If any generation of men ever possessed the right of dictating the mode by which the world should be governed for ever, it was the first generation that existed; and if that generation did it not, no succeeding generation can show any authority for doing it, nor can set any up.
From "Rights of Man," Paine argues against the idea that one generation can bind future generations to its laws or form of government.
Share
More from Thomas Paine
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.
It serves to keep up deceitful expectations which prevent people from looking into the defects and abuses of government.
I have no idea, considering the reforms which are now passing and spreading throughout Europe, that England will permit herself to be the last; and where the occasion and the opportunity quietly offer, it is better than to wait for a…
The poor, in all countries, are naturally both peaceable and grateful in all reforms in which their interest and happiness is included.