Thomas Paine: "the most influential crank in American political history"

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, William Triplett has a fascinating review of the new exhibit "One Life: Thomas Paine, the Radical Founding Father," which recently opened at the National Portrait Gallery. As curator Margaret Christman told Triplett, "Although his words are quoted left and right, right and left, I suspect most people know very little about Tom Paine." So who was he? Here's Triplett:

Depending on whom you ask, he was ­either an uncompromising free-thinker who made possible the popular embrace of the ­Declaration of Independence, or "a filthy little atheist," as Teddy Roosevelt once ­described him. A seditious subject of the English crown or an honorary French citizen chucked in the Bastille. Or just a fiercely American idealist with too much interest in brandy and democracy and not enough in fashion or personal hygiene.

All are more or less accurate—some more, others less—though Paine did firmly believe in God. Not that it made him any less polarizing.

There's also this wonderful fact:

As the exhibit shows, newspaper cartoonists struck back with vicious anti-Paine caricatures. "I don't think I've ever seen a pro-Paine cartoon," Ms. Christman says. In fact, because many images ­depict Paine as "slovenly and unwashed," Ms. Christman says, she made a point of ­including one portrait showing him smartly groomed and dressed.

Read the rest here. In our July 2007 issue, Katherine Mangu-Ward reviewed Paine's contested legacy.

*Typo fixed.