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.
Paine asserts that the frequent mention of a "Constitution" in the English Parliament paradoxically indicates its absence, revealing a government that defines its own powers without a foundational document.
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It was a sort of new form of government that insensibly served to put the old one out of sight and to unhinge it from the superstitious authority of antiquity.
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.
But from such opposition the French Revolution, instead of suffering, receives an homage.
In fine, society performs for itself almost everything which is ascribed to government.