Mr. Paine. Upon national
honor, in Crisis xii, dated May, 1782, he says: "In March, 1780, I
published part of the Crisis, No. viii, in the newspapers, but did not
conclude it in the following papers, and the remainder has lain by me
till the present day. There appeared about that time some disposition in
the British cabinet to cease the further prosecution of the war, and as
I had formed my opinion that whenever such a design should take place,
it would be accompanied by a dishonorable proposition to America
respecting France, I had suppressed the remainder of that number, not to
expose the baseness of any such proposition." He now incorporates it in
this number, and then follows with one of the noblest productions on
national honor which it has been the fortune of man to write.

* * * * *

I now give an opinion on the principles of the English constitution:

_Paine._

"A government on the principles on which
constitutional governments arising out of society
are established, can not have the right of
altering itself. If it had, it would be
arbitrary. It might make itself what it pleased;
and whenever such a right is set up, it shows that
there is no constitution. The act by which the
English parliament empowered itself to sit for
seven years, shows there is no constitution in
England. It might, by the same self-authority,
have to sat any greater number of years, or for
life."--R. of M., part i.

_Junius._

"There can not be a doctrine more fatal to the
liberty and property we are contending for, than
that which confounds the idea of a supreme and an
arbitrary legislature.... If the majority can
disfranchise ten boroughs, why not twenty--why not
the whole kingdom? Why should not they make their
own seats in parliament for life? When the
septennial act passed, the legislature did what,
apparently and palpably, they had no power to
do."--Let. 68.

Although the above doctrine that the people, not the legislature, are
supreme, is not new, yet it was rarely asserted in the time of Paine,
and renders the above parallel strong and peculiar. Even the same
language is used in making the same application to the septennial act,
which might as well have empowered the members o