d that the war was to save the union. Slavery was
abolished and the Union saved by the defeat of the Secessionists; but for a
time the fortunes of the Union were more desperate than they had been at
any time since the Declaration of Independence.

Hamilton was the real founder of the Republican party, as Jefferson was of
the Democrats. Both these men were prominent in the making of the American
Constitution in 1787, and Jefferson was the responsible author of the
Declaration of Independence. But Franklin and Paine made large
contributions to the democratic independence of America.

THOMAS PAINE (1737-1809)

Edmund Randolph, the first Attorney-General of the United States, was on
Washington's staff at the beginning of the War, and he ascribed
independence in the first place to George III., but next to "Thomas Paine,
an Englishman by birth."[75]

Paine's later controversies with theological opponents have obscured his
very considerable services to American Independence, to political democracy
in England, and to constitutional government in the French Revolution; and
as mankind is generally, and naturally, more interested in religion than in
politics, Paine is remembered rather as an "infidel"--though he was a
strong theist--than as a gifted writer on behalf of democracy and a
political reformer of original powers.

Paine--who came of a Suffolk Quaker family--reached America in 1774, on the
very threshold of the war. His Quaker principles made him attack negro
slavery on his arrival, and he endeavoured, without success, to get an
anti-slavery clause inserted in the "Declaration of Independence." He
served in the American ranks during the war, and was the friend of
Washington, who recognised the value of his writings. For Paine's "Common
Sense" pamphlet and his publication, "The Crisis," had enormous
circulation, and were of the greatest value in keeping the spirit of
independence alive in the dark years of the war. They were fiercely
Republican; and though they were not entirely free from contemporary
notions of government established on the ruins of a lost innocence, they
struck a valiant note of self-reliance, and emphasised the importance of
the average honest man. "Time makes more converts than reason," wrote
Paine. Of monarchy he could say, "The fate of Charles I. hath only made
kings more subtle--not more just"; and, "Of more worth is one honest man to
society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffia