Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Inventing an American Public: The Pennsylvania Magazine and Revolutionary American Political Discourse
- 2 “Could the Wolf Bleat Like the Lamb”: Paine's Critique of the Early American Public Sphere
- 3 Writing Revolutionary History
- 4 The Science of Revolution: Technological Metaphors and Scientific Methodology in Rights of Man and The Age of Reason
- 5 “Strong Friends and Violent Enemies”: The Historical Construction of Thomas Paine through the Nineteenth Century
- Epilogue: Paine and Nineteenth-Century American Literary History
- Works Cited
- Index
3 - Writing Revolutionary History
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Inventing an American Public: The Pennsylvania Magazine and Revolutionary American Political Discourse
- 2 “Could the Wolf Bleat Like the Lamb”: Paine's Critique of the Early American Public Sphere
- 3 Writing Revolutionary History
- 4 The Science of Revolution: Technological Metaphors and Scientific Methodology in Rights of Man and The Age of Reason
- 5 “Strong Friends and Violent Enemies”: The Historical Construction of Thomas Paine through the Nineteenth Century
- Epilogue: Paine and Nineteenth-Century American Literary History
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
In the summer of 1783, shortly after the conclusion of the War of Independence, Paine attempted to secure a congressional pension in recompense for services rendered during the previous seven years. Rather than grant him a pension or other form of direct remuneration, the committee reviewing his petition proposed that Paine be appointed to the salaried position of historiographer to the United States. The committee suggested that “a just and impartial account of our interest for public Freedom and happiness should be handed down to posterity,” and noted that “a History of the American revolution compiled by Mr. Paine is certainly to be desired” (qtd. in Keane, 245). In his recent biography of Paine, John Keane argues that “The report annoyed and depressed Paine” because “It smacked of America's ‘cold conduct’ toward its own writers, and it failed to understand that as a political writer, Paine needed material support now, not in the future” (245). But Keane, like Paine before him, misreads the situation. It wasn't so much because of his professional status as a political writer, but because of the Congress' desperate financial straits that Paine was denied compensation. Given the state of the Congress' finances at the time, and their inability to pay many soldiers for back pay, it would have been a serious political blunder to grant Paine a pension at this moment.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Thomas Paine and the Literature of Revolution , pp. 86 - 113Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005