Say she shall not be independent, and it will signify as much as if they voted against a decree of fate, or say that she shall, and she will be no more independent than before.
Thomas Paine: “Say she shall not be independent, and it will signify as much as if they voted against a decree of fate, or say that she…”
Editor's note · Context
Paine asserts that any vote by Britain on America's independence is meaningless, as the outcome is already determined by fate and circumstance.
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But where genuine principles of liberty pervade a people, every thing is restored to order; and the soldier civilly treated, returns the civility.
I presume, that though all the people of England pay taxes, not an hundredth part of them are electors, and the members of one of the houses of parliament represent nobody but themselves.
Reason and discussion, persuasion and conviction, become the weapons in the contest, and it is only when those are attempted to be suppressed that recourse is had to violence.
It would be better that nations should wi continue the pay of their soldiers during their lives, and give them their discharge and restore them to freedom and their friends, and cease recruiting, than retain such multitudes at the same…