Thomas Paine

Liberalismos: rasgos comunes.
Liberalismo y liberalismos.
El radicalismo republicano de Thomas Paine.
El utilitarismo de Jeremy Bentham.
El compromiso radical de James Mill.
La apertura liberal de John Stuart Mill.
Las dos libertades de Benjamin Constant.
El Estado constitucional de Derecho liberal: el legado.

Concluding summation of the paper...
"In a time that calls out for meaningful change, the Tom Paine who transforms Foner’s Revolutionary America, his ability to articulate radical ideas to new audiences and his capacity tosubmit contemporary institutions to withering critiques in ways which effectively raised thedemand for far-reaching change, make his cast of mind and belief in mankind’s capacity to shape its own destiny an essential component of today’s politics."

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This article shows that Thomas Paine’s political theory defends what I call generational democracy. Paine takes human mortality as a starting point to flesh out a conception of democracy that affirms the agency of the living. Generational democracy empowers the living to act as constitutional authors. The self-ennobling dimension of constitutional authorship and democratic socialization ensures a people capable of improving constitutions in ways that enhance democratic agency. The strengthening of democratic agency is also central to Paine’s right to welfare, which redresses legacies of economic injustice by creating substantial equality between generations. Welfare rights enhance the agency of the living by providing for economic opportunity and by securing agency in the face of impending death. Generational democracy achieves intergenerational justice and care for the future precisely because it focuses on enhancing the democratic agency of the living generation.

What difference did Thomas Paine make? His four major works, Common Sense, Rights of Man, The Age of Reason and Agrarian Justice transformed the world and how humans have since conducted their affairs. Change rarely has one cause. Usually multiple causes, some undetectable, are at play. But Paine was a major cause of many significant changes.
Before Paine, hierarchical governments were the norm. In the eighteenth century, a commentator observed, England’s “political institutions and its distributions of wealth and power were unabashedly inegalitarian, hierarchical, hereditary and privileged.” France, adhering to the divine right of kings, was even more hierarchical and rigid. Throughout Europe, pyramidal governments seemed eternal. Paine dynamited that assumption.
Before Paine, a colony separated from an empire only by becoming a colony of another empire - through war, conquest or other means. The potential for a colony to itself become an independent nation was inconceivable. Paine made that idea conceivable and, if pursued with vigor, inevitable.
Before Paine, governments were structured on traditions the foundations of which were clouded in history. Paine, in Common Sense, proposed consciously structuring governments through explicit written constitutions - a proposal later followed, though in wildly variant ways, by Congress, the States and the vast majority of countries around the world.
Before Paine, “democracy” was synonymous with anarchy and mob rule. Paine transformed “democracy” into a viable and positive form of governance and an expressed goal of most countries to this day.
Before Paine, rich and poor were divinely consigned to their statuses. Paine insisted that every human was equal in nature, artificial distinctions and statuses were created by civilization, and redistribution of wealth was not charity but required by natural rights. His proposals, if not his underlying philosophy, began to take hold and flourish in the 20th century.
Before Paine, nations became allies only to oppose other nations, usually to pursue war or conquest. Paine, asserting that republics unlike monarchies would generally oppose war, foresaw a proliferation of republics that would associate worldwide to pursue peace and international commerce. Though that was overly optimistic, the United Nations and other global organizations are, in many ways, Paine’s offspring.
Paine was consequential. The world would be vastly different had he never lived or, as could have occurred often, had he perished earlier than he did.

Book Review Common Sense, written by Thomas Paine, was a 47 page work, first published as a pamphlet. It greatly influenced the American Independence War and was one of the essential elements or factors that encouraged the British American people of the colonized America to fight against Great Britain to become one independent state. It was read by masses in the colonies and it inspired the people, creating revolutionary thoughts and ideas of freedom and independence.

Elinor Dashwood, the heroine of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, is notably self-possessed and level-headed, but not all readers notice the effort she makes to cultivate these attributes. Elinor consciously suppresess her own  emotions and encourages her sister, Marianne, to do the same, while eager to sympathize with the male characters in the novel. Through her judgements about who may and may not express emotion, Elinor inflicts an emotional disinheritance on herself and her sister which mirrors their financial disinheritance through the system of primogeniture. Through Elinor's psychological development, Austen explores the meaning of individualism and its meaning for those with limited legal rights.

