Here the value and quality of liberty, the nature of government, and the dignity of man, were known and understood, and the attachment of the Americans to these principles produced the revolution, as a natural and almost unavoidable consequence.
This passage underscores the deep understanding of liberty and governance that fueled the American Revolution.
Share
More from Thomas Paine
A knowledge of the practice was then joined to the theory; and all that was wanting to give it real existence was opportunity.
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.
Burke's Book is easily accounted for.--When a man in a wrong cause attempts to steer his course by anything else than some polar truth or principle, he is sure to be lost.
The meaning, then, good people, of all this, is: That government is governed by no principle whatever; that it can make evil good, or good evil, just as it pleases.