fiction--though it is true that there
were many Englishmen, of whom Godwin was one, who could see no hope of
Parliament reforming itself or of granting any measure of enfranchisement
to the people, and therefore were willing to fall back on any theory for
compelling Parliament to move towards a more liberal constitution--as the
programme of practical reforms that was unfolded in its pages and the
honest defence of the proceedings in Paris. That Parliament had no right to
bind posterity, as Burke maintained, and that if the revolution of 1688 was
authoritative, why should a revolution in 1788 be less authoritative? were
matters of less interest than the clear statement of events in France, and
the proposals for a democratic constitution in England and for social
reform. Fifty thousand copies of the "Rights of Man" were quickly sold, and
it obtained a large number of readers in America, and was translated into
French. The total sales were estimated at 200,000 in 1793. Paine followed
it up with Part II. while he was an elected member of the National
Convention in Paris, and in 1792, when a cheap edition of the "Rights of
Man" was issued, its author was tried for high treason, and in his absence
convicted and outlawed.

Part I. of the "Rights of Man," while relying on the popular "sovereignty"
fiction for getting a national convention, contained a careful definition
of representative government. It showed that government by democracy--i.e.
by popular meeting, suitable enough for small and primitive societies--must
degenerate into hopeless confusion in a large population; that monarchy and
aristocracy which sprang from the political confusion of the people must
degenerate into incapacity. A representative government was the control of
a nation by persons elected by the whole nation, and the Rights of Man were
the rights of all to this representation.

As a nation we have never admitted any "natural" political rights to man,
but we have steadily insisted on the constitutional right of representation
in Parliament to those who possess a fixed abode and contribute by taxation
to the national revenue.

Paine attacked all hereditary authority and all titles, but approved a
double chamber for Parliament. He claimed that the whole nation ought to
decide on the question of war with a foreign country, and urged that no
member of Parliament should be a government pensioner.

In Part II. there is a confident announcement that "monar