“ABOVE ALL, I DEFEND THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY”: THOMAS PAINE’S PROSPECTS ON THE RUBICON, 1817
PAINE, Thomas. Prospects On The Rubicon. London: Printed by W.T. Sherwin, 1817. Octavo, disbound; pp. iv, (5)-33, (34).
Third English edition of Paine’s stirring call for peace, “one of his most sweeping, extraordinary, humanist statements.”
In the summer of 1787, as tensions between the French and English threatened to erupt in war, “Paine, unable to contain himself in a dispute, wrote the Prospects on the Rubicon. Here he argued that peace was better than war, because the cost of the war fell on those least able to fund it: the poor… [and] he made one of his most sweeping, extraordinary, humanistic statements. ‘I defend the cause of the poor, of the manufacturers, of the tradesmen, of the farmers, and above all those on whom the real burden of taxes falls—but above all, I defend the cause of humanity” (Fruchtman, 185). First published anonymously in London in December 1787; issued under the title Prospects on the War and Paper Currency in London in 1793. First American edition published in 1794. Gimbel 85-6. See Gimbel-Yale 49; Evans 27465.
Text generally fresh with small hole to title page affecting “PR” of the title, light soiling to wrappers. An extremely good copy.