The lives of these men are essential to understanding the American form of government and our ideals of liberty. The Founding Fathers all played key roles in the securing of American independence from Great Britain and in the creation of the government of the United States of America.
On this episode of This World. The lives of these men are essential to understand the American form of government and our ideals of liberty. The Founding Fathers all played key roles in securing American independence from Great Britain and in the creation of the government of the United States of America. And now the life of Thomas Paine. Although Thomas pain is now considered an American hero, at the time of his death only six people attended his funeral, and papers wrote negatively about him. He was not popular and his reputation had been destroyed. His obituary ended with quote, he had lived long, did some good and much harm. And yet Pain was extraordinarily important in the American Revolution and was really very different from the Founding Fathers. As you'll see, He's a man who had a very complicated life, very complicated beliefs, was deeply opposed to the British government, and was enormously helpful to George Washington. But in the end he was more of an opponent to order than he was an advocate of a new order. Paine was born on January twenty ninth, seventeen thirty seven, in the small village of Thetford in Norfolk, England, to Joseph Payne and Francis Cock Payne. He was an only child. His father was a staymaker, a maker of whale boned components for women's courses. Payne attended seven years of formal education at the Thetford Grammar School. He left school around the age of twelve or thirteen and began an apprenticeship with his father. He worked the trade for six years before running away from home to seek an adventure at sea. The first time he tried to run away, his father stopped him. On a November morning in seventeen fifty six, at the age of sixteen, he attempted to join the British privateer Terrible, but his father found him in London and talked him out of joining the crew. Payne later wrote, quote from this adventure, I was happily prevented by the affectionate and moral remonstrance of a good father, who, from his own habits of life, being of the Quaker profession, must begin to look upon me as lost. In April seventeen fifty seven, he joined the crew of the privateer The King of Prussia, where he spent six months at sea. Little is known about Paine's experience on the voyage or what he did, because he barely mentioned it in his writings. In seventeen fifty nine he married Mary Lambert. She and their child died in less than a year later in childbirth. In seventeen sixty eight, Pain began work as an excise officer on the Sussex coast. He was a tax collector. Pain married Elizabeth Olive in seventeen seventy one. Pain served as a tax collector for a short period, but in seventeen seventy two Pain published his first piece, Quote Case of the Officers of Excise, which he personally distributed to members of Parliament, urging them to improve wages and working conditions for England's excise men, that is, England's tax collectors. This probably cost him his job. Officially, the reason he was fired was from neglecting his duties as a tax collector while going to London to lobby for higher pay for tax collectors. In this piece, his first real effort at public advocacy, he wrote, quote, an augmentation of salary sufficient to enable them to live honestly and competently would produce more good effect than all the laws the land can enforce the generality of such frauds, as the officers have been detected and have peered of a nature as remote from inherent dishonesty as a temporary illness is from an incurable disease surrounded with want, children and despair. What can the husband of the father do? And no laws compel like nature, no connections bind like blood. With an addition of salary, the excise would wear a new aspect and recover its former constitution. Languor and neglect would give place to care and cheerfulness. Men of reputation and abilities would seek after it, and, finding a comfortable maintenance, would stick to it. The unworthy and the incapable would be rejected, the power of superiors be re established, and laws and instructions receive new force. The officers would be secured from the temptations of poverty and the revenue from the evils of it. The cure would be as extensive as the complaint, and new health out root the present corruptions pain. You can already see in this very first pamphlet, his first effort at public advocacy. He's already mastered the ability to write clearly. He's already mastered the ability to present a case in an orderly structured way. While Pain was busy lobbying, he and his wife fell apart. In seventeen seventy four, Pain and his wife signed a formal separation agreement. It's unclear why they signed the separation agreement, but Pain never remarried nor have any children. At some point in seventeen seventy four, it's not clear whether this was before or after he separated from his wife, he met Benjamin Franklin in London. Franklin had become the lobbyist for the then province of Pennsylvania went to London. In fact, it was in London that Franklin realized he'd never be accepted by the British aristocracy. And was said that he went to London as an Englishman and he returned as an American. But one of the key things was that in seventeen seventy four Franklin met Thomas Payne and Franklin advised him to emigrate