A cannot make a will to take from B the property of B, and give it to C; yet this is the manner in which (what is called) hereditary succession by law operates.
Thomas Paine: “A cannot make a will to take from B the property of B, and give it to C; yet this is the manner in which (what is…”
Editor's note · Context
In "Rights of Man," Paine uses a legal analogy to illustrate the fundamental injustice of hereditary succession, where one generation attempts to dispose of the rights of another.
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I do not believe that any two men, on what are called doctrinal points, think alike who think at all.
Why may we not suppose, that the great Father of all is pleased with variety of devotion; and that the greatest offence we can act, is that by which we seek to torment and render each other miserable?
If, therefore, the good to be obtained be worthy of a passive, rational, and costless revolution, it would be bad policy to prefer waiting for a calamity that should force a violent one.
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.