PDF-PowerPoint presentation of the talk I gave on Sunday, 26th August 2018 at the 2018 Societas Ethica Annual Conference, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, 23th – 26th August 2018.
Abstract
In the first chapter of her “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman”, Mary Wollstonecraft defines human degrees of reason, virtue and knowledge as the instruments for measurement of human nature’s perfection. Reason, virtue and knowledge constitute, in Wollstonecraft’s intents, the new values that ought to promote a radical change, in general, in the whole human dimension and, in particular, in the woman’s sphere of life. In my contribution, I would like to analyse principles, contents and arguments present in Mary Wollstonecraft’s work “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” – published in 1792 –, which constitutes one of the first texts – probably the first “manifesto” – of the feminist movement. I will also take into consideration Wollstonecraft’s work “A Vindication of the Rights of Men” in order to investigate the main points of Wollstonecraft’s criticism of Burke’s “Reflections on Revolution in France”. An initial, rather short part of my contribution will be dedicated to the presentation of the main events in Wollstonecraft’s life, in order to reconstruct at least some of the cultural and intellectual environments with which Mary Wollstonecraft came in contact during her life: Wollstonecraft’s role and contribution in the Enlightenment will thereby be described. Furthermore, the exposition of some biographical facts regarding Mary Wollstonecraft will aim at illustrating the dimensions of the hostile political and intellectual groups against which Mary Wollstonecraft had to fight in her life, since Wollstonecraft’s positions apparently belonged to an absolute minority as regards the spectrum of ideas of her times. The main aim of my investigation will consist in showing that both “Vindications” are expressions of a programme of radical modification of the society: The subjection of women in the `community is, in Wollstonecraft’s view, a part of the greater problem of the subjugated social community. Wollstonecraft expresses in her works an absolute denial of the traditional education of women: Wollstonecraft’s principal purpose is to promote the change of female education and the reform the social and political institution oppressing women. Women’s inclusion into public life can be reached, in the opinion of Mary Wollstonecraft, only through a common education for men and women; reform of the education of women means reform of the society.
We will see that one of the aims of Wollstonecraft lies in persuading women to abandon a false conception of the feminine nature in order to let them adopt the practical virtues of rationality, autonomy, and self-reliance. Wollstonecraft expresses her absolute denial of whichever categorization of women as creature of feeling rather than of reason. This point constitutes the first step, in Wollstonecraft meditation, towards a model and towards a proposal of a new education, in which women and men are given the same kind of education: education ought to produce in individual the attitudes to reason, to autonomy and to independence. The education to the attitude and the behaviour led by reason represents, in Wollstonecraft’s project, the opposition to the traditional cultivation, in the women’s sphere, of sensibility. The main principle of Wollstonecraft’s project of education consists in the persuasion that, without knowledge, there can be no morality: not sensibility, but reason ought to be the aim of the education itself. A method of education promoting sensibility in the individual can only produce mental instability in the individual; moreover, education tending to strengthening sensibility in women proves to be an agent in the diminution of value and in the consequent oppression of women. The duty of women consists, in Wollstonecraft’ view, in abandoning false femininity in order to reach the practical virtues of rationality, independence and self-reliance. The mind has no sex: There is no natural disposition because of which men are reason, and women are sensibility. This artificial distinction, which lies at the very origin of the oppression of women, is established only in the society: therefore, the society ought to be, in Wollstonecraft’s intents, profoundly reformed. I shall point out, furthermore, Wollstonecraft’s connections with the religious environment of her time. The religious roots of Mary Wollstonecraft’s thought will be, therefore, investigated in order to demonstrate that her thought was profoundly influenced by the religious background of that time: I will show that Wollstonecraft’s meditation cannot be interpreted without its connections with the positions of the radical dissenters. Moreover, utopian components are not extraneous to her theological conceptions. My analysis will, furthermore, concentrate on the reconstruction of Wollstonecraft’s polemical issues: therefore, I shall analyse Wollstonecraft’s criticism of, for instance, Rousseau’s and of Milton’s conception of the woman. As regards the connections of Mary Wollstonecraft with the feminist movement, the main question I shall propose in my contribution will consist in analysing whether the feminism model of Mary Wollstonecraft does or does not contain in itself a tension or even a contradiction between a possible radical feminism component and a more traditional component. Through her radical feminist component, Wollstonecraft undoubtedly denounces many forms of oppression of women. On the other hand, due to her traditional component, Wollstonecraft apparently binds the role of women, for instance, to the role of mothers, thus reaffirming the diversity, as to social duties and social self-realization, between men and women. In other words, the question will be whether Mary Wollstonecraft oscillates between models of radical, anti-patriarchal feminism and models of acceptance of separate spheres for male and women. The bibliographical studies on Mary Wollstonecraft will help in the analysis of the presence (or not) of this dilemma in her works.

