Part First, early pages
'Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generations which preceded it.' Foundational claim against hereditary constitutional authority.
Read in Books4Free →Rejection of Perpetual Constitutions and Generational Authority
From Rights of Man by Thomas Paine
Paine argues that no generation has the right to bind future generations; each age must be free to govern itself. He attacks the 1688 Declaration of Rights as illegitimately presuming to bind posterity.
Part First, on the Revolution Settlement
Paine attacks Parliament's 1688 act as 'the vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave.'
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