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Revolution and Romanticism
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A facsimile reprint in the Revolution & Romanticism series chosen and introduced by Jonathan Wordsworth ISBN 1 85477 109 4 200 x 127mm 174 pages |
THOMAS PAINE The Rights of Man Burke supported the American Revolution, then changed sides and condemned the French. Paine stayed true to the radical cause. His pamphlet Common Sense (1775) had influenced the American Declaration of Independence; in publishing The Rights of Man (as a reply to Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France) he not only defended the French, but offered to the British people cogent reasons why they too should demand liberty and power. Eleven thousand copies were sold in the first four months, being distributed by the London Corresponding Society and working men’s clubs all over the country. Paine went on to become a member of the French Legislative Assembly, and to be condemned by the British (in absentia) for sedition. The Rights of Man remains one of the most celebrated of political statements. £25 $48 I am contending for the right of the living, and against their being willed away, and controuled and contracted for, by the manuscript assumed authority of the dead; and Mr Burke is contending for the authority of the dead over the rights and freedom of the living. |
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