Legitimizing the suppression of radicalism.

The trial of Thomas Paine for his pamphlet, "The Rights of Man."

Statue of Thomas Paine by Charles Thomas Wheeler (1892-1974) unveiled on 7 June 1964, gifted to the town of Thetford by the Thomas Paine Foundation in New York.

my own mind is my own church: what ever is my right as a man is also the
right of another and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as possess
why do men continue to practice on themselves the absurdities they
despise in others. — Thomas Paine. Inscribed on statue.

Thomas Paine was tried in England in absentia on December 18, 1792 and found guilty¹ for his pamphlet, The Rights of Man which advocated the right of the people to overthrow their government.² Effigies of Paine were burnt in every principal town in the kingdom by government loyalists.³

In 1964 a statue was erected in his birthplace—a gift from the Thomas Paine Foundation. Paine holds a quill.

1. The trial of Thomas Paine, for a libel, contained in the second part of Rights of man. Before Lord Kenyon, and a special jury, at Guildhall, December 18, 1792. With the speeches of the attorney general and Mr. Erskine at large. [Digital copy of original in the Trial Pamphlet collection at the Cornell University Law Library]

2. Paine, Thomas. Rights of Man. London-derry: Printed at the desire of a Society of gentlemen, 1791.

3. O'Gorman, Frank (2006). "The Paine Burnings of 1792–1793". Past and Present. Oxford University Press.