Tom Paine and Revolutionary America

Study Questions

• Artisans
  1. How are artisans different from the family farmers introduced in Salem Possessed? How is their status changing in revolutionary America?
  2. Why did artisans embrace Tom Paine's message more deeply than other social groups?
  3. What does Foner mean by the term "small producers"? What were the key values of revolutionary-artisans? What role did the concept of independence play?
• Balanced Government
  1. What was the theory behind the English idea of balanced King, Lords, and Commons? How did colonists who embraced this idea use to it urge revolution?
  2. In what ways did the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, discussed in Chapter 3, reject the idea of balanced government? What did Paine think of this consitution, and of the idea of balanced government generally?
  3. Which vision of the constitution best resembles that adopted by the United States in 1887?
• Republicanism
  1. Explain the relationships between and the importance of virtue, corruption, and luxury in defining republican values. What role did anti-monarchical sentiment, Deism, and the new science play?
  2. Compare and contrast artisan republicanism, as espoused by Paine, and agrarian republicanism, promoted by Jefferson.
  3. How did the Federalists and Anti-Federalists alike use republican rhetoric during the debate on the U.S. Constitution? What role did political parties play in this debate?
  4. How did notions of republicanism provide Americans with both a sense of mission and a sense of paranoia?
• Markets
  1. How did economic changes toward a market economy affect popular sentiment during the Revolutionary and Early Nationalist periods? Consider the debates on price controls versus laissez faire and on the Bank of North America.
  2. How did Paine's attitudes toward both egalitarianism and industrial expansion change over time?

"The Age of Paine"

An article in Wired magazine that claims Tom Paine as "the moral father of the Internet."

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