William Duane and the Triumph of Infidelity

Abstract When Thomas Paine returned to the United States in 1802, William Duane was one of the few American editors who welcomed him publicly. “Thomas Paine, the early and uniform asserter of the Rights of Mankind [sic], and author of the immortal revolutionary papers called common sense and the crisis,” wrote Duane, “arrived at Baltimore on Saturday last.” “The arrival of this interesting man,” he continued, was as might be expected, an object of interest and curiosity to the old who knew his services, and to the young who had heard of his fame in all the opposite modes which political sympathy or hatred could employ to express their respect or abhorrence of the asserter of freedom. Duane’s oblique reference to Paine’s notorious Age of Reason was followed by a brief acknowledgment of the religious controversy that swirled around the great patriot-author of the American Revolution. “The writings of Mr. Paine on religious subjects,” he added, “were not even mentioned, and the right of private opinion was neither assailed, nor brought into question.” Duane had already expressed his own views on Paine’s religious writings: The pretended crime of Thomas Paine, is his Age of Reason. We do not mean to defend that work. That has been undertaken by hundreds, and the book itself is now thrown by among other lumber. We assert however that the writing of that book, is not a proof of his impiety, nor can it be a justification of any person in attempting to asperse the man.