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.
Jan 1, 1791
Their station requires no artifice to support it, and can only be maintained by enlightening mankind.
Jan 1, 1791
They have not to hold out a language which they do not themselves believe, for the fraudulent purpose of making others believe it.
Jan 1, 1791
The difference between a republican and a courtier with respect to monarchy, is that the one opposes monarchy, believing it to be something; and the other laughs at it, knowing it to be nothing.
Jan 1, 1791
But there is a truth that ought to be made known; I have had the opportunity of seeing it; which is, that notwithstanding appearances, there is not any description of men that despise monarchy so much as courtiers.
Jan 1, 1791
It is already on the wane, eclipsed by the enlarging orb of reason, and the luminous revolutions of America and France.
Jan 1, 1791
They are evidently of the vassalage class of manners, and emphatically mark the prostrate distance that exists in no other condition of men than between the conqueror and the conquered.
Jan 1, 1791
Their Parliamentary language, whether for or against a question, is free, bold and manly, and extends to all the parts and circumstances of the case.
Jan 1, 1791
They sprung not from the filth of rotten boroughs, nor are they the vassal representatives of aristocratical ones.
Jan 1, 1791
They were elected by the greatest body of men exercising the right of election the European world ever saw.
Jan 1, 1791
Speech is, in the first place, one of the natural rights of man always retained; and with respect to the National Assembly the use of it is their duty, and the nation is their authority.
Jan 1, 1791
The President of the National Assembly does not ask the King to grant to the Assembly liberty of speech, as is the case with the English House of Commons.