The Writings of Thomas Paine, Complete: With Index to Volumes I - IVPaine, Thomas
History
The Writings of Thomas Paine, Complete: With Index to Volumes I - IV
Paine, Thomas
Political science
If there is anything in monarchy which we people of America do not
understand, I wish Mr. Burke would be so kind as to inform us. I see
in America, a government extending over a country ten times as large
as England, and conducted with regularity, for a fortieth part of the
expense which Government costs in England. If I ask a man in America if
he wants a King, he retorts, and asks me if I take him for an idiot?
How is it that this difference happens? are we more or less wise than
others? I see in America the generality of people living in a style of
plenty unknown in monarchical countries; and I see that the principle
of its government, which is that of the equal Rights of Man, is making a
rapid progress in the world.
If monarchy is a useless thing, why is it kept up anywhere? and if a
necessary thing, how can it be dispensed with? That civil government
is necessary, all civilized nations will agree; but civil government is
republican government. All that part of the government of England which
begins with the office of constable, and proceeds through the department
of magistrate, quarter-sessions, and general assize, including trial by
jury, is republican government. Nothing of monarchy appears in any part
of it, except in the name which William the Conqueror imposed upon the
English, that of obliging them to call him "Their Sovereign Lord the
King."
It is easy to conceive that a band of interested men, such as Placemen,
Pensioners, Lords of the bed-chamber, Lords of the kitchen, Lords of
the necessary-house, and the Lord knows what besides, can find as many
reasons for monarchy as their salaries, paid at the expense of the
country, amount to; but if I ask the farmer, the manufacturer, the
merchant, the tradesman, and down through all the occupations of life to
the common labourer, what service monarchy is to him? he can give me no
answer. If I ask him what monarchy is, he believes it is something like
a sinecure.
Notwithstanding the taxes of England amount to almost seventeen millions
a year, said to be for the expenses of Government, it is still evident
that the sense of the Nation is left to govern itself, and does
govern itself, by magistrates and juries, almost at its own charge, on
republican principles, exclusive of the expense of taxes. The salaries
of the judges are almost the only charge that is paid out of the
revenue. Considering that all the internal government is executed by the
people, the taxes of England ought to be the lightest of any nation
in Europe; instead of which, they are the contrary. As this cannot be
accounted for on the score of civil government, the subject necessarily
extends itself to the monarchical part.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
The Writings of Thomas Paine, Complete: With Index to Volumes I - IV — John Shaqi
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