It is the easiest of all the forms of government to be understood and the most eligible in practice; and excludes at once the ignorance and insecurity of the hereditary mode, and the inconvenience of the simple democracy.
In "Rights of Man," Paine argues for the superiority of representative government over hereditary monarchy and simple democracy.
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More from Thomas Paine
Nothing can be more terrible to a Court or Courtier than the Revolution of France.
The object is not so much the produce of the tax as the justice of the measure.
The more it is struck the more sparks it will emit; and the fear is it will not be struck enough.
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.