Proceeding thence to his assault upon all other established governments, especially that of England, the great iconoclast exclaimed: "It is impossible that such governments as have hitherto [1790] existed in the world, could have commenced by any other means than a violation of every principle sacred and moral."
Striking at the foundations of all permanent authority, Paine declared that "Every age and generation must be ... free to act for itself in all cases.... The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies." The people of yesterday have "no right ... to bind or to control ... the people of the present day ... in any shape whatever.... Every generation is, and must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions require."[26] So wrote the incomparable pamphleteer of radicalism.
Paine's essay, issued in two parts, was a torch successively applied to the inflammable emotions of the American masses. Most newspapers printed in each issue short and appealing excerpts from it. For example, the following sentence from Paine's "Rights of Man" was reproduced in the "Columbian Centinel" of Boston on June 6, 1792: "Can we possibly suppose that if government had originated in right principles and had not an interest in pursuing a wrong one, that the world could have been in the wretched and quarrelsome condition it is?" Such quotations from Paine appeared in all radical and in some conservative American publications; and they were repeated from mouth to mouth until even the backwoodsmen knew of them—and believed them.
"Our people ... love what you write and read it with delight" ran the message which Jefferson sent across the ocean to Paine. "The printers," continued Jefferson, "season every newspaper with extracts from your last, as they did before from your first part of the Rights of Man. They have both served here to separate the wheat from the chaff.... Would you believe it possible that in this country there should be high & important characters[27] who need your lessons in republicanism & who do not heed them. It is but too true that we have a sect preaching up & pouting after an English constitution of king, lords, & commons, & whose heads are itching for crowns, coronets & mitres....
"Go on then," Jefferson urged Paine, "in doing with your pen what in other times was done with the sword, ... and be assured that it has not a more sincere votary nor you a more ardent well-wisher than ... Thoṣ Jefferson."[28]
And the wheat was being separated from the chaff, as Jefferson declared. Shocked not more by the increasing violence in France than by the principles which Paine announced, men of moderate mind and conservative temperament in America came to have misgivings about the French Revolution, and began to speak out against its doings and its doctrines.
A series of closely reasoned and well-written articles were printed in the "Columbian Centinel" of Boston in the summer of 1791, over the nom de guerre "Publicola"; and these were widely copied. They were ascribed to the pen of John Adams, but were the work of his brilliant son.[29]
The American edition of Paine's "Rights of Man" was headed by a letter from Secretary of State Jefferson to the printer, stating his pleasure that the essay was to be printed in this country and "that something is at length to be publickly said against the political heresies which have sprung up among us."[30] Publicola called attention to this and thus, more conspicuously, displayed Jefferson as an advocate of Paine's doctrines.[31]
All Americans had "seen with pleasure the temples of despotism levelled with the ground," wrote the keen young Boston law student.[32] There was "but one sentiment...—that of exultation." But what did Jefferson mean by "heresies"? asked Publicola. Was Paine's pamphlet "the canonical book of scripture?" If so, what were its doctrines? "That which a whole nation chooses to do, it has a right to do" was one of them.
Was that "principle" sound? No! avowed Publicola, for "the eternal and immutable laws of justice and of morality are paramount to all human legislation." A nation might have the power but never the right to violate these. Even majorities have no right to do as they please; if so, what security has the individual citizen? Under the unrestrained rule of the majority "the principles of liberty must still be the sport of arbitrary power, and the hideous form of despotism must lay aside the diadem and the scepter, only to assume the party-colored garments of democracy."