The Nexus Archive
Republican Radicalism · Treatise
Rights of Man
by Thomas Paine · The Revolutionary Pamphleteer · Age of Revolution, 1737-1809
Paine's defense of rights, revolution, and political reform.
- Advanced
- ~6 hr 45 min read
- 17 chapter guides
- Public domain
Start reading · Read the Preface to the French Edition guide free
Before the text
Editor's Prelude
A Revolution Answered in Public
Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France appeared while France was still remaking its political world. Thomas Paine answered as a participant in the age's argument, not as a historian looking safely backward. He had defended American independence, knew Burke from that struggle, and now watched an old ally turn the language of inheritance, rank, and tradition against the French Revolution.
Part I attacks the idea that the dead may govern the living. Paine argues that rights belong to people before governments exist, that a nation may remake institutions that betray their purpose, and that titles and hereditary power are political inventions rather than natural facts. His quarrel with Burke is therefore larger than France: it asks whether government rests on ancestry and prescription or on the continuing consent of those who must live under it.
Part II turns principle into a program. Representation, written constitutions, taxation, public debt, education, pensions, poor relief, and peace all enter the same test: does government serve the nation, and can ordinary people see how? Paine's confidence can outrun his evidence, but the practical ambition is the point. He wants a revolution in political reasoning to reach the household budget, the schoolroom, old age, and the chance to live without war.
The opening pages
Part I: Burke's Attack
Among the incivilities by which nations or individuals provoke and irritate each other, Mr. Burke's pamphlet on the French Revolution is an extraordinary instance. Neither the People of France, nor the National Assembly, were troubling themselves about the affairs of England, or the English Parliament; and that Mr. Burke should commence an unprovoked attack upon them, both in Parliament and in public, is a conduct that cannot be pardoned on the score of manners, nor justified on that of policy.
There is scarcely an epithet of abuse to be found in the English language, with which Mr. Burke has not loaded the French Nation and the National Assembly. Everything which rancour, prejudice, ignorance or knowledge could suggest, is poured forth in the copious fury of near four hundred pages. In the strain and on the plan Mr. Burke was writing, he might have written on to as many thousands. When the tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of passion, it is the man, and not the subject, that becomes exhausted.
Hitherto Mr. Burke has been mistaken and disappointed in the opinions he had formed of the affairs of France; but such is the ingenuity of his hope, or the malignancy of his despair, that it furnishes him with new pretences to go on. There was a time when it was impossible to make Mr. Burke believe there would be any Revolution in France. His opinion then was, that the French had neither spirit to undertake it nor fortitude to support it; and now that there is one, he seeks an escape by condemning it.
Not sufficiently content with abusing the National Assembly, a great part of his work is taken up with abusing Dr. Price (one of the best-hearted men that lives) and the two societies in England known by the name of the Revolution Society and the Society for Constitutional Information.
Dr. Price had preached a sermon on the 4th of November, 1789, being the anniversary of what is called in England the Revolution, which took place 1688. Mr. Burke, speaking of this sermon, says: "The political Divine proceeds dogmatically to assert, that by the principles of the Revolution, the people of England have acquired three fundamental rights:
1. To choose our own governors.
2. To cashier them for misconduct.
3. To frame a government for ourselves."
Dr. Price does not say that the right to do these things exists in this or in that person, or in this or in that description of persons, but that it exists in the whole; that it is a right resident in the nation. Mr. Burke, on the contrary, denies that such a right exists in the nation, either in whole or in part, or that it exists anywhere; and, what is still more strange and marvellous, he says: "that the people of England utterly disclaim such a right, and that they will resist the practical assertion of it with their lives and fortunes." That men should take up arms and spend their lives and fortunes, not to maintain their rights, but to maintain they have not rights, is an entirely new species of discovery, and suited to the paradoxical genius of Mr. Burke.
Chapter guides · 17
Preface to the French Edition
The Dispute Becomes International
Paine separates the interests of peoples from those of their rulers.
A broken friendship
Paine begins with a broken political friendship. Burke had supported the American cause, but his attack on the French Revolution makes Paine treat him as a defender of court power. The French preface then separates a country's people from its government.
