专八人文知识需知的美国名人--托马斯·潘恩

专八人文知识需知的美国名人--托马斯·潘恩

　　英语专八人文知识涵盖的知识面较广，考生们需要平时多积累小常识，这样在专八考试中才能游刃有余，新东方在线整理了专八人文知识需知的美国名人系列知识点供考生们参考。

　　Thomas Paine英裔美国思想家、作家、政治活动家、理论家、革命家、激进民主主义者。生于英国诺福克郡，曾继承父业做过裁缝，后来做过教师、税务官员，后来投身欧美革命运动。美利坚合众国的国家名称也出自潘恩。他撰写了铿锵有力并广为流传的小册子《常识》极大地鼓舞了北美民众的独立情绪，也被广泛视为美国开国元勋之一。后来受到法国大革命影响，潘恩撰写了《人的权利》，成为启蒙运动的指导作品之一。1792年他被选入法国国民公会。1802年在杰斐逊总统的邀请下，潘恩返回美国。1809年6月8日在纽约格林尼治村林苑路59号去世，享年72岁。

　　Thomas Paine (February 9, 1737 [O.S. January 29, 1736] – June 8, 1809) was an author,pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of theUnited States. Born in Thetford, Norfolk, Paine emigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 intime to participate in the American Revolution. His principal contributions were the powerful, widely-read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), advocating colonial America's independence from theKingdom of Great Britain, and The American Crisis (1776–1783), a pro-revolutionary pamphletseries. The historian Saul K. Padover in the biography Jefferson: A Great American's Life and Ideas,refers to Paine as "a corsetmaker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist byinclination."

　　Paine was deeply involved in the early stages of the French Revolution. He wrote the Rights of Man(1791), in part a defence of the French Revolution against its critics, in particular the Britishstatesman Edmund Burke. Despite not speaking French, he was elected to the French NationalConvention in 1792. The Girondists regarded him as an ally, so, the Montagnards, especiallyRobespierre, regarded him as an enemy. In December of 1793, he was arrested and imprisoned inParis, then released in 1794. He became notorious because of The Age of Reason (1793–94), hisbook advocating deism, promoting reason and freethinking, and arguing against institutionalizedreligion and Christian doctrines. He also wrote the pamphlet Agrarian Justice (1795), discussing theorigins of property, and introduced the concept of a guaranteed minimum income.

　　Paine remained in France during the early Napoleonic era, but condemned Napoleon's dictatorship,calling him "the completest charlatan that ever existed". In 1802, at President Jefferson's invitation,he returned to America where he died on June 8, 1809. Only six people attended his funeral as hehad been ostracized for his criticisms and ridicule of Christianity.

　　American Revolution

　　Thomas Paine has a claim to the title The Father of the American Revolution because of CommonSense, the pro-independence monograph pamphlet he anonymously published on January 10, 1776; signed "Written by an Englishman", the pamphlet became an immediate success., it quicklyspread among the literate, and, in three months, 100,000 copies sold throughout the AmericanBritish colonies (with only two million free inhabitants), making it a best-selling work in eighteenth-century America. Paine's original title for the pamphlet was Plain Truth; Paine's friend, pro-independence advocate Benjamin Rush, suggested Common Sense instead.

　　The pamphlet appeared in January 1776, after the Revolution had started. It was passed around,and often read aloud in taverns, contributing significantly to spreading the idea of republicanism,bolstering enthusiasm for separation from Britain, and encouraging recruitment for the ContinentalArmy. Paine provided a new and convincing argument for independence by advocating acomplete break with history. Common Sense is oriented to the future in a way that compels thereader to make an immediate choice. It offers a solution for Americans disgusted and alarmed atthe threat of tyranny.

　　Paine was not expressing original ideas in Common Sense, but rather employing rhetoric as ameans to arouse resentment of the Crown. To achieve these ends, he pioneered a style of politicalwriting suited to the democratic society he envisioned, with Common Sense serving as a primaryexample. Part of Paine's work was to render complex ideas intelligible to average readers of theday, with clear, concise writing unlike the formal, learned style favored by many of Paine'scontemporaries.

　　Common Sense was immensely popular, but how many people were converted to the cause ofindependence by the pamphlet is unknown. Paine's arguments were rarely cited in public calls forindependence, which suggests that Common Sense may have had a more limited impact on thepublic's thinking about independence than is sometimes believed. The pamphlet probably had littledirect influence on the Continental Congress's decision to issue a Declaration of Independence,since that body was more concerned with how declaring independence would affect the war effort.Paine's great contribution was in initiating a public debate about independence, which hadpreviously been rather muted.

　　Loyalists vigorously attacked Common Sense; one attack, titled Plain Truth (1776), by MarylanderJames Chalmers, said Paine was a political quack and warned that without monarchy, thegovernment would "degenerate into democracy". Even some American revolutionaries objectedto Common Sense; late in life John Adams called it a "crapulous mass." Adams disagreed with thetype of radical democracy promoted by Paine, and published Thoughts on Government in 1776 toadvocate a more conservative approach to republicanism.

