Part 1 (1/2)

Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest.

by Robert Green Ingersoll.

Ingersoll's Lecture on Thomas Paine--Delivered in Central Music Hall, Chicago, January 29, 1880 (From the Chicago Times, Verbatim Report)

Ladies and Gentlemen:--It so happened that the first speech--the very first public speech I ever made--took occasion to defend the memory of Thomas Paine.

I did it because I had read a little something of the history of my country. I did it because I felt indebted to him for the liberty I then enjoyed--and whatever religion may be true, ingrat.i.tude is the blackest of crimes. And whether there is any G.o.d or not, in every star that s.h.i.+nes, grat.i.tude is a virtue.

The man who will tell the truth about the dead is a good man, and for one, about this man, I intend to tell just as near the truth as I can.

Most history consists in giving the details of things that never happened--most biography is usually the lie coming from the mouth of flattery, or the slander coming from the lips of malice, and whoever attacks the religion of a country will, in his turn, be attacked.

Whoever attacks a superst.i.tion will find that superst.i.tion defended by all the meanness of ingenuity. Whoever attacks a superst.i.tion will find that there is still one weapon left in the a.r.s.enal of Jehovah--slander.

I was reading, yesterday, a poem called the ”Light of Asia,” and I read in that how a Boodh seeing a tigress peris.h.i.+ng of thirst, with her mouth upon the dry stone of a stream, with her two cubs sucking at her dry and empty dugs, this Boodh took pity upon this wild and famis.h.i.+ng beast, and, throwing from himself the Yellowrobe of his order, and stepping naked before this tigress, said: ”Here is meat for you and your cubs.” In one moment the crooked daggers of her claws ran riot in his flesh, and in another he was devoured. Such, during nearly all the history of this world, has been the history of every man who has stood in front of superst.i.tion.

Thomas Paine, as has been so eloquently said by the gentleman who introduced me, was a friend of man, and whoever is a friend of man is also a friend of G.o.d--if there is one. But G.o.d has had many friends who were the enemies of their fellow-men. There is but one test by which to measure any man who has lived. Did he leave this world better than he found it? Did he leave in this world more liberty? Did he leave in this world more goodness, more humanity, than when he was born? That is the test. And whatever may have been the faults of Thomas Paine, no American who appreciates liberty, no American who believes in true democracy and pure republicanism, should ever breathe one word against his name. Every American, with the divine mantle of charity, should cover all his faults, and with a never-tiring tongue should recount his virtues.

He was a common man. He did not belong to the aristocracy. Upon the head of his father G.o.d had never poured the divine petroleum of authority. He had not the misfortune to belong to the upper cla.s.ses.

He had the fortune to be born among the poor and to feel against his great heart the throb of the toiling and suffering ma.s.ses. Neither was it his misfortune to have been educated at Oxford. What little sense he had was not squeezed out at Westminster. He got his education from books. He got his education from contact with fellow-men, and he thought, and a man is worth just what nature impresses upon him. A man standing by the sea, or in a forest, or looking at a flower, or hearing a poem, or looking in the eyes of the woman he loves, receives all that he is capable of receiving--and if he is a great man the impression is great, and he uses it for the purpose of benefiting his fellow-man.

Thomas Paine was not rich, he was poor, and his father before him was poor, and he was raised a sailmaker, a very lowly profession, and yet that man became one of the mainstays of liberty in this world. At one time he was an excise man, like Burns. Burns was once--speak it softly--a gauger--and yet he wrote poems that will wet the cheek of humanity with tears as long as the world travels in its...o...b..around the sun.

Poverty was his brother, necessity his master. He had more brains than books; more courage than politeness; more strength than polish. He had no veneration for old mistakes, no admiration for ancient lies. He loved the truth for truth's sake and for man's sake. He saw oppression on every hand, injustice everywhere, hypocrisy at the altar, venality on the bench, tyranny on the throne, and with a splendid courage he espoused the cause of the weak against the strong, of the enslaved many against the t.i.tled few.

