Common Sense by Thomas Paine (1776)
Of the Origin and Design of
Government in General. With
Concise Remarks on the English
Constitution
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 POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter
NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one
encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions.
The first a patron, the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but government
even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst
state an intolerable one; for 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.
Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence;
the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers
of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear,
uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no
other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it
necessary to surrender up a part of his property to
furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he
is induced to do by the same prudence which in every
other case advises him out of two evils to choose the
least. WHEREFORE, security being the true design and
end of government, it unanswerably follows, that
whatever FORM thereof appears most likely to ensure it
to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is
preferable to all others.
In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and
end of government, let us suppose a small number of
persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth,
unconnected with the rest, they will then represent the
first peopling of any country, or of the world. In this
state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought.
A thousand motives will excite them thereto, the
strength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and his
mind so unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon
obliged to seek assistance and relief of another, who in
his turn requires the same. Four or five united would be
able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a
wilderness, but one man might labour out of the
common period of life without accomplishing any thing;
when he had felled his timber he could not remove it,
nor erect it after it was removed; hunger in the mean
time would urge him from his work, and every different
want call him a different way. Disease, nay even
misfortune would be death, for though neither might be
mortal, yet either would disable him from living, and
reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said to
perish than to die.
Thus necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon
form our newly arrived emigrants into society, the
reciprocal blessings of which, would supersede, and
render the obligations of law and government
unnecessary while they remained perfectly just to each
other; but as nothing but heaven is impregnable to vice,
it will unavoidably happen, that in proportion as they
surmount the first difficulties of emigration, which
bound them together in a common cause, they will
begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other;
and this remissness will point out the necessity of
establishing some form of government to supply the
defect of moral virtue.
Some convenient tree will afford them a State-House,
under the branches of which, the whole colony may
assemble to deliberate on public matters. It is more than
probable that their first laws will have the title only of
REGULATIONS, and be enforced by no other penalty
than public disesteem. In this first parliament every
man, by natural right, will have a seat.
But as the colony increases, the public concerns will
increase likewise, and the distance at which the
members may be separated, will render it too
inconvenient for all of them to meet on every occasion
as at first, when their number was small, their
habitations near, and the public concerns few and
trifling. This will point out the convenience of their
consenting to leave the legislative part to be managed
by a select number chosen from the whole body, who
are supposed to have the same concerns at stake which
those who appointed them, and who will act in the same
manner as the whole body would act, were they present.
If the colony continues increasing, it will become
necessary to augment the number of the representatives,
and that the interest of every part of the colony may be
attended to, it will be found best to divide the whole into
convenient parts, each part sending its proper number;
and that the ELECTED might never form to themselves
an interest separate from the ELECTORS, prudence will
point out the propriety of having elections often;
because as the ELECTED might by that means return
and mix again with the general body of the ELECTORS
in a few months, their fidelity to the public will be
secured by the prudent reflection of not making a rod
for themselves. And as this frequent interchange will
establish a common interest with every part of the
community, they will mutually and naturally support
each other, and on this (not on the unmeaning name of
king) depends the STRENGTH OF GOVERNMENT,
AND THE HAPPINESS OF THE GOVERNED.
Here then is the origin and rise of government;
namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of
moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design
and end of government, viz. freedom and security. And
however our eyes may be dazzled with show, or our
ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp
our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the
simple voice of nature and of reason will say, it is right.
I draw my idea of the form of government from a
principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that
the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be
disordered; and the easier repaired when disordered; and
with this maxim in view, I offer a few remarks on the so
much boasted constitution of England. That it was noble
for the dark and slavish times in which it was erected, is
granted. When the world was overrun with tyranny the
least remove therefrom was a glorious rescue. But that it
is imperfect, subject to convulsions, and incapable of
producing what it seems to promise, is easily
demonstrated.
Absolute governments (tho' the disgrace of human
nature) have this advantage with them, that they are
simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from
which their suffering springs, know likewise the
remedy, and are not bewildered by a variety of causes
and cures. But the constitution of England is so
exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for
years together without being able to discover in which
part the fault lies; some will say in one and some in
another, and every political physician will advise a
different medicine.
I know it is difficult to get over local or long standing
prejudices, yet if we will suffer ourselves to examine the
component parts of the English constitution, we shall
find them to be the base remains of two ancient
tyrannies, compounded with some new republican
materials.
