - kingdom so what inspires him to come to America.

05:02 - Well he'd had a very if you liked chequered career in

05:05 - in

05:06 - In Britain

05:07 - and

05:08 - he

05:08 - Did work as a stay maker for many years well as an apprentice stay maker

05:13 - then he moved to London

05:14 - it was maybe about

05:15 - nineteen years old he was a journeyman steamer

05:18 - but this was already the case that Payne had it

05:22 - we don't know if it was patriotism or desire for adventure to make some money

05:26 - but he then

05:26 - enlisted as a privateer which essentially legalized

05:30 - piracy the crown would license

05:33 - ships to go out and prey on enemy shipping

05:35 - and he spends

05:36 - eight months at sea or as

05:39 - one would say between the devil and the deep blue sea

05:41 - and he learned how to fight he learned about the comradeship

05:45 - on board ship he learned about probably

05:47 - how to use the worst kind of language imaginable

05:49 - and he also learned about diversity and comradeship and I say that because

05:53 - these ships that sailed

05:55 - as prey the tears

05:57 - like most other ships in the Atlantic at the time they were

05:59 - very diverse multiethnic and multiracial in fact

06:03 - so

06:03 - Funny when he

06:04 - after eight months

06:05 - when he collects his share so to speak of the private tearing

06:09 - he goes to London

06:10 - keeping in mind that he

06:12 - really was interested

06:14 - in learning

06:15 - and he probably felt cheated having been pulled out of school at thirteen when he

06:19 - goes to London which was the center of the world in many ways.

06:23 - Decidedly that

06:24 - the French often are are are

06:26 - are given credit for the enlightenment but actually London was the center

06:29 - of the enlightenment.

06:31 - Had

06:32 - I think a population of several hundred thousand it was impressive

06:35 - and paint settled

06:36 - in a

06:36 - in an artisan community in a very diverse kinds of skills and talents

06:41 - and

06:42 - these artisans

06:43 - basically had limited education themselves so they had become autodidact

06:48 - they had taught themselves and they had organize it's like

06:51 - it was like an informal education they set up for for people

06:54 - they organized lectures and study groups

06:57 - at taverns and a coffee shops

06:59 - and paint signed up

07:01 - to hear

07:02 - geographers astronomers I mean he really spent a year

07:06 - in some ways as a as a college student but definitely not in college

07:11 - but eventually the money he had made as a privateer ran out and he then returned

07:15 - to stay maker king

07:17 - and he settled instead of a business not far

07:19 - from London but stay making was a very trying

07:22 - and very difficult profession not only in terms of the skill but also terms of making

07:26 - a living and there were hard times and the hard times included.

07:31 - Well as tragic story he he marries a young woman

07:34 - in the town he settled in

07:36 - and she she

07:37 - passes away in childbirth

07:39 - and at that point

07:41 - he decides he's going to

07:43 - become what they had talked about him doing

07:45 - her father had been

07:47 - an officer in the excise commission that is

07:50 - a customs officer

07:52 - and he returns to his own parents' home in Hartford England

07:55 - and studies to take the exam which he passes and is then assigned.

08:00 - Up to the up on the east coast of England.

08:04 - However he is accused

08:06 - of state of.

08:07 - Of stamping which was

08:09 - he was accused of not properly inspecting things

08:12 - and he was sacked as the English say

08:15 - but

08:16 - he probably wasn't

08:17 - guilty in the way we might think because they

08:20 - they allowed him to come back in

08:22 - and

08:22 - after a few years of working in diverse trades he

08:25 - is assigned a position on the south coast of England

08:28 - where.

08:30 - He really does become a member of a community

08:33 - and it's something called the headstrong

08:35 - club

08:35 - that he's a part of

08:37 - where he really develops his talent both as a

08:39 - as a poet and also as a thinker and a writer

08:42 - and

08:43 - at some point the excise officers who are very poorly paid

08:47 - basically encourage him to become the author of a

08:50 - pamphlet of of a petition

08:52 - to parliament and the exercise commission to raise their wages

08:56 - he goes to London to lobby parliament in doing so he breaks the law

09:00 - first of all you're not allowed to carry out any

09:02 - kind of labor organizing or lab our representation

09:05 - and secondly he's a he's essentially left his post on the south coast

09:09 - so once again he sacked but he has met

09:13 - the most

09:14 - prominent figure in the Atlantic war all of the time

09:16 - in one of the coffee shops or taverns

09:18 - and that's Benjamin Franklin and Franklin is already

09:21 - in the process of recruiting people to go to America

09:25 - to perhaps serve in whatever the colonial rebellion might become

09:28 - and I can't tell you he thought of the

09:30 - of paint exactly in those terms because painted by that time already

09:34 - sort of late night it let late thirties in an age

09:37 - but

09:38 - they get along extremely well and Franklin does

09:41 - offer

09:42 - to write a letter of introduction should

09:44 - pain decide to go to America which paint does

09:48 - and

09:49 - that

09:49 - really

09:50 - Franklin

09:51 - really must have had an adoration for painting away the pain clearly had had that for

