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ROOSEVELT, Franklin D. Typed letter signed ("F.D.R."), as President, to Frederic A. Delano, Washington, 25 August 1942. 1 page, 4to, White House stationery . Fine.
ROOSEVELT, Franklin D. Typed letter signed ("F.D.R."), as President, to Frederic A. Delano, Washington, 25 August 1942. 1 page, 4to, White House stationery . Fine. GREAT PRESIDENTS STICKING UP FOR EACH OTHER: FDR ON TOM PAINE AND GEORGE WASHINGTON "Many thanks for sending me that clipping about Tom Paine," Roosevelt writes Delano. "I, too, have always had a keen interest in him." But one chapter in Paine's career rankled: "His principal mistake lay in his rather violent opposition to Washington in the campaign of 1792." FDR has his history slightly wrong. It was not 1792 that Paine and Washington fell out--nor indeed was there an election "campaign" in 1792. Paine's break with Washington came in 1795, when he was arrested in Paris and the American government would not bestir itself to effect his release. Paine appealed to the American ambassador at the time, James Monroe, to rescue him on the grounds that he was an American citizen. Monroe would only counsel "patience and fortitude." On 20 September 1795 Paine sent an angry private letter to Washington: "I was imprisoned on the ground of being born in England, and your silence on not enquiring into the cause of that imprisonment and reclaiming me against it was tacitly giving me up...I must continue to think you treacherous till you give me cause to think otherwise." In 1796 he went public with his attacks in his pamphlet, A Letter to George Washington . A fine association of three great Americans.