This paper revolves around James Gillray -a political caricaturist of the 18th century- along with his views and portrayals of the French Revolution and it's protagonists, followed by his contribution to the then circulated Anti Jacobin newspaper.

This paper examines Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence not only as an expression of natural rights, but also as a justification of the first anti-colonial revolution. It also shows how Jefferson's declaration influenced Lafayette's draft of the French Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizens. However, Lafayette, who fought alongside Washington in the American Revolution, sided with the royalists during the French Revolution, favoring a constituional monarchy. The paper also explores the similarity in thought between Jefferson and Thomas Paine, both being Deists as well as republicans. Like Lafayette, Paine who took part in both the American and French Revolutions, but he broke with the Jacobins over the issue of regicide. Finally, the paper explores how the French Revolution influenced the Haitian Revolution, even though in the complicated politics of this French colony in the Caribbean, Toussaint L'Ouverture navigated a course between the British, the Spaniards (who occupied the eastern part of the island of Hispanola), and the French. Since it was in part a slave rebellion, rather than an anticolonial revolution, Thomas Jefferson refused to recognize formally the legitimacy of the Haitian Revolution. When Napoleon overturned Toussaint and sought to reinstitute slavery, the island finally achieved its independence. It was Napoleon's failure to retain control over Haiti that convinced him to sell Lousiana to the United States.

This diploma paper is interested in a relatively new academic hypothesis which asserts that the Iroquois League of Nations profoundly influenced the political constructs of the early American Republic. The diploma paper primarily deals with the Anglo-American radical democrat Thomas Paine’s political thought as it was expressed in his pamphlet Common Sense (1776) and Agrarian Justice (1797) in the context of this general hypothesis. The aim of this diploma thesis is to demonstrate a possible influence of the Iroquois League of Nations on Paine’s political constructs of an early American Republic such the state of nature, human rights and notion of property.

This work focuses on American human rights documents and the process of their formation in history. The study describes the period between the colonization movements that began with the discovery of the New Continent and the formation of the American Constitution. First, the establishment of the colonies, the hope for a new life that started in America, and the first contract which was Mayflower Convention, are explained. Later, the focus was on the declarations which were Colonial First Declaration, Virginia Declaration of Rights and Declaration of Independence prepared by the Colonies, which were almost colonized by Great Britain, occured on refusing exploitation. These contracts and notices/declarations have been evaluated in terms of human rights. Following the process, the first Constitution of America, now an independent country, and the 1791 Declaration of Rights, which was later added to the Constitution, were similarly examined in the context of human rights. During the examination of all these documents the historical background has been taken into account and explained in the study, because it will not be possible to examine these documents independently of the political and economic circumstances of the period.
Keywords:
American History, Human Rights, Mayflower Convention, Virginia Declaration of Rights, American Declaration of Independence, American Constitution, John Locke

Democracy was in the margins both as an idea and as a political force in the eighteenth century. Even in the 1790s, ‘democracy’ was hardly the defining notion of the revolutionaries’ political visions. The small states as much as the large states perceived democracy as an outmoded legacy of antiquity leading to anarchy and despotism, inapplicable not least because it was undesirable in the modern world in which commerce was a rising force. This article tells the story of how this changed, how the understanding of ‘democracy’ was transformed during the French Revolution to represent a viable transition mechanism to a state of widespread and durable liberty. To avoid a teleological approach in the process of this analysis, this article examines the works of Condorcet on modern democracy in the context of the predicaments of the eighteenth century and the French revolutionary decade: how to avert at the same time despotism, military government and popular anarchy; and how to establish a free and stable state on the basis of modern commercial society? The history of the French Revolution is hereby placed in dialogue with that of eighteenth-century political and intellectual history. The effect is that a fresh picture of the entirety of Condorcet’s political vision emerges as his idea of democracy is studied from the viewpoint of his historical sensitivity, political economy, constitutional theory and international thoughts. In the end, Condorcet was the thinker who most significantly and prominently contributed to the post-1789 emergence of the concept of ‘democracy’ – which had thitherto been considered as the political form inevitably leading to destructive anarchy and despotic Caesarism – as a viable pathway to stability and prosperity.