09:55 - Franklin

09:56 - Franklin was often said that pain was his adopted political son

10:01 - and that's no worthy cause pain because Franklin had a son

10:04 - who happened to be

10:06 - the colonial governor of new Jersey

10:09 - so he was what we would call

10:10 - a loyalist atari

10:12 - which also then.

10:14 - Made

10:15 - pain.

10:16 - Ways as pain becomes the radical he becomes

10:19 - all the more Franklin's adopted political sense of pain comes to America

10:23 - because it's gotten to the point where

10:25 - he needs to start over in life

10:28 - and America affords that kind of opportunity.

10:32 - Once pain arise in America how does he get involved in the political scene.

10:38 - It's unclear that he was always interested in politics

10:40 - but when he arrives in Philadelphia he's fascinated

10:43 - and since I'm talking to Pennsylvania it's worth noting that

10:46 - Philadelphia when paint arrives in very late seventies seventy four

10:50 - is

10:51 - Is a city

10:52 - in quotes a city of thirty thousand people

10:54 - and the actual city itself is about a square mile mile

10:57 - but it was incredibly impressive city in many ways even though there wasn't.

11:02 - A capital of colonialism of colonial north America it was serving in that fashion as

11:07 - the capital of colonial north America

11:10 - and pain is wandering the bookstores he loved to read as we've already

11:14 - noted

11:15 - and he encounters the one owner of a bookshop who is wondering why it is

11:19 - that paint isn't buying anything

11:21 - and they get into a conversation and

11:23 - basically in the course of that conversation

11:26 - pain reveals to him the letter of introduction from Franklin

11:30 - which must have really impressed this

11:32 - shop on who's also a printer by the way

11:34 - and this printer Robert akin was about to

11:37 - to launch he may have just launched

11:39 - a new magazine

11:40 - the Pennsylvania magazine

11:42 - and.

11:44 - Amazingly

11:45 - akin office in the editorship of the magazine I talk about

11:49 - paying had to imagine that he's arrived in heaven because he

11:52 - he was really impressed by the diversity of

11:54 - Pennsylvania both ethnically and religiously

11:57 - and now he's being offered a

11:59 - totally new career

12:01 - and

12:01 - as the editor he's also writing a lot of the pieces

12:04 - they're all written Sudan embassy but in any case

12:07 - he makes it very clear how much he has fallen in love with

12:11 - with America

12:12 - he's not oblivious

12:15 - to the worst

12:16 - aspect of of life in Philadelphia and that was the slave market.

12:20 - Okay and in in the course of his writing so much about

12:23 - America and Philadelphia and whatever other articles.

12:26 - He does write

12:28 - an essay

12:29 - which he pat publishes

12:31 - not in his own magazine but another one

12:33 - which calls for for

12:35 - the end of slavery.

12:37 - In fact it goes beyond calling for the end of slavery it actually says that

12:41 - in contrast to many others who imagined sending.

12:44 - Black slaves once liberated back to Africa he says no

12:48 - we must educate them and afford them some property we that we should

12:52 - enable them

12:53 - to make it so to speak in America ok

12:55 - so really

12:57 - what's happened is he's now

12:58 - becoming if you like all the more politically engaged

13:01 - just by way of what is written.

13:04 - Excuse me

13:05 - but on top of that.

13:07 - This is now the spring of seventy and seventy five

13:10 - Lexington and Concord

13:12 - keep in mind that pain has left England and he hates the

13:15 - British government

13:16 - he despises monarchy already

13:19 - and now with Lexington and Concord he becomes

13:23 - what we would call a patriot

13:25 - he now big

13:26 - starts to commit himself off

13:27 - to bringing in

13:29 - to what he would think of as British oppression

13:31 - British slavery and so on

13:33 - and it's taken note of

13:35 - by

13:36 - Benjamin rush.