to America. He gave him a letter of introduction to bring with him, addressed to ben Franklin's son in law, Richard Bach. Franklin was thirty eight at the time. In the September thirtieth, seventeen seventy four letter, Franklin wrote, quote the bearer, mister Thomas Paine is very well recommended to me as an ingenious, worthy young man. He goes to Pennsylvania with a view of settling there. I request you to give me your best advice and countenance, as he is quite a stranger there. If you can put him in a way of obtaining employment as a clerk, or assistant tutor in a school, or assistant surveyor, all of which I think him very capable, said, he may procure a subsistence, at least to him. It can make acquaintance and obtain a knowledge of the country. You will do well, and which oblige your affectionate father, My love to Sally and the boys. Three months later, Paine was on a ship to America, almost dying of scurvy. After arriving in Philadelphia, Pain became the managing editor of Philadelphia Magazine. Paine edited the magazine from February seventeen seventy five to May seventeen seventy six. Pain was a major contributor to the magazine, writing under the pseudonyms Amicus and Atlanticus. On January twenty fourth, seventeen seventy five, before he became the managing editor of Philadelphia Magazine, Paine wrote his first essay on the importance of the press. This is pain quote. The press has not only a great influence over our manners and morals, but contributes largely to our pleasures. And a magazine, when properly enriched, is very conveniently calculated for this purpose. Voluminous works weary the patients, But here we are invited by conciseness and variety. As I have formerly received much pleasure from perusing these kind of publications, I wish the present success and have no doubt of seeing a proper diversity blended to agreeable together, so as to furnish out an oleo worthy of the company for whom it is designed. I consider a magazine as a kind of beehive, which both allures the swarm and provides room to store their suites. Its division in cells gives every bee a province of its own. And although they all produce home, I'm sorry. And although they all produce honey, yet perhaps they differ in their taste for flowers, and extract with great dexterity from one then from another. Thus we are not all philosophers, all artists, nor all poets. Thus was Pain describing his belief in the written word and the importance of the written word. Pain was vocally against slavery. On March eighth, seventeen seventy an anti slavery essay written by Pain was published in both the Pennsylvania Journal and the Weekly Adviser. A few weeks later, on April fourteenth, seventeen seventy five, the first anti slavery society in America was formed in Philadelphia, with Pain as one of the founding members. No notice, he's only been there a very short time already. He's active as a citizen, he's active as a writer. He's obviously a very engaged, very energitic person. In his March eighth, seventeen seventy five essay, Pain wrote, quote two Americans, that some desperate wretches should be willing to steal enslave men by violence and murder for gain is rather lamentable than strange, but that many civilized, nay Christianize people should approve and be concerned in the savage practice is surprising and still persisted, though it has been so often proved contrary to the light of nature, to every principle of justice and he humanity, and even good policy by a succession of eminent men in several late publications. Our traders in men and unnatural commodity must know the wickedness of the slave trade if they attend to reasoning or the dictates of their own heart, such as shun and stifle. All these willfully sacrificing conscience and the character of integrity to that golden idol. So here we are with Pain. Already the pamphleteer argue in favor of freedom over slavery, But now comes the moment that makes Pain a historic figure of the first order, and that truly makes him one of the great leaders of the American Revolution. Pain publishes Common Sense anonymously on January tenth, seventeen seventy six, as quote by an Englishman, due to fears that it could be considered treason. Remember, you're dealing with King, who is basically a monarch imposed by God. Any direct criticism King can be translated into treason, into a failure to be a loyal citizen. That's why so much of eighteenth century dialogue will refer back. For example, to the Roman Republic, or will have some other reference point. Everybody knows it's written about the present, but you can't say it directly. So here's pain as an englishman, worried that if people know he wrote it, he might be considered a traitor. And remember he's writing this in January seventeen seventy six, before the Americans have declared their independence. So as an Englishman, he writes so brilliantly that in the first three months Common Sense sold one hundred and twenty thousand copies. By the end of the revolution, five hundred thousand copies were sold. Since the estimated population of the colonies of the time, excluding Native Americans and African American slaves, was two point five million, and estimated twenty percent of the colonists owned a copy. After its publication, many American newspapers praised the piece. So here's a document which is sweeping across the country, being very widely read, and it is shaping people's thinking about this historic moment. This is a moment of indecision. Nobody's yet really thought clearly