I examine transformations of “world orders,” of the basic norms governing relations between powers and between powers and peoples.  I present three historical transformations of the world order:  First, the transformation at the end of the Eighteenth Century of the order in Europe based on the equality of states and the balance of power, into a world order based on nationalism and imperialism.  Second, the transformation in the aftermath of World War II in which imperial domination was rejected, national self-determination affirmed, and territorial acquisition by force outlawed (what I call “1945 rules”).  Third, the present collapse of 1945 rules in the face of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea.  I assess these transformations with help from Nicholas Onuf and the English School of International Relations.

The history of emotions, now a major focus in the discipline of history, has taken off in the last decade. Still, one could be forgiven for wondering where the history of emotions is. Despite the great explosion of work being produced by historians on feelings, passions, emotions and sentiments, few have attempted general coverage, and none have attempted a narrative from antiquity to the present, to unfold a story of the history of emotions across historical time. This book brings together for the first time a messy history of feelings over the extremely longue durée. It seeks to exemplify how to do a history of emotions in the broadest possible strokes. It is not a close academic study of a small moment or a single place, but an attempt at a narrative of affective life in the epic mode. The book rejects a universal theory of the emotions and adopts a bio-cultural approach to argue that how we feel is the dynamic product of the existence of our minds and bodies in moments of time and space. Emotional encounters and individual experiences alike are explained in historical and cultural context to rehabilitate the unsaid – the gestural, affective and experiential – of traditional historical narratives.

Contents:
Introduction: Feeling for History
1. Archaic and Classical Passions:
Godlike Menace,
Fear and Cosmic Things,
Shame and Human Things,
Practices of ‘Happiness’.
2. Rhetorical and Bodily Feelings:
Summoning Anger,
In A Bloody Temper,
Blood and Gore: A Feast for the Eyes,
Sense, Sin and the Fear that Endures Forever.
3. Motions and Machinations:
A Vision of Divine Love,
Love and Power at Court,
I Move Therefore I Am,
The Map of Tender.
4. The Age of Unreason:
The End of Sorrow,
Paine and Happiness,
One of the Calmest Acts of Reason,
In a Sad, Sad State of Decomposition.
5. Senselessness and Insensibility:
Four Stages of Cruelty,
Insignificant Grimaces,
Aequanimitas, or the End of Sympathy.
6. The Ministry of Happiness:
Uniform Happiness,
The Happiness Agenda,
Politicking Happiness,
Return to Aristotle.
Conclusion: The Value of Experience

A partir del fuerte impulso que ha cobrado la idea de una renta básica universal, el presente trabajo es una reflexión en torno a la posibilidad de reconocer un derecho universal de propiedad privada, en tanto derecho de propiedad efectivo de todo ser humano sobre un cierto valor económico. Se exploran los antecedentes filosóficos de esta noción y se presentan los principales aspectos del debate que ésta genera. Se concluye proponiendo un enfoque inspirado en la premisa de que el significativo incremento de la autonomía personal que un derecho universal de propiedad implicaría, debe acompañarse de una dimensión renovada de las virtudes cívicas.

Paine--like many male radicals of the late Enlightenment--was neither a steady nor consistently direct advocate of the rights of women, particularly women’s equal civil and political rights with men. In this way, he was no different from William Godwin in London, Bishop Talleyrand-Périgord in Paris, or Charles Brockden Brown in America. Early in his career, from Common Sense (1776) to Rights of Man (1791), Paine was silent on the issue of women’s rights, and sometimes slipped into using derogatory, patriarchal language to describe women’s inequality with men. The shift from the republican-based discourse of Common Sense and The Crisis series (1776–1783) to the rights-based language of Rights of Man seems to have pushed Paine toward a deeper philosophical consideration of women’s possession of the same natural rights as men. Much of what Paine argued in the later part of his career, especially in Rights of Man. Part the Second (1792) and Agrarian Justice (1797), either explicitly or implicitly endorses women’s equal rights with men, especially welfare rights but also political rights such as suffrage.

