Thomas Paine

Every society and association that is established, first agreed upon a number of original articles, digested into form, which are its constitution.

Those officers, by whatever name they are called, have no authority to add to, alter, or abridge the original articles.

From the want of a constitution in England to restrain and regulate the wild impulse of power, many of the laws are irrational and tyrannical, and the administration of them vague and problematical.

The attention of the government of England (for I rather choose to call it by this name than the English government) appears, since its political connection with Germany, to have been so completely engrossed and absorbed by foreign…

It is the master-fraud, which shelters all others.

By admitting a participation of the spoil, it makes itself friends; and when it ceases to do this it will cease to be the idol of courtiers.

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…

When it is in a constitution, it has the nation for its support, and the natural and the political controlling powers are together.

The final controlling power, therefore, and the original constituting power, are one and the same power.

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.

An hereditary governor is as inconsistent as an hereditary author.

From a small spark, kindled in America, a flame has arisen not to be extinguished.