about declaring independence. They know they're mad at the English government, they know they feel cheated by Parliament they know that the arrogance of the government is driving of nuts because they're such a deep sense of freedom thereafter all, thousands of miles away, they're on the edge of a continent. They're earning that with their own hard work. They're taking their own risks with Indians. I mean, from a standpoint of the Americans, London has become a place which is despotism rather than a place which is protecting them. And so pain is here beginning to explain to them how to think about where they are now. The Pennsylvania Evening Posts on February thirteenth, seventeen seventy six says, quote, if you know the author of common sense, tell him he's done wonders and worked miracles, made Torris whigs, and washed Blackamore's white. He has made a great number of converts here. His style is plain and nervous, his facts are true, his reasoning just and conclusive. I might point out that Whigs were the loyal opposition to the government, and so to be a wig was in fact to be critical of the established government, and has been pointed out by many historians. The Americans who decided to rebel were essentially in the Whig tradition. They were very close to the English Whigs in their thinking and in their sense of identity. So when the pennsylvani Evening Post says that he has made Torries whigs, that is saying, basically, he's converting people from defending the established government of England into being critics of the government of England. The New York Journal on March seventeen, seventeen seventy six says, quote, in your famous pamphlet entitled Common Sense, by which I am convinced the necessitive independence to which I was before a verse, you have given liberty to every individual to contribute materials for that great building, the Grand Charter of American Liberty. Now think about this. Here's this englishman who's come over, and all of a sudden he captures, He articulates the spirit of the age. He gives words to people, people who had sort of thought about it, but they didn't know how to say it. And suddenly he becomes the catalyst for several hundred thousand Americans to begin to move towards independence. The New London Gazette, published in Connecticut on March twenty second, seventeen seventy six, says quote to the author of the pamphlet and titled common Sense, Sir, in declaring your own you have declared the sentiments of millions. Your production may justly be compared to a land flood that sweeps all before it. We were blind, but on reading these enlightening works, the scales have fallen from our eyes. Now. It's just remarkable that he has had that kind of an impact, and of course, as a part of that process. That's why I say that in many ways he's one of the founding fathers, even though culturally and an income and in stature he doesn't really quite fit with them. He's more of a rabble rouser, more of an outsider, more of a radical, as you'll see in a minute. But he's now established a believability a connection with probably close to a million Americans out of a population of about two and a half million. However, the revolution doesn't go well. July fourth is terrific. Everybody is excited. They pass the Eclatian independence. They've already created an army in Massachusetts, and to unify the country, they sent a Virginian, George Washington, to head up the army in Massachusetts. Washington as soon as he gets a copy of the declaration as it read to the troops, Washington understands the importance of morale, the importance of propaganda, the importance of getting people that are said what they're doing. And yet, despite their great victory in Boston, driving the British out of the city, they fall on hard times. The British have the power of the oce because the Royal Navy dominates, they move their military. Washington marches down to Brooklyn, his army begins to be shattered. He barely survives thanks to a providential fog coming in so people can't even see what's happening, and they manage to get their army across from Brooklyn to Manhattan, when if the weather had been clear, the Royal Navy would have sunk the entire American army. He loses Fort Washington, about three thousand troops surrendering, and his army gradually shrinks from a high point of thirty thousand in September down to about twenty five hundred effectives by Christmas, and people are defeated. Despondent, demoralized, Washington, on the long march across New Jersey, runs into Paine, who has signed up as a rifleman, and he says, I don't need you as a rifleman. If I need a new pamphlet, I need an explanation. You've got to tell us now, why has this become so hard? And so the man who wrote common sense and helped the country decide it wanted to be independent, goes to Philadelphia, goes back to writing, and produces the crisis entitled the American Crisis. And it begins with some of the most amazing words ever written, and I am quoting pain. These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of their country. But he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny like hell, is not easily conquered. Yet we have this consolation with us that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. So here's this great pamphleteer coming back once again, saying, Okay, I help convince you you ought to be independent. Now I'm going to convince you got to stick with it. As Washington and the extraordinary, courageous last throw of the dice, takes his