This thesis examines the intellectual foundation of the London Corresponding Society’s (LCS) efforts to reform Britain's Parliamentary democracy in the 1790s. The LCS was a working population group fighting for universal male suffrage and annual parliaments in a decade that was wrought with internal social and governmental tension. Many Britons, especially the aristocracy and those in the government, feared the spread of ideas of republicanism and equality from revolutionary France and responded accordingly by oppressing the freedom of speech and association. At first glance, the LCS appears contradictory: it supported the hierarchical status quo but fought for the voice and representation of the people; and it believed that the foundation for rights was natural but also argued its demands for equal rights were drawn from Britain’s ancient unwritten constitution. This thesis contextualizes these ideas using a contemporary debate, the Burke-Paine controversy, as Edmund Burke was the epitome of eighteenth century conservative constitutionalism in "Reflections on the Revolution in France" while Thomas Paine’s "Rights of Man" represented a Lockean interpretation of natural rights and equality. Thus using "Reflections" and "Rights of Man" as a framework, this thesis demonstrates that the LCS thoroughly understood its demands for parliamentary reform and uniformly applied its interpretation of natural rights and equality to British constitutionalism and the social and governmental hierarchies.

This article draws together overlapping cognitive analyses of political thought, emotion, and language and shows how they can be supplemented with literary analyses of genre to illuminate the workings of the French Revolution debate of 1790s Britain. It focuses on enriching George Lakoff 's theory of the multiple levels of framing in discourse, concentrating on the interplay of argument and narrative frames. Studies of emotion and mood in narrative genres are adapted to refine Lakoff 's account of narrative , making it more complex, systematic, and sensitive to historical context. Applying the revised theory, the essay characterizes contrasts between Edmund Burke's and Thomas Paine's thought at all levels of framing. It shows how their lexical frames for "revolution" diverge as their main arguments craft opposing issue-defining frames for the central moral issue of revolution versus reform. Those arguments highlight different key figures and events yet draw on similar narrative genres to frame them. Importantly, high genres of heroic romance inspire elevation toward one's own side by celebrating victories and lamenting tragedies, and low genres of satire inspire contempt toward opponents by ridiculing deserved failures and absurd successes. Thus narrative genre ties surface-frame phrases like "rights of man" and "swinish multitude" to deep-frame assumptions about more fundamental concepts (human nature, society, government).

This short article addressed to a broader readership investigates the impact of the King James Bible upon the American founding. In order to show that impact, the article's first half portrays the political context for the formation of the King James, charts the influence of the Bible upon early modern political thought, and then sketches the impact of the KJV upon the rhetoric and political thought of the Founders. The essay is accompanied by a timeline.

Key Words:
Authorized Version; King James Version; American Founding; Bible and political thought, religion and the founding, founders, Bible and intellectual history, Spinoza, Bible and constitution; Bible and democracy.

Immanuel Kant’ın insanlığın olgunluk çağına geçiş aşaması olarak betimlediği Aydınlanma, ‘bilmeye cesaret et!’ (sapare aude!) şiarıyla başlamıştı; ama, bildiği ya da bildiğini sandığı dünyaya yönelik gittikçe daha kibirli hale gelen bu özgüven, Fransa’da tarih sahnesine henüz çıkan ‘halk’ın (le peuple) devrimini, kısa sürede, çok genç ve çok hırslı hatiplerin teatral performanslarının liderliğindeki donsuz (sans-culotte) güruhların giyotin festivallerine dönüştürecektir. Edmund Burke, 1790 yılında, yani Kant’ın Aydınlanma Nedir Sorusuna Bir Yanıt adlı metni yayımlandıktan yalnızca altı yıl sonra, böyle bir devrime karşı çıktığı ve onun, çok daha büyük çaplı, yıkıcı ve soğukkanlı bir dönüşümün habercisi olduğunu duyurduğu aşağıdaki satırları yazdığında, henüz ne Fransa Kralı XVI. Louis idam edilmiş ne de Fransa Kraliçesi Marie Antoinette, vatana ihanetten ensest sapkınlığa kadar birçok suçlamadan ölüme mahkum edilerek Paris sokaklarında taşlanmış ve bir kutlama eşliğinde giyotinde can vermişti:

