Essays, Thomas Paine [digital book reader .txt] 📗

which it has in all ages been justified might appear in broad daylight. Judges give one accused, however certain his guilt, an official defender. In the ancient Senate of Venice there existed a public officer whose function was to contest all propositions, however incontestible, or however perfect their evidence. For the rest, pleaders for Royalty are not rare: let us open them, and see what the most specious of royalist reasoners have said.

A king is necessary to preserve a people from the tyranny of powerful men.

Establish the Rights of Man;10 enthrone Equality; form a good Constitution; divide well its powers; let there be no privileges, no distinctions of birth, no monopolies; make safe the liberty of industry and of trade, the equal distribution of [family] inheritances, publicity of administration, freedom of the press: these things all established, you will be assured of good laws, and need not fear the powerful men. Willingly or unwillingly, all citizens will be under the Law.

The Legislature might usurp authority, and a king is needed to restrain it.

With representatives, frequently renewed, who neither administer nor judge, whose functions are determined by the laws; with national conventions, with primary assemblies, which can be convoked any moment; with a people knowing how to read, and how to defend itself; with good journals, guns, and pikes; a Legislature would have a good deal of trouble in enjoying any months of tyranny. Let us not suppose an evil for the sake of its remedy.

A king is needed to give force to executive power.

This might be said while there existed nobles, a priesthood, parliaments, the privileged of every kind. But at present who can resist the Law, which is the will of all, whose execution is the interest of all? On the contrary the existence of an hereditary prince inspires perpetual distrust among the friends of liberty; his authority is odious to them; in checking despotism they constantly obstruct the action of government. Observe how feeble the executive power was found, after our recent pretence of marrying Royalty with Liberty.

Take note, for the rest, that those who talk in this way are men who believe that the King and the Executive Power are only one and the same thing: readers of La Feuille Villageoise are more advanced.11

Others use this bad reasoning: “Were there no hereditary chief there would be an elective chief: the citizens would side with this man or that, and there would be a civil war at every election.” In the first place, it is certain that hereditary succession alone has produced the civil wars of France and England; and that beyond this are the pretended rights, of royal families which have twenty times drawn on these nations the scourge of foreign wars. It is, in fine, the heredity of crowns that has caused the troubles of Regency, which Thomas Paine calls Monarchy at nurse.

But above all it must be said, that if there be an elective chief, that chief will not be a king surrounded by courtiers, burdened with pomp, inflated by idolatries, and endowed with thirty millions of money; also, that no citizen will be tempted to injure himself by placing another citizen, his equal, for some years in an office without limited income and circumscribed power.

In a word, whoever demands a king demands an aristocracy, and thirty millions of taxes. See why Franklin described Royalism as a crime like poisoning.

Royalty, its fanatical éclat, its superstitious idolatry, the delusive assumption of its necessity, all these fictions have been invented only to obtain from men excessive taxes and voluntary servitude. Royalty and Popery have had the same aim, have sustained themselves by the same artifices, and crumble under the same Light.

Declaration of Rights12

The object of all union of men in society being maintenance of their natural rights, civil and political, these rights are the basis of the social pact: their recognition and their declaration ought to precede the Constitution which assures their guarantee.

The natural rights of men, civil and political, are liberty, equality, security, property, social protection, and resistance to oppression.

Liberty consists in the right to do whatever is not contrary to the rights of others: thus, exercise of the natural rights of each individual has no limits other than those which secure to other members of society enjoyment of the same rights.

The preservation of liberty depends on submission to the Law, which is the expression of the general will. Nothing unforbidden by law can be hindered, and none may be forced to do what the law does not command.

Every man is free to make known his thoughts and opinions.

Freedom of the press, and every other means of publishing one’s opinion, cannot be interdicted, suspended, or limited.

Every citizen shall be free in the exercise of his religion (culte).

Equality consists in the enjoyment by every one of the same rights.

The law should be equal for all, whether it rewards or punishes, protects or represses.

All citizens are admissible to all public positions, employments, and functions. Free nations recognize no grounds of preference save talents and virtues.

Security consists in the protection accorded by society to every citizen for the preservation of his person, property, and rights.

None should be sued, accused, arrested, or detained, save in cases determined by the law, and in accordance with forms prescribed by it. Every other act against a citizen is arbitrary and null.

Those who solicit, further, sign, execute, or cause to be executed, such arbitrary acts are culpable, and should be punished.

Citizens against whom the execution of such acts is attempted have the right to repel force by force; but every citizen summoned or arrested by authority of the Law, and in the forms by it prescribed, should instantly obey: he renders himself guilty by resistance.

Every man being presumed innocent until legally pronounced guilty, should his arrest be deemed indispensable, all rigor not necessary to secure his person should be severely represssed by law.

None should be punished save