Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke’s Attack on the French Revolution, 1791
Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Part I of Rights of Man, published in February 1791 and dedicated to President George Washington, was primarily a defense of the French Revolution, but Paine did not hold back from lashing out against the hereditary monarchy and aristocracy in England.
In Part II, published a year later, he sharpened his attack on the British Constitution and went on to link social reform with political reform. “When, in countries that are called civilized, we see age going to the work-house, and youth to the gallows, something must be wrong in the system of government.”
