The political writings of Thomas Paine’s later years (1802-1807) have been largely neglected in the historiography of the Young Re public. His works pose, however, fundamental questions about the evolution of republicanism in America. Three themes emerge from this body of writing- that of factions and parties in the republic ; the question of the perfectibility of the republican regime and the constitutional mechanisms that embody its principles ; and the question of the role that “historical memory” of the founding revolutionary moment ought to play in the maintenance of republican virtue. These three themes represent what seems to me to be the “lessons of republicanism” intended for the first postrevolutionary generation.