Thomas Paine

It is the easiest of all the forms of government to be understood and the most eligible in practice; and excludes at once the ignorance and insecurity of the hereditary mode, and the inconvenience of the simple democracy.

It is impossible to conceive a system of government capable of acting over such an extent of territory, and such a circle of interests, as is immediately produced by the operation of representation.

War is their trade, plunder and revenue their objects.

We must shut our eyes against reason, we must basely degrade our understanding, not to see the folly of what is called monarchy.

It turns the progress of the human faculties upside down.

It subjects age to be governed by children, and wisdom by folly.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The happiness of a nation is the superior object, and therefore the intention of an oath of allegiance ought not to be obscured by being figuratively taken, to, or in the name of, any person.