Dear Mr. President,

This year is 200th Anniversary of the death of Thomas Paine that great thinker and philosopher who was also the man who dubbed the new nation: "The United States of America!"

Recently there was an article: "The Forgotten Founder of Our Nation" by Algernon D'Ammassa for the Las Cruces Sun-News, which brought to mind the reason for my writing you this letter.

Mr. President do you recall in your inaugural day address on January 20, 2009, this year wherein you stated the following... When the Pennsylvania Assembly considered the formal abolition of slavery in 1779, it was Thomas Paine who authored the preamble to the proposal. ....Paine's fervent objections to slavery led to his exclusion from the inner circles of American power in the first years of the republic. ...And on this day, this remarkable day, Thomas Paine is fully redeemed ... Paine to a greater extent than any of his peers was the founder who imagined a truly United States that might offer a son of Africa and of America not merely citizenship but its presidency. ... (It) does not mean that we should presume that the founders were all equally wise, or good. ... It was Paine the most revolutionary of their number, who proved to be the wisest, and the best of that band of patriots - for his time, and for this time.

As you have so rightly pointed out in your inauguration day Mr. President:

Today belongs to you Barack Obama.

But it also belongs to Thomas Paine (the forgotten founder of the American nation).

It is with this in mind that I am going to take the opportunity to request you Mr. President, that since this year is the 200th Anniversary of the death of Thomas Paine that a special commemorative SILVER DOLLAR be issued to honour the memory this great American patriot who has been so long forgotten by history, that we must bring him into the future that others may also remember him.

I am,

Yours respectfully,

Kenneth T. Tellis