It is a mode of war that carries with it a confession of weakness, and goes on the principle of distress rather than conquest.
Thomas Paine: “It is a mode of war that carries with it a confession of weakness, and goes on the principle of distress rather than…”
Editor's note · Context
In "The American Crisis," Paine analyzes the British military strategy, asserting that their approach reveals their underlying weakness rather than strength.
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In those which proceed from the former cause, the temper becomes incensed and soured; and the redress, obtained by danger, is too often sullied by revenge.
The object, in all such preliminary proceedings, is to find out what the general sense of a nation is, and to be governed by it.
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.
When all the governments of Europe shall be established on the representative system, nations will become acquainted, and the animosities and prejudices fomented by the intrigue and artifice of courts, will cease.