Thomas Paine

In England, game is made the property of those at whose expense it is not fed; and with respect to monopolies, the country is cut up into monopolies.

Is there anything by which you can trace the marks of freedom, or discover those of wisdom?

It is admitted that all this is altered, but there is much to be done yet, before we have a fair representation of the people.

All the old charters are the badges of this conquest, and it is from this source that the capriciousness of election arises.

Can anything be more limited, and at the same time more capricious, than the qualification of electors is in England?

There is, moreover, a paradox in the idea of vitiated bodies reforming themselves.

The right of reform is in the nation in its original character, and the constitutional method would be by a general convention elected for the purpose.

It might make itself what it pleased; and wherever such a right is set up, it shows there is no constitution.

A government on the principles on which constitutional governments arising out of society are established, cannot have the right of altering itself.

The court of judicature does not make the laws, neither can it alter them; it only acts in conformity to the laws made: and the government is in like manner governed by the constitution.

A constitution, therefore, is to a government what the laws made afterwards by that government are to a court of judicature.

The constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of the people constituting its government.