Comparing Paine's Of Monarchy And Hereditary Secession

Paine then talks about the concepts of monarchy and hereditary succession and how Israel once did not have a king but the ancient Jewish people had wanted one to keep the order and the peace among them. Paine says when the Jews decided they wanted a king and God was infuriated, pages from the bible were displayed in this

Thomas Paine believed that the selection of Kings was unnatural because people are born into being Kings and nothing assures that the person will be a good leader. Just because your father was a good leader does not mean that you will be one. Paine states that nature would disapprove it, and that we should not give mankind “an ass for a lion”1. He says that when we were created we were all created equal. The British had so much control no one could do anything about it. They could not overcome the government and it made the colonists feel useless. This is exactly why Paine criticized the monarchial government because they were indeed doing everything unfairly and doing it only to benefit themselves.

1. The problems that Thomas Paine sees with the British monarchy involve its straying from ideal government, the unjust placement of one individual above all others, and its hereditary aspect. The problems that Thomas Paine sees with King George III in particular are his personal transgressions against liberty. Thomas Paine, firstly views government as “but a necessary evil” (15), and therefore it should be both as limited as possible and also tied to the more positive society. The ideal form of government, thus according to Paine, is a simple republic where the elected are forced to be accountable to their electors (16). The British monarchy fails in all accounts; not only does the prescence of a monarchy at all eliminate the accountability of a republic, but the complicatedness of the British monarchy system makes it worse in this aspect than even other monarchies. Although absolute monarchies are horrid in that they give no power to the people, they are still simpler than the British monarchy; this makes issues much more difficult to handle in the British monarchy (17). The other problems that Paine has with the British monarchy apply to monarchies at large. Paine argues that the placement of one person above all others is an unnatural divide; there is no explanation for the division of people into “KINGS and SUBJECTS” (22) such as there are in other forms of division that humans live with. If it does not make sense to place one individual above all others, then such should most certainly not be law; therefore, from this logic, monarchy, which is entirely based on the principle of placing one person (and their relatives) above all others, is an invalid and unnatural form of government. Of course, some people could, arguably, have earned the admiration and respect of their peers through important action, and thus be deserving of a leadership position. In a republic, by listening to their electors, the elected earn their right to lead. However, the hereditary monarchy removes this earning of the right to lead, and Paine takes issue with that. There is no guarantee that the descendants of a good leader will also be good leaders, and therefore the government of a country should never be left to heredity (29).

It claims all monarchs are despots, cut off from their people and craving for absolute power.  “Male and female are the distinctions of nature,” Paine wrote, “good and bad the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest . . . is worth enquiring into” (Paine 9).  Government is a necessary evil, a “badge of lost innocence,” that tends to get in the way of civilized society.  Modern civilizations should organize themselves into local, self-governing societies with only representational government, suggested Paine, not an all-powerful monarch. “Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived” (Paine 17).

In the previous paragraph, although Paine talked about the flaws that come into play in a government that is run by a single ruler, he then talked about how having a ruler may be inevitable and provides an example of how it may work. Though Paine doesn't argue against having a ruler to the fullest extent due to the amount of oppressive that is seen through having single rulers, he feels that there should be someone in charge but have equal power with other parties, therefore that single person isn't in complete control. According to Paine, " Let the assemblies be annual, with a President only. The representation more equal. Their business wholly domestic, and subject to the authority of a Continental Congress." This shows Paine's thinking on producing a government with equality. In this example, there will be representation from all aspects and people, so they can and will be part of the decision-making as well as the President. Thomas Paine's theory on creating a government with a higher power which is surrounded by equality can flourish due to the elimination of oppression, tyranny, and abuse of power.

Paine opens the closing paragraph by uniting the people with ethos, "The far and near, the home counties and the back, the rich and the poor will suffer or rejoice alike." In saying that Paine implies, no matter what happens they all will stay together, whether it be death or freedom. He also uses ethos by stating "Not all the treasures in the world...could have induced me to support and offensive war, I think it murder.", by saying this Paine shows that war was the last option he would have much rather came to a peaceful solution, but given the circumstances, there was no choice. Paine closes up the paragraph by using an asyndeton, "Let them call me a rebel and welcome...but I should suffer the misery of devils were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man." His use of the asyndeton to show that the King is much more than that he listed.

