Need we any other proof of their wretched management, than the excess of debts and taxes with which every nation groans, and the quarrels into which they have precipitated the world?
Paine uses a rhetorical question in "Rights of Man" to highlight the failures of traditional governments, citing national debt and international conflict.
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The object is not so much the produce of the tax as the justice of the measure.
Many of the facts were in themselves principles; such as the declaration of American Independence, and the treaty of alliance between France and America, which recognised the natural rights of man, and justified resistance to oppression.
It was become evident, that no constitution, worthy of being called by that name, could be established on anything less than a national ground.
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.