ation. A man derives
no more excellence from the change of a name, or calling him King, or
calling him Lord, than I should do by changing my name from Thomas to
George, or from Paine to Guelph. I should not be a whit more able to
write a book because my name was altered; neither would any man, now
called a King or a lord, have a whit the more sense than he now has,
were he to call himself Thomas Paine.

As to the word "Commons," applied as it is in England, it is a term
of degradation and reproach, and ought to be abolished. It is a term
unknown in free countries.

But to the point.--Let us suppose that Government was now to begin in
England, and that the plan of Government, offered to the nation for its
approbation or rejection, consisted of the following parts:

First--That some one individual should be taken from all the rest of the
nation, and to whom all the rest should swear obedience, and never be
permitted to sit down in his presence, and that they should give to him
one million sterling a year.--That the nation should never after have
power or authority to make laws but with his express consent; and that
his sons and his sons' sons, whether wise or foolish, good men or
bad, fit or unfit, should have the same power, and also the same money
annually paid to them for ever.

Secondly--That there should be two houses of Legislators to assist in
making laws, one of which should, in the first instance, be entirely
appointed by the aforesaid person, and that their sons and their sons'
sons, whether wise or foolish, good men or bad, fit or unfit, should for
ever after be hereditary Legislators.

Thirdly--That the other house should be chosen in the same manner as the
house now called the House of Commons is chosen, and should be subject
to the controul of the two aforesaid hereditary Powers in all things.

It would be impossible to cram such a farrago of imposition and
absurdity down the throat of this or any other nation that was capable
of reasoning upon its rights and its interest.

They would ask, in the first place, on what ground of right, or on what
principle, such irrational and preposterous distinctions could, or ought
to be made; and what pretensions any man could have, or what services he
could render, to entitle him to a million a year? They would go
farther, and revolt at the idea of consigning their children, and their
children's children, to the domination of persons hereafter to be born,
who migh