Thomas Paine

“We have it in our power to begin the world over again,” Thomas Paine proclaimed in Common Sense. Paine had arrived in Philadelphia from England just fourteen months earlier. Yet his pamphlet, published anonymously in January 1776, helped prepare the public for the Declaration of Independence in July. He continued to boost morale during the Revolution’s darkest days, beginning his series of Crisis essays (1776–83) with the words, “These are the times that try Men’s souls.” Paine’s attacks on hereditary monarchy and his declaration of liberty and equality as fundamen-tal rights made him a hero in revolutionary France. In response to public demand for his image, this portrait was painted as a model for engravings. Returning to the United States in 1802 after fifteen years in Europe, Paine found that The Age of Reason (1794–1807)—his assault on traditional religion—had cost him friends and public support.