　　In the early months of the war Paine published The Crisis pamphlet series, to inspire the colonists intheir resistance to the British army. To inspire the enlisted men, General George Washington hadThe American Crisis read aloud to them. The first Crisis pamphlet begins:

　　“ These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in thiscrisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love andthanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolationwith us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, weesteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put aproper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedomshould not be highly rated Thomas Paine, The Crisis ”

　　In 1777, Paine became secretary of the Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs. The followingyear, he alluded to continuing secret negotiation with France in his pamphlets; the resultantscandal and Paine's conflict with Robert Morris eventually led to Paine's expulsion from theCommittee in 1779. However, in 1781, he accompanied John Laurens on his mission to France.Eventually, after much pleading from Paine, New York State recognised his political services bypresenting him with an estate, at New Rochelle, N.Y., and Paine received money from Pennsylvaniaand from the U.S. Congress at George Washington's suggestion. During the Revolutionary War,Paine served as an aide to the important general, Nathanael Greene. Paine's later years establishedhim as "a missionary of world revolution."

　　Funding the American Revolution with Henry and John Laurens:

　　According to Daniel Wheeler's "Life and Writings of Thomas Paine," Volume 1 (of 10, Vincent &Parke, 1908) p. 26-27: Thomas Paine accompanied Col. John Laurens to France and is creditedwith initiating the mission. It landed in France in March 1781 and returned to America in Augustwith 2.5 livres in silver, as part of a "present" of 6 million and a loan of 10 million. The meetings withthe French king were most likely conducted in the company and under the influence of BenjaminFranklin. Upon return to the United States with this highly welcomed cargo, Thomas Paine andprobably Col. Laurens, "positively objected" that General Washington should propose thatCongress remunerate him for his services, for fear of setting "a bad precedent and an impropermode."

　　Thomas Paine statue erected on Prince Street in Bordentown City by the Bordentown HistoricalSociety, New Jersey.In addition, according to an appreciation by Elbert Hubbard in the samevolume (p. 314) "In 1781 Paine was sent to France with Colonel Laurens to negotiate a loan. Theerrand was successful, and Paine then made influential acquaintances, which were later to berenewed. He organized the Bank of North America to raise money to feed and clothe the army,and performed sundry and various services for the colonies."

　　Henry Laurens (the father of Col. John Laurens) had been the ambassador to the Netherlands, buthe was captured by the British on his return trip there. When he was later exchanged for theprisoner Lord Cornwallis (in late 1781), Paine proceeded to the Netherlands to continue the loannegotiations. There remains some question as to the relationship of Henry Laurens and ThomasPaine to Robert Morris as the Superintendent of Finance and his business associate Thomas Willingwho became the first president of the Bank of North America (in Jan. 1782). They had accusedMorris of profiteering in 1779 and Willing had voted against the Declaration of Independence.Although Morris did much to restore his reputation in 1780 and 1781, the credit for obtainingthese critical loans to "organize" the Bank of North America for approval by Congress in December1781 should go to Henry or John Laurens and Thomas Paine more than to Robert Morris.

　　Paine bought his only house in 1783 on the corner of Farnsworth Avenue and Church Streets inBordentown City, New Jersey, and he lived in it periodically until his death in 1809. This is the onlyplace in the world where Paine purchased real estate.

　　The Age of Reason

　　Before his arrest and imprisonment in France, knowing that he would probably be arrested andexecuted, Paine, following in the tradition of early eighteenth-century British deism, wrote the firstpart of The Age of Reason, an assault on organized "revealed" religion combining a compilation ofinconsistencies he found in the Bible with his own advocacy of deism, calling for "free rationalinquiry" into all subjects, especially religion. The Age of Reason critique on institutionalized religionresulted in only a brief upsurge in deistic thought in America, but would later result in Paine beingderided by the public and abandoned by his friends. In his "Autobiographical Interlude," which isfound in The Age of Reason between the first and second parts, Paine writes, "Thus far I hadwritten on the 28th of December, 1793. In the evening I went to the Hotel Philadelphia . . . Aboutfour in the morning I was awakened by a rapping at my chamber door; when I opened it, I saw aguard and the master of the hotel with them. The guard told me they came to put me underarrestation and to demand the key of my papers. I desired them to walk in, and I would dressmyself and go with them immediately."

　　Being held in France, Paine protested and claimed that he was a citizen of America, which was anally of Revolutionary France, rather than of Great Britain, which was by that time at war withFrance. However, Gouverneur Morris, the American ambassador to France, did not press his claim,and Paine later wrote that Morris had connived at his imprisonment. Paine thought that GeorgeWashington had abandoned him, and he was to quarrel with Washington for the rest of his life.Years later he wrote a scathing open letter to Washington, accusing him of private betrayal of theirfriendship and public hypocrisy as general and president, and concluding the letter by saying "theworld will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you haveabandoned good principles or whether you ever had any."

　　While in prison, Paine narrowly escaped execution. A guard walked through the prison placing achalk mark on the doors of the prisoners who were due to be sent to the guillotine on the morrow.He placed a 4 on the door of Paine's cell, but Paine's door had been left open to let a breeze in,because Paine was seriously ill at the time. That night, his other three cell mates closed the door,thus hiding the mark inside the cell. The next day their cell was overlooked. "The Angel of Death"had passed over Paine. He kept his head and survived the few vital days needed to be spared bythe fall of Robespierre on 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794).

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