13:37 - Very prominent

13:39 - young

13:39 - Philadelphia doctor who is also a member of the

13:42 - continental congress and rush seeks out pain

13:46 - and they become

13:47 - friends that in you know going for coffee kind

13:49 - of moments and in the course of their friendship

13:52 - rush suggests to pain

13:55 - impressed by his writing

13:56 - the other thing is

13:57 - that

13:57 - rush himself had written about slavery

14:00 - and bringing about the abolition slavery so he is all the more eager to meet this young

14:04 - not young but this new arrival in Philadelphia

14:07 - who speaking in the same terms

14:10 - but in the course of their conversations rush says to him.

14:14 - You know

14:15 - you should write a pamphlet

14:17 - you should write a pamphlet

14:18 - that calls

14:19 - for breaking with Britain for separation.

14:23 - That's interesting.

14:25 - The idea does appeal to paint but he asks

14:27 - rush well why don't you do that your prom conant

14:31 - you're

14:31 - you've you've studied in Edinburgh university your doctor I mean

14:34 - you could do this

14:36 - and rush says something the payment is very interesting he says I have too much to

14:39 - lose essentially you have nothing to lose

14:42 - so you can imagine what pain is thinking right now about the elite

14:46 - in the colony is right what what is with these people

14:48 - but he does take on the task

14:51 - and he spends a good deal of time

14:53 - and it

14:53 - turns out to be a pamphlet of less than fifty pages but he

14:56 - spends months

14:57 - developing this he

14:59 - is aided

15:00 - by materials that have been afforded him by

15:02 - Franklin and others of the continental congress

15:05 - and in some ways it's interesting we might ask

15:08 - where they actually seeking out pain to begin with

15:11 - we don't know we know rush was but did

15:13 - did more

15:14 - if you like more radical figures in the continental congress seek out pain cause they

15:18 - didn't want to do it but they could ask him to

15:20 - well.

15:21 - The pamphlet does appear in January of seventy six

15:25 - and it

15:26 - immediately.

15:27 - Sells out

15:29 - and there was two thousand

15:30 - copies immediately sells out

15:33 - and it's notable that

15:34 - he hasn't signed it

15:36 - the the key thing here is that it

15:38 - not only sells out it becomes the talk.

15:42 - Of Philadelphia

15:44 - and and moreover it immediately gets overnight gets translated

15:48 - into German and ends up on

15:50 - you

15:50 - on boats heading off to Hamburg

15:52 - which then has an impact by the way

15:55 - later in in European history the fact that he's done so.

15:58 - Well yeah

15:59 - all across

16:00 - the all

16:01 - north and south in the colonies this pamphlet takes off

16:04 - that spring it sells

16:06 - by.

16:07 - By reports

16:08 - possibly one hundred and twenty thousand copies

16:11 - not only to sell one hundred and twenty thousand copies

16:13 - but newspapers start excerpt in it and I would know

16:16 - that Payne says he will take no royalties from it.

16:20 - He

16:21 - Insists that if there are royalties to be had they should go to pay for mittens

16:25 - for Washington's troops

16:27 - okay

16:28 - so.

16:30 - History begins

16:31 - to too

16:32 - if you like the world begins to be turned upside down at that moment.

16:37 - What are the main

16:38 - what are the main arguments that pain makes and commonsense.

16:42 - Well it is a

16:43 - verse

16:43 - that les put

16:44 - a summarize it and then explain if if we have the time.

16:48 - Paine's common sense

16:51 - basically

16:52 - calls

16:53 - for turning a colonial rebellion

16:56 - into

16:57 - a revolution a world historic revolution

17:00 - not only for American independence

17:02 - but also for the making of a Democratic republic

17:07 - and that's crucial

17:08 - paying himself one said

17:10 - if

17:10 - If common sense was only about independence it would not have been worth writing.

17:15 - It was to start

17:17 - it was to set an example basically I'm going to paraphrase

17:20 - it was to set an example to the world that.

17:23 - People

17:24 - do not need kings they do not need overlords they do not need a re mr kratz

17:28 - in other words

17:29 - working people can govern themselves

17:33 - and share

17:34 - in that government

17:35 - okay

17:36 - and and the pamphlet itself is

17:38 - rather

17:39 - it's short but it's really

17:41 - fairly detailed

17:42 - so he opens up talking about.

17:44 - How people.

17:46 - Are

17:47 - naturally sociable and in fact a lot of people ignore this he then says

17:51 - and he's taking apart

17:53 - governments that exist

17:55 - but he says

17:56 - essentially that people have an innate kind of

17:58 - Democratic impulse.

