Rights of Man: Part the First Being An Answer to Mr. Burke’s Attack on the French Revolution and Part the Second Combining Principle and Practice.

Envisioning that Rights of Man "would do for England what his Common Sense had done for America," Paine answered Burke's attack on the French Revolution with his "celebrated answer, The Rights of Man" (Gimbel-Yale 59). Written "with a force and clarity unequalled even by Burke, Paine laid down those principles of fundamental human rights which must stand, no matter what excesses are committed to obtain them… The government tried to suppress it, but it circulated the more briskly… [Rights of Man is] the textbook of radical thought and the clearest of all expositions of the basic principles of democracy" (PMM 241). Rights of Man, Part I, was dedicated to Washington and first published on his February 22, 1791 birthday by London publisher J. Johnson, but was immediately suppressed. With difficulty Paine was able to secure the services of London publisher J.S. Jordan. "The book was a sensation" (Gimbel-Yale 60).