The French Constitution, therefore, to provide against both these evils, has taken away the power of declaring war from kings and ministers, and placed the right where the expense must fall.
Paine explains how the French Constitution sought to prevent war by vesting the power to declare it in the people who bear its financial cost.
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There is, therefore, no power but the voluntary will of the people that has a right to act in any matter respecting a general reform; and by the same right that two persons can confer on such a subject, a thousand may.
By the former, freedom has a national champion in the western world; and by the latter, in Europe.
The present age will hereafter merit to be called the Age of Reason, and the present generation will appear to the future as the Adam of a new world.
It serves to keep up deceitful expectations which prevent people from looking into the defects and abuses of government.