“O zaman veliaht eşi olan Fransa kraliçesini Versailles’da gördüğümden beri on altı ya da on yedi yıl oluyor ve onun zar zor dokunur gibi olduğu bu göz küresine daha nefis bir imgelem asla takılmamıştı. Onu ufkun hemen üstünde gördüm, henüz taşınmaya başladığı yüce kubbeyi dekore eder ve neşelendirirken––sabah yıldızı gibi; yaşam, görkem ve neşe dolu pırıldarken. Ah! ne devrim! ve o yükseliş ve o düşüşü duygusuz düşünmem için sahip olmam gereken ne kalp! (…) Yiğit adamların ulusunda, şerefli adamların ve şövalyelerin ulusunda ona rastgelen böyle felaketleri görmek için yaşamam gerektiğini hayal etmezdim. Onu hakaretle tehdit edecek bir bakışın bile intikamını almak üzere on binlerce kılıcın kınlarından fırlayacağını düşünürdüm. Ama şövalyelik çağı kapandı. Sofistlerin, ekonomistlerin ve hesapçılarınki kazandı ve Avrupa’nın ihtişamı sonsuza kadar söndürüldü. Rütbe ve cinsiyete yönelik o cömert sadakati, o mağrur teslimiyeti, o vakur itaati, esarette bile yüce bir özgürlük ruhunu canlı tutan kalbin o tabiiyetini asla, artık asla seyreylemeyeceğiz."

This paper will examine Mather’s radical ballads as documents of performance and repositories of Sheffield heritage. Mather could read but not write and his songs therefore occupy the threshold between oral and written working-class cultures and suggest ways in which they intersect and mutually constitute each other. Through an analysis of the songs in their historical contexts and by examining the histories of their recording and performance, the paper will argue for their importance to an understanding of Sheffield’s working-class heritage and the tradition of dissenting lyrics and performance they inaugurated. The paper will also invite suggestions for ways to consider the possible contemporary performativity of Mather’s songs and elements of his life.

This is the second chapter of our book of readings, American Ethics, A Sourcebook from Edwards to Dewey, which I published with G.W. Stroh (deceased). The Chapter provides short readings covering the period of the American Enlightenment, the American Revolution and the establishment of constitutional government --including writings of figures such as Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, etc. The present text is slightly expanded from the published version of the chapter.

"""Paine—like many male radicals of the late Enlightenment—was neither a steady nor consistently direct advocate of the rights of women, particularly women’s equal civil and political rights with men. In this way, he was no different from William Godwin in London, Bishop Talleyrand in Paris, or Charles Brockden Brown in America. Early in his career, from Common Sense (1776) to Rights of Man, Part I (1791), Paine was silent on the issue of women’s rights, and sometimes slipped into using derogatory, patriarchal language to describe women’s inequality with men. The shift from the republican-based discourse of Common Sense and the Crisis series (1776-1783) to the rights-based language of Rights of Man, Part I, seems to have pushed Paine toward a deeper philosophical consideration of women’s possession of the same natural rights as men. Much of what Paine argued in the later part of his career, especially in the second part of Rights of Man, Part II (1792) and Agrarian Justice (1797), either explicitly or implicitly endorses women’s equal rights with men, especially welfare rights but also political rights such as suffrage. Keywords: Thomas Paine, women's rights, political theory, republicanism, liberalism, feminism"""

Paine confronted the three major evils of his time: lack of political representation, poverty and religious fraudulence. He shaped history by the power of his eloquence and moral vision. He was not necessarily an original thinker, but drew together the ideas of the Enlightenment and gave them a radical popular relevance. If he was an agent of destruction it was because he attacked people’s acceptance of social and political inequalities and authoritarian religious doctrine.

