Thomas Paine: “If better reasons can be shown for them than against them, they will stand; if the contrary, they will not.”

It was become evident, that no constitution, worthy of being called by that name, could be established on anything less than a national ground.

Whether robbery shall be banished from courts, and wretchedness from countries?

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 animosity of the English nation, it is very well remembered, ran high; and, had the true principles of Liberty been as well understood then as they now promise to be, it is probable the Nation would not have patiently submitted to so…