imity of devotion to principle. For this he was arrested,
imprisoned, and doomed to death. There is not a theologian who has
ever maligned Thomas Paine that has the courage to do this thing. When
Louis Capet was on trial for his life before the French convention,
Thomas Paine had the courage to speak and vote against the sentence of
death. In his speech I find the following splendid sentiments:

"My contempt and hatred for monarchical governments are sufficiently
well known, and my compassion for the unfortunate, friends or enemies,
is equally profound.

I have voted to put Louis Capet upon trial, because it was necessary to
prove to the world the perfidy, the corruption, and the horror of the
monarchical system.

To follow the trade of a king destroys all morality, just as the trade
of a jailer deadens all sensibility.

Make a man a king today and tomorrow he will be a brigand.

Had Louis Capet been a farmer, he might have been held in esteem by his
neighbors, and his wickedness results from his position rather than
from his nature.

Let the French nation purge its territory of kings without soiling
itself with their impure blood.

Let the United States be the asylum of Louis Capet, where, in spite of
the overshadowing miseries and crimes of a royal life, he will learn by
the continual contemplation of the general prosperity that the true
system of government is not that of kings, but of the people.

I am an enemy of kings, but I can not forget that they belong to the
human race.

It is always delightful to pursue that course where policy and humanity
are united.

As France has been the first of all the nations of Europe to destroy
royalty, let it be the first to abolish the penalty of death.

As a true republican, I consider kings as more the objects of contempt
than of vengeance."

Search the records of the world and you will find but few sublimer acts
than that of Thomas Paine voting against the king's death. He, the
hater of despotism, the abhorer of monarchy, the champion of the rights
of man, the republican, accepting death to save the life of a deposed
tyrant--of a throneless king! This was the last grand act of his
political life--the sublime conclusion of his political career.

All his life he had been the disinterested friend of man. He had
labored not for money, not for fame, but for the general good. He had
aspired to no office. He had no recognition of his services, but had
ever