To be a successful candidate, he must be destitute of the qualities that constitute a just legislator; and being thus disciplined to corruption by the mode of entering into Parliament, it is not to be expected that the representative should be better than the man.
From "Rights of Man," Paine contends that the corrupt nature of parliamentary elections forces candidates to abandon the qualities of a just legislator, ensuring representatives are no better than the system that produced them.
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As to what are called national religions, we may, with as much propriety, talk of national Gods.
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