troops to cross the Delaware on Christmas night in a snowstorm with large blocks of ice in the river, gets them to march eight miles in the dark to surprise eight hundred professional German soldiers who collapse and are captured. As the men are getting on the boat to cross the river, Washington has the officers reading the crisis to remind them, this is why we're here, this is what we're trying to do. Yes, it's hard, but we can do it. So Payne has two great impacts. His first great impact is getting people to decide that they want to be independent. His second great impact is convincing them to keep working and to keep fighting. Now, in this period, Paine is actually serving serve as a war correspondent. He's reporting to the country and he actually wrote sixteen articles sitting around the campfire about what's going on. During the retreat of Washington's forces from New York through New Jersey in December seventeen seventy six, Payne wrote an account which was published in the Pennsylvania Journal only in January twenty ninth, seventeen seventy seven. This is after he's written the crisis. After he's helped the Americans decide they are going to keep fighting and they're going to state it. But here's what he writes. I'm quoting pain now from the Pennsylvania Journal. Fort Washington being obliged to surrender by a violent attack made by the whole British army on Saturday, the sixteenth of November, the generals determined to evacuate Fort Lee, which, being principally intended to preserved the communication with Fort Washington, was becoming a manner useless. The stores were ordered to be removed, and great part of them was immediately sent off. The enemy, knowing the divided state of her army and that the terms of the soldiers enlistments would soon aspire, conceived the design of penetrating into the Jerseys, and hoped, by pushing their successes, to be completely victorious. Accordingly, on Wednesday morning, the twentieth November, it was discovered that a large body of British and Hessian troops had crossed the North River and landed about six miles above the fort. As our force was inferior to that of the enemy, the fort unfinished and on a narrow neck of land. The garrison was ordered to march for Hackensack Bridge, which, though much nearer the enemy than the fort, they quietly suffered our troops to take possession of. The principal loss suffered at Fort Lee was that of the heavy cannon, the greatest part of which was left behind. Our troops continued at Hackensack Bridge and town that day and half of the next, when the inclemency of the weather the want of quarters an approach of the enemy obliged them to proceed to Aquaconock and from thence to Newark, a party being left at Aquaconack to observe the motions of the enemy. At Newark, our little army was reinforced by Lord Sterling's and Colonel Hans brigades, which had been stationed at Brunswick. Three days after our troops left Hackensack, a body of the enemy crossed the Passaic above Aquacnack and made their approaches slowly towards Newark, and seemed extremely desirous that we should leave the town without their being put to the trouble of fighting for it. The distance from Newark to Aqucnack is nine miles, and they were three days in marching that distance from Newark. Our retreat was to Brunswick, and it was hoped that the assistance of the Jersey militia would enable General Washington to make the banks of the Raretan the bounds of the enemy's progress. But on the first of December the army was greatly weakened by the experts in terms of enlistments of the Maryland and Jersey flying camp and the militia not coming in so soon as was expected. Another retreat was the necessary consequence. Our army reached Trenton on the fourth of December, continued there till the seventh, and then on the approach of the enemy, it was thought proper to pass the Delaware. Now that was the sort of description for the whole country of the way in which Washington's army is shrinking and getting to a point where it almost ceases to exist. In fact, at one point, in designing a very daring strategy, Washington reassures his generals by pointing out that if the army totally collapses, the revolution will be over. If the revolution is over, every general at that meeting will be hung. And therefore they have nothing to fear, because they have nothing to lose. Has remarkable courage on the part of Washington, and it was a remarkable intelligence by Washington to recognize that Pain really was a person who could help understand what's going on. Pain writes The Crisis four and September seventeen seventy seven, which opens with the following, I think this is useful to us today because it's as true for us today as it was in seventeen seventy seven. Pain wrote, those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it. And near the closed States, we fight not to enslave, but to set a country free and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in. Now, I think that's probably as good a capture of what America is all about and of what we in our generation also have to do. And in that sense, if you allow him to, Pain talks to our generation fully as much as he wrote for the founding father's generation. You know. In seventeen seventy seven, Congress appointed Pain as Secretary to the Committee for Foreign Affairs. He held that till early seventeen seventy nine, when he was forced to resign as a result of what was called the Silas Dean affair. Silas Dean was a member of the Early Continent of Congress who