The Rights of Man
Paine published this in two parts, in 1791 and 1792, as a direct answer to Edmund Burke’s attack on the French Revolution. Against Burke’s reverence for tradition and inherited authority, Paine argues that government exists only to secure the natural rights of the living, and that no generation can bind those who come after it. He defends a people’s right to overthrow a government that fails them, ridicules hereditary monarchy and aristocracy, and sketches practical reforms, including public relief for the poor, pensions, and schooling funded by progressive taxation. The book sold in the hundreds of thousands and got Paine tried in absentia for seditious libel in England. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.
About the Author
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was an English-born political writer whose pamphlets helped ignite both the American and French revolutions. Author of Common Sense and Rights of Man, he championed republican government and plain reason, and died poor and largely scorned in New York.
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