Thomas Paine

The general impulse of the Nation was right; but it acted without reflection.

Pitt, on all national questions, so far as they refer to the House of Commons, absorbs the rights of the Nation into the organ, and makes the organ into a Nation, and the Nation itself into a cypher.

If, therefore, Royal Authority is a Great Seal, it consequently is in itself nothing; and a good Constitution would be of infinitely more value to the Nation than what the three Nominal Powers, as they now stand, are worth.

The continual use of the word Constitution in the English Parliament shows there is none; and that the whole is merely a form of government without a Constitution, and constituting itself with what powers it pleases.

If there were a Constitution, it certainly could be referred to; and the debate on any constitutional point would terminate by producing the Constitution.

One member says this is Constitution, and another says that is Constitution--To-day it is one thing; and to-morrow something else--while the maintaining of the debate proves there is none.

As the present generation of the people in England did not make the Government, they are not accountable for any of its defects; but, that sooner or later, it must come into their hands to undergo a constitutional reformation, is as…

It is out of the question to say how long what is called the English constitution has lasted, and to argue from thence how long it is to last; the question is, how long can the funding system last?

That a government could not have always gone on by the same system which has been followed for the last seventy years, must be evident to every man; and for the same reason it cannot always go on.

If any credit is given, it is to the disposition of the people to pay the tax, and not to the government, which lays it on.

When this disposition expires, what is supposed to be the credit of Government expires with it.

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