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.
From the time of William a species of government arose, issuing out of this coalition bill of rights; and more so, since the corruption introduced at the Hanover succession by the agency of Walpole; that can be described by no other name…
This being the case, the bill of rights is more properly a bill of wrongs, and of insult.
You shall have so much, and I will have the rest; and with respect to the nation, it said, for your share, You shall have the right of petitioning.
What is it, but a bargain, which the parts of the government made with each other to divide powers, profits, and privileges?
In all those instances we see nothing of a constitution, but only of restrictions on assumed power.
It did not create and give powers to government in a manner a constitution does; but was, as far as it went, of the nature of a re-conquest, and not a constitution; for could the nation have totally expelled the usurpation, as France has…
This being admitted, it will then appear, that the exertion of the nation, at different periods, to abate that tyranny, and render it less intolerable, has been credited for a constitution.
If we begin with William of Normandy, we find that the government of England was originally a tyranny, founded on an invasion and conquest of the country.
The final controlling power, therefore, and the original constituting power, are one and the same power.
The laws which are enacted by governments, control men only as individuals, but the nation, through its constitution, controls the whole government, and has a natural ability to do so.
When it is in a constitution, it has the nation for its support, and the natural and the political controlling powers are together.
They could not but perceive, that there must necessarily be a controlling power existing somewhere, and they placed this power in the discretion of the persons exercising the government, instead of placing it in a constitution formed by…