Burke must compliment all the Governments in the world, while the victims who suffer under them, whether sold into slavery, or tortured out of existence, are wholly forgotten.
Thomas Paine: “Burke must compliment all the Governments in the world, while the victims who suffer under them, whether sold into…”
Editor's note · Context
Paine condemns Edmund Burke in "Rights of Man" for his apparent willingness to praise existing governments while ignoring the suffering of their victims, including those enslaved or tortured.
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Reason and discussion, persuasion and conviction, become the weapons in the contest, and it is only when those are attempted to be suppressed that recourse is had to violence.
Discussion and the general will arbitrates the question, and to this, private opinion yields with a good grace, and order is preserved uninterrupted.
Why may we not suppose, that the great Father of all is pleased with variety of devotion; and that the greatest offence we can act, is that by which we seek to torment and render each other miserable?
In those which proceed from the former cause, the temper becomes incensed and soured; and the redress, obtained by danger, is too often sullied by revenge.