<FONT color="#004080"><FONT size="+4">Thomas Paine's Common Sense</FONT></FONT>
Common Sense
Thomas Paine - 1776
Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession
MANKIND being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could only be destroyed by some subsequent
circumstance; the distinctions of rich, and poor, may in a great measure be accounted for, and that without having
recourse to the harsh, ill-sounding names of oppression and avarice. Oppression is often the consequence, but seldom or
never the means of riches; and though avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him
too timorous to be wealthy.
But there is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is,
the distinction of men into kings and subjects. Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the
distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some
new species, is worth enquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.
In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology, there were no kings; the consequence of which was
there were no wars; it is the pride of kings which throw mankind into confusion. Holland without a king hath enjoyed
more peace for this last century than any of the monarchial governments in Europe. Antiquity favors the same remark;
for the quiet and rural lives of the first patriarchs hath a happy something in them, which vanishes away when we come to
the history of Jewish royalty.
Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the
custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens paid
divine honors to their deceased kings, and the Christian world hath improved on the plan by doing the same to their
living ones. How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling
into dust!
As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the equal rights of nature, so neither can it be
defended on the authority of scripture; for the will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet Samuel,
expressly disapproves of government by kings. All anti-monarchial parts of scripture have been very smoothly glossed
over in monarchial governments, but they undoubtedly merit the attention of countries which have their governments yet
to form. Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's is the scriptural doctrine of courts, yet it is no support of
monarchial government, for the Jews at that time were without a king, and in a state of vassalage to the Romans.
Near three thousand years passed away from the Mosaic account of the creation, till the Jews under a national delusion
requested a king. Till then their form of government (except in extraordinary cases, where the Almighty interposed) was
a kind of republic administered by a judge and the elders of the tribes. Kings they had none, and it was held sinful to
acknowledge any being under that title but the Lords of Hosts. And when a man seriously reflects on the idolatrous
homage which is paid to the persons of kings he need not wonder, that the Almighty, ever jealous of his honor, should
disapprove of a form of government which so impiously invades the prerogative of heaven.
Monarchy is ranked in scripture as one of the sins of the Jews, for which a curse in reserve is denounced against them.
The history of that transaction is worth attending to.
The children of Israel being oppressed by the Midianites, Gideon marched against them with a small army, and victory,
through the divine interposition, decided in his favor. The Jews elate with success, and attributing it to the generalship of
Gideon, proposed making him a king, saying, Rule thou over us, thou and thy son and thy son's son. Here was temptation
in its fullest extent; not a kingdom only, but an hereditary one, but Gideon in the piety of his soul replied, I will not rule
over you, neither shall my son rule over you, the Lord shall rule over you. Words need not be more explicit; Gideon doth
not decline the honor but denieth their right to give it; neither doth be compliment them with invented declarations of his
thanks, but in the positive stile of a prophet charges them with disaffection to their proper sovereign, the King of
Heaven.
About one hundred and thirty years after this, they fell again into the same error. The hankering which the Jews had for
the idolatrous customs of the Heathens, is something exceedingly unaccountable; but so it was, that laying hold of the
misconduct of Samuel's two sons, who were entrusted with some secular concerns, they came in an abrupt and clamorous
manner to Samuel, saying, Behold thou art old and thy sons walk not in thy ways, now make us a king to judge us like all
the other nations. And here we cannot but observe that their motives were bad, viz., that they might be like unto other
nations, i.e., the Heathen, whereas their true glory laid in being as much unlike them as possible. But the thing
displeased Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us; and Samuel prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord said unto
Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee, for they have not rejected thee, but they have
rejected me, then I should not reign over them. According to all the works which have done since the day; wherewith they
brought them up out of Egypt, even unto this day; wherewith they have forsaken me and served other Gods; so do they
also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice, howbeit, protest solemnly unto them and show them the manner
of the king that shall reign over them, i.e., not of any particular king, but the general manner of the kings of the earth,
whom Israel was so eagerly copying after. And notwithstanding the great distance of time and difference of manners, the
character is still in fashion. And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people, that asked of him a king. And he
said, This shall be the manner of the king that shall reign over you; he will take your sons and appoint them for himself
for his chariots, and to be his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariots (this description agrees with the present
