Thomas Paine

Can we then be surprised at the abject state of the human mind in monarchical countries, when the government itself is formed on such an abject levelling system?--It has no fixed character.

In short, we cannot conceive a more ridiculous figure of government, than hereditary succession, in all its cases, presents.

Man has no authority over posterity in matters of personal right; and, therefore, no man, or body of men, had, or can have, a right to set up hereditary government.

All hereditary government is in its nature tyranny.

To inherit a government, is to inherit the people, as if they were flocks and herds.

It ought to be so constructed as to be superior to all the accidents to which individual man is subject; and, therefore, hereditary succession, by being subject to them all, is the most irregular and imperfect of all the systems of…

It requires some talents to be a common mechanic; but to be a king requires only the animal figure of man--a sort of breathing automaton.

The civil wars which have originated from contested hereditary claims, are more numerous, and have been more dreadful, and of longer continuance, than those which have been occasioned by election.

It is by adding the evil of hereditary succession to that of monarchy, that a permanent family interest is created, whose constant objects are dominion and revenue.

The representative system takes society and civilisation for its basis; nature, reason, and experience, for its guide.

The hereditary system, therefore, is as repugnant to human wisdom as to human rights; and is as absurd as it is unjust.

Arms they had none, nor scarcely anyone who knew the use of them; but desperate resolution, when every hope is at stake, supplies, for a while, the want of arms.