Paine argued that revolution is permissible when natural rights are unprotected, treating the Bastille as the symbol of overthrown despotism.

Paine posited that popular political revolution is permissible when a government does not safeguard the natural and imprescriptible rights of man—liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression—and that the nation is the source of all sovereignty. He insisted the French Revolution attacked the despotic principles of the French monarchy, not the king himself, and took the Bastille, Paris's main prison, to symbolise the overthrown despotism. He also emphasized the compatibility of individual rights with societal wellbeing.

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