Public measures appeal of themselves to the understanding of the Nation, and, resting on their own merits, disown any flattering applications to vanity.
Thomas Paine: “Public measures appeal of themselves to the understanding of the Nation, and, resting on their own merits, disown any…”
Editor's note · Context
From his work "Rights of Man," Paine describes how public policy in a true republic should be judged on its merits rather than through manipulation.
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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.
The object is not so much the produce of the tax as the justice of the measure.
To account for this sudden transition, it is proper to observe that there are two distinct species of popularity; the one excited by merit, and the other by resentment.
Burke's Book is easily accounted for.--When a man in a wrong cause attempts to steer his course by anything else than some polar truth or principle, he is sure to be lost.