mode of impressing men) and he will appoint him captains over thousands and captains over fifties, and will set them to
ear his ground and to read his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots; and he will
take your daughters to be confectionaries and to be cooks and to be bakers (this describes the expense and luxury as
well as the oppression of kings) and he will take your fields and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to
his servants; and he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give them to his officers and to his
servants (by which we see that bribery, corruption, and favoritism are the standing vices of kings) and he will take the
tenth of your men servants, and your maid servants, and your goodliest young men and your asses, and put them to his
work; and he will take the tenth of your sheep, and ye shall be his servants, and ye shall cry out in that day because of
your king which ye shall have chosen, and the Lord will not hear you in that day. This accounts for the continuation of
monarchy; neither do the characters of the few good kings which have lived since, either sanctify the title, or blot out the
sinfulness of the origin; the high encomium given of David takes no notice of him officially as a king, but only as a man
after God's own heart. Nevertheless the People refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay, but we will have
a king over us, that we may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and go out before us and fight our
battles. Samuel continued to reason with them, but to no purpose; he set before them their ingratitude, but all would not
avail; and seeing them fully bent on their folly, he cried out, I will call unto the Lord, and he shall sent thunder and rain
(which then was a punishment, being the time of wheat harvest) that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is
great which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking you a king. So Samuel called unto the Lord, and the Lord sent
thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel And all the people said unto Samuel,
Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God that we die not, for we have added unto our sins this evil, to ask a king. These
portions of scripture are direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal construction. That the Almighty hath here
entered his protest against monarchial government is true, or the scripture is false. And a man hath good reason to
believe that there is as much of kingcraft, as priestcraft in withholding the scripture from the public in Popish countries.
For monarchy in every instance is the Popery of government.
To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of
ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on posterity. For all men being
originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever,
and though himself might deserve some decent degree of honors of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far
too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature
disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.
Secondly, as no man at first could possess any other public honors than were bestowed upon him, so the givers of those
honors could have no power to give away the right of posterity, and though they might say, "We choose you for our
head," they could not, without manifest injustice to their children, say, "that your children and your children's children
shall reign over ours for ever." Because such an unwise, unjust, unnatural compact might (perhaps) in the next
succession put them under the government of a rogue or a fool. Most wise men, in their private sentiments, have ever
treated hereditary right with contempt; yet it is one of those evils, which when once established is not easily removed;
many submit from fear, others from superstition, and the more powerful part shares with the king the plunder of the rest.
This is supposing the present race of kings in the world to have had an honorable origin; whereas it is more than
probable, that could we take off the dark covering of antiquity, and trace them to their first rise, that we should find the
first of them nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose savage manners of preeminence in
subtlety obtained him the title of chief among plunderers; and who by increasing in power, and extending his
depredations, overawed the quiet and defenseless to purchase their safety by frequent contributions. Yet his electors
could have no idea of giving hereditary right to his descendants, because such a perpetual exclusion of themselves was
incompatible with the free and unrestrained principles they professed to live by. Wherefore, hereditary succession in the
early ages of monarchy could not take place as a matter of claim, but as something casual or complemental; but as few or
no records were extant in those days, and traditionary history stuffed with fables, it was very easy, after the lapse of a few
generations, to trump up some superstitious tale, conveniently timed, Mahomet like, to cram hereditary right down the
throats of the vulgar. Perhaps the disorders which threatened, or seemed to threaten on the decease of a leader and the
choice of a new one (for elections among ruffians could not be very orderly) induced many at first to favor hereditary
pretensions; by which means it happened, as it hath happened since, that what at first was submitted to as a convenience,
was afterwards claimed as a right.
England, since the conquest, hath known some few good monarchs, but groaned beneath a much larger number of bad
ones, yet no man in his senses can say that their claim under William the Conqueror is a very honorable one. A French
bastard landing with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in
plain terms a very paltry rascally original. It certainly hath no divinity in it. However, it is needless to spend much time in
exposing the folly of hereditary right, if there are any so weak as to believe it, let them promiscuously worship the ass
and lion, and welcome. I shall neither copy their humility, nor disturb their devotion.
