Concept thread · Governance

hereditary rule

Rule transmitted by birth through monarchy and hereditary succession, attacked as an illegitimate usurpation that no generation of electors could bind their posterity to, incompatible with the natural equality of men.

The thread

1. 1776 · grievesnuanced
   Paine complains that hereditary succession is an insult and imposition on posterity, since no man at birth can claim a perpetual right to rule over others.
   ⚖ Watch the seams of Paine's sentences. The lament is real but it sits one sentence earlier, where hereditary succession "claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on posterity"; the words actually pinned here — "For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever" — are not the complaint but its proof. That opening "For" turns the clause into a reason: because we all start out equal, no birthright to rule can follow. So the thread to "hereditary rule" holds, but this clause earns its place by reasoning the institution illegitimate, not merely grieving it.
   Common Sense →

Related threads

Threads argued alongside this one, or that answer it.

• limited governmentargued together
• natural rightsargued together

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