18:01 - In other words he's kind of reminding Americans of how they first came over

18:05 - to set up

18:06 - settlements okay

18:08 - and he then proceeds to take apart

18:11 - the English constitution the British government

18:13 - he makes a mockery of monarchy

18:16 - I mean it's

18:16 - immediately said it was

18:18 - vulgar in many ways because not only was the language

18:21 - pop peeler

18:22 - but also what he was calling for as at least one historian remarked was beheading

18:26 - essentially and in metaphorical terms beheading

18:28 - the English king

18:30 - because he's saying

18:31 - we don't need kings

18:32 - kings bring war

18:34 - and then he goes onto the most important part I think and that is

18:38 - he explains to Americans that they are not British she.

18:42 - That they are Americans

18:45 - and thus they don't need the empire.

18:48 - They

18:48 - should recognize themselves as Americans and recognize

18:52 - there if you like revolutionary possibilities even lays out

18:56 - something of a constitution feeling that if he doesn't

18:59 - nobody else will try to do that

19:01 - and

19:02 - I really

19:03 - I I often tell people

19:05 - it may seem difficult to read at first

19:07 - but if you keep it bedside

19:10 - it's like

19:10 - keeping a letter from an old friend bedside in that

19:14 - you know it's like hearing this letter from the reading this letter from the past but

19:18 - one that kind of speaks to what it means to be an American

19:21 - and it just it capture the popular imagination I mean

19:23 - believe me there were

19:25 - probably one of every five Americans one of every possibly even more

19:28 - despised it because they would have been loyalists

19:31 - Tories.

19:33 - Was American independence being talked about by the colonists at this time.

19:38 - Well

19:39 - to whatever extent it was it was not

19:41 - showing up in print

19:43 - okay pamphleteers at that time were talking about

19:45 - they were demanding what they called

19:47 - the rights

19:48 - of the freeborn Englishman.

19:51 - How dare parliament can't

19:53 - legislate

19:55 - for Americans.

19:57 - When Americans were not represented in parliament

20:00 - so so

20:01 - no they were not talking about independence they were talking about renegotiating

20:05 - changing the imperial relationship.

20:08 - Payne was the first one

20:10 - in print

20:11 - to come out and call for

20:13 - the break with Britain

20:14 - and the making of a Democratic republic.

20:18 - How Britain responds to this pamphlet.

20:22 - Do we know.

20:23 - Well

20:24 - the king was already

20:26 - pretty angry

20:27 - and

20:27 - parliament was decidedly angry about the fact that the rebellion was underway

20:31 - and they have

20:32 - basically they're sending all the more.

20:36 - Regiments of British troops

20:38 - to try to crush the rebellion.

20:41 - Once they once basically this pamphlet appears

20:44 - towns and cities north and south were petitioning the continental congress

20:49 - to declare independence the continental congressmen were not

20:53 - very

20:54 - if you like

20:54 - they they may have had some radical sentiments but the last thing they were going to

20:58 - do is call for independence until they knew absolutely definitely

21:02 - that it was

21:03 - that it was something they had to do

21:06 - and in fact there were

21:07 - one or more of them had said in notes to each other

21:10 - that.

21:11 - The people are basically rising up

21:14 - and demanding this and if we don't

21:16 - take charge of it we're going to lose control of the whole situation

21:19 - so

21:20 - The situation

21:21 - is already then a revolutionary situation

21:24 - and.

21:27 - For example by that summer thirty two thousand

21:30 - British troops have arrived in new York harbor

21:33 - to crush

21:34 - the rebellion

21:35 - okay

21:36 - and I will know the pain himself enlisted in a Philadelphia militia

21:40 - to go up to new York

21:41 - to confront the British

21:43 - and when the

21:43 - when that militia retreats

21:45 - basically back to Philadelphia

21:47 - pain stays on

21:49 - and becomes a part of

21:51 - Nathanael Greene general Nathanael Greene's forces and

21:54 - it's at that time as Washington has retreated from new York

21:57 - and is about to retreat across new Jersey

22:00 - to the Delaware that paint himself meets Washington

22:04 - and in the course of the retreat Washington incurred ridges him

22:07 - to take up his pen again

22:09 - and write once again which leads him to write.

22:12 - The crisis paper the first American crisis paper which includes the lines.

22:17 - These are the times that try men's souls

22:19 - which is one of the most quoted lines

22:22 - in American history

22:23 - in fact if you Google it you'll find that football and basketball coach he was later

22:27 - quoted to their teams at halftime if they're losing.

22:30 - In your book you state that John Adams actually wrote

22:34 - in response to Payne's argument in common sense what did he write about.

22:38 - Well.

