A man even of the same town, whose parents were not in circumstances to give him an occupation, is debarred, in many cases, from the natural right of acquiring one, be his genius or industry what it may.
Paine criticizes the system that denies individuals the natural right to pursue an occupation, regardless of their talent or effort, based on their parents' circumstances.
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It was Government dethroning Government; and the old one, by attempting to make a new one, made a chasm.
The object is not so much the produce of the tax as the justice of the measure.
It was a sort of new form of government that insensibly served to put the old one out of sight and to unhinge it from the superstitious authority of antiquity.
The aristocracy has screened itself too much, and this serves to restore a part of the lost equilibrium.