was sent by Congress to France to obtain financial and military assistance. He successfully obtained and sent arms from France to America, but upon his return to the States, he was accused of embezzlement and disloyalty because of accusations that he charged France for the supplies that were intended as gifts. These accusations were never proven, but they ruined Dean's political career. Paine publicly denounced Dean's private arms dealing in France, but in doing so revealed secret negotiations with France, which led to his dismissal as Secretary to the Committee for Foreign Affairs later that year. He was appointed Clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly. In March of seventeen eighty, while Clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly, Payne wrote the preamble to the Act for the Great Actual Abolition of Slavery, which was the first legislative measure for the emancipation of slaves in America. Paine originally hoped this act would immediately abolish slavery, but because of opposition. He was forced to write a compromise which outlined the gradual emancipation of slaves and said the Act specified that every child born into slavery after passing the Act would be free upon reaching the age of twenty eight. The bill passed with a vote of thirty four to twenty one. So pain has had an experience both of being pro freedom for the American colonies from Britain and being pro freedom for the abolition of slavery. In seventeen eighty seven, Paine returned to Britain, but experienced persecution for his support of the French Revolution. The French Revolution is a much more radical a revolution than the American Revolution, and that radicalism became a huge challenge to the very fabric of British society. In seventeen ninety one, Payne wrote The Rights of Man in response to the English writer and politician Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, which was written in seventeen ninety and Burke is proudly the most famous conservative intellectual who's also a politician trying to think through the threat of the radicalism of the French Revolution. So now Paine is writing defending the French Revolution. The Rights of Man was originally printed by Joseph Johnson and published in February twenty first, seventeen ninety one, but it was a drawn for fear of prosecution by the government. On March sixteenth, seventeen ninety one, J. S. Jordan published Paine's ninety thousand word book. In the Rights of Man, Pain wrote, quote, it is a perversion of terms to say that a charter gives rights. It operates by a contrary effect, that of taking rights away. Rights are inherently in all the inhabitants, but charters, by annulling those rights in the majority, leave the right by exclusion in the hands of a few. They consequently are instruments of injustice. The fact, therefore must be that the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a contract with each other to produce a government. And this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle in which they have a right to exist. Close, of course, if you think about it, assistant direct repudiation of the entire model of kingship, in which power goes from God to the king and the King gives you rights. Pain is saying the opposite. He's saying, oh, no, power comes to you from God, and then you get to decide whether or not you want to have a contract with other people to create a government. Now this writing is so radical for that time that Pain is charged with libel. He flees to France before being charged, and he never returns to England. So now he's moved from the heroic defender and explainer of the American Revolution to an advocate of a dramatically more radical French Revolution. Paine wrote Georgejacques d'Antin, who's one of the great leaders of the French Revolution on May sixth, seventeen ninety three. Did originally hope to return to America in seventeen eighty eight, but the French Revolution encouraged him to stay. Paine wrote, quote, I am exceeding disturbed at the distractions, jealousies, discontents, and uneasiness the reign among us, in which, if they continue, will bring ruin and disgrace on the Republic. When I left America the seventeen eighty seven is my intention to return the year following. But the French Revolution and the prospect that afforded of extending the principles of liberty and fraternity through the greater part of Europe had induced me to prolong my stale upwards of six years. As soon as the Constitution shall be established, I shall return to America and be the future prosperity of France. Ever so great, I shall enjoy no other part of it than the happiness of knowing it. In seventeen ninety two, Payne actually took a seat in the National Convention. We become one of the four major writers of the Constitution for the Republic of France. So here is an Englishman who helps create intellectually the American system, now is in France helping develop the French system, which is far more radical than the American system. And of course, in both cases he's opposed to Great Britain. In seventeen ninety three, as a member of the National Convention, Pain urged banishment not execution, of Louis of sixteenth in his family. In November seventeen ninety three, he was arrested and imprisoned in Luxembourg prison for opposing the beheading of Louis of sixteen. Payne continued to write in published works while in prison. He published The Age of Reason while in prisoned. In seventeen ninety four, after eleven months in prison, through the intervention