22:40 - Adams

22:41 - Adams is a fascinating figure on the one hand

22:44 - he had very little affection for monarchs

22:47 - and aristocrats

22:48 - on the other hand he had very little trust

22:51 - in the common people

22:53 - and as a consequence when he read Thomas Paine's pamphlet

22:56 - which as I said was a decidedly

22:59 - Democratic day document

23:00 - okay I mean it's small Democratic document.

23:04 - Adams was pleased at the call for independence

23:07 - but

23:08 - very anxious very worried about this Democratic spirit

23:11 - that that was there in that pamphlet

23:13 - and he

23:14 - responds by trying to make a case that if

23:17 - we are to create an American government

23:19 - it should be modeled without royal without a monarch

23:22 - should be modeled after the British system with checks

23:25 - on authority

23:27 - and

23:28 - it is interesting and I

23:30 - am going to ventures I hope we have

23:31 - a moment.

23:32 - Of atoms had bought three copies of the pamphlet

23:35 - and two of them he sent up to

23:37 - two Abigail

23:38 - in

23:39 - The greater

23:40 - Quincy.

23:41 - She shared one of them with a friend Mercer Otis Warren

23:44 - but what's interesting is

23:45 - Abigail is fascinated by this pamphlet

23:49 - common sense

23:50 - and in the exchange of letters with John John has asked what do you think of it

23:54 - she writes back I am charmed

23:56 - by the sentiments

23:59 - and plus she goes on to say

24:01 - the one of the most famous lines in American women's history she says and if you do

24:05 - pursue a revolution remember the ladies or we may have to come down to Philadelphia

24:10 - to carry out a revolution of our own

24:12 - to which Adams replies.

24:14 - We hear that the slaves rebelling in the carol in as that

24:17 - students are rebelling in the university is that artisans are

24:20 - are

24:21 - you know.

24:22 - Apprentices are

24:23 - breaking breaking

24:25 - with their masters that in other words the rebellion

24:28 - has spread

24:29 - and the

24:30 - fever of revolution has come.

24:33 - Which worried Adams.

24:36 - How does common sense impact the revolutionary war itself.

24:41 - Well

24:41 - it's interesting to note that it was not on.

24:44 - During the course of the revolution the most important document as far as

24:49 - the troops

24:50 - and probably many Americans who were

24:52 - in favor of the revolution film

24:54 - was the document was common sense not the the declaration

24:57 - it's only later that the declaration becomes the primary document

25:01 - which

25:02 - which it should be

25:03 - actually

25:04 - but common sense it literally

25:06 - brings people

25:07 - and if we had time for me to

25:08 - lay it all out I would explain.

25:11 - In new England

25:12 - in the middle Atlantic

25:13 - and in the southern states

25:15 - there are ways in which people read it

25:17 - which they find so appealing.

25:20 - That they decide

25:21 - yes we can enter into the revolutionary cause

25:24 - despite the fact they had serious reservations beforehand

25:27 - so it really becomes the spirit of the revolution

25:30 - and as I argue in my book it acts she becomes

25:32 - the spirit of what it means to be an American.

25:35 - And lastly do people today consider pain to be a founding father and

25:40 - why do people continue to find common sense in his words so engaging today.

25:45 - Well for two hundred years.

25:48 - Conservatives of all sorts in America did everything they could to suppress pains

25:52 - memory which is a story unto itself

25:55 - but in every generation in American history

25:58 - whatever the liberal progressive or radical movement was they rediscovered pain

26:03 - and I can tell you that never in American history

26:06 - was common sense and Paine's writings

26:08 - out of print.

26:10 - Okay

26:11 - here's

26:11 - this is the

26:12 - thing to remember whenever we have faced

26:14 - crises.

26:16 - I mean

26:17 - mortal crisis as Americans.

26:19 - In the revolution

26:21 - in the civil war

26:22 - and

26:23 - even

26:23 - you know.

26:24 - During the nineteen thirties great depression and world war two whenever

26:27 - crises have emerged that threatened.

26:30 - The united states

26:31 - and it's revolutionary promise

26:33 - people have turned

26:34 - to Thomas Paine's writings

26:37 - and it's not surprising

26:38 - during this past year

26:39 - on no kings days.

26:42 - Who who was one of the most quoted people.

26:45 - Thomas Paine.

26:47 - We have been speaking with Harvey J. Kaye, author of his book Thomas Paine and the promise

26:51 - of America a history and biography

26:53 - thank you for joining us

26:55 - thank you it's a pleasure to have done so

26:58 - and and.