The only use to be made of this power (and which it always has made), is to ward off taxes from itself, and throw the burthen upon those articles of consumption by which itself would be least affected.
Paine critiques how a legislature dominated by a specific interest group uses its power to shift tax burdens onto others.
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It is a great standing which they have now universally obtained; and we may hereafter hope to see revolutions, or changes in governments, produced with the same quiet operation by which any measure, determinable by reason and discussion…
Discussion and the general will arbitrates the question, and to this, private opinion yields with a good grace, and order is preserved uninterrupted.
I do not believe that any two men, on what are called doctrinal points, think alike who think at all.
As to what are called national religions, we may, with as much propriety, talk of national Gods.