And I put it as a question to those, who make a study of mankind, whether REPRESENTATION AND ELECTION is not too great a power for one and the same b… - Thomas Paine

When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.

Virtue is not hereditary.

And I put it as a question to those, who make a study of mankind, whether representation and election is not too great a power for one and the same body of men to possess?

As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me as a species of Atheism — a sort of religious denial of God. It professes to believe in a man rather than in God. It is a compound made up chiefly of Manism with but little Deism, and is as near to Atheism as twilight is to darkness. It introduces between man and his Maker an opaque body, which it calls a Redeemer, as the moon introduces her opaque self between the earth and the sun, and it produces by this means a religious, or an irreligious, eclipse of light. It has put the whole orbit of reason into shade.

From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices.