The fact therefore must be that the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.
Paine asserts that legitimate governments originate from a compact among individuals, each exercising their sovereign right.
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When it becomes necessary to do anything, the whole heart and soul should go into the measure, or not attempt it.
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.
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.