When it is laid down as a maxim, that a King can do no wrong, it places him in a state of similar security with that of idiots and persons insane, and responsibility is out of the question with respect to himself.
Paine critiques the legal principle that a king can do no wrong, arguing it renders the monarch unaccountable, akin to an incapacitated person.
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The meaning, then, good people, of all this, is: That government is governed by no principle whatever; that it can make evil good, or good evil, just as it pleases.
The argument changes from hereditary rights to hereditary wisdom; and the question is, Who is the wisest man?
I know the value of moral instruction, and I have seen the danger of the contrary.
He must now show that every one in the line of hereditary succession was a Solomon, or his title is not good to be a king.