Thomas Paine: Quaker revolutionary?

11 Sep 2014 | by Anthony Boulton

Anthony Boulton writes about a remarkable radical

Left: Thomas Paine’s Common Sense title page. Right: Thomas Paine, copy by Auguste Millière, after an engraving by William Sharp, after George Romney. | Photo: Left: www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/history/common-sense-larger.html. Right: Via Wikimedia Commons.

Thomas Paine’s father was a Quaker and, as John Keane states in his acclaimed definitive biography, ‘Paine’s moral capacities ultimately had religious roots that were to have a lasting impact on his life and, eventually, the political shape of the modern world.’

In 1774 Paine left for America, where he played an instrumental part in the struggle for that country’s independence. He claimed liberty to be the ‘highest human good’. His pamphlet Common Sense electrified the entire United States and rescued George Washington’s flagging campaign.

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