Get Attacking Hereditary Monarchy Answers

“Common Sense” is credited as playing a crucial role in convincing colonists to take up arms against England. In it, Paine argues that representational government is superior to a monarchy or other forms of government based on aristocracy and heredity.

In Common Sense (January 1776) Thomas Paine reminded the American colonists that in a free republic “ the law is king” and that if a day were to be set aside to celebrate the republic's achievements then it should not be focused on a single man but on the law itself: But where, say some, is the King of America?

Paine's observations about monarchy were connected to his reasons for independence in that he saw the American Revolution as an opportunity to break free from the shackles of a corrupt and unjust system of government.

Paine says that if a king is chosen by election, this means all future kings should be chosen in the same way, and if the king usurped his throne, then the entire reign is illegitimate. Any way you look at it, hereditary succession is not valid. Paine adds that hereditary succession brings other evils with it.

For monarchy in every instance is the popery of government. To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and imposition on posterity.

Monarchy is a form of government where the king or queen rules the country. They take up the throne on a hereditary basis that is a new king or queen belongs to the same royal family.

He argued for two main points: (1) independence from England and (2) the creation of a democratic republic. Paine avoided flowery prose. He wrote in the language of the people, often quoting the Bible in his arguments.