A reply to Burke's Reflections
- When
- March 1791
- Where
- London publication context
The book defended the French Revolution against Burke's 1790 attack, countering his case for aristocratic inheritance of power.
Rights of Man defended the French Revolution against Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Burke had argued that stability required the poor majority to be governed by wealthy aristocrats and that lawful inheritance confined power to the nobility. Paine countered that every age and generation must be free to act for itself, and traced monarchy not from 1688 but from 1066, when William of Normandy forcibly imposed Norman rule on Englishmen.
Sources
- Rights of Man Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-07
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