Book: The Rights of Man

Overview

Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man (Part I, 1791; Part II, 1792) is a forceful defense of popular sovereignty and a blueprint for democratic reform, written as a rebuttal to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. Paine argues that legitimate government rests on the natural and equal rights of individuals, vindicates the French Revolution as a lawful act of a people constituting themselves, and denounces hereditary monarchy and aristocracy as usurpations. Across two volumes, he couples philosophical principles with practical policies, seeking to replace inherited privilege with representation, written constitutions, and social provision funded by progressive taxation.

Context and Purpose

Burke had portrayed the French Revolution as a reckless assault on tradition and social order. Paine replies that appealing to antiquity cannot justify injustice: no generation can bind another to servitude, and reverence for chivalry or prescription cannot sanctify power without consent. He points to the American Revolution as proof that people can dissolve corrupt arrangements and construct governments anew. The Rights of Man thus weds critique and construction: it dismantles Burke’s defense of hierarchy while offering a positive model of constitutional democracy.

Natural Rights and Political Authority

Paine distinguishes natural rights, inherent in persons, from civil rights, which arise from agreements within society. Natural rights, liberty of conscience, property in one’s labor, personal security, precede government and set limits upon it. Government is an agent created by the people to secure these rights; it is not the fountain of rights nor a guardian entitled to rule without accountability. Hereditary rule violates this order by placing office above consent, substituting birth for merit and contract. A nation is a moral community of living individuals, not an estate handed down like property, and only the living may authorize its institutions.

Constitutions and Representation

Central to Paine’s argument is the idea that a constitution is antecedent to government. A legitimate constitution is a public, written compact that defines powers, secures rights, and specifies representation; it creates and restricts government rather than merely describing habits. He praises the American state constitutions and federal Bill of Rights as models and contrasts them with Britain’s unwritten “constitution, ” which he depicts as a revolving settlement of parliamentary power and royal prerogative lacking a popular foundation. Representation, frequent elections, and broad suffrage translate the people’s sovereignty into lawful authority. Laws must be general, not privileges for orders; taxation must be authorized by those who pay it; and war-making should be limited by representative control.

Social Program and Economics

Paine insists that political rights require social supports. In Part II he proposes a suite of measures that anticipate modern social insurance: graduated taxes on large estates and luxury to finance public education, relief for the poor, unemployment supports, and pensions for the elderly and disabled. He argues that monarchy and aristocratic militarism have squandered national wealth, and that peace and tax reform would release resources to uplift the many. Property is legitimate when bound by the equal right of others; inheritance should be limited to prevent perpetual oligarchy, while labor should be relieved of oppressive taxes on basic goods.

Style, Reception, and Impact

Written in lucid, polemical prose, the book aims to make political philosophy accessible to artisans and tradespeople, not just elites. It became a bestseller, provoked official alarm in Britain, and led to Paine’s prosecution for seditious libel; he fled to France, where he was elected to the National Convention. Its influence radiated through democratic clubs, reform movements, and later liberal and social-democratic thought. The Rights of Man endures as a canonical statement that rights are primary, governments are fiduciary, and societies can be remade by reasoned consent rather than by inherited command.