WorkThomas Paine

Dissertation on First Principles of Government

Paine's final appeal to the French Convention, arguing that the vote belongs to every man, whether he owns property or not.

by Thomas Paine27 passages held

English, the original language, and your language

First published: 1795(aged 58)
Original language: English

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Overview

The constitution the French National Convention was drafting in the summer of 1795 would give the vote only to men who paid a direct tax. Thomas Paine, back in his seat after ten months in the Luxembourg prison, had ready a treatise meant for the Dutch, who were then reforming their own government, and offered it to the French instead. It was printed in English in Paris that July, and on 7 July a secretary read a speech of Paine's on the same principles to the Convention while Paine stood beside him at the tribune. The argument starts from a simple division: every government is either chosen by election and representation or inherited, and the inherited kind has no right to exist, because no generation can bind the next to a family it never chose. Paine then puts the property qualification to the same test. A law reserving the vote to people who own a certain amount is a combination of the owners to shut everyone else out; rights come to a person simply from existing, so they must be equal, and making property the measure makes a man the servant of his possessions. He adds a history lesson for the propertied: the great landed estates of England were seized at the Norman Conquest, and titles were the names their takers hid behind. He also blamed the Terror on France's lack of a constitution, since in its absence party had ruled principle, and what counted as patriotism one day was treason the next. The deputies listened impatiently and none supported him; Paine never again appeared in the Convention. The constitution the Convention adopted that August kept the tax qualification.

Key concepts

Why does Paine divide all governments into elected and hereditary?

Because on his account the question of legitimacy has only two possible answers. Either those who govern were chosen by the governed, through election and representation, or they hold power by inheritance. The second has no right to exist, since no generation can bind the next to a family it never chose. The division clears away every other ground a ruler might claim, such as age, custom or conquest.

Why does Paine call a property qualification a combination against everyone else?

Because it is a rule the owners make to exclude everyone who is not one of them. Paine treats a law reserving the vote to people who own a certain amount as an agreement among the propertied to shut the rest out of government. Since rights come to a person simply from existing, a vote conditioned on wealth turns a right into a privilege of possession.

Why does the Dissertation bring up the Norman Conquest?

To show the propertied where their titles came from. England's great landed estates, Paine argues, were seized at the Conquest, and titles of nobility were the names their takers hid behind. The point turns the defence of a property qualification back on itself: if the largest holdings began in force, property is a poor measure of who has earned a voice in government.

How does Paine explain the Terror in this work?

As the result of having no constitution. Without one to settle principles in advance, party ruled in their place, and what counted as patriotism one day could be treated as treason the next. Paine's remedy is not better men in power but a constitution that puts principles above whoever holds power, so that each person's rights do not depend on which faction is winning.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Chosen or Inherited: The Only Two Kinds of Government

Is there any ground on which one family may rule a people that never chose it? None, Paine argues: every government is either elected and representative or inherited and without right.

The argument starts from a simple division. Every government is either chosen by election and representation or inherited, and the inherited kind has no right to exist, because no generation can bind the next to a family it never chose. Paine adds a history lesson for the propertied: England's great landed estates were seized at the Norman Conquest, and titles were the names their takers hid behind. The same demand for principle shapes his reading of the Terror, which he blamed on France's lack of a constitution: without one, party had ruled in principle's place.

hereditary rule
representative government
political legitimacy
political authority
aristocracy
intergenerational justice
generations
consent
usurpation
revolution
constitutional design
corruption
law

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The Vote Belongs to Persons, Not to Property

Should the vote go only to those who own something, or who pay a direct tax? Paine answers that rights come from existing, not from owning, and so must be equal.

The constitution the Convention was drafting in 1795 would give the vote only to men who paid a direct tax. Paine put that qualification to the same test he had applied to kings. A law reserving the vote to those who own a certain amount is a combination of the owners to shut everyone else out. Rights come to a person simply from existing, so they must be equal, and to make property their measure is to make a man the servant of his possessions. No deputy supported him, and the constitution adopted that August kept the tax qualification.

political equality
property
voting rights
rights
natural rights
equal rights
reciprocity
liberty
minors
labor
democracy

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Within this work

passages held: 27
distinct concepts: 66
by passages held, corpus-wide: #751

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “hereditary rule” and “political legitimacy”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 17 pairings. 19 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
hereditary rule	political legitimacy	5
political equality	property	5
intergenerational justice	rights	4
political equality	representative government	4
hereditary rule	intergenerational justice	3
hereditary rule	political authority	3
hereditary rule	rights	3
political authority	rights	3
hereditary rule	representative government	2
intergenerational justice	political authority	2
intergenerational justice	political legitimacy	2
political authority	political legitimacy	2
political legitimacy	representative government	2
political legitimacy	rights	2
property	representative government	2
intergenerational justice	representative government	1
political legitimacy	property	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

1776 Common Sense
The book that made Paine's name, so much so that he signed the Crisis papers of the following years with its title.
EN
1776 The American Crisis
A serial rather than a book: papers issued one at a time between December 1776 and December 1783, whenever the war's news called for one, each under the title The Crisis.
EN
1782 Letter Addressed to the Abbé Raynal on the Affairs of North-America (Letter to the Abbe Raynal)
Ten months after the victory at Yorktown, with the war winding down, Paine set out to put the record of the Revolution straight for European readers.
EN
1791 Rights of Man
Paine's contribution to the pamphlet war that Burke's Reflections set off in Britain; the writer Mary Wollstonecraft had answered Burke first, in November 1790.
EN
1793 Reasons for Wishing to Preserve the Life of Louis Capet (Reasons for Preserving the Life of Louis Capet)
Second of the three speeches Paine gave in the Convention on the king's fate: the first, in November 1792, argued that Louis should be tried; the last pleaded for a reprieve.
EN
1794 The Age of Reason
Between the two stretches in which it was written, Paine spent ten months in a Paris prison; it is his one sustained book on religion, and the one that cost him most.
EN
1795 Dissertation on First Principles of Government you are here EN
1797 Agrarian Justice
Published in answer to a bishop's sermon on rich and poor, it carries the welfare proposals of Rights of Man to a principle: that the landless are owed a share of the earth.
EN
1797 The Existence of God
Addressed to the Theophilanthropists, the Paris society whose creed matched Paine's own, it gives the positive side of the case that The Age of Reason made against revealed religion.
EN
1807 Examination of the Prophecies
A companion to The Age of Reason, giving the Gospels' use of prophecy the same close reading that its second part gave the authorship of the Bible.
EN

— or open another of their works