Thomas Paine - Rights of Man

‘Rights of Man’ appeared in 1791 and 1792, at the time of the French Revolution. Coming only a few years after the American Revolution, it must have seemed as if the whole world was being turned upside down. Certainly the English elite thought so. ‘Rights of Man’ was banned, Paine tried and sentenced to death in absentia. Yet tens of thousands of copies were sold, hundreds of thousands of English people reading and hearing the words written by Thomas Paine.

‘It could have been no difficult thing in the early and solitary ages of the world, while the chief employment of men was that of attending flocks and herds, for a banditti of ruffians to overrun a country, and lay it under contributions.’

‘Those bands of robbers having parcelled out the world, and divided it into dominions, began, as naturally is the case, to quarrel with each other. What at first was obtained by violence, was considered by others as lawful to be taken, and a second plunderer succeeded the first.’
          
‘As time obliterated the history of their beginning, their successors assumed new appearances, to cut off the entail of their disgrace, but their principles and objects remained the same. What at first was plunder, assumed the foster name of revenue;’

‘Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It has its origin in  the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all the parts of a civilized community upon each other, create that great chain of connexion which holds it together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the whole. Common interest regulates their concerns, and forms their law; and the laws which common usage ordains, have a greater influence than the laws of government. In fine, society performs for itself almost everything that is ascribed to government.’

‘But how often is the natural propensity to society disturbed or destroyed by the operations of government! When the latter, instead of being ingrafted on the principles of the former, assumes to exist for itself, and acts by partialities of favour and oppression, it becomes the cause of the mischiefs it ought to prevent.’