The Rights of Man

Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man (1791) is one of the 18th-century’s most influential political treatises. It offers a spirited defense of the ongoing French Revolution and calls for dramatic reforms in Britain. Paine wrote Rights of Man as a direct response to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), a conservative critique that professes skepticism and even horror at the course of events in France since the Revolution began in 1789. Rights of Man appeared in two parts. The first part was printed in March 1791, but the second part was delayed until February 1792 due to government persecution. 

The clash of ideas and interests associated with the Burke-Paine debate was more intense in Britain than anywhere else. Whereas Burke cites tradition and the sanctity of the British constitution in support of the prevailing social hierarchy, Paine emphasizes equality and natural rights as arguments against monarchical and aristocratic privilege. Paine was already known for advancing egalitarian ideas in Common Sense (1776), in which he denounced monarchy and urged Americans to declare independence from the British Empire. By the time he wrote Rights of Man, therefore, Paine was well established as a radical polemicist and one of the world’s foremost advocates for liberty.