It is an hereditary aristocracy, assuming and asserting indefeasible, irrevocable rights and authority, wholly independent of the Nation.
Thomas Paine: “It is an hereditary aristocracy, assuming and asserting indefeasible, irrevocable rights and authority, wholly…”
Editor's note · Context
Paine criticizes the hereditary component of the English government, describing it as an aristocracy that claims rights independent of the nation.
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Discussion and the general will arbitrates the question, and to this, private opinion yields with a good grace, and order is preserved uninterrupted.
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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.
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