Jan 1, 1791
No better reason can be given, why a house of legislation should be composed entirely of men whose occupation consists in letting landed property, than why it should be composed of those who hire, or of brewers, or bakers, or any other…
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
To be a successful candidate, he must be destitute of the qualities that constitute a just legislator; and being thus disciplined to corruption by the mode of entering into Parliament, it is not to be expected that the representative…
Jan 1, 1791
A man of moral honour and good political principles cannot submit to the mean drudgery and disgraceful arts, by which such elections are carried.
Jan 1, 1791
As one of the Houses of the English Parliament is, in a great measure, made up of elections from these corporations; and as it is unnatural that a pure stream should flow from a foul fountain, its vices are but a continuation of the vices…
Jan 1, 1791
Every man is a customer in proportion to his ability; and as all parts of a nation trade with each other, whatever affects any of the parts must necessarily communicate to the whole.
Jan 1, 1791
As population is one of the chief sources of wealth (for without it land itself has no value), everything which operates to prevent it must lessen the value of property; and as corporations have not only this tendency, but directly this…
Jan 1, 1791
This species of feudality is kept up to aggrandise the corporations at the ruin of towns; and the effect is visible.
Jan 1, 1791
His rights are circumscribed to the town, and, in some cases, to the parish of his birth; and all other parts, though in his native land, are to him as a foreign country.
Jan 1, 1791
He is not free of the nation, in the same manner that a Frenchman is free of France, and an American of America.
Jan 1, 1791
A native of England, under the operation of these charters and corporations, cannot be said to be an Englishman in the full sense of the word.
Jan 1, 1791
They are sources of endless contentions in the places where they exist, and they lessen the common rights of national society.
Jan 1, 1791
They do not give rights to A, but they make a difference in favour of A by taking away the right of B, and consequently are instruments of injustice.