country, properly
speaking, is not in the persons, _but in the
laws_."--R. of M.

_Junius._

"The submission of a free people to the executive
authority of government is no more than a
compliance with the laws which they themselves
have enacted."--Let. 1.

I would have the reader mark the fact that the above sentiment of Junius
is the first he proclaims in his book. This, it will readily be seen,
contains in itself the whole system of politics which Junius and Paine
labored to establish. From this sentiment arose the frequent expressions
of Junius, "Original rights;" "First rights;" "Sacred original rights of
the people;" "The meanest mechanic is equal to the noblest peer;" and
which Paine embodied in the expression, "Mankind are originally equal in
the order of creation." Herein also we find the foundation for that
method of both in tracing the rights of man back to their origin, and
the easy manner in distinguishing original right from usurpation. A
parallel here will make this plain:

_Paine._

"The example shows to the artificial world that
man must go back to nature for information."--R.
M., part ii. "Can we possibly suppose that if
government had originated in a right principle and
had not an interest in pursuing a wrong one, that
the world could have been in the wretched and
quarrelsome condition we have seen it? ... What
was at first plunder, assumed the softer name of
revenue, and the power originally _usurped_ they
affected to inherit."--R. M., part ii., chap. ii.
See, also, a fine specimen of this kind of
argumentation in the first chapter of Common
Sense.

_Junius._

"To establish a claim of privilege in either
house, and to distinguish _original right from
usurpation_, it must appear that it is
indispensably necessary for the performance of the
duty, and also that it has been uniformly allowed.
From the first part of this description it
follows, clearly, that whatever privilege does of
right belong to the present House of Commons, did
equally belong to the first assembly of their
predecessors, was so completely vested in them,
and might have been exercised in the same extent.