The Rights of Man

“Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow.”

Paine’s observation regarding one generation’s independence of the generations that preceded it serves as an answer to Burke’s insistence that the Parliament of 1688, which helped carry out the Glorious Revolution, bound posterity to its decision forever. This is an early marker of the profound differences between Paine and Burke on the question of government. Whereas Burke regards the British constitution as a sacred and binding instrument, Paine views the British constitution as a figment of the imagination and a fraud upon the British people. Furthermore, though he does not address the subject in a direct way, Paine’s argument that “Man has no property in man” could be interpreted as an anti-slavery statement.

“It was not against Louis the XVIth, but against the despotic principles of the government, that the nation revolted.”

Burke chastises the French revolutionaries for rebelling against a mild-mannered king, to which Paine replies that the comparative gentleness of the man sitting on the throne does little to soften the brutality of the absolutist system. Paine therefore insists that the French rebelled against the “despotic principles” of monarchy and not the monarch as an individual. Indeed, throughout Part 1 Paine is generally well-disposed toward King Louis XVI, who until early 1791 had more or less gone along with the Revolution and its reforms, although his stance would later change.