Jan 1, 1791
The hereditary system, therefore, is as repugnant to human wisdom as to human rights; and is as absurd as it is unjust.
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
As the republic of letters brings forward the best literary productions, by giving to genius a fair and universal chance; so the representative system of government is calculated to produce the wisest laws, by collecting wisdom from where…
Jan 1, 1791
The aristocracy has screened itself too much, and this serves to restore a part of the lost equilibrium.
Jan 1, 1791
Many of the facts were in themselves principles; such as the declaration of American Independence, and the treaty of alliance between France and America, which recognised the natural rights of man, and justified resistance to oppression.
Jan 1, 1791
A knowledge of the practice was then joined to the theory; and all that was wanting to give it real existence was opportunity.
Jan 1, 1791
Man cannot, properly speaking, make circumstances for his purpose, but he always has it in his power to improve them when they occur, and this was the case in France.
Jan 1, 1791
But the spirit of the nation was not to be overcome, and it was so fully sensible of the strong ground it had taken--that of withholding taxes--that it contented itself with keeping up a sort of quiet resistance, which effectually…
Jan 1, 1791
It was a sort of new form of government that insensibly served to put the old one out of sight and to unhinge it from the superstitious authority of antiquity.
Jan 1, 1791
It was become evident, that no constitution, worthy of being called by that name, could be established on anything less than a national ground.
Jan 1, 1791
The Aristocracy had hitherto opposed the despotism of the Court, and affected the language of patriotism; but it opposed it as its rival (as the English Barons opposed King John) and it now opposed the nation from the same motives.
Jan 1, 1791
The object is not so much the produce of the tax as the justice of the measure.
Jan 1, 1791
When the mind of a nation is bowed down by any political superstition in its government, such as hereditary succession is, it loses a considerable portion of its powers on all other subjects and objects.