Thomas Paine or the Defender of the World Revolution

Abstract

Thomas Paine was a typical professional revolutionist. He actively participated in both the American and the French Revolutions and his contributions were mainly in literary activities. By his most important works, the Common Sense and the Rights of Man, Paine significantly influenced public opinion on both continents. In both works he defended the Republican Establishment and denounced the Hereditary Monarchy. He believed, like many of his contemporaries, that neither the American Revolution nor the French Revolution were the last. Paine hoped for a series of revolutions that would destroy the European Monarchies in favour of establishing a Republican System across the whole of Europe. According to Paine only a Republican form of government could ensure a universal peace and understanding between the nations. An ideal constitutional Republican System represented for Paine just a period of so-called Girondin Convention. On the contrary, the Jacobin terror destroyed all Paine’s ideals and any hope of a universal revolution. Despite the fact that Thomas Paine was imprisoned during the revolutionary terror he remained a loyal Republican and these views he advocated until his death.