* "Mr. Thomas Paine is one of those men who have contributed the most to establish the liberty of America. His ardent love of humanity, and his hatred of every sort of tyranny, have induced him to take up in England the defence of the French revolution, against the amphigorical declamation of Mr. Burke. His work has been translated into our language, and is universally known. What French patriot is there who has not already, from the bottom of his heart, thanked this foreigner for having strengthened our cause by all the powers of his reason and reputation? It is with pleasure that I observe an opportunity of offering him the tribute of my gratitude and my esteem for the truly philosophical application of talents so distinguished as his own."--Sieyès in the Moniteur, July 6, 1791. So once more Paine seizes his pen; his hand is feeble, but His intellect has lost no fibre of force, nor his heart its old faith. His trust in man has passed through the ordeal of seeing his friends--friends of man--murdered by the people's Convention, himself saved by accident; it has survived the apparent relapse of Washington into the arms of George the Third. The ingratitude of his faithfully-served America is represented by an abscess in his side, which may strike into his heart--in a sense has done so--but will never reach his faith in liberty, equality, and humanity. Early in July the Convention is reading Paine's "Dissertation on First Principles of Government" His old arguments against hereditary right, or investing even an elective individual with extraordinary power, are repeated with illustrations from the passing Revolution. "Had a Constitution been established two years ago, as ought to have been done, the violences that have since desolated France and injured the character of the revolution, would, in my opinion, have been prevented. The nation would have had a bond of union, and every individual would have known the line of conduct he was to follow. But, instead of this, a revolutionary government, a thing without either principle or authority, was substituted in its place; virtue or crime depended upon accident; and that which was patriotism one day, became treason the next. All these things have followed from the want of a Constitution; for it is the nature and intention or a Constitution to prevent governing by party, by establishing a common principle that shall limit and control the power and impulse of party, and that says to all parties, _Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther_. But in the absence of a Constitution men look entirely to party; and instead of principle governing party, party governs principle.