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He didn’t want a solo executive but rather something of a committee. While many of the Founders feared what might happen if you gave the people too much power, Paine (like Franklin) did not.

Paine wanted a government that was more representative than the one we have today. He didn’t want anything like the Senate or the Electoral College, which might act as bulwarks against popular majorities and the will of the people. He wanted judges to be elected by the public.

You will learn about journalists who chronicled the horrors of racial supremacy and the predations of great combinations of industry. (You’re surprised we foregrounded journalists? We’re a magazine; cut us some slack.)

The past—and the present—informs what is possible in America, despite its mistakes, despite its trespasses, despite its cruelties. In a never-ending struggle for the interests of the many over the few, we can choose the side of those who took up the challenge.

And we must not surrender it to those men of privilege who would twist it into something indecipherable, in the name of putting down rebellions to their authority.

Power has been defeated in this nation, at the cost of personal comfort and fortune and lives—sometimes, lots of lives—by those who spoke for the people’s yearnings for freedom. We must remember our history because we are more equipped for future battles when we take history’s lessons.

In this series, you will read about the revolutionary with a personal integrity closest to the democratic impulses embedded in the founding documents. You will examine the avatar of the impossible movement to abolish slavery in these United States.