Wherefore, should these States treat under the said Bill, they would indirectly acknowledge that right, to obtain which acknowledgment the present war has been avowedly undertaken and prosecuted, on the part of Great Britain.
Paine argues that treating under the British bill would imply an acknowledgment of their right to tax America, which is the basis of the war.
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The Aristocracy had hitherto opposed the despotism of the Court, and affected the language of patriotism; but it opposed it as its rival (as the English Barons opposed King John) and it now opposed the nation from the same motives.
They had a cause at stake, on which depended their freedom or their slavery.
The meaning, then, good people, of all this, is: That government is governed by no principle whatever; that it can make evil good, or good evil, just as it pleases.
The Parliaments on their part insisted that they had not only a right to remonstrate, but to reject; and on this ground they were always supported by the nation.