Thomas Paine

The government of a free country, properly speaking, is not in the persons, but in the laws.

It is the popery of government; a thing kept up to amuse the ignorant, and quiet them into taxes.

It can only be by blinding the understanding of man, and making him believe that government is some wonderful mysterious thing, that excessive revenues are obtained.

He examines the cost, and compares it with the advantages; and above all, he does not adopt the slavish custom of following what in other governments are called Leaders.

Every man is a proprietor in government, and considers it a necessary part of his business to understand.

In the representative system, the reason for everything must publicly appear.

Nations can have no secrets; and the secrets of courts, like those of individuals, are always their defects.

There is no place for mystery; nowhere for it to begin.

But the case is, that the representative system diffuses such a body of knowledge throughout a nation, on the subject of government, as to explode ignorance and preclude imposition.

I presume that no man in his sober senses will compare the character of any of the kings of Europe with that of General Washington.

That monarchy is all a bubble, a mere court artifice to procure money, is evident (at least to me) in every character in which it can be viewed.

Before this period, he is not trusted with the management of an acre of land, or with the heritable property of a flock of sheep, or an herd of swine; but, wonderful to tell! he may, at the age of eighteen years, be trusted with a nation.