The Life Of Thomas Paine, Vol. 1. (of 2): With A History of His Literary, Political and Religious Career in America France, and England; to which is added a Sketch of Paine by William CobbettConway, Moncure Daniel
Religion
The Life Of Thomas Paine, Vol. 1. (of 2): With A History of His Literary, Political and Religious Career in America France, and England; to which is added a Sketch of Paine by William Cobbett
Conway, Moncure Daniel
Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809
*** In this spirit was written Part I. of "The Rights of
Man" whose translation by M. Lanthenas, with new preface,
appeared in May. Sieyès agreed that "hereditaryship" was
theoretically wrong, "but," he said, "refer to the histories
of all elective monarchies and principalities: is there one
in which the elective mode is not worse than the hereditary
succession?" For notes on this incident see Professor F. A.
Aulard's important work, "Les Orateurs de l'Assemblee
Constituante," p. 411. Also Henri Martin's "Histoire de
France," i., p. 193.
"I am not the personal enemy of Kings. Quite the contrary. No man wishes
more heartily than myself to see them all in the happy and honorable
state of private individuals; but I am the avowed, open, and intrepid
enemy of what is called monarchy; and I am such by principles which
nothing can either alter or corrupt--by my attachment to humanity; by
the anxiety which I feel within myself for the dignity and honor of
the human race; by the disgust which I experience when I observe men
directed by children and governed by brutes; by the horror which all the
evils that monarchy has spread over the earth excite within my breast;
and by those sentiments which make me shudder at the calamities, the
exactions, the wars, and the massacres with which monarchy has crushed
mankind: in short, it is against all the hell of monarchy that I have
declared war."
In reply Sieyès used the terms "monarchy" and "republic" in unusual
senses. He defines "republic" as a government in which the executive
power is lodged in more than one person, "monarchy" as one where it is
entrusted to one only. He asserted that while he was in this sense a
monarchist Paine was a "polycrat." In a republic all action must finally
lodge in an executive council deciding by majority, and nominated by the
people or the National Assembly. Sieyès did not, however, care to enter
the lists. "My letter does not announce that I have leisure to enter
into a controversy with republican _polycrats_."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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