Rulers and nations
That distinction lets Paine oppose the British government without treating the British nation as an enemy. Governments can preserve rivalry because war supports taxes and power even when ordinary people have no reason to hate one another.
A common cause
Paine hopes that France, England, and America will help enlighten one another. Their combined influence could press governments to respect reason. He treats friendship among nations as a force against rulers who profit from hostility.
Part I: Persons and Principles
A System of Despotism
Paine explains why the French Revolution attacked institutions beyond the monarchy.
More than a king
Paine describes French despotism as a system spread through the monarchy, church, courts, and feudal privileges. Removing one ruler would leave many sources of oppression intact. He attacks Burke for mourning royal suffering while passing over the prisoners of the Bastille.
A threat to the Assembly
Paine then traces the danger facing the National Assembly. He identifies the Count d’Artois with a plot against it, describes foreign troops gathering near Paris, and recounts the dismissal of a ministry friendly to the people. Command passes to Broglio, whom Paine presents as a threat to the Revolution.
Part I: Burke's Pathless Wilderness
Rights Begin with Human Equality
Paine grounds equal rights in humanity’s common origin.
Part I: Lessons of the French Constitution
Who Decides on War?
Paine compares constitutional safeguards against conflicts of interest and royal power.
Part I: The Nation as Source of Authority
The Nation Comes Before Its Officers
Paine places the king beneath the law and contrasts public knowledge with court secrecy.
Observations on the Declaration of Rights
Rights Carry Duties
Paine explains how the Declaration protects liberty and binds people to respect one another.
Part I: Conclusion
Part I Ends with the Sovereign Nation
Paine joins his attack on hereditary rule to a proposal for European peace.
Part II
America Gives Reform a Foothold
Paine argues that lasting political change needs principles and public benefits.
Part II, Chapter III
Representation Becomes a System
Paine explains how a large nation can govern through its people’s knowledge.
Part II, Chapter IV: The Right to Establish a Constitution
Constitutional Power Has Two Tasks
Paine distinguishes a nation’s right to choose its government from the work of designing it well.
Part II, Chapter IV: Public Office and Public Trust
Public Office Remains Open to Correction
Paine ties official pay and allegiance to the nation’s continuing right to reform its constitution.
Part II, Chapter V: Parliament, Aristocracy, and Crown
Political Rights Reach the Tax Bill
Paine connects unequal representation with the way public costs fall on households.
Part II, Chapter V: The Cost of Peace
Peace Produces a Budget
Paine turns proposed savings into a plan for child support and schooling.
Part II, Chapter V: Remaining Taxes and Commutation
Changing the Taxes People Pay
Paine distinguishes immediate household relief from changes that depend on savings over time.
Part II, Chapter V: Taxation and Primogeniture
A Tax Is Asked to Reform Inheritance
Paine links the division of great estates with fair treatment of working people.
Part II, Chapter V: Public Credit and Reform
Debt Holders Share the Tax Burden
Paine proposes a gradual tax on interest while keeping the nation’s obligations to lenders.
Appendix
Paine Explains the Publication Delay
The Appendix traces a printer’s withdrawal and the overlap between Paine’s proposals and Pitt’s tax cuts.
Questions readers ask
- How long does it take to read Rights of Man?
- About 6 hr 45 min in total.
- How difficult is Rights of Man?
- Advanced. A long treatise; about 7 hours of reading.
- Which edition is this?
- The original English text, first published in 1791. The text follows The Writings of Thomas Paine, Volume II (1779-1792): The Rights of Man (1894).
- Can I read Rights of Man for free?
- Rights of Man is part of Nexus Premium, so reading it needs an account and a Premium subscription. The opening above and two chapter guides on this page are free to read.
- How many chapter guides are there?
- 17 chapter guides, written by the Nexus editors. Two open in full here; the rest show their opening line.
About Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine was a political writer whose pamphlets helped radicalize the American Revolution and shaped democratic arguments about monarchy, rights, and political legitimacy.
“Why should the living be ruled by inherited power?”
Paine shows how writing can move ordinary people into political action.
Source text: public domain. Chapter guides: original Nexus writing. Rights of Man is part of The Nexus Archive, guided Quests through the great works.