Catalogue Number
NMLH.1991.91.4
Object Name
Token
Title
'Noted advocates for the rights of man. 1796'
Place
UK, USA, France
People
Thomas Paine
Events
American War Of Independence, French Revolution
Description
A copper token. On the front is a picture of three men being hanged from a gallows with the text 'Noted advocates for the rights of man. 1796'. The reverse is badly degraded with difficult to read text that says 'May the knave of Jacobin clubs never get a trick'.
This medal shows a fantasy of the British political philosopher, Thomas Paine (1737-1809) and his followers being executed. Medals like this were created by people who opposed Paine's beliefs and philosophies, particularly his beliefs calling for Christianity to be abolished from influencing politics. Paine's books included Common Sense, and The Rights of Man, both of which advocated for governmental reform, equality, social welfare funded by taxation, and the abolition of unjust and undemocratic systems of authority, like monarchies and organised religions. Paine's republican beliefs were highly influential on key figures in both the American and French revolutions.
Paine was born in Norfolk, and migrated to the British American Colonies in 1774, where he worked closely with Benjamin Franklin and participated in the American Revolution. The Rights of Man, which defended the actions of French Revolutionaries against the royal family and aristocracy, was viewed as seditious libel by the British government, who feared it would encourage a similar anti-monarchist revolution in the UK. Paine spent the rest of his life in France and the USA. His philosophical work The Age of Reason which criticised religion, and Christianity in particular, led to him being shunned by many former allies, and despite his former popularity, his funeral was only attended by six people. His body then vanished after being unburied by William Cobbett in 1819, who was intending to bring it back to England. Stories abound about what happened to the body, and several people have since claimed to have Tom Paine's bones in their possession.
**ON DISPLAY**
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