This diploma paper is interested in a relatively new academic hypothesis which asserts that the Iroquois League of Nations profoundly influenced the political constructs of the early American Republic. The diploma paper primarily deals with the Anglo-American radical democrat Thomas Paine’s political thought as it was expressed in his pamphlet Common Sense (1776) and Agrarian Justice (1797) in the context of this general hypothesis. The aim of this diploma thesis is to demonstrate a possible influence of the Iroquois League of Nations on Paine’s political constructs of an early American Republic such the state of nature, human rights and notion of property.

Religion, as one of those factors for liberation against the British, acted as a powerful force that continued to motivate political behavior.  Four of most prominent revolutionaries: Patrick Henry, Samuel Langdon, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine used their power of speech and quill to display the thoughts of independence, rebellion and patriotism while also infusing their own religious rhetoric. The combination of disparate Enlightenment deists and Christian revivalist’s came together to form a common bond from their ideas and rally a group of colonists into supporting the Revolutionary cause. As a result of these four revolutionaries, along with the countless others who had came before them and fought alongside them, they have been able to put their mark on American history. Not only were they masters of their craft, but more importantly, these four men were so effective in capturing a generation of American spirit that still lives today. Their ideas and sentiment for standing in the face of the injustice, inherent rights and freedoms, and unity through adversity brought not only the revolutionists together, but have had a lasting impact on the country’s history that hold the testament of time.

Resumo: Este trabalho tem como ambição central defender a relevância do pensamento político de Thomas Paine, panfletário inglês que escreveu peças clássicas tanto para o processo de Independência dos EUA, o Senso Comum, quanto para a Revolução Francesa, Os Direitos do Homem, entre outros textos que se tornaram importantes sobre (ou no) período. Esta ideia parte de um pressuposto – que, como tal, será pouco abordado neste texto mas o permeará como prerrogativa de toda análise: o de que a abordagem esquemática da transição política que deu à burguesia a relativa hegemonia na organização do Estado obscurece as demandas mais radicais e democratizantes que já naquele contexto se colocavam. Neste sentido, apontaremos que recuperar a acidentada e pouco celebrada jornada política de Thomas Paine não é simplesmente um exercício de curiosidade intelectual, mas sim um esforço na disputa ideológica pelos discursos e a História.

African American poet Langston Hughes wrote “Let America Be America Again” amid the severe economic anxiety, racial tensions, and nationalist fervor of 1930s, and his refrain continues to resonate in today’s calls to “Make America Great Again.” But Hughes’s claim that “(America never was America to me)” invites us to reflect more closely on what exactly “America” is and what it means to be an “American” in the early twenty-first century. Is “America” a land that belongs to certain religious, racial, or ethnic groups? Does being an “American” imply a particular set of ideological commitments or life aspirations? To what extent does being “American” mean performing a certain set of gender roles and identities? What, in short, makes America “America” and a person in America an “American”?

This speaking-intensive course explores how rather than serving as a common starting point for American political life, the concepts of “America” and “American” have themselves always been sites of intense political debate and contestation. American Political Thought reflects an ongoing struggle over the meaning of and relationship between liberalism, democracy, race, gender, class, pluralism, violence, and law in what is now the United States. Participants in this struggle have included politicians, scholars, activists, enslaved persons, warriors, spouses, poets, and businesspeople, and their perspectives have shaped a diverse array of concepts of “America” and “American” that we continue to draw on and contribute to today.

The course proceeds in three units. The first unit, “America at the Founding,” examines the principles, concepts, and debates that shaped the American system of federal government in the 17th and 18th centuries. The second unit, “Democratizing America?” investigates various 19th century conflicts over democratic citizenship in light of the country’s history of slavery, Native American genocide, and the exclusion of women from public life. The third unit, “20th (and some 21st) Century Questions, Debates, Traditions,” considers some of the most dynamic and influential American political movements of the last century: pragmatism, feminism, black political thought, neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and democratic socialism.

This is a review of A.N. Wilson's book God's Funeral.  There are some good things in this book, but ultimately, Wilson has a narrow and limited understanding of atheism.  Wilson would have his reader believe that atheism leads necessarily to nihilistic despair.  As I demonstrate, there are many atheists (Friedrich Nietzsche, Virginia Woolf, Nella Larsen, and Michel Foucault) who gladly welcome the death of God.