Jan 1, 1791
If taxes are necessary, they are of course advantageous; but if they require an apology, the apology itself implies an impeachment.
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.
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Jan 1, 1791
The continual whine of lamenting the burden of taxes, however successfully it may be practised in mixed Governments, is inconsistent with the sense and spirit of a republic.
Jan 1, 1791
Public measures appeal of themselves to the understanding of the Nation, and, resting on their own merits, disown any flattering applications to vanity.
Jan 1, 1791
But in a well-constituted republic, nothing of this soldering, praising, and pitying, can take place; the representation being equal throughout the country, and complete in itself, however it may be arranged into legislative and executive…
Jan 1, 1791
When there is a Part in a Government which can do no wrong, it implies that it does nothing; and is only the machine of another power, by whose advice and direction it acts.
Jan 1, 1791
It then descends upon the Minister, who shelters himself under a majority in Parliament, which, by places, pensions, and corruption, he can always command; and that majority justifies itself by the same authority with which it protects the…
Jan 1, 1791
When it is laid down as a maxim, that a King can do no wrong, it places him in a state of similar security with that of idiots and persons insane, and responsibility is out of the question with respect to himself.
Jan 1, 1791
In mixed Governments there is no responsibility: the parts cover each other till responsibility is lost; and the corruption which moves the machine, contrives at the same time its own escape.
Jan 1, 1791
A mixed Government is an imperfect everything, cementing and soldering the discordant parts together by corruption, to act as a whole.
Jan 1, 1791
However imperfect election and representation may be in mixed Governments, they still give exercise to a greater portion of reason than is convenient to the hereditary Part; and therefore it becomes necessary to buy the reason up.
Jan 1, 1791
The moving power in this species of Government is, of necessity, Corruption.
Jan 1, 1791
He sees the rationale of the whole system, its origin and its operation; and as it is best supported when best understood, the human faculties act with boldness, and acquire, under this form of government, a gigantic manliness.