The instance of France under the former Government shows that it is impossible to compel the payment of taxes by force, when a whole nation is determined to take its stand upon that ground.
Paine cites the example of pre-Revolutionary France to illustrate that a government cannot force tax collection when an entire nation collectively resists.
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The argument changes from hereditary rights to hereditary wisdom; and the question is, Who is the wisest man?
In fine, society performs for itself almost everything which is ascribed to government.
He must now show that every one in the line of hereditary succession was a Solomon, or his title is not good to be a king.
The man who is in the receipt of a million a year is the last person to promote a spirit of reform, lest, in the event, it should reach to himself.