The laws which are enacted by governments, control men only as individuals, but the nation, through its constitution, controls the whole government, and has a natural ability to do so.
Paine explains that while government laws control individuals, the nation, through its constitution, naturally controls the entire government itself.
Share
More from Thomas Paine
They had a cause at stake, on which depended their freedom or their slavery.
The thing, in many points, contained better principles than those upon which the Government had hitherto been administered; but with respect to the Cour Pleniere, it was no other than a medium through which despotism was to pass, without…
The American constitutions were to liberty what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax.
Man cannot, properly speaking, make circumstances for his purpose, but he always has it in his power to improve them when they occur, and this was the case in France.