Thomas Paine: “Could the government of England destroy the commerce of all other nations, she would most effectually ruin her own.”

The object is not so much the produce of the tax as the justice of the measure.

The meaning, then, good people, of all this, is: That government is governed by no principle whatever; that it can make evil good, or good evil, just as it pleases.

To possess ourselves of a clear idea of what government is, or ought to be, we must trace it to its origin.

He writes neither in the character of a Frenchman nor an Englishman, but in the fawning character of that creature known in all countries, and a friend to none--a courtier.