THOMAS PAINE, AMERICA'S FIRST ABOLITIONIST

Abstract

For more than two hundred years, human rights and freedoms have formed the foundation of human existence. In 2001, international opinion declared the slave trade a crime against humanity. Throughout 2007, Britain celebrated the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade. On March 25, 2008, the United Nations celebrated the first annual commemoration of the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The same year marked the bicentenary of the official end of the international slave trade. On March 3, 1807, President Thomas Jeffer-son signed a bill approved by Congress that prohibited the importation of slaves into the territory under the authority of the United States. The slave trade and the phenomenon of slavery in the British colonies of North America caught the attention of the eminent political columnist, Thomas Paine. Thomas Paine was the spiritual leader of the American and French revolutions, a fighter for the right to freedom, a fierce enemy of absolutism, and a champion of the struggle for human rights. The article aims to present Paine's journalistic and political activities in the fight against social injustice, which was the issue of slavery in the British colonies in America. His involvement in social and political life in the emerging new country on the world map – the United States of America – widely described in the press, contributed significantly to taking action to abolish slavery. Thomas Paine, because of his merits in the struggle for the abolition of slavery, was hailed by posterity as the first abolitionist of America