Jan 1, 1791
If a house of legislation is to be composed of men of one class, for the purpose of protecting a distinct interest, all the other interests should have the same.
Thomas Paine
The Public Record
Thomas Paine was an English-born American Founding Father, inventor, political philosopher, and statesman. His pamphlets Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783) framed the Patriot argument for independence from Great Britain at the outset of the American Revolution. Paine advanced Enlightenment-era arguments for human rights that shaped revolutionary discourse on both sides of the Atlantic.
gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1791
The aristocracy are not the farmers who work the land, and raise the produce, but are the mere consumers of the rent; and when compared with the active world are the drones, a seraglio of males, who neither collect the honey nor form the…
Jan 1, 1791
It is a prosperity that excludes all envy; and this cannot be said of anything else.
Jan 1, 1791
When the valleys laugh and sing, it is not the farmer only, but all creation that rejoice.
Jan 1, 1791
It is the interest, not of the policy, but of the existence of man, and when it ceases, he must cease to be.
Jan 1, 1791
Every individual, high or low, is interested in the fruits of the earth; men, women, and children, of all ages and degrees, will turn out to assist the farmer, rather than a harvest should not be got in; and they will not act thus by any…
Jan 1, 1791
It is difficult to discover what is meant by the landed interest, if it does not mean a combination of aristocratical landholders, opposing their own pecuniary interest to that of the farmer, and every branch of trade, commerce, and…
Jan 1, 1791
Whether a combination acts to raise the price of any article for sale, or rate of wages; or whether it acts to throw taxes from itself upon another class of the community, the principle and the effect are the same; and if the one be…
Jan 1, 1791
It is in manufacturing towns and labouring villages that those burthens press the heaviest; in many of which it is one class of poor supporting another.
Jan 1, 1791
That this has been the consequence (and will always be the consequence) of constructing governments on combinations, is evident with respect to England, from the history of its taxes.
Jan 1, 1791
The only use to be made of this power (and which it always has made), is to ward off taxes from itself, and throw the burthen upon those articles of consumption by which itself would be least affected.
Jan 1, 1791
What pillar of security does the landed interest require more than any other interest in the state, or what right has it to a distinct and separate representation from the general interest of a nation?