Thomas Paine | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 17 pages of analysis & critique of Thomas Paine.

Thomas Paine | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 17 pages of analysis & critique of Thomas Paine.
This section contains 5,002 words
(approx. 17 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the C. E. Merriam, Jr.

SOURCE: "Thomas Paine's Political Theories," in Political Science Quarterly, Vol. XIV, No. 3, September, 1899, pp. 389-403.

In the essay that follows, Merriam outlines the basic tenets of Paine's political thought, defining at length his concepts of human nature and government. Merriam contends that Paine viewed government as a necessary evil, tolerable only in a democratic form.

The political theories of Thomas Paine were struck off in the course of a career that extended over the revolutionary quarter of the eighteenth century and persistently followed the storm centre of the revolutionary movement.1 In January, 1776, he issued his famous pamphlet Common Sense—the strongest plea that was made for American independence; in the same year appeared The Forester's Letters—Paine's side of a controversy with Dr. William Smith, of Philadelphia; from 1776 to 1783 appeared thirteen letters under the heading of The American Crisis, and in 1786 the Dissertations on Government, the Affairs of...

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This section contains 5,002 words
(approx. 17 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the C. E. Merriam, Jr.
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