We had no other law than a kind of moderated passion; no other civil power than an honest mob; and no other protection than the temporary attachment of one man to another.
Thomas Paine: “We had no other law than a kind of moderated passion; no other civil power than an honest mob; and no other protection…”
Editor's note · Context
Paine describes the precarious state of civil order in the colonies before independence, highlighting the lack of established law and power.
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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.
In contemplating revolutions, it is easy to perceive that they may arise from two distinct causes; the one, to avoid or get rid of some great calamity; the other, to obtain some great and positive good; and the two may be distinguished by…
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I presume, that though all the people of England pay taxes, not an hundredth part of them are electors, and the members of one of the houses of parliament represent nobody but themselves.