Essays, Thomas Paine [digital book reader .txt] 📗

Each canton shall elect in its primary assemblies, three persons, as commissioners for that canton, who shall take cognizance, and keep a register of all matters happening in that canton, conformable to the charter that shall be established by law for carrying this plan into execution.

The law shall fix the manner in which the property of deceased persons shall be ascertained.

When the amount of the property of any deceased person shall be ascertained, the principal heir to that property, or the eldest of the co-heirs, if of lawful age, or if under age the person authorized by the will of the deceased to represent him or them, shall give bond to the commissioners of the canton to pay the said tenth part thereof in four equal quarterly payments, within the space of one year or sooner, at the choice of the payers. One half of the whole property shall remain as a security until the bond be paid off.

The bond shall be registered in the office of the commissioners of the canton, and the original bonds shall be deposited in the national bank at Paris. The bank shall publish every quarter of a year the amount of the bonds in its possession, and also the bonds that shall have been paid off, or what parts thereof, since the last quarterly publication.

The national bank shall issue bank notes upon the security of the bonds in its possession. The notes so issued, shall be applied to pay the pensions of aged persons, and the compensations to persons arriving at twenty-one years of age. It is both reasonable and generous to suppose, that persons not under immediate necessity, will suspend their right of drawing on the fund, until it acquire, as it will do, a greater degree of ability. In this case, it is proposed, that an honorary register be kept, in each canton, of the names of the persons thus suspending that right, at least during the present war.

As the inheritors of property must always take up their bonds in four quarterly payments, or sooner if they choose, there will always be numéraire [cash] arriving at the bank after the expiration of the first quarter, to exchange for the bank notes that shall be brought in.

The bank notes being thus put in circulation, upon the best of all possible security, that of actual property, to more than four times the amount of the bonds upon which the notes are issued, and with numéraire continually arriving at the bank to exchange or pay them off whenever they shall be presented for that purpose, they will acquire a permanent value in all parts of the Republic. They can therefore be received in payment of taxes, or emprunts equal to numéraire, because the government can always receive numéraire for them at the bank.

It will be necessary that the payments of the ten percent be made in numéraire for the first year from the establishment of the plan. But after the expiration of the first year, the inheritors of property may pay ten percent either in bank notes issued upon the fund, or in numéraire, If the payments be in numéraire, it will lie as a deposit at the bank, to be exchanged for a quantity of notes equal to that amount; and if in notes issued upon the fund, it will cause a demand upon the fund, equal thereto; and thus the operation of the plan will create means to carry itself into execution.

Thomas Paine.

At Lexington, Massachusetts, 1775. —⁠Conway ↩

Thomas Anello, otherwise Massanello, a fisherman of Naples, who after spiriting up his countrymen in the public market place, against the oppressions of the Spaniards, to whom the place was then subject, prompted them to revolt, and in the space of a day became King. ↩

Those who would fully understand of what great consequence a large and equal representation is to a state, should read Burgh’s Political Disquisitions. ↩

This manifesto with which Paris was found placarded on July 1, 1791, is described by Dumont as a “Republican Proclamation,” but what its literal caption was I have not found. —⁠Conway ↩

Translated for this work from Le Patriote François, Samedi 20 Octobre, 1793, l’an 1er de la République. Supplement au No. 1167, in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. It is headed, “Essai Anti-Monarchique, à L’Usage des Nouveaux Républicains, Tiré de la Feuille Villageoise.” I have not found this Feuille, but no doubt Brissot, in editing the essay for his journal (Le Patriote François) abridged it, and in one instance Paine is mentioned by name. Although in this essay Paine occasionally repeats sentences used elsewhere, and naturally maintains his well-known principles, the work has a peculiar interest as indicating the temper and visions of the opening revolution. —⁠Conway ↩

Royalty was abolished by the National Convention on the first day of its meeting, September 21, 1792, the revolutionary Calendar beginning next day. Paine was chosen by his fellow-deputies of Calais to congratulate the Convention, and did so in a brief address, dated October 27, which was loaned by M. Charavay to the Historical Exposition of the Revolution at Paris, 1889, where I made the subjoined translation:

“Citizen President: In the name of the Deputies of the Department of the Pas de Calais, I have the honor of presenting to the Convention the felicitations of the General Council of the Commune of Calais on the abolition of Royalty.

“Amid the joy inspired by this event, one cannot forbear some pain at the folly of our ancestors, who have placed us under the necessity of treating gravely (solennellement) the abolition of a phantom (fantôme).⁠—Thomas Paine,