ABSTRACT
Thomas Paine is more often seen as a pamphleteer whose rhetorical skills helped popularize a traditional doctrine of natural rights in revolutionary America and France than as a thinker who developed that doctrine in new or uncustomary directions. But there is one aspect of his thought that does not readily fit with this common perception. Paine proceeds with his analysis by observing that the type of government prevalent in England and other European countries impedes the general happiness by operating "to create and increase wretchedness" in parts of society. Reformulated to fit the circumstances addressed by his critique of "court" regimes, Paine's second operative principle of civilization would seem to be that in matters regarding the benefits and burdens of civil association, political authority must treat people equally. Paine develops separate justifications for the tax on land and personal property.