Next, Paine contended against the idea of monarchy and hereditary succession. He utilized the Book of scriptures to outline God's judgment of monarchies. At that point he contended that America never again required Britain's assistance, and that

2) Some flaws that Paine finds with the current English government is the King of England holds all the power in the government and the Constitution of England is far too complex. The Constitution is too complex for the people to understand so that creates numerous problems, which will never be able to be solved. He believes that the government is contradicting itself when it explains that they have a union of three powers that are checking each other, but in reality no one has power over the king. England is allowing the king to have all the power to do pass any law that he chooses without any consequences. The current English

Thesis: Paine’s ideas were mainly about wanting to change the form of government to republicanism

Paine's viewpoint is stated strongly and unequivocally. He believes that the only way the thirteen colonies can thrive is to obtain their independence from Great Britain. He states his reasons at the outset quite clearly, and from the wording, it is argued quite persuasively that in his view, there is really no acceptable option but to fight for independence. Paine does not believe that government is a desirable force in a country, but that it is a necessary one. One of his initial arguments is that because of mankind's basic "impulses of conscience," government is required to keep law and order in the land: "For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver" (Paine, 1776, p. 19). In Paine's view, then, to live

The Founding Fathers of the Second Continental Congress heavily drew upon Revolutionary ideology in their drafting of The Articles of Confederation because of their loathing of Britain and their desire to create a new country completely contrasting with Britain’s values. The idea of limiting the power of the federal government to counteract corruption and to give states near total control was influenced by American being oppressed by Britain’s highly centralized government. Britain oppressed many individuals by stripping them of many of their rights and freedoms, and this caused the writers of America’s first code of law to create a country where individual rights and freedoms were protected above all else. The structure of the Continental

From the beginning, Paine makes it obvious that he does not like the idea of a government. Paine believes the only value of a government lies in controlling our weaknesses. According to Paine, the natural state of man is to live without a government and its control. A government's existence is justified only to remove problems that would be created by this natural, anarchic way of life. If the government does not to improve society or actively causes some of the same troubles that would result from anarchy, it becomes their fault. However, Paine views the idea of a government as a necessary evil. A large part of Paine’s argument is devoted to attacking monarchy. Paine criticizes the monarchy as an institution and, in particular, its manifestation

He believed the British form of government takes away individual liberty and the king is left with no one to look after his decisions. Paine explains that, “The state of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of king requires him to know it thoroughly…by unnaturally opposing and destroying each other, prove the whole character to be absurd and useless.” How could the king possibly understand what was best for them? The king did what was best for himself and the monarchy and Parliament carried out his

Therefore, Paine destroyed the importance of the British constitutional system as a guarantor of liberty and as consistent with reason and human needs. He launched his enterprise with a withering attack on the pretensions of monarchy after the rejection of the Olive Branch Petition, the new focus of the Americans' sense of betrayal and wrath. Loyalty to the monarchy was not important to the Americans. By demolishing the monarchy, and exposing the British constitution as built on monarchy, Paine suggested that the Americans consider independence from the British monarchy. Additionally, by exploding the constitutional context, he also transformed the argument from being the sole province of those politicians learned in the law, customs, and usages of the British system to an argument in which all Americans could and should take part.

Thomas Paine states his ideas for the government in his Common Sense written in 1776. Paine states that America should not have a king. The first king might be great but then ruling by divine right usually ends up with the people having terrible kings. Once a monarch is put into place it becomes extremely hard to remove. Today in America we still do not have kings which is very good for America. The democracy system that we have in place gives Americans many rights and overall good country to live in unlike 3rd world countries. Paine brings up the point that most subjects under a king do not revolt do to fear and superstition. This made me wonder why they would fear. The subjects would outnumber the royalty and their guards if they would all stand together.