You might have humored her, even if there had been no justice in her claims, without any risk to your reputation; for Europe, fascinated by your fame, would have ascribed it to your benevolence, and America, intoxicated by the grant, would have slumbered in her fetters.
In "The American Crisis," Paine suggests Britain could have maintained control over America through appeasement, preserving its reputation and keeping the colonies subdued.
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The American constitutions were to liberty what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax.
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