In England he was nothing. He belonged to the lower cla.s.ses--that is, the useful people. England depended for her prosperity upon her mechanics and her thinkers, her sailors and her workers, and they are the only men in Europe who are not gentlemen. The only obstacles in the way of progress in Europe were the n.o.bility and the priests, and they are the only gentlemen.

This, and his native genius, const.i.tuted his entire capital, and he needed no more. He found the colonies clamoring for justice; whining about their grievances; upon their knees at the foot of the throne, imploring that mixture of idiocy and insanity, George III., by the grace of G.o.d, for a restoration of their ancient privileges. They were not endeavoring to become free men, but were trying to soften the heart of their master. They were perfectly willing to make brick if Pharaoh would furnish the straw. The colonists wished for, hoped for, and prayed for reconciliation. They did not dream of independence.

Paine gave to the world his ”Common Sense.” It was the first argument for separation; the first a.s.sault upon the British form of government; the first blow for a republic, and it aroused our fathers like a trumpet's blast. He was the first to perceive the destiny of the new world. No other pamphlet ever accomplished such wonderful results. It was filled with arguments, reasons, persuasions, and unanswerable logic. It opened a new world. It filled the present with hope and the future with honor. Everywhere the people responded, and in a few months the Continental Congress declared the colonies free and independent states. A new nation was born.

It is simple justice to say that Paine did more to cause the Declaration of Independence than any other man. Neither should it be forgotten that his attacks upon Great Britain were also attacks upon monarchy, and while he convinced the people that the colonies ought to separate from the mother country, he also proved to them that a free government is the best that can be inst.i.tuted among men.

In my judgment Thomas Paine was the best political writer that ever lived. ”What he wrote was pure nature, and his soul and his pen ever went together.” Ceremony, pageantry, and all the paraphernalia of power had no effect upon him. He examined into the why and wherefore of things. He was perfectly radical in his mode of thought. Nothing short of the bed-rock satisfied him. His enthusiasm for what he believed to be right knew no bounds. During all the dark scenes of the revolution never for a moment did he despair. Year after year his brave words were ringing through the land, and by the bivouac fires the weary soldiers read the inspiring words of ”Common Sense,” filled with ideas sharper than their swords, and consecrated themselves anew to the cause of freedom.

Paine was not content with having aroused the spirit of independence, but he gave every energy of his soul to keep that spirit alive. He was with the army. He shared its defeats, its dangers, and its glory.

When the situation became desperate, when gloom settled upon all, he gave them the ”Crisis.” It was a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, leading the way to freedom, honor, and glory. He shouted to them ”These are the times that try men's souls.” The summer soldier and the suns.h.i.+ne patriot, will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

To those who wished to put the war off to some future day, with a lofty and touching spirit of self-sacrifice, he said: ”Every generous parent should say: 'If there must be war, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace'.” To the cry that Americans were rebels, he replied: ”He that rebels against reason is a real rebel; but he that in defense of reason rebels against tyranny, has a better t.i.tle to 'Defender of the Faith' than George III.”

Some said it was to the interest of the colonies to be free. Paine answered this by saying: ”To know whether it be the interest of the continent to be independent, we need ask only this simple, easy question: 'Is it the interest of man to be a boy all his life?”' He found many who would listen to nothing, and to them he said: ”That to argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead.” This sentiment ought to adorn the walls of every orthodox church.

There is a world of political wisdom in this: ”England lost her liberty in a long chain of right reasoning from wrong principles;” and there is real discrimination in saying: ”The Greeks and Romans were strongly possessed of the spirit of liberty, but not the principles, for at the time they were determined not to be slaves themselves, they employed their power to enslave the rest of mankind.”

In his letter to the British people, in which he tried to convince them that war was not to their interest, occurs the following pa.s.sage brimful of common sense: ”War never can be the interest of a trading nation any more than quarreling can be profitable to a man in business.

But to make war with those who trade with us is like setting a bull-dog upon a customer at the shop door.”

The Writings of Paine fairly glitter with simple, compact, logical statements that carry conviction to the dullest and most prejudicial.