protection to all.

In the assembly, where all were demanding the execution of the king,--
where to differ with the majority was to be suspected, and where to be
suspected was almost certain death--Thomas Paine had the courage, the
goodness, and the justice to vote against death. To vote against the
execution of the king was a vote against his own life. This was the
sublimity of devotion to principle. For this he was arrested,
imprisoned, and doomed to death. There is not a theologian who has ever
maligned Thomas Paine that has the courage to do this thing. When Louis
Capet was on trial for his life before the French convention, Thomas
Paine had the courage to speak and vote against the sentence of death.
In his speech I find the following splendid sentiments:


"My contempt and hatred for monarchical governments are sufficiently
well known, and my compassion for the unfortunate, friends or enemies,
is equally profound.

I have voted to put Louis Capet upon trial, because it was necessary to
prove to the world the perfidy, the corruption, and the horror of the
monarchical system.

To follow the trade of a king destroys all morality, just as the trade
of a jailer deadens all sensibility.

Make a man a king today and tomorrow he will be a brigand.

Had Louis Capet been a farmer, he might have been held in esteem by his
neighbors, and his wickedness results from his position rather than from