hould bear in mind that this phrase, now used
vaguely, had for Paine and his political school a special
significance; it implied a fundamental Declaration of
individual rights, of supreme force and authority, invasion
which, either by legislatures, law courts, majorities, or
administrators, was to be regarded as the worst treason and
despotism.--_Editor._

2. _The Legislature might usurp authority, and a king is needed to
restrain it_.

With representatives, frequently renewed, who neither administer
nor judge, whose functions are determined by the laws; with national
conventions, with primary assemblies, which can be convoked any moment;
with a people knowing how to read, and how to defend itself; with good
journals, guns, and pikes; a Legislature would have a good deal of
trouble in enjoying any months of tyranny. Let us not suppose an evil
for the sake of its remedy.

3. _A king is needed to give force to executive power_.

This might be said while there existed nobles, a priesthood,
parliaments, the privileged of every kind. But at present who can resist
the Law, which is the will of all, whose execution is the interest of
all? On the contrary the existence of an hereditary prince inspires
perpetual distrust among the friends of liberty; his authority is odious
to them; in checking despotism they constantly obstruct the action of
government. Observe how feeble the executive power was found, after our
recent pretence of marrying Royalty with Liberty.

Take note, for the rest, that those who talk in this way are men who
believe that the King and the Executive Power are only one and the same
thing: readers of _La Feuille Villageoise_ are more advanced.(*)

* See No. 50.--_Author_

Others use this bad reasoning: "Were there no hereditary chief there
would be an elective chief: the citizens would side with this man or
that, and there would be a civil war at every election." In the first
place, it is certain that hereditary succession alone has produced
the civil wars of France and England; and that beyond this are the
pre-tended rights, of royal families which have twenty times drawn on
these nations the scourge of foreign wars. It is, in fine, the heredity
of crowns that has caused the troubles of Regency, which Thomas Paine
calls Monarchy at nurse.

But above all it must be said, that if there be an elective chief, that
chief will not be a king surrounded by courtiers, burde