There is another circumstance which the people of England have not only not attended to, but seem to be utterly ignorant of, and that is, the difference between permanent power and accidental power, considered in a national sense.
He distinguishes between permanent and accidental power in a national context, emphasizing the importance of understanding these concepts.
Share
More from Thomas Paine
But the spirit of the nation was not to be overcome, and it was so fully sensible of the strong ground it had taken--that of withholding taxes--that it contented itself with keeping up a sort of quiet resistance, which effectually…
The American constitutions were to liberty what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax.
The object is not so much the produce of the tax as the justice of the measure.