IN the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day. Thoughts on the present state of American affairs. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expence and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. – Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil in it's worst state an intolerable one for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. With concise remarks on the English constitution. Of the origin and design of government in general.
Er argumentierte, dass den nordamerikanischen Kolonien nur die Ablösung vom Mutterland und die Einrichtung einer republikanischen Ordnung bliebe, wollte man sich nicht von der politischen Korruption und dem Verfall des Mutterlandes anstecken lassen.
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