Thomas Paine: “It is an audacious outrage upon civil government, and cannot be too much exposed, in order to be sufficiently detested.”

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.

Discussion and the general will arbitrates the question, and to this, private opinion yields with a good grace, and order is preserved uninterrupted.

When men unite in agreeing that a thing is good, could it be obtained, such for instance as relief from a burden of taxes and the extinction of corruption, the object is more than half accomplished.

It is only those who have not thought that appear to agree.