FIRST – The remains of monarchial tyranny in the
person of the king. SECONDLY – The remains of
aristocratical tyranny in the persons of the peers.
THIRDLY – The new republican materials in the
persons of the commons, on whose virtue depends the
freedom of England.
The two first, by being hereditary, are independent of
the people; wherefore in a CONSTITUTIONAL SENSE
they contribute nothing towards the freedom of the
state.
To say that the constitution of England is a UNION of
three powers reciprocally CHECKING each other, is
farcical, either the words have no meaning, or they are
flat contradictions.
To say that the commons is a check upon the king,
presupposes two things:
FIRST – That the king is not to be trusted without
being looked after, or in other words, that a thirst for
absolute power is the natural disease of monarchy.
SECONDLY – That the commons, by being
appointed for that purpose, are either wiser or more
worthy of confidence than the crown.
But as the same constitution which gives the
commons a power to check the king by withholding the
supplies, gives afterwards the king a power to check the
commons, by empowering him to reject their other bills;
it again supposes that the king is wiser than those whom
it has already supposed to be wiser than him. A mere
absurdity!
There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the
composition of monarchy; it first excludes a man from
the means of information, yet empowers him to act in
cases where the highest judgment is required. The state
of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of a
king requires him to know it thoroughly; wherefore the
different parts, by unnaturally opposing and destroying
each other, prove the whole character to be absurd and
useless.
Some writers have explained the English constitution
thus: The king, say they, is one, the people another; the
peers are a house in behalf of the king, the commons in
behalf of the people; but this hath all the distinctions of
a house divided against itself; and though the
expressions be pleasantly arranged, yet when examined,
they appear idle and ambiguous; and it will always
happen, that the nicest construction that words are
capable of, when applied to the description of some
thing which either cannot exist, or is too
incomprehensible to be within the compass of
description, will be words of sound only, and though
they may amuse the ear, they cannot inform the mind,
for this explanation includes a previous question, viz.
HOW CAME THE KING BY A POWER WHICH THE
PEOPLE ARE AFRAID TO TRUST, AND ALWAYS
OBLIGED TO CHECK? Such a power could not be the
gift of a wise people, neither can any power, WHICH
NEEDS CHECKING, be from God; yet the provision,
which the constitution makes, supposes such a power to
exist.
But the provision is unequal to the task; the means
either cannot or will not accomplish the end, and the
whole affair is a felo de se; for as the greater weight will
always carry up the less, and as all the wheels of a
machine are put in motion by one, it only remains to
know which power in the constitution has the most
weight, for that will govern; and though the others, or a
part of them, may clog, or, as the phrase is, check the
rapidity of its motion, yet so long as they cannot stop it,
their endeavours will be ineffectual; the first moving
power will at last have its way, and what it wants in
speed, is supplied by time.
That the crown is this overbearing part in the English
constitution, needs not be mentioned, and that it derives
its whole consequence merely from being the giver of
places and pensions, is self-evident, wherefore, though
we have been wise enough to shut and lock a door
against absolute monarchy, we at the same time have
been foolish enough to put the crown in possession of
the key.
The prejudice of Englishmen in favour of their own
government by king, lords, and commons, arises as
much or more from national pride than reason.
Individuals are undoubtedly safer in England than in
some other countries, but the WILL of the king is as
much the LAW of the land in Britain as in France, with
this difference, that instead of proceeding directly from
his mouth, it is handed to the people under the more
formidable shape of an act of parliament. For the fate of
Charles the First hath only made kings more subtle – not
more just.
Wherefore, laying aside all national pride and
prejudice in favour of modes and forms, the plain truth
is, that IT IS WHOLLY OWING TO THE
CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE, AND NOT TO
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE GOVERNMENT, that
the crown is not as oppressive in England as in Turkey.
An inquiry into the CONSTITUTIONAL ERRORS in
the English form of government is at this time highly
necessary; for as we are never in a proper condition of
doing justice to others, while we continue under the
influence of some leading partiality, so neither are we
capable of doing it to ourselves while we remain
fettered by any obstinate prejudice. And as a man. who
is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge
a wife, so any prepossession in favour of a rotten
constitution of government will disable us from
discerning a good one.
