In my opinion, this should be required reading for every American...not only because it was one of the works of the time that laid the foundation for the framing of our government, but also because so much of it is still amazingly applicable today! It's not long or difficult to read, and can be found online. I encourage all to read this amazing work.
(spelling and punctuation are Paine's original)
"...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason." p. 5
"The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind." p. 5
"Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher." p. 6
"...when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer." p. 6-7
"...the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered." p. 9
One of my favorite principles...by small and simple things, are great things brought to pass. Look for the small and simple way.
"The nearer any government approaches to a republic the less business there is for a king." p. 19
"...when republican virtue fails, slavery ensues." p. 20
"Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived." p. 20
"It hath been reported of the late Mr. Pelham (who tho' an able minister was not without his faults) that on his being attacked in the house of commons, on the score, that his measures were only of a temporary kind, replied "they will last my time." Should a thought so fatal and unmanly possess the colonies in the present contest, the name of ancestors will be remembered by future generations with detestation." p. 21
"'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pen on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters." p. 21
"The reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almightly graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety." p. 23
"As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover the line of our duty rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and fix our station a few years farther into life; that eminence will present a prospect, which a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our sight." p. 25
Each time I think about this issue, I think of the bumper stickers that are sometimes seen which say, "I'm spending my children's inheritance"...indeed generations for a number of years now have been spending not only their children's inheritance, but their children's and grandchildren's...and great-grandchildren's salaries and incomes! The share of debt for each American child born is incomprehensible...truly...incomprehensible! Compare this to attitudes in our fore fathers who thought it a travesty to saddle their children with their own debt...and even further, tried to leave some inheritance to them. Aged parents and children alike are farmed out to day cares and welfare states. We no longer "take care of our own" in America...let alone provide for those yet unborn.
"Interested men, who are not to be trusted; weak men, who cannot see; prejudiced men, who will not see; and a certain set of moderate men, who think better of the European world than it deserves; and this last class, by an ill-judged deliberation, will be the cause of more calamities to this continent, than all the other three." p. 25-26
Thomas Paine was speaking of those who espoused reconciliation with England. A good description of men and motives not to be trusted today.
"It is not in the power of Britain or of Europe to conquer America, if she do not conquer herself by delay and timidity." p. 27
As always...if America is to be conquered, it will be from within...not without. De Tocqueville said that "when America ceases to be good, she will cease to be great." If America ceases to be great, it will be only as she rots from the inside out.
"...a government that cannot preserve the peace, is no government at all..." p. 31
"The science...of the politician consists in fixing the true point of happiness and freedom. Those men would deserve the gratitude of ages, who should discover a mode of government that contained the greatest sum of individual happiness, with the least national expense." p.34
"...where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above..." p.34
"...it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance." p. 34
"It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies..." p. 36
"Common sense will tell us, that the power which hath endeavoured to subdue, is of all others, the most improper to defend us." p. 41
"...the patience of a coward. The more men have to lose, the less willing they are to venture." p. 42
"Youth is the seed time of good habits, as well in nations as in individuals." p. 42
"As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensible duty of government, to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith." p. 43
"Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society. For myself, I fully and conscientiously believe, that it is the will of the Almighty, that there should be diversity of religious opinions among us: It affords a larger field for our Christian kindness. Were we all of one way of thinking, our religious dispositions would want matter for probation; and on this liberal principle, I look on the various denominations among us, to be like children of the same family, differing only, in what is called, their Christian names." p. 43
"...ought to warn the people at large, how they trust power out of their own hands." p. 44
"Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions." p. 44
"When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember, that virtue is not hereditary." p. 44
"...no nation in a state of foreign dependance, limited in its commerce, and cramped and fettered in its legislative powers, can ever arrive at any material eminence. America doth not yet know what opulence is; and although the progress which she hath made stands unparalleled in the history of other nations, it is but childhood, compared with what she would be capable of arriving at, had she, as she ought to have, the legislative powers in her own hands." p. 48
"...the longer it is delayed the harder it will be to accomplish." p. 49
"Let the name of Whig and Tory be extinct; and let none other be heard among us, than those of a good citizen, an open and resolute friend, and a virtuous supporter of the RIGHTS of MANKIND and of the FREE AND INDEPENDANT STATES OF AMERICA." p.54
"When men have departed from the right way, it is no wonder that they stumble and fall." p. 55
"...for the sake of introducing an endless and uninterupted peace, do we bear the evils and burthens of the present day." p. 55
"We fight neither for revenge nor conquest; neither from pride nor passion; we are not insulting the world with our fleets and armies, not ravaging the globe for plunder. Beneath the shade of our own vines we are attacked; in our own houses, and on our own lands, is the violence committed. against us." p. 55
(compare Alma 44 and 46 in the Book of Mormon)
"Kings are not taken away by miracles, neither are changes in governments brought about by any other means than such as are common and human..." p. 58
"...the Almighty who hath created and placed this new world, at the greatest distance it could possibly stand, east and west, from every part of the old..." p. 58
"And here without anger or resentment I bid you farewell. Sincerely wishing, that as men and christians, ye may always fully and uninterruptedly enjoy every civil and religious right; and be, in your turn, the means of securing it to others..." p. 59
A fitting ending...will we each do our part?
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