Study Guide for Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America

1. Who was Tom Paine?  What was his social origins?  his intellectual origins?  Where did he derive his ideas?  What did it mean to be a radical in the eighteenth century?

2. Who did Paine gravitate to Philadelphia?  Why?  True clue:  The leather aprons.

3. What was the message of Common Sense?  Why did colonials believe Common Sense to be common sense?  Which colonials were most attracted to Paine's message?

4. How was the Pennsylvania constitution of 1776 different from other state constitutions of the period?  Why was it considered "radical"?  What happened in Pennsylvania which allowed for the enactment of such a constitution?

5. How did Paineite republicanism (represented by the Pennsylvania constitution) differ from the republicanism of James Madison.

6. Discuss the debate over economic policy in Revolutionary Pennsylvania.  Make the case for price control?  Who favored price control and why?  Make the case for market control or laissez-faire?  Who favored laissez faire and why?

7. What was the Fort Wilson riot?  Why was it significant?

8. Why did Tom Paine, the great radical, ally himself with conservative Robert Morris and the Bank of Pennsylvania?