If there be any honor in pursuing self-destruction with inflexible passion--if national suicide be the perfection of national glory, you may, with all the pride of criminal happiness, expire unenvied and unrivalled.
In "The American Crisis," Paine sarcastically challenges Britain's pursuit of self-destruction, equating it with a perverse form of national glory.
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But from such opposition the French Revolution, instead of suffering, receives an homage.
The Parliaments on their part insisted that they had not only a right to remonstrate, but to reject; and on this ground they were always supported by the nation.
Many of the facts were in themselves principles; such as the declaration of American Independence, and the treaty of alliance between France and America, which recognised the natural rights of man, and justified resistance to oppression.
To account for this sudden transition, it is proper to observe that there are two distinct species of popularity; the one excited by merit, and the other by resentment.