"Paine's notions concerning government as set forth in his 'Common Sense' are largely embodied in the Declaration.
"Jefferson's style of writing was easy and graceful. Paine's was forceful, terse, pointed. The Declaration is couched far more in the latter style than in the former.
"Phrases and words dear to Paine are scattered broadcast through the document.
"The expression 'Nature and Nature's God' fit in with Paine's favorite theory that God was to be found in Nature."
"Almost a century ago an American newspaper claimed to have proof that Jefferson did not write the Declaration, and strongly hinted that Paine wrote it.
"Jefferson, it is said, never formally claimed the authorship until after Paine's death, and was always reticent on the subject."
Walton Williams: "Ever since the Revolution there has been a tradition in certain parts of the country that the real author of the Declaration of Independence was Thomas Paine. The storm of opprobrium that beat upon Paine's name because af his religious writings almost eradicated this tradition."
Jefferson lived fifty years after the Declaration appeared. During all this time—and his silence is significant—he never claimed the authorship of the document except in the epitaph which he is said to have prepared for his tombstone. He was its accredited author and in an official sense was its author, and in this sense the claim made in his epitaph is admissible.
Nearly seventy years ago George M. Dallas, then Vice President of the United States, and an admirer of Jefferson, contended that Paine wrote the Declaration.
"Whoever may have written the Declaration, Paine was its author."—William Cobbett.