Yet I should be glad to ask how they suppose kings came at first? The question admits but of three answers, viz., either
by lot, by election, or by usurpation. If the first king was taken by lot, it establishes a precedent for the next, which
excludes hereditary succession. Saul was by lot, yet the succession was not hereditary, neither does it appear from that
transaction there was any intention it ever should. If the first king of any country was by election, that likewise
establishes a precedent for the next; for to say, that the right of all future generations is taken away, by the act of the first
electors, in their choice not only of a king, but of a family of kings for ever, hath no parallel in or out of scripture but the
doctrine of original sin, which supposes the free will of all men lost in Adam; and from such comparison, and it will admit
of no other, hereditary succession can derive no glory. For as in Adam all sinned, and as in the first electors all men
obeyed; as in the one all mankind were subjected to Satan, and in the other to Sovereignty; as our innocence was lost in
the first, and our authority in the last; and as both disable us from reassuming some former state and privilege, it
unanswerably follows that original sin and hereditary succession are parallels. Dishonorable rank! Inglorious connection!
Yet the most subtle sophist cannot produce a juster simile.
As to usurpation, no man will be so hardy as to defend it; and that William the Conqueror was an usurper is a fact not to
be contradicted. The plain truth is, that the antiquity of English monarchy will not bear looking into.
But it is not so much the absurdity as the evil of hereditary succession which concerns mankind. Did it ensure a race of
good and wise men it would have the seal of divine authority, but as it opens a door to the foolish, the wicked; and the
improper, it hath in it the nature of oppression. Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon
grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in
differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when
they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.
Another evil which attends hereditary succession is, that the throne is subject to be possessed by a minor at any age; all
which time the regency, acting under the cover of a king, have every opportunity and inducement to betray their trust.
The same national misfortune happens, when a king worn out with age and infirmity, enters the last stage of human
weakness. In both these cases the public becomes a prey to every miscreant, who can tamper successfully with the follies
either of age or infancy.
The most plausible plea, which hath ever been offered in favor of hereditary succession, is, that it preserves a nation
from civil wars; and were this true, it would be weighty; whereas, it is the most barefaced falsity ever imposed upon
mankind. The whole history of England disowns the fact. Thirty kings and two minors have reigned in that distracted
kingdom since the conquest, in which time there have been (including the Revolution) no less than eight civil wars and
nineteen rebellions. Wherefore instead of making for peace, it makes against it, and destroys the very foundation it
seems to stand on.
The contest for monarchy and succession, between the houses of York and Lancaster, laid England in a scene of blood
for many years. Twelve pitched battles, besides skirmishes and sieges, were fought between Henry and Edward. Twice
was Henry prisoner to Edward, who in his turn was prisoner to Henry. And so uncertain is the fate of war and the temper
of a nation, when nothing but personal matters are the ground of a quarrel, that Henry was taken in triumph from a prison
to a palace, and Edward obliged to fly from a palace to a foreign land; yet, as sudden transitions of temper are seldom
lasting, Henry in his turn was driven from the throne, and Edward recalled to succeed him. The parliament always
following the strongest side.
This contest began in the reign of Henry the Sixth, and was not entirely extinguished till Henry the Seventh, in whom
the families were united. Including a period of 67 years, viz., from 1422 to 1489.
In short, monarchy and succession have laid (not this or that kingdom only) but the world in blood and ashes. 'Tis a form
of government which the word of God bears testimony against, and blood will attend it.
If we inquire into the business of a king, we shall find that (in some countries they have none) and after sauntering away
their lives without pleasure to themselves or advantage to the nation, withdraw from the scene, and leave their
successors to tread the same idle round. In absolute monarchies the whole weight of business civil and military, lies on
the king; the children of Israel in their request for a king, urged this plea "that he may judge us, and go out before us and
fight our battles." But in countries where he is neither a judge nor a general, as in England, a man would be puzzled to
know what is his business.
The nearer any government approaches to a republic, the less business there is for a king. It is somewhat difficult to find
a proper name for the government of England. Sir William Meredith calls it a republic; but in its present state it is
unworthy of the name, because the corrupt influence. If the crown, by having all the places in its disposal, hath so
effectually swallowed up the power, and eaten out the virtue of the house of commons (the republican part in the
constitution) that the government of England is nearly as monarchical as that of France or Spain. Men fall out with names
without understanding them. For it is the republican and not the monarchical part of the constitution of England which
Englishmen glory in, viz., the liberty of choosing a house of commons from out of their own body- and it is easy to see that
when the republican virtue fails, slavery ensues. My is the constitution of England sickly, but because monarchy hath
poisoned the republic, the crown hath engrossed the commons?
In England a king hath little more to do than to make war and give away places; which in plain terms, is to impoverish the
nation and set it together by the ears. A pretty business indeed for a man to be allowed eight hundred thousand sterling a
year for, and worshipped into the bargain! Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all
the crowned ruffians that ever lived.
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