Helen Fonzy
English 223: American Literature
Ms. Reed
Interpretive Writings on Quotes from Thomas Paine
9:00 /10.00

Time Makes Converse than Reason
Thomas Paine, one of our Founding Fathers by virtue of having written "Common Sense," lost many friends and made many enemies with "The Age of Reason. “Paine called himself a Deist, by which he meant that he believed in one God, the Creator of the universe, and in no other, including Son and Holy Ghost. Paine believed that, in order to know God, a person needed to study creation. Creation was the only true word of God, the Bible and all other sacred texts being the work of men, and not at all the word of God. In fact, Paine thought that the Bible, being false, was an impediment to knowing God. The second part of "The Age of Reason" is a book-by-book dismantling of the Bible by its own internal logic. While his own logic is not always perfectly rigorous, he definitely makes an excellent case against the Bible being the word of God.
Paine's point of view is that of many in the scientific eighteenth century. By our standards, he was still a little too anthropocentric, in that he thought that creation was meant as a teaching tool for Man's rational mind. He virtually instigated the American Revolution and the break from the shackles of religious slavery. Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and many others were Deists who believed the human mind needn't suffer from the dogma of the day nor unscientific, supernatural beliefs. Paine breaks down the Bible bit by bit to allow you to see the absurdity of it all: the archaic violence, sexism, racism, and scientific stupidity. He lets you see the book was written by ignorant men and it needs to fade like the beliefs in Zeus, and Odin. The nonsensical religious zealots of today's America would do well to read their book with the same scrutiny. What I liked so much about his writing was the concise, simple but elegant style that was so clearly written. This book was more of a rant. He spends way too much time detailing over and over multiple, exactly the same, data points to back up his positions on the Bible. The summary is great and I admire his courage to write this so forcibly in his time.
These are the times which try men souls

While Paine sets freedom as the final goal to be achieved, Madison is concerned about justice, the greatest possible level of unity, and the best way of handling the unavoidable faction in the country and society. He states the problem that is a common one all around the federal states: "... our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority." From this ably presented statement Madison then proceeds to the analysis of faction, the unequal distribution of property as the most important source of it, and finally concludes that it is only the proposed government created by the new constitution that is able to provide solution as opposed to the direct democracies that have proved to be ineffective in protecting property rights and have always been characterized by conflicts.
Both writings deal with the issue of faction. The Whigs and the Tories, according to “The Crisis No.1,” differ in their views on America’s independence from Britain. Only if the Tories do not give assistance to the British troops can the faction be forgotten. Otherwise, Paine suggests, the Tories should be expelled from the continent. It is independence that Paine primarily focuses on.
By the time Madison writes “The Federalist No.10”, America’s independence is not a question anymore. Yet faction was present hindering the country’s development or even its existence. Madison, therefore, discusses faction in detail and offers a reasonable solution to it. His proposal describes a different kind of dependence: a submission or sacrifice of freedom, i.e. a central government. No wonder the idea faced significant resistance.
Madison’s argumentation, however, is clear and objective. It appeals to the intellect. It does not involve the supernatural but remains with the facts of human reality. It is pure reason – a characteristic of that age – that he relies on in his effort to persuade the hesitates.
The setting and the objectives of “The Crisis No.1” and “The Federalist No.10” are different; therefore they differ in style and strategy of argumentation as well. However, both achieved their goals, and their significance was justified by history.