Thomas Paine: “How easy it is to abuse truth and language, when men, by habitual wickedness, have learned to set justice at defiance.”

Whether robbery shall be banished from courts, and wretchedness from countries?

The argument changes from hereditary rights to hereditary wisdom; and the question is, Who is the wisest man?

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.

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.