Her idea of national honor seems to consist in national insult, and that to be a great people, is to be neither a Christian, a philosopher, or a gentleman, but to threaten with the rudeness of a bear, and to devour with the ferocity of a lion.
In "The American Crisis," Paine asserts that Great Britain's concept of national honor is characterized by insult and aggression rather than virtue.
Share
More from Thomas Paine
But the spirit of the nation was not to be overcome, and it was so fully sensible of the strong ground it had taken--that of withholding taxes--that it contented itself with keeping up a sort of quiet resistance, which effectually…
The object is not so much the produce of the tax as the justice of the measure.
They had a cause at stake, on which depended their freedom or their slavery.
A knowledge of the practice was then joined to the theory; and all that was wanting to give it real existence was opportunity.