It would be an act of despotism, or what in England is called arbitrary power, to make a law to prohibit investigating the principles, good or bad, on which such a law, or any other is founded.
In "Rights of Man, Part Two," Paine asserts that prohibiting the examination of legal or governmental principles constitutes arbitrary power.
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But from such opposition the French Revolution, instead of suffering, receives an homage.
I know the value of moral instruction, and I have seen the danger of the contrary.
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.
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