of James Monroe, the ambassador to France, Paine was released, narrowly escaping execution. In seventeen ninety six, Payne published open letter of George Washington criticizing him. Paine was upset that after he expressed American citizenship while being imprisoned in France, Washington and his administration did nothing to help him get released. In the letter, Payne wrote, quote, monopolies of every kind marked your administration almost in the moment of its commencement. The lands obtained by the revolution were lavished upon partisans. The interest of the disbanded soldier was sold to the speculator. After fifteen years away, Paine remained in France until eighteen oh two, when President Thomas Jefferson invited him to return. On November fifteenth, eighteen oh two, The National Intelligencer in washing d c. Published the first of many letters from pain to the Citizen of the United States about his return to the States. Payne wrote in his first letter, quote, after an absence of almost fifteen years, I am again returned to the country in whose dangers I bore my share, and to whose greatness I contributed my part. As this letter is intended to announce my arrival to my friends and my enemies. If I have any for I ought to have none in America, and as introductory to others Tho'll occasionally follow, I shall close it by detailing the line of conduct I shall pursue. I have no occasion to ask, and do not intend to accept any place or office in the government. There is none who could give me. There would be in any ways equal to the profits I could make as an author. I have an established fame in the literary world. Could I reconcile it to my principles to make money by my politics or religion? I must be, in everything what I have ever been, a disinterested volunteer. My proper sphere of action is on the common floor of citizenship, and to honest men I give my hand and my heart freely. I have some manuscript works to publish, of which I shall give proper notice, and some mechanical affairs to bring forward. They will employ all my leisure time. I shall continue these letters as I see occasion, and as to the low party prints that choose to abuse me, they are welcome. I shall not descend to answer them. I have been too much used to such common stuff to take any notice of it. The government of England honored me with a thousand martyrdoms by burning me an effigy in every town in that country, and their highlans in America may do this, said a fresh I was in tell Thomas Paine thinks a lot of himself, and he sees things focused on him. You can also see that he is inherently controvers cannot help himself. He has new ability to addit himself to make it more acceptable. After his arrival, he found that his reputation was mostly negative, with the press calling him an outrageous blasphemer, a lying, drunken, brutal infidel, and a lily livered, sinful rouge, among others. Upon his return to America, Pain resided on and off at the farm that the State of New York gave him in seventeen eighty four for his service in the cause of independence. In eighteen oh five, Pain moved to New York City permanently. On June eighth, eighteen oh nine, Payne died in New York and was buried on his farm in New Rochelle. Only six mourners were present at his funeral. At the time, he was not considered an American hero, as The New York Citizen included in his obituary, he had lived long, did some good and much harm. Years after his death in eighteen twenty one, Thomas Jefferson wrote positively about Pain, quote, no writer has exceeded Pain and ease, familiarity of style, and perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple and unassuming language. And this he may be compared with doctor Franklin. And indeed his Common Sense was for a while believed to have written by doctor Franklin and published under the borrowed name of Pain, who had come over with him from England. I think in that sense Jefferson sort of captured it. Pain was a remarkable pamphleteer. His first two great works, Common Sense, which really moved the country towards independence, and The Crisis, which really convinced Americans we had to stick at it until we won, were historic and had an enormous impact on the American Revolution and an entire generation of people. His passion for taking on the British government led him to the much more radical French Revolution, and his desire to continuously have a sharp pen, which attacked much more than it might have under other circumstances, ultimately isolated him. But to understand America, to understand the role of the common citizen, to understand how much the American Revolution was, at its heart a popular revolution of everyday people, people who'd been moved by reading a pamphlet, to be reminded that ideas matter, and that it is the power of ideas that drives everything else. That's the legacy of Thomas Pain, and it's a legacy worth all of us remembering and all of us teaching others about. Thank you for listening to founding Father's Week on Nutsworld. You can learn more about Thomas Pain on our show page at newtsworld dot com. Newsworld is produced by Gingah three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guernsey Sloan and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the team at Gingrish three sixty. If you've been enjoying newtswork, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of Newsworld consign up for my three free weekly columns